Gardeners, bindweed is the answer to your troubles
This bank holiday weekend is the time for gardeners to get serious about their plans for the year. So, as usual, I am presenting my suggestions on some of the jobs that need doing just now.
It is time to tackle that ill-advised and now unfashionable decking. Start by scraping away the rotted bits of wood and set these aside for feeding the soil later. Now you need a plant that will disguise the decking. I suggest bindweed
(convolvulus ubiquitosa), with its attractive, white trumpetlike flowers. It is hardy, needs no attention and spreads.
Mix the rotted wood from the decking with organic rust to make a fertiliser for your borders. (I use rust from the abandoned bicycle, which I planted four years ago in a shady corner of the garden.) It’s time to give a good feed to the moss growing between the cracks in your patio, so that you have a lovely sludgy-green display throughout the year. This year I have decided to make a feature of the 103 variegated empty plastic flowerpots I have accumulated over the years from buying short-lived African violets, sickly cyclamen and depressed geraniums. I am making a pyramid of them at the end of the garden, as you would imagine a display of baked beans in a supermarket. If you like the idea of something climbing up your flowerpot pyramid, you can be sure that the bindweed will get there from your decking in no time at all. I have also found that a clump of nettles attracts Horrid Scabby Mite away from my ornamental gherkin plant. At least I think it’s an ornamental gherkin; it could be deadly nightshade. Do the water lilies in your pond flower for half a day and then drown? Tennis balls are a good alternative. When they fly over the fence into your garden, pop them in your pond. On windy days, these bright yellow chaps bob about on the surface in a most attractive way.
Prince George, who is to be a page boy at Pippa Middleton’s wedding, could pick up some useful guidance from my recent book, How
to Be Cute. First he has to decide on his costume. Will it be a kilt or a miniature morning suit? Plum-coloured velvet pantaloons or dinner jacket and black-tie? As a member of the Royal family, he has the benefit of being able to pick from any number of Service uniforms. I would advise him to go as an Admiral of the Fleet, with lots of gold braid and a good cluster of medals on the chest. He could also have a ceremonial sword, for a bit of playful prodding in the group photographs with the bride and groom.
As I explain in the chapter entitled “Being Utterly Adorable at Weddings”, a little bit of bad behaviour is essential to achieve that all-important “Ah, sweet” moment. During the service there is the option of climbing up the lectern, but I would advise Prince George against that, as his ceremonial sword might become entangled.
Appealing things for a page boy to do at the reception include smearing his face with cake, choking on a mouthful of confetti, heckling the best man’s speech and hiding under the bride’s dress. I am confident Prince George will carry out these duties with dignity.
Airlines have been getting bad publicity lately, with stories of general bossiness, over-booking, skimping on the usual courtesies and not even trying to come up with a decent meal, but selling us sandwiches instead – if they haven’t run out.
If you put these alongside all the other pains in the neck of flying, the aggravation of being herded and patronised at the same time, the lifetimes spent in departure lounges willing the departures board to come to life, the gleaming consumer nightmare of the duty-free shop, the scowl of the man at the luggage X-ray machine, that lecture on how to put on your lifejacket, the in-flight queue for the loo, and the person who stands in the aisle rearranging all the overhead lockers while blocking the way of the longed-for drinks trolley, it’s a wonder we all didn’t decide long ago to say “Blow this for a game of darts”, and give it up for good.
Airlines need a new marketing strategy, and I may have just the thing. It came to me last week when I read about the treatment of David Dao on a United Airlines flight. They must recruit teams of no-nonsense burly men who will grab people at random in the street, haul them struggling to the airport and manhandle them to a plane.