Widdecombe Fair?

I don't think so.

Greensburg

Last November Greensburg, Kansas, best known until this month for the size of its well, held its annual clean-up day. High school students cleared rubbish, washed windows and raked leaves. 83 year old Lois Coberly had asked for help with a 'big lot of leaves' that had fallen in her yard She rewarded the students who helped pile them up, and the city staff who took them away, with cups of hot chocolate. After they had finished they moved across the street to a neighbour's yard and cleared her leaves away too.

On 4 May 2007 Greensburg was destroyed by a tornado nearly two miles wide. The buildings worth saving can be counted on your fingers.

Poor Greensburg. Anyone who still questions the reality of global warming must have their head in a Bush.

Oban Times

The Oban of my youth seemed uncomplicated. It was plastic boats from Woolworths. Lovat lambswool jumpers from Chalmers. 'Born Free' in the Phoenix on George Street. Tea in The Station Hotel, watching MacBrayne's King George V steaming away from the North Pier (about to disappoint another batch of tourists by not delivering the scheduled - but always weather contingent - landing on Staffa).

Then I read Morvern Callar, and found it hard to shake off its gothic miasma. Corpses in attics and buried body parts had no place in my Oban.

I thought I was getting there until Mike told me about his only visit to the town. Taking advantage of a cheap excursion offer, he and a mate travelled up to Oban by train. They had half an hour or so before the return train left, and the tide was out, so they took a stroll on the beach. The view across the bay to Kererra was beautiful, the gulls wheeled and cried overhead, the scent of the sea mingled with pine and heather, and Mike found a wellington boot with part of a leg in it.

This was in the early 80's, and Mike had a red mohican. He says that attracting attention was easy, but persuading anyone to believe him was not.

Kissing Your Ex

Speaking of X's, there are various theories about how they came to represent kisses. I like the suggestion that an X looks like a stylized picture of pouting lips meeting. Cute.

More plausibly, X was used in place of a signature by people who couldn't write their names. Sometimes they kissed their signature, perhaps to lend veracity to a contract, like kissing a bible. Hence an X became a kiss by association.

Isn't that interesting.

SWALK

Maybe Malcolm X didn't intend to call himself Malcolm X. Maybe he just signed his name 'Malcolm' and put a kiss after it.

Brown Knows

I also have Gordon as a forename, although I've never been mad about it. As it wasn't my first name I've been able to play it down. I was only given the name as a last minute add-on, because I was born in Khartoum on Gordon Sunday. I'm not sure what Mr Brown's excuse is. It's not his first name either (what was wrong with James?). I suspect he was named after Gordon the Big Express Engine. Or perhaps it was after the dance...

No Gordon, gay or not, has been quite as comfortable since Jilted John said, 'Gordon is a moron'. But then, allegedly Bliar's nickname at school was Emily, so we all have our crosses to bear.

If you enter 'Gordon Brown, moron' in a Google search, result number eight is HM Treasury's Ministerial Profile for Gordon Brown. I can't work out why that happens. Unpredictable, that Google algorithm.

Vale Blair

To paraphrase Horace:

Sic vale Blair; maiorque veritae munum colebat.

Corrections to my grammar welcome - it's been a long time...