The Diary of a Country Bumpkin

I just happened to find this image and thought, there’s a very nice MG TF SUNSTORM for sale at Mathewsons in their October sale and very reasonable reserve estimate too!

Four photos from the Summer Ball last week.

NO TIME, HENCE NO COMMENT! (SEE PREVIOUS GOODWOOD POST)

This years Revival is one week away, I have the Bentley Arnage in P & A Wood who will be fitting new shock absorbers on Tuesday of next week and the car will be ready for collection on Wednesday, hopfully all goes well as we are leaving on the Thursday.

Neither Angella nor I have finalised our outfits yet as we have been busy with, new puppies, forties events, sourcing parts for the Arnage, hospital visits to see a friend of ours who has just gone into hospital, getting my MG TF to Mathewsons in time for their auction in October, wasting time with AI chat things sorting bank details and other mundane things which could have been done in five minutes if only there were an option to speak to a human being. I’m sure there were other things which have delayed our preparation which come under the heading of modern life.

Barring all the above, everything is going swimingly and in the words of a well known tv programme, ‘don’t panic, don’t panic!’

SEE YOU ALL NEXT WEEK. HURRAH!!

I am fairly busy attending forties weekends which means my MG TF SUNSTORM has only done a total of 600 miles in the last three years, so I have decided to sell the old girl and let someone else with fewer cars and more free time than me have the pleasure of owning her.

The SUNSTORM version of the MG TF is a limited edition where only 612 were made and comes with a factory hard top, larger brakes, ABS, 16 inch eleven spoke wheels and all sorts of other goodies.

How strange then when placing an advertisement on ebay containing at least five photos of said car with the hard top attached and a description including details of the hard top etc etc, the bloody stupid inane questions asked by potential buyers, for example, does it come with a hard top!

I imagine many of the buyers have difficulty reading and seemingly writing as I received an email with a derisory offer and the statement, it aint worth much m8.

Perhaps, I’m a touch sensative but I think I’d rather give it away to someone who would appreciate it than sell it to someone who calls me m8!

To this end I have now entered it in the Mathewsons October auction, hopefully to find a buyer who has the ability to google search MG TF SUNSTORM to find the finer points of this vehicle.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the rather splendid Twinwood forties weekend and were asked by a friend of ours to pose for a photo, unfortunately this was the resulting image.

The request was to look romantically into each others eyes, now Angella seems to be making a fairly good fist of the brief whilst I seem to have missed the point altogether. Perhaps in a brief moment of time a second or two before or after the shutter was pressed I was fitting the bill, alhough in this particular moment it looks more like I’m inspecting a rather large and pustulous boil on the end of her nose.

Inside though, I’m welling up with love and devotion for my dear wife as everyone knows.

I must try in future not to pose sideways as it seems my high forehead (a sign of enormous brains so they say) has become so high it’s getting to the point where if it continues it will fall of the back of my head altogether.

Nonetheless a good time was had by all, followed the next weekend by the summer ball, a photo will follow when I get a moment.

This came up from the dim and distant past in 1997 and reminded me of how long ago it was when I did this job, sadly I think an awful lot of the chaps here are dead now, blimey don’t time fly!

THE BUTCHERS DOG FOOD ADVERTISEMENT.

Posted on 04/09/2024 by The Diary of a Country Bumpkin

I came across a post from the Butchers Dog food people which reminded me I did a couple of advertisements for them way back when in 1997. Unfortunately, this was in the old days when it was always very hard to get a copy of your work and in those days it would have been on a CD. I have very pleasant memories of the jobs and the chaps I was working with, it’s great to be working but even better if the people you are working with have a sense of humour. The closest I have to a CD is a old copy of a photo which I had on the wall at home, happy days.

Now, in this world this is a dangerous ring in which to throw one’s hat, perhaps it’s the hot weather but I felt compelled to attempt to make a comment. Unfortunately, the post had been set up to limit who was able to comment and it seemed I was one of those restricted from doing so.

In an effort for journalistic freedom, I pressed the share button and the post just shot off into the great interweb black hole, once again denying me the option to make any comment.

