Jeff Hawksworth's Blog

Donald the Trump

                                                                               TRUMP

I’m fairly certain that most Americans don’t know that ‘TRUMP’ is a British euphemism for fart; or in other words, the emission of noxious hot air.

They DO know that 2016/17 marked the first year of Donald Trump’s tenure as the US president. What they may not know is that 2017 also marks the centennial of a quotation accredited to Vladimir Lenin, uttered in the same year he became the first head of the Soviet state; - ‘A lie told often enough becomes the truth’.

Alcohol and creative writing

ALCOHOL AND CREATIVE WRITING A friend who was writing a thesis asked me for a commentary on the above take on writing. I’m not sure whether I should be gratified or alarmed with what I came up with. I’ll leave you to be the judges. I have written seven books over the last eight years, largely in France, where I rocketed my cholesterol with cheese and bombed my liver with wine, so I might have been regarded as a full time writer and part time inebriate.

Travel tip for Venice

I love Venice. The waterborne transport system, architecture, history, art, culture, food and people. But, there are queues for everything and they all cost money, though I did draw the line at eighteen Euros for a small beer in St Marks Square. Thankfully, before leaving the UK I was told of a venue that proved to be an exception to the rule. It’s a hidden gem. The Fondaco di Tedeschi is a large white building situated on the east bank of the Grand Canal, next to the Rialto bridge. It is now an upmarket mall with goods priced with enough noughts to resemble altitude readings. Still, window shopping costs nothing, just like a visit to the rooftop balcony which provides views that are some of the best in the city.

LIES, DAMNED LIES AND .....

LIES, DAMNED LIES AND …… Recently, I read that a person in the US is 12,000 times more likely to be shot by a fellow American than a terrorist. This nugget of information was based on statistics which showed that between 2005 and 2015 there were 24 deaths attributed to Islamic terrorism against the 301,797 gun deaths. Wow, I thought, that just goes to show. But then the year 2001 came to mind, when almost 3,000 Americans were killed and more than 6,000 wounded, in a single day.

Funny thing statistics, you can make them say whatever you want them to.

Sore throat in France

It happened so quickly; from the scratchy beginnings of a sore throat to a full blown abscess which threatened to suffocate me, in less than two and a half days.

As a child of the ‘fifties’, suffocation seemed a tad too trivial to merit calling an ambulance. Back then victims would have to demonstrate a much more profound need, such as lying broken, beneath a bus, before anyone would commit to such a radical action. More probably, a member of the family would be sent down to the telephone box at the end of the street with four old pennies, to call the doctor.

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