Finding the mood to conjure up some whimsical guffery – as is my wont and forte – has been difficult of late. Given the rather nasty goings-on in the area north of the Black Sea. I’ve doom-scrolled the news posts until I can’t sleep any more and refreshed the headlines on my browser to a standstill. All the time hoping for some cessation of hostilities.. I’ve seen the film “Threads” for goodness’ sake. And a (much) younger me – a mere lance corporal*1 – was once responsible for patrolling a tiny stretch of our side of the rusting iron curtain as the cold war simmered and seethed between the two Germanys.
This talk of hostility brings me to this photograph of a fine, wide, four armed vintage pole just south of Ruthin in N. Wales This pole, you may remember, was one of those discussed in our fabulously famous film “Telegraph Poles on the B5105“. Mrs TPAS was camerawoman that day and after we’d finished filming this particular pole we walked back up the lane opposite to our car. Therein we were accosted by an irate lady who lived along said thoroughfare and considered our car’s position as a violation of her right to exist as a human being. My wife – practised in these things – did all the arguing for our team: that we were on a public right of way; that we were parked in a layby; that we were 300 yards beyond the end of her garden and jurisdiction. Mrs Angry was having none of it and harangued to the point of amusement for some ten minutes or more. I was carrying the camera at the time and had sneakily pressed the record button as her first salvos of red-faced vitriol rained in upon us. A ceasefire was only called when the husband of the house called his wife off us and we (mentally) signed a peace accord to the extent that we would never film there again. My ears ring to this very day.
I still have the ten minutes of footage if Mr Spielberg/Coppola/Tarantino might like to dramatise the whole conflagration.
*1 Should, by rights, have held the rank of Captain only I filled in the wrong form at the recruitment office.