This blog is called ‘The Landed Underclass’ because I (together with Mrs. Underclass) own a house outright (thus being ‘landed’), and because, having caught a rare and incurable neurological disease, I have been medically retired from a well-paid and highly amusing job on the fringes of the UK defence industry, and am now obliged to live on Incapacity Benefit (thus being ‘underclass’).
I am exactly the sort of reactionary old git that I seem to be and so there is no point in specifying my profile any further, other than to add the following lists for the benefit of commenters:
Things I like that I am still allowed: cats; music; industrial archaeology; archery; science fiction (by which I mean, on the whole, tatty paperbacks rather than glossy films); debate; art; pizza; smoking (only just allowed at the time of writing)
Things I am no longer allowed that I used to like: my former job; building, restoring and driving motor vehicles; cycling; flying aircraft; hillwalking; firearms
Things I never liked anyway and am happy to manage without: the political class; television; football (and particularly televised football); courgettes; the Fourth Reich; waste; the Olympics (here or anywhere else); the nanny state; kick-dogs
Things I never got the chance to find out whether or not I liked: being a lighthouse-keeper
What sort of aircraft did you fly? Just wondering. Partial to those small light aircraft myself, the venerable Cessna 172 and such, here in the US of A. http://www.bentpage.wordpress.com.
Cessna 152s, mostly, though I also flew 172s and, on one occasion, a curious composite thing (I can’t remember its name, nor can I find my logbook now) with a fuel-injected engine, a variable-pitch prop, odd controls, and a marked reluctance to lose height in turns.
I worked for a famous space & defence company and several of us flew from that field, and were notorious for the rigour of our ‘A’ checks (the CFI once said “it takes three quarters of an hour, and you get a list of missing rivets”). They wouldn’t let me inspect the wing root fasteners before flying the thing.
After landing they allowed me to take the covers off, and I was duly horrified to discover that the wings had been held on the whole time with what appeared to be one ordinary 3/8″ bolt, each.
I know the feeling well I am a doctor and had to claim incapacity benefit for nine months, thanks to breaking down in the NHS job I was in and then being shafted by the GMC..
With a known doctor as a reader I shall have to be more careful in retailing my ailments…:-)
Make this recipe:
http://www.agni.gr/Corfu/Taverna_Agni_-_Corfu/Crispy_Courgettes/index.asp
Eat and enjoy. Courgettes needn’t be pointless wet things.
Tip: buy a large beer and drink the other half.
I’m sorry but I see courgettes as the vegetable analogue of the fashionable North London clique which has established a stranglehold on British life. Think about it.
Well, I thought about it and nothing happened. Still, as the mouse said to the elephant, I ahven’t been well lately.
I’m struggling to find a property of courgettes that could be generalized so it can be applied to a North London clique. We’re not talking shape are we?
Who are these North Londoners anyway?
It’s not so much shape as the property of being essentially bourgeois. They are the people who created and installed the present national-socialist tyranny. They are the people referred to by m’learned colleague leg-iron as ‘the Righteous’.
I don’t know why I associate them with courgettes, but I’m quite sure that I do.
Not courgettes, surely?
What about “sun dried tomatoes” – you know, that kind that you just can’t eat.
Oh, you can. Mrs. Underclass buys them in jars and cooks them in things. Not quite sure exactly what, but I’m fairly sure they’re at least nominally edible.
I had to look up “courgettes” because that name given to zucchini is (at least relatively) unknown Over Here. For me, they are edible with enough garlic or spaghetti sauce (preferably both), but I am otherwise indifferent about them.
I do not equate them with any sort of people at the moment; however, the day is young.
There was a resident lightkeeper position open recently at an island lighthouse in the San Francisco Bay (East Brother Light Station), but it likely wouldn’t have been suitable for you and Mrs. Underclass since it also involved operating the facility as a bed and breakfast spot three or four days/nights a week. I do like the fact that it is on an island very much, though.
“Pharology is cool.” [Mr. L.U. c. 2007]
I’m not sure the relevant service (is it the USCG?) would want me. As for the B&B thing: nice idea, don’t suppose Trinity House have thought of that yet…
I think the ” Righteous” are evil personified