FridayI have fond memories of Eastleigh; it was here at the Southern Railway works that I received help in building the prototype of the Bonkers Patent Shuttleworth Press – an invention which was to revolutionise committee room practice in the years before the Second World War. So when the town’s MP, our own Chris Huhne, invited me to tour his constituency I was happy to accept.
As we drive through the Hampshire countryside this morning he is full of the virtues of his Toyata Prius (apparently no polar bears are harmed in its manufacture), but as we near a crossroads he begins to panic: “It’s the brakes, your lordship, they just aren’t...”
At this point I am obliged to lean across and take command of the steering. As I explain after I have brought us to a halt by using a ploughed field with an appreciable slope, it is a peculiarity of the Rutland Highway Code that the landowner has right of way at any junction. Thus I am well used to driving without brakes.
On the train home I read that Ernest Shackleton’s whisky has been retrieved from Antarctica. This brings home to me that we tend to take the comfort of today’s modern living rather for granted. Just imagine what Shackleton must have suffered: forced to have ice in his whisky!
Earlier this week
- Monday: Living with Mark Oaten
- Tuesday: Sarah Teather's sense of humour
- Wednesday: Sandra Gidley wrapped in baking foil
- Thursday: A day at my solicitor's
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