The Talmud.

I drove round the corner where another driver flagged me down saying I was leaking fuel. I jumped out to find petrol pouring from the underside of the car and pooling at the kerb. Turns out I had been trailing a line of fuel all the way down the street. Shit.

A friendly passerby, who must have been a mechanic, immediately stopped and offered to inspect the car. He looked underneath and announced that someone had cut my fuel line.

I looked under the car and this pic is what I saw:

http://twitpic.com/7bkz9s (click on the link)

I couldn’t believe it.

I spent an uncomfortable moment contemplating if this could, somehow, be personal. A slashed tyre and cut fuel line are a serious intent to harm.

It just seemed impossible.

Later, I Googled around and discovered that thieves cut exposed fuel lines on older cars to siphon out the petrol. It seems they tilted the car by deflating the tyre so they could get more fuel out of the tank. I think they tried to take the rear wheel off as well, hence the loosened bolts.

It was a real shock, but at least it wasn’t personal. I dread to think what could have happened. A smouldering cigarette end, random engine spark, stray firework could easily have sent me up in a cloud of smoke.

I reported it to the police who were very helpful, but said they couldn’t really do anything about it other than give me a crime number.

Shit.

This is to have succeeded”.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
US essayist & poet (1803 – 1882)

Well, Bonnie Ware, who worked for years caring for the dying, reveals the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbeds:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

For me, this really hit home: “From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it“. So true. But you never fully understand what that means until it’s too late.

Ultimately, life is about love and relationships. We should remember that until our dying day.

Over the last decade I’ve tapped out 783 posts describing things I’ve seen, places I’ve been, stuff I’ve done, films I’ve watched, food I’ve cooked, books I’ve read and the quirky shit that’s made me laugh along the way.

I’m glad I’ve stuck with it. But, it has to be said, the frequency of posts have dwindled somewhat. But, hey, it’s a milestone worth marking.

It’s cool to click back through time and and look at me  8, 9 and now 10 years  ago.

For the poet Friedrich Schiller, Germany wasn’t a country. it was a question mark.

Germany ?  He asked.

Where is it ? where ?  I don’t know where to find it.

The truth is for most of its history, Germany was not a unified state but an assemblage of disparate parts. Not a nation, but so much as a process

For centuries Germany was a construct of the mind. The creation of writers, painters, visionaries. That’s why art has always been at its core.

Reflecting its diverse origins, German culture is itself a blend of passion and precision. Exact craftsmanship and the impulsive gesture.  A love of nature and a love of the machine. A need for escape and a desire for control and, I believe, one of the most revealing ways to explore the complexities of the German character is through the story of German art.

With these words, Andrew Graham-Dixon, strolling round the iconic BMW carplant outside Munich, introduced his new 3 part series on the Art of Germany.

What a treat.  Loved every minute of it.

Ira Levin’s classic stage thriller stars Simon Russell-Beale as Sidney Bruhl, a fading Broadway writer desperate to restart his career.

The entire play takes place in the converted Connecticut stable he shares with his wife Myra.  The set is their vaulted sitting room, hung with pistols, axes and other exotic armaments, all having been the murder weapon in one of his plays.

Bruhl is struggling with his next work when a brilliant script arrives from one of his students. On reading the masterpiece, he muses to his wife whether he should invite the young writer to dinner, murder him and steal the script to resuscitate his failing career.

The drama unfolds as Clifford Anderson, the young writer, played by Jonathan Groff of Glee fame, arrives clutching the only two copies of  ‘Deathtrap’, his new stage thriller.

Intrigue, stage fights and double murder ensue, interrupted only by a visit from an all-knowing clairvoyant and the family attorney.  The plot is tight, tense and witty with the audience hoodwinked into thinking one thing when the opposite is about to happen.

It’s elegantly constructed with clever dialogue and dramatic twists and turns to keep you guessing right to the end. Levin skilfully weaves suspense and humour into the plot, peppering the play with jump-in-your-seat surprises, literary in-jokes and plenty of dry, laugh-out-loud humour.

We loved it. Russell-Beale was brilliant as the manic, conniving Bruhl. He’s a great stage actor,  filling the theatre and bringing the character to life with skill and superb comic timing.  Jonathan Groff gave an energetic performance as the eager young student. Gorgeous, and surprisingly tall, he was the perfect foil for Russell-Beale’s jaded old writer.

It reminded me of two of my favourite stage thrillers, Rope and Sleuth. The film versions, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine in Slueth, and James Stewart in Rope, are among my all time favourites.

Royally entertained and still smiling at the play’s hilarious ending, we went for tea and cake at the St Martin-in-the-Field Crypt before a stroll along the river.

We ended the evening at Souk Bazaar for a Moroccan experience complete with cushion covered couches, Bedouin wall hangings and a belly dancer. We  feasted on stuffed vine leaves, tagines of lamb and spiced chicken and light, fluffy couscous finished off with sweet mint tea and sticky Baklavia.

Too, too good.

Hired a classic 1964 E-Type Jag as a surprise present for Dad’s 70th.

Picked it up just after lunch and had a great time racing down the Dorset lanes. The throaty growl of the 3.6l engine really gives it presence as you swing through villages and sleepy market towns.

It’s a heavy, mechanical drive with tricky synchro-mesh gears, zero power steering and a speedo that bounces around like a tyre gauge. Packs a hell of a punch tho and is a huge thrill to drive.

Needless to say, Dad loved it and roared off on a high speed test drive.

A day at the tank museum. Too many children, too many tanks, too much excitement and a trip in a tank !!

Back for tea and birthday cake.