>Hope all found Santa generaous this year with needed/wanted Triumph
"stuff". I too am excited to receive John Macartney's book. >My wife,
who is a ravinous reader has already indicated she is eager to read
it also.
Oh gawd!
My other half was inclined in that direction too. She seized the
first copy out of the box from the printer even before the ink was
dry.
"That's my Christmas present" said she. "Sign it here!"
I did as I was told - and with a flourish.
I've heard no more about it since then - until this afternoon that
is. The two of us were (for some obscure reason) walking around an
extremely cold town near home and before my unmentionables turned to
brass, I suggested we took afternoon tea in a nearby shop of period
appearance and appeal. As the heat from a very adjacent log fire
gently removed the skin from my back, I cautiously enquired whether
she had reached the end of the book. Now I ought to know this, but
Bless her, she's been working away from home over the holiday and I
haven't been able to keep a watchful eye on her reading habits.
She gave me a long stare over the rim of her teacup with those eyes
that turn my knees to jelly - and said "do you really want to know?"
"Well, it would be of passing interest," I replied.
She put down her teacup and, with agonising slowness, carefully
buttered a scone, heaping it with jam and clotted cream and took a
bite from it.
I waited.
"I think it's sexist and anti-feminist. I didn't like you describing
Carol, (adding with no small amount of sarcasm) one of your former
girlfriends I believe, as "her with the big ones." Furthermore, how
you of all people managed to discuss engine dynamometers, the
computer in production control and the position a woman adopts in
childbirth within the same story, I cannot imagine."
"Literary genius, darling" was my prompt reply.
"Well - perhaps, but I think your writing skills (?) have some way to
go before they become a threat to Shakespeare, Chaucer, Ben Johnson
and a few others of that ilk."
And then, if she had not already cut me to the quick with such verbal
darts and arrows, she helped herself to the last piece of fruit cake
which I thought I was going to have!
Sorry, Mrs Suhring - I expect you may be of the same view? I still
maintain this august publication is aimed principally at grown up
little boys who still like playing with their toys.
John Mac
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