Postcard from Wales: 5th July

I escaped on Friday morning to make a trip to Brecon to visit a very good friend of mine, a barrister, who moved to Australia some years ago.  She is from Brecon and is over in Wales seeing her mother with her two sons; sports mad 16 year olds.  Brecon is astonishingly beautiful, a small market town with a quiet lazy feel to it on the day I visited, set in the heart of the Brecon Beacons; some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen.  I have in my youth been up Snowdon (in fact, years ago, I foolishly did the Three Peaks challenge   a completely pointless exercise involving long hours sitting in a van driving and then bursts of frenetic activity climing each of  Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike, Snowdon.)  I prefer taking time to walk and see things.

My friend asked if I would like to see Pen y Fan. I have been tricked before with these leading questions.  “As a theoretical proposition I would, indeed, like to see Pen y Fan“  I replied.  The thought of walking up was not on my agenda.  I think she sensed, despite my lean and hungry Smokedo look, that I was a bit unprepared to stroll up a small mountain.  We went for a walk instead up a fairly steep hill to a Trig point from where we could see Pen y Fan and tremendous countryside and the valley below.  Her two sons, perhaps not as fascinated by the view and the lyricism of lush and verdant Wales below us, amused themselves by kicking a rugby ball into the bracken and then losing it.  My friend strode into the bracken and found it – clearly with a sharper eye for where the ball landed than we three men…

So… Bernie Ecclestone, the mighty midget of Formula 1 racing, appears to have finally lost the plot with calls for authoritarian government and suggesting that Max Mosley would make a good prime minister.  Christ knows what goes on the minds of rich business people used to getting their way – but clearly it doesn’t involve a great deal of political acuity or common sense.  Surely, he must know that Max Mosley’s father was a ludicrous figure of ridicule when he pranced around in jodphurs and riding boots doing fascist salutes.  Max Mosley as prime minister?  Yes… I can see Guido and the political bloggers commenting on Prime Minister’s Questions if Mosley was PM – ~Mosley gets/gives a SPANKING!”….

The Times had an amusing article: Hitler?  he got things done…

Perhaps Ecclestone could now fuck off back to his Formula 1 trailer and continue to make millions from what must be one of the most boring sports on earth to watch.?   This is merely a suggestion – I don’t share Ecclestone’s ludicrous tastes for authoritarian behaviour. Here is the Libertarian Party UK response to Ecclestone’s suggestion that Hitler was an OK sort of a guy who may have been got at by the boys – but was a good leader!

Well… there you are, as my Welsh friends say in their lilting voices…. a short one… but I need to go for a walk to ease the ache in the back of my legs from the unaccustomed walk up a hill!  It is very flat where I am East of London…. as it would be… on the sea.

be sure, I shall return and write more… two days off blogging has given me severe withdrawal symptoms….