Birvidik

OK, I admit it.

I'm an idle sod.

This is the first blog I've posted in five months, compared with one a week at the peak of my productivity. It's not all my fault, though. I need a modicum of stimulus to get my creative juices flowing. [Enough of your adolescent smut.] Something needs to happen to spark a blog off. When you're full-time cruising, things are happening thrice weekly. The blogster can afford to be selective in choosing the topics for a blog entry.

In these post-fulltime cruising, post-brexit, post-covid, days, however, it is all too easy to succumb to the siren call of the mundane, quotidian, life. Hence the five-month furlough.

In my defence, though, when I do eventually get round to posting a blog entry, I don't bugger about. So, in recognition of something actually happening, I present 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles', a stonking 6000 word blogbuster of a post, conveniently split into three parts to enable those readers with the attention span of a slime-mould to consume it in bite-sized chunks.

Oh - and I've made a couple of changes to the format. If I couldn't read it, what chance did the rest of you have? In addition, I've given up the pointless struggle to insert proper footnotes. Asides will now be placed in the body of the text, in square brackets [Thus]. These can be safely ignored.

As, on reflection, can the rest of it.

Go on - off you go.

Scroll down. bite the bullet and click 'Older'.

You know you want to.