HOW HIGH IS THAT MAN?

Alan claims to be six feet tall. I don’t know about that. But I can say with certainty that he is comfortably taller than the beach umbrellas for hire on Ipanema Beach. Late on Saturday afternoon a few minor adjustments made to combat the receding arc of the setting sun caused the umbrella to subside and eventually topple. Reluctant to get out of his deeply reclined yellow beach chair, Hooky opted to stay seated and hold the umbrella in place like a king grasping a royal sceptre. Soon enough though, his arm grew tired and the inconvenience of bracing the umbrella became greater than the effort required to set it back in the sand. He rose to his feet. Screwing the umbrella down proved unsuccessful. The wiggle technique failed. Greater force was required. He dusted the sand from inside the umbrella post and lifted it high above his head. With a mad look in his eye he brought the umbrella down as if he were trying to part the Red Sea.

The sands did part and the umbrella stucketh fast.

That Alan managed to brain himself with the canopy and break off one of the spokes in the process is neither here nor there. Success speaks for itself and the shade cast by that umbrella was all the more welcome for having imparted an important lesson; for future reference, when trying to insert an unfurled beach umbrella into the sand, don’t do it while standing inside the umbrella.

Speaking of Alan’s claims to be six foot he got chatting with an Irish girl on Friday night at the street party in Lapa. She asked him how tall he is.

“I’m six foot”, he said.

She looked him over for a second, paused, and without blinking fired back;
“Does that include your hair?”

Zing.

The Lapa street party is like any other street party in the world except with better dancing and a higher risk of coming home without your wallet. Pickpockets are everywhere and the hostel staff are at pains to tell you where in the area is and isn’t safe to visit. Horror stories of robbings, beatings and rape are rife, though no doubt garnished with considerable exaggeration, the backpacker telegraph being what it is.

In order to combat the pickpockets it is common practice for holiday-makers at the Lapa party to hide enough cash for a cab-fare home somewhere on their person; usually their underpants. Given the number of pissed up westerners enjoying the party it’s a fair chance that a sizable proportion of Rio’s large denomination folding money has, at some stage, seen some time in the undercrackers of a sweaty gringo. I raised the practice with Alan the next night.

“The muggers must know about it by now”, he said.

I agreed. Alan took a sip of his coke.

“But I guess going up to someone and saying ‘empty your pockets and drop your pants’ might lower compliance rates a bit.”

Indeed.

I’d employed the jock-locker myself with mixed success on the two previous nights. By Lapa I’d managed to get my stashing technique down pat. Not so the night before when, to the great surprise of the assembled football fans on the way back from the Maracana Stadium, a 50 Real note dropped from the right leg of my shorts and onto the floor of the Metro carriage. Epic fail.

Also along the lines of the epic fail was Mr Hook’s first foray into the Portuguese language. Having invested in a guide book, Alan put in a rudimentary examination of the vocabulary section and came away with the firmly held impression that ‘sim’ is Portuguese for no. He wasted no time in applying this knowledge in practical settings and on then opening morning could be seen proudly walking Copacabana Beach, greeting each solicitous stall-holder with a firm but polite ‘sim’, before walking on, leaving a trail of hopeful yet confused vendors in his wake.

Turns out ‘sim’ means yes.

Failures in language are unfortunately an inevitable part of travel if, like Alan and I, you haven’t invested considerable time in learning to parlay in the native tongue. Fortunately, if all else fails you can always fall back on international travel pictionary. My rendering of Sugarloaf on Friday proved a particular triumph and we made the cable car just in time to meet our climbing guide, Duche, who took us for a four-hour rock-climb up the face.

He’s a good guy, that Duche, and we got chatting after repelling back to flat ground and safety at the end of the climb. He told us that he heads down to Patagonia every year to climb and, last time he was there, he met his current Argentine girlfriend.

“She’s great”, he said, “but you know, I miss Brazilian women. Having an Argentine girlfriend in Brazil is like going to a BBQ and bringing your own hamburger.”

Of course failures in language can be overcome if you have an impressive non-verbal skill to compensate, as was aptly demonstrated by an Argentine lad at the Lapa street party. The man salsa’d like a pro and that’s pretty much kryptonite to any western girl who’s been subjected to years of rhythm less drunken shuffling on the club dance floors of London and Sydney. He was good. I’d go so far as to say he gave meaning to the phrase ‘sweeping them off their feet’. As I incompetently made my way around the dance floor it occurred to me that dance is just another language I can’t speak.

