Not a very productive day unless I can count making an appointment for a hair cut and renewing three items at the library. I did edit a third of the novel but I don't really consider that being too productive and I'm quite tempted to just delete the whole bloody inconsistent mess. Somehow found ourselves taking mother for a new freezer, which was the highlight of the entire day and, being her little angel, I managed to persuade her that taking out Comet's extended insurance was a waste of money.
What did I learn today? Well, as part of the whole boxing play that never was but will be one day, I stocked up on various tomes of wisdom, one of them a yellowing book by a chap called Leslie Bell entitled Men Behind The Gloves. Published in 1950, this excellent little number reveals the lives of lots of fistic brawlers who have long since ceased to be household names (do Laurie Buxton and Bruce Woodcock mean much to you?). I read a chapter in the bath about the Gutteridge boxing dynasty- one of the latter members being the voice of boxing himself, Reg Gutteridge. Apparently he was a handy little scrapper in the ring up until the Second World War, when, fighting at the Falaise Gap in Normandy, he had his left leg blown off. Something of a disadvantage in the square circle, naturally, so Reg turned his, erm, hand to one-legged journalism instead. All of which reminds me of the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch, in which Cook, to a one-legged hopping Moore, whose unidexter character Mr Spiggot is hoping to secure the role of Tarzan in a film, says: "Your right leg I like. It's a lovely leg for the role. As soon as I saw it come in, I said, "Hello! What a lovely leg for the role!" I've got nothing against your right leg. The trouble is, neither have you." Well done Reg Gutteridge - I had no idea.
1 comment:
You learn something new every day, now there's a strange saying, but in my case, having read your blog, it's true. I wonder if that's it though, no more learning today, or can you learn more than one thing a day. Perhaps you could reject new learnings until something really interesting comes along (like your blog of course).
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