Tooooo Local

LEGAL DISCLAIMER - Nothing on this page should be taken as true (though some of it may be but I am not telling you what).

Our local paper gave away a Holiday Insect repellent kit as a competition prize this week but it was worth £30. I think I will set up a workshop forging Bus passes or something. That will get them really worked up. Still, we did move here partly because it is quiet(er) and there are parks (of a sort).

In light of this week's plane collision, I am reminded of the NATO code name for the Tupolev TU154. Of course this was not chosen by the designer or the manufacturer but what possessed some brass-hat in NATO to call it "Careless"? I have actually flown on one. In 1978 I went on a school skiing trip to Bulgaria and along with about 100 other kids (mostly from Yorkshire I remember) and a few nervous teachers, we left Gatwick on a very battered TU154. I think we arrived in the middle of some security alert because we were forced off the runway by military jets (Mig 23 - "Floggers" - I took note of those sort of details in those days) and had to land on the grass which was VERY bumpy. All of the overhead lockers flew open and the red cover on the handle of the emergency exit sprang across the cabin.

Bulgaria was very grey then. I expect large parts of it still are. The road from Plovdiv, where we landed (!) winds through weird towns with strange woody plants entwined around everything. It reminded me of the illustrations in 'Doctor Dolittle in the Moon' for some reason though I have not seen that book since well before I went to Bulgaria. Bulgarians live on Steak, Yoghurt and awful chocolate. Well, we did anyway. The Steak was alright, the Yoghurt was wonderful (not all of us thought so which meant that I often got triple helpings) but the chocolate was truly terrible. It had a layer of 'good' stuff on the top while the rest of it seemed like brown lard with a little bit of sugar in it which is probably what it was. Oh and we could buy beer quite happily even though we were only thirteen and if it wasn't cold enough we would leave it on your windowsill outside for about 10 seconds, grabbing it back just before it froze solid. I think the beer was nice but it had something missing - alcohol. We could buy beer but NOT newspapers. It is interesting to note what the Bulgarian authorities thought was corrupting. I did manage to get a very cheap looking propaganda poster, by pretending to be East German. It was on our wall for ages until my brother destroyed it in case our own government thought he was a communist. I did manage to borrow a newspaper from the hotel receptionist and though I couldn't read Bulgarian ( I still can't oddly enough) I managed to spend half an hour being fascinated at how one whole broadsheet could make such a fuss about one Bulgarian Cosmonaut. I wish I had nicked that paper but I never ever nick anything, especially not in a country where the Police look so friendly.

I do hope that Bulgaria has shaken off its problems. It is a beautiful country, quite unreal but I obviously felt that because it was NOT the UK and it was the first time I had been abroad since I was 18 months old and went to France.