Mad Darby Diaries

Yesterday I took the mincepies I had made to a group of friends, various nationalities.  Three men, 2 English one German were saying that Brexit needed a man to take charge.  I ignored their comments.  I have heard their opinions many times before and turned my attention to the Frenchman and the American sitting either side of me.  The misogynists turned their attention to women in sport.  'Tennis is ok', one of them said.  'Skiing too but not ski jumping and the other winter sports, they are too physical.  And it is ridiculous that women play football.'  'It is like golf, why do women want to join a men's club?   Rotary Clubs were never the same after they let women join and now my club has closed after 100 years.'   Could it be because his Rotary Club refused to let women in? The German reached over and took a mincepie.  'These are beautiful.  If women spent more time cooking and less time trying to do other things...

I decided to clear out a pile of business cards that had accumulated in a folder.  As well as restaurants and an array of cards from Istanbul and Mysore shops, there were several Russians, German, Chinese people of whom I have no memory.  Could I have been a spy in my working life?  I found the name and address of a cousin I have never heard of.  Did I contact her at some time?  Probably not.  I have moved so many times in my life that I find clearing out stuff is cathartic.  I am the complete opposite of a hoarder, but do I do the same with people, just clear them out of my mind?  Amongst this pile of long forgotten people and places I found the following which must have amused me. Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway The good fortune to run into the ones I do And the eyesight to tell the difference

So last week I escaped the protests in France to go to the UK to babysit only to immersed in the Brexit fiasco going on there.  I took Ryanair.  In the pouring rain, coming horizontally because of the wind all the passengers were hustled out of the terminal so that we could stand getting soaking wet for 15 minutes.  Why?  What reasonable company would behave like that?  We didn't get onto the plane any quicker, we just got wetter and then had to sit for an hour and a hour in wet clothes.  For those at the front of the line who had paid for priority boarding, it must have been more annoying and I would add there was a woman in a wheelchair and parents holding babies and toddlers.  So come on Ryanair where is our dignity? As the protests continue I notice that they have erected wooden sheds at the roundabouts, supposedly to keep warm and dry when there is no vehicle in sight.  Today the students in the school have walked out.  Are they reall...