The post seemed a little different on Facebook but the two points which caught my attention were in the comment by the mother that both she and her daughter were both non binary and they were always being miss gendered which seemed a little odd to me as she herself described themselves as mother and daughter and not father and son.

So, in an effort to clarify the situation for those of us of a more mature age, generally speaking it was always felt that to be a mother one had to be a woman and therefore one assumes to be a daughter one has to be a girl but then so much has changed for us older folk to try to get our heads around in these modern times.

My comments are not aimed at the woman in question who has the right to call herself and her daughter whatsoever she chooses but in the miss use of the words used to describe so many things nowadays, a gaslight for example was a light which was lit by gas and although there was never the word mansplaining, it could easily be misunderstood to be a male carpenter going about his business with a wood plane.

I realise that language evolves but it is getting a little bit silly of late, I also know it is too late to turn back the tide, so with that in mind I shall leave you with my final comment.

Whilst I may seem to be llama with outdated rhubarb, this is foggy not the case as my ability to undress the crankshaft of ripened language knows no circumscribe, for I toucan masturbate the language as well as any other illegitimate.

I don’t have the ability to restrict who may comment on this post but I would ask that you do so with words I might understand.

I’m a great believer in fate, sometimes things are meant to happen and you have a good feeling about them from the very start and so it was when we chose to enter a particular railway carriage at the Bluebell Railway joining others who had entered before us rather than the adjacent empty carriage.

We sat down and began to chat to a chap who was obviously a professional photographer judging by his very expensive camera equipment who asked to take our photograph and what a beautiful image he produced. Later when we arrived home I looked him up and found he was Russell Cobb, an award winning artist and photographer.

I would reccomend should you have the time to look him up and view some of the fabulous images he has produced, the composition of them is truly wonderful and obviously through the eye of an artist.

Who knew when entering the carriage we were going to meet such a talented and interesting fellow, but there you are, that’s kismet for you!

It seems there has been a bit of a hoo-ha about the 200 year old name of the Henry VIII pub which just happens to be opposite Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn and which has stood in the Kent village for five centuries.

Apparently some American influencers have taken umbrage about its 200 year old name branding it misogynistic and sickening causing the story to go viral on social media, it seems they think it rather bad form to name a pub after Henry VIII who signed Anne Boleyn’s death warrant and had her executed for treason in 1536.

Whilst the pub dates back to the 1500’s it was not until 1848 that it was named the Henry VIII, so obviously Anne Boleyn heself would not have been in a position to have taken offence at the name of the pub.

Royal historian Mr Gareth Russell has said, he didn’t think the pubs name was intended as misogynistic or offensive to Anne and suggested perhaps a change of name to the Boleyn Arms or the Ormond Arms, which is connected to the family’s old earldom.

There seems to be quite a trend nowadays of taking offence on behalf of others but in a effort to smooth the waters I suggest a name change to the Adolf Arms as this seems a perfectly innofensive name for a pub to me. It would be named as a tribute to the famous Harpo Marx who was born Adolf and was the iconic American actor and harp playing brother to Groucho Marx who famously wrote in his resignation letter to the Friers Club of Beverly Hills; “please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.”

There we are, I seem to have addressed the complaints of the American influencers with a compromise which should keep everyone happy, for who on earth could take offence at a pub called the Adolph Arms.

Very sad about the football but might I suggest supporting a different sport where you can really get behind our British chaps where we actually win more than any other nation.

British drivers have won the Formula 1 World Drivers Championship in 21 different years, with 11 different British drivers taking the ultimate crown since the championship began in 1950. This total of 21 titles makes the United Kingdom the most successful nation in F1 history.

These 21 titles were secured by 11 drivers: Mike Hawthorn (1958), Graham Hill (1962, 1968), Jim Clark (1963, 1965), John Surtees (1964), Jackie Stewart (1969, 1971, 1973), James Hunt (1976), Nigel Mansell (1992), Damon Hill (1996), Lewis Hamilton (2008, 2014, 2015, 2017-2020), Jenson Button (2009), and Lando Norris (2025).

I give you the score, Football World Cup 1—– Formula 1 World Championship 21.

I rest my case your honour!