Figs didn't make it

In the two weeks since my last post, Figs had continued to improve with his arm and leg gaining more mobility and his mind getting back on track. he was doing crosswords and watching the Olympics although he was struggling to pick his horse racing tips as the print size was a bit small for him. He had a heart assessment appointment at Herrfiled Hospital booked for next week when they thought he might have some sort of procedure to help his heart function.

All this was conveyed to me in a phone conversation we had on Monday. On Thursday morning I got the sad news that he had passed away in his sleep. Marion is devastated but has her sisters and close friends there to help her through this difficult time.

I first met Figs in the mid seventies when he joined me to work at IBM in Croydon. We have been friends ever since. He was a reasonable goal keeper in his youth but he dislocated a knee in a game and that put pay to that sporting pastime, so we started playing golf together. We were both members of Wyke Green golf club as we became neighbours in Chiswick in West London, and he moved in with me for a short time while between girlfriends.

It was then that we hatched the plans for a mega barbecue, to be named Le Limacon after the slug population which infested the Silver Crescent flat when I first moved into it. Invitations to these events were valued, and each year we introduced a different theme. We had pub sign parties, music albums parties, a Hawaiian shirt 'do' and many more. I won't say we chased the same girls but the barbies were certainly a useful way to meet the fairer sex. Indeed SWMBO and I first met face to face at one such, all those years ago.

For many years Figs and I also went to Lord's together usually on the Saturday, but once we did all five days of an Ashes test which the Aussies won on the final morning. That tradition stopped when Figs got his gig at the Wimbledon tennis championships, and he was still working for them right up to the end.

He could be a stubborn individual and was particularly fussy about his drinks presentation. In my personalised Monopoly set, there is a property called Figgins Way, which summed him up really!

He certainly lived a full and frenetic life, and I am very proud to have been a part of it for nigh on forty years, he will leave a large gap in my life. SWMBO and I had our annual 'do' at the weekend, it's not called Le Limacon anymore and it has moved to the Wirral. The timing was poignant and  I think Figs would approve of it as a fitting memorial. Rest in peace matey.

Dip stick

I had my mobile telephone stolen last night. It was taken from my jacket pocket as I took wine with a number of friends in a bar near Liverpool Street station in London. Liverpool Street is one of the four stations on the Monopoly board. On the bespoke board I have at home, the stations have been replaced by bars, so there is some sort of symmetry here.

My jacket was hanging over the back of my chair, and early in the evening I had used it to text one of my daughters. The perpetrator must have seen me place it back in my blazer pocket, and dipped me sometime later as he or she was leaving. The ease of the crime was increased by the fact that I was sitting on a bar stool type chair, which made the pocket more accessible without any need for an average height person to bend down.

It's only a phone, and I was not mugged for it, so its no big deal really. It's just the fag of having to recreate all the records and reload the apps and synchronise the diary entries that really bug me. It took me over an hour today just to go through the crime report and the insurance claim to allow another phone to be sent out to me. The joy of recreation starts on Friday, wish me luck

If I had been smarter at the time ( it was late and as already mentioned, alcohol was involved) I could have logged into my laptop and done a GPS search for the phone and tried to track it down. There is a facility on the Windows phone home page to do just that. It would have been a bit 'Jennings and Derbyshire'.

As it is, I am now phoneless and will face the four hour drive back to Scouse without the urge to phone anybody and tell them I am still on the M6......the car does have a link to the BMW control centre though, I could always ring them up for a chat I suppose!!!

Gee up Neddy

If Carlsberg ran auctions on e-bay then I would have probably purchased the best item I ever could.

I have a vivid childhood memory of playing Totoploy at my friends house when I was about  9 or 10.  Totopoly was made by Waddingtons, and was the companion game for their greatest hit, Monopoly. For those of you not familiar with Totopoly, its a horse racing board game. There are two tracks, on each side of the board. You play the training track first to gain credits and chance cards to help you during the race, which takes place on the other side of the board.

There are twelve horses, all names after previous winners of the Lincolnshire handicap, and they are colour coded to represent the four training stables.

Now I remember these horses to be die cast lead horses with four legs, a tail and a jockey, proper three dimensional playing pieces.

When I purchased a set a few years ago, the horses had morphed into one dimensional plastic, supported on a plastic base. I was devastated, and set about trying to obtain an original set on e-bay.

Now this search  has taught me many things; firstly the set I was searching for is a 1939/40 first edition set, and the only one which had horses as described, secondly it is as rare as hens teeth, as the set I have purchased is the first I have found in the three years I have been monitoring e-bay, and lastly, there is a social history lesson interwoven with the horse manufacturing process.

The set I have was manufactured for maybe a year tops. At the outbreak of World War II, while production continued, metal was at a premium. The horses were, therefore, made out of pressed cardboard and came with small wooden blocks in which to support them on the track.
This was the style of horse which was used into the 1950's. Suddenly metal horses returned to the stables so to speak,  they remained the one dimensional style of the cardboard, albeit with integrated metal support bases. Then in the 1970's came the horrific plastic versions which I had purchased previously.

So I now own a very sought after game which I have covetted for years, but , sadly, I am too scared to play with it, and have nothing with the same sentimental attraction to search for e-bay at the moment. Oh well, it will have to be back to spare parts for the Dyson!!

Gone with the Wind

Chicago was a very interesting place. I don't know the middle of the States well at all so it was interesting to have a chance to visit. My work colleagues and most of the people i met spoke with a fairly light accent which was unexpected, and contrasts strongly with the y'all accents of the deep South.

The city itself is dominated by the Sears building and the nearly completed trump tower, which will relegate the Hancock into third place in the high rise stakes. otherwise to the North is the vast stretch of Lake Michigan, and elsewhere the endlessly flat plains of Illinois and Wisconsin.

Its called the Windy City, because, many think, its so exposed to the weather that it is always blowy. Not true, its called the Windy City because everybody talks bull!!!

Nowhere is this more profound than at the junction of Rush and Diversity, an area of bars, restaurants and blues clubs, known locally as the Viagra Triangle. Its where silicone implants meets the grey pound. The police patrol the area in a low key style which our man on the beat could learn from, and everybody is there for a good time, but engage somebody of either sex in conversation and its spot the brain cell time!!

The work progressed pretty well but I managed to find time for a bit of sightseeing and added to my expansive collection of golf clubs while on a shopping trip. I was hugely disappointed with Macy's, but Filenes basement continues to throw up some bargains in a way which puts TK Maxx to shame.

I used to collect Monopoly sets from various country's, and have the original USA version based on Atlantic City, but I noticed in a games shop i visited that there is now a baseball version, an American Football version and popular TV shows like Cheers, Friends and The Simpsons all have their own. Its definitely a case of brand dilution for the benefit of capitalism. Pity,I can't see myself passing Go with any of those versions.