'Fer goodness sakes, everything aches...

Not right, and not wrong...

...just my preferred approach. Humphrey Lyttleton, writing about talking to George Melly about somehow picking up the restaurant reviewer job for Harpers and Queen (Melly was reviewing films for the Observer at the time):

LYTTLETON: (In a moment of self-doubt) I'm sure they're going to find out one day that I know nothing about it.

MELLY: Yes, but in my experience, by the time they find out you know nothing about it, you will know something about it.

Thanks Humphrey (posthumously). That's exactly what I do, now I realise it. I don't ask many questions. Not because I'm not interested, or because I don't care, but because asking every time you don't know something, unless you know plenty, is going to slow things down down to a grinding, lose-the-will-to-live halt. I don't ask because I know next to nothing. I don't ask because nine times out of ten:

• Let things ride and there's a natural explanation coming your way in any case;
• The explanation becomes redundant, ten questions about one solution and half an hour later, all you've done is delay the decision to run with solution two, which is much better;
• There'll be time later, on your own, without boring everyone who does know already, without boring everyone to whom the answer is irrelevant, and without boring everyone who for whatever reason actually does not care, to do a bit of research and find out for yourself, and information gleaned under your own steam sticks better;
• If all else fails, you can ask later. There's these things called phones. One-to-one, privately.

It's not right or wrong. I don't ask often enough.

I was once a betting shop manager. At settling school, we had a Mr Question. He asked about joint unnamed favourites. He then asked about three-way joint favourites. He then asked what if one of those was a non-runner. He then said:

“What if a punter backs the unnamed favourite, and there's three joint favourites, and one of them wins in a dead-heat, with a non-favourite.”

“Then,” said the bloke running the course, “I'd guess, or I'd lock up the shop early, slip the keys through the letter box, and clear off home. Never to be seen again.”

Love a duck, we're as common as muck

Good Lord,

I'm stiff as a board.

One hour of gentle nets. Bowling off a few steps' worth of jog-up. Ten minutes batting. That's enough to do it these days: strained chest, both knees letting me know they're unhappy about: (1) nets; (2) the cold; (3) years of abuse; (4) having that much weight bearing down on them with every step; (5) walking the dog yesterday, up and down the inclines in the woods, in the cold; (6) my hit and miss attitude to taking those cod liver oil capsules. Left elbow stiff (although I'm now able to lift a cup of tea without shaking like a leaf – that wasn't the case yesterday); right shoulder and arm painful. Neckache. Lower back pain. The list goes on.

The good news? I'll forget all about it by Wednesday, and think I need to work harder next week because I've “got that first week's fitness under my belt”. When what I've got under my belt, actually, is just way too much.

The red hot chilli pipers...

...were part of the pre-match entertainment at Murrayfield yesterday. What a fantastic, intense, close run and big hitting game of rugby. Thirty men mountains tearing into each other.