Thursday, January 19, 2006

mud, glorious mud !

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cognitive dissonance and incipient aphasia ?

I had a little trouble with the quick crossword in the Guardian this morning.

The clue was "Landlocked anchorage in the Orkney Islands (5,4)".

The words that stuck in my head for two whole minutes were Sullom Voe.

The correct answer was, lurking behind the wrong one, and on the wrong island, Scapa Flow.

Then, on my way home along the river bank, I stopped to admire some Thames mud and only half-remembered Flanders & Swann's song, "Mud, Glorious Mud!", unable to complete the tune in my head because it had temporarily fused itself together with the tune and words of "Food, Glorious Food!" by Lionel Bart.

As the old used to tell me in Wiltshire when I was a boy, "Old age doesn't come alone."