Love in the Air

Dear Readers, what a day I've had!

I will admit, I was rather scared as I floated away from Husborne Crawley, hanging onto the Altar Stone of a helium-filled Stonehenge. I clung on as the wind swung unexpectedly from to the south, and I was driven along a route parallel to the M1.

It was a terrible night. Clinging to my stone, I was drenched with rain, buffeted by winds and terrified that there might be inflatable spirits among those inflatable stones.  At a height of 5,000 feet above the East Midlands, I narrowly missed the Northampton Lighthouse as dawn broke, and continued towards Market Harborough. Crossing the Welland Valley, I could sense that the replica stone circle was descending gently, as the helium escaped.

I landed in the middle of the town of Coalville - a place of whose inhabitants Drayton had previously told me, in hushed tones of dread and horror. The locals, assuming I was an alien who had crashed a megalithic space-craft, went off to get the necessary implements for burning me. But as they surrounded me with pitchforks, I was rescued by a kind woman riding a tandem. Outrunning the Coalvillians, we pedalled back to her house in a village in Leicester's northern suburbs, where Susan kindly gave me lunch. She explained that she was riding a tandem on her own because her former boyfriend left her. Apparently her hobbies of train-spotting, double-entry book-keeping and Unix systems administration had got on his nerves.

After a blissful afternoon, sharing dreams, hopes and kisses, she ran me down to Leicester for the train, and so I am home. But we have exchanged phone numbers and Twitter accounts, and agreed to meet again next week. I am spell-bound by our instant attraction, and indeed so is she.

Wouldn't you agree, maybe Sue and me have a Groby kind of love?

Quick Informal Christianity Course Joke

Our new boy, Arthingworth, is an interesting type.

He's been with us for ten weeks. When he first joined, he told us that he's into low-pressure, informal Christian initiation. He's spent most of his time here asking if people would like to explore the meaning of life. But instead of letting them explore it, he's issued them with his own map. Every week he invites us all to his candle-lit lasagne meal (which his wife, Dingley, cooks).

Some say Arthingworth is a really decent bloke. But I reckon he's a typical Alpha male.

World's oldest mattresses found

The History Blog notes that the world's oldest mattresses have been found in South Africa, dating from c 77 thousand years ago.

I'm afraid they've missed one of the key findings. At about halfway down the archaeologists found the remains of the world's oldest teenager - those remains being a pizza box and a can of cola. When the scientists reached this layer, the teenager himself mumbled "yes, all right - I'll get up in a minute", and went back to sleep.

Quick Jane Austen Joke

I was just having my fortnightly update with Charlii. And as so often happens she was asking whether she could maybe do some jobs that don't involve dressing up as giant woodland creatures for the children's work.

But she surprised me when she revealed she's a leading light in a Jane Austen Re-enactment society. Imagine! And she hadn't told us before. She's clearly been hiding her light under a bustle.

The long and Winding Woad

I've been thinking about woad. Popularly grown in these parts in years gone by - particularly over the border in Hanslope where people from Husborne Crawley were prone to move. Probably for the clay.

Woad was a common colouring material for the Ancient Britons, according to some traditions. In particular the Celts under Woadicea (this was under the revised Latin pronunciation) did their best to drive the invaders out of these islands - pointing out, in the words of Pontius Pilate, that all woads lead to Rome. Although, if you're out walking the footpaths in the countryside between Grafton Regis and Northampton, all roams lead to Roade.

But how did the Ancient British People really use the stuff? And if you activated the dye by weeing on it, as the woad page suggests, would you really want to rub it on your face to make yourself scary? Indeed this page suggests that other dyes may have been used, or it may have been for tattooing rather than a kind of splash-it-all-over woad. In which case maybe we're on the woad to nowhere.

Of course, if my puns have seriously annoyed you and my lack of respect for traditional myths has left you mourning your lost fantasy world of the pre-Roman British Isles, I can only ask you to calm down. It's really not very helpful, is woad rage.

Quick TV Programme Joke

Good news. Digging around in the contents of an old Apple Mac, Young Keith has discovered a lost script from Douglas Adams. In this proposed TV series, a cook from Barrow in Furness discovers that his friend is from a far-away place populated by odd creatures who speak with an incomprehensible language. Sunderland. It was going to be called the Hairy Bikers' Guide to the Galaxy.