This trio may just be the best guests of all
XMAS CELEBRATIONS
I WAS delighted to read that David Attenborough has been voted top Christmas dinner guest in Britain. Churchill also did quite well, as indeed did Jesus Christ, according to Aurora Market Research.
This column would certainly welcome all of those guests to see what they had to say for themselves. But I’d probably want to add a few more.
That wonderful trio Brian, Imelda and Theresa May would surely help to get the party swinging.
For more music I’d insist on Arlene Foster and Allen performing The Fields of Athenry, and the Robinsons – Smokey, Peter, Mrs, and Swiss Family – could probably do a nice dance routine.
Also, if we’re stretching back into history we’d need the Long Fellow, the Big Fellow and the Quare Fellow. I’d also like Alistair Fresco to be there – Al is the Scotsman who designed outdoor patio dining, so would be a boon to any Christmas celebrations.
All in all, a great party would be guaranteed.
It would certainly go better than last year’s effort when my sister mistakenly put Temazepam on the Christmas cake instead of marzipan. So the day passed in somewhat more of a soporific haze than usual.
SAINT’S MARCHING IN
ON your visit to the steepest vineyard in the world, the Bremmer Calmont on the banks of the Moselle River, you need to take quite seriously the faded grey notice-board at the start of the walk. The translation, perhaps not written by a native English speaker, seems heartfelt enough: “Sure-footedness very essential; only for experienced hikers; freedom from vertigo most essential.”
Not a leisurely stroll through leafy vineyards, then, such as you might expect in Burgundy or Bordeaux. The German wine trail, which connects the villages of Bremm, EdigerEller and Neef, skirts along the top of vineyards growing at a gradient of up to 68 per cent. And you’ll need the help of a via ferrata to get you there. Lose your grip on the steel hawsers at the hairier bits of the route and you’ll plunge headlong through the pinot noir vines into the Moselle Valley hundreds of feet below.
To be fair, they lose very few people. None, in fact – a guide from the German Wine Institute dismissed my worries and instead stressed the importance of good slate to the production of strong vines.
Ditto the serendipity of also having a steep, south-facing, valley wall. I nodded knowingly, thinking it would only be serendipity for an eagle.
I duly embarked on the perilous hike with all the commitment of a kamikaze pilot flying his tenth mission. As you’re now reading this, you’ll have correctly spotted that I made it. No need for that news item: ‘Irish Daily Mail journalist in vineyard horror. Friends say, ‘It’s how he would have wanted to go.’ I mention my time in the Moselle because of a tangential upcoming anniversary next year – it will be the 1400th anniversary of the birth of St Disibode. Details about the Irish saint are sketchy, but it is believed that he made his way to Trier in Germany sometime in the 7th century – and founded the entire German wine industry. Or at least that’s the legend. A rather obscure monk, he reputedly left Ireland when attempts to reform his recalcitrant flock stalled miserably. This failure in persuading the locals to give up their pagan ways – by and large more fun than a Christian code of conduct – was quite common. However, Disibode, pictured, may also have left Ireland because he was as wayward as his flock. Whatever his reasons for departing, the Irishman eventually made his way to Trier and made his name. All of which is worth toasting.
TRANSPORT DELIGHT
BACK in the days when a Triumph Herald open-top sports car with tail fins was the very height of automotive technology, somehow enough scientists got together and thought that they might be able to design a vehicle that could make it into inter-stellar space. Better than that, they managed to land it on the Moon with two chaps aboard.
Next year will see the 50th anniversary of that extraordinary achievement.
Back in 1969 they did it with computer power that would be laughable in comparison to your laptop or smartphone today.
What made the episode even more singular was the time spans between man’s first flight and those first steps on the Moon. Just think: Neil Armstrong the first man on the Moon, pictured, Yuri Gagarin the first man in space, and Orville Wright, with his brother the pioneer of powered flight, had all been alive.
For that matter, so was Tony Ryan, the founder of Ryanair. Imagine if all four of them had met.
The other big travel event of 2019 is a further 50th anniversary — the first flight of the Boeing 747. Just like Concorde, the 747 entered the public’s imagination. People with little interest in planes could identify a Jumbo Jet. It is now being phased out of service, and it will be missed.
But there is also one melancholy date in next year’s calendar. 2019 will mark the 130th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Midgley, from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.
A mechanical engineer turned chemist, Thomas was concerned about the ‘knocking’ or ‘pinking’ effect suffered by early internal combustion engines – so he developed a lead additive to sort it.
After having distributed this deadly poison liberally into the atmosphere, Thomas then turned his attention to fridges.
He realised that they too could be a lot more efficient, so invented chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and the ozone layer was never the same again. One historian remarked that Midgley “had more negative impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history”.
Sadly, Thomas Midgley contracted polio in 1940 at the age of 51. Having lost the use of his legs, he invented a harness to get himself out of bed. He accidentally strangled himself with his invention exactly 75 years ago in 1944.
The only speck of comfort in Mr Midgley’s tragic story is that the poor, mild-mannered man died without knowing he had become every environmentalist’s worst nightmare.
A FEW CRACKERS
JUST leafing through TripAdvisor and noted the following query. ‘Entering Australia with a Criminal Record,’ said the heading. The question ran: ‘My partner and I are looking at going to Australia on a tourist visa maybe next year but it has crossed my mind that she has a criminal record. There was no jail time involved just a charge. It was for assault and GBH. But both of these were over 12 years ago. Will there be a problem getting a visa? It brings to mind the old joke about the gentleman stopped at Australian border control. “Do you have any criminal convictions, sir?” asked the official. ‘I’m sorry,’ replied the man. ‘I didn’t realise you still needed one.’ Going to the US can be tricky too. A Sicilian was asked the statutory question: ‘Do you support the overthrow of the US Government by violence or force.’ The Sicilian thought for a moment, shrugged and replied: ‘By violence, I suppose.”
WEIGHTY RELIEF
DURING 2018, researchers discovered a new human organ they are calling the interstitium.
It’s a contiguous fluid-filled space existing between the skin and the body organs.
I knew it. I’m not overweight at all. I just have a big interstitium.
Right: more Christmas pud with all the trimmings, and a Very Happy Christmas to you all.