One of the first things I noticed about the Brazilians is that they have an unhealthy relationship with cheese. You cannot find a savoury snack in this country that isn’t filled with, encased in or made of cheese. It’s unbelievable. One of the snacks on offer to the revellers at the Lapa street party was a lightly grilled, six-inch block of cheese, loving presented on a stick.

I found this only slightly bemusing until I went to dinner and ordered the margarita pizza. Look, can I just take this opportunity to simply say the following; cheese is a TOPPING! Under no circumstances is it permitted for cheese to form the base of the pizza. What you presented to me on Saturday night was a plate of warm cheese and it did a massive disservice to your wonderful country. From now on in Brazil I’m sticking with rice, beans and BBQ meats.

Just down the road from the restaurant that night a lively party was kicking off with people spilling out of the bars and into the streets of Ipanema. It looked like a pretty good time and Alan and I headed down to grab a beer and join in. As we grew closer we started to notice that quite a few young men were in various degrees of close embrace. Taking this for Latin gregariousness we moved on. It soon became apparent that this form of gregariousness might not be exclusively Latin and after passing a couple of gentlemen engaged in what can only be described as an erotic cuddle, Alan and I shared a look of trepidation.

“I’m not sure this is where we want to be.” I said.

Alan nodded. “I’m all for trying new things,” he said as we looked around Rio’s gay scene in full flamboyant flight. “But there are limits.”

We went back to the hostel where he spooned me until I fell asleep.

Kidding.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

ALAN AND THE SAUSAGE DOG´S TESTICLES

G`day kids,

I`m stuck on an island at the moment (by choice, not obligation) and the wi-fi hasn´t been working so there are no new blogs just yet. Don´t panic though. They´re done but not uploaded. Hopefully tomorrow.

I hear you can´t wait to read about Alan and the sausage dog´s testicles. Frankly, I´m not suprised. It´s a great story.

So, take care. More soon.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

RIO AND ALL THAT

Alright, so we touched down in Rio and everything is smashing. So far I've only found time to write a pissy entry about public transport, which seems to be my default subject whenever I feel like I'm falling behind. I'll bring back the funny soon. I promise.

I've been barrelling through the city sights in the past couple of days and spending a bit of time down the beaches. It's a cool city and I'm looking forward to heading out to the street party in Lapa tonight. We've kept it pretty low key for the first few nights as we've had things planned early each morning but Saturday has been blocked out for hungover beach-wallowing so tonight should be fun.

Despite a few quiet nights we've still managed to make some good progress in our attempt to sample 25 different beers over the course of our trip. We're already three beers in and at this rate we'll have achieved our target with more than 30 days to spare. I think we're good enough.

We have decided to introduce a rating system to allow you to get a real feel for our enjoyment of each individual brew. See if you can work out what it is. Here is a picture of us enjoying our first beer on Brazilian soil, it's called SKOL and well, I'll let the picture tell the story...

That's Alan on the left. You'll hear more about him over the duration of the trip. The more observent of you will also have noticed Roger Federer in the background. It's unlikely that you'll hear any more about him at Truedrinks but please feel free to follow his professional and personal progress at www.rogerfederer.com.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

BATTLE OF THE BULGE

They say football brings Brazilians together, and if Wednesday night’s trip to the 200,000-seater Maracana Stadium is anything to go by they’re onto something. Four stops past Central Station on the Metro train and it was physically impossible to bring Brazilians any closer together in our carriage without the use of lubricant. Imagine the worst rush-hour crush you have ever experienced on the Tube and then add Brian Blessed. To every carriage.

Outside of match day peak-hour the Rio Metro is a dream; air conditioned, roomy, frequent. And that’s how our trip to Maracana started – like a dream – but after about five stops the carriage became like the stomach of a six-year-old who’s just left Pizza Hut after enjoying the all-you-can-eat dessert bar; Dangerously full, with a high possibility of unplanned evacuation.

A relatively unique feature of the Rio Metro is that the doors open on both sides of the train. Normally this facilitates the flow of passengers, making it easier for everyone to get off and on the carriage. The flaw in this practice comes during what Transport for London would call ‘times of increased demand’. Or, to put it more simply, when more people want to get on than off. When that happens regulating passenger movements becomes a bit like squeezing a stress ball. Squeeze it to the left and the ball bulges on the right. Try to gather in the bulge on the right and a fresh bulge is created somewhere else. Go after that bulge and the original one on the right reappears. And so on.

The whole thing is made significantly more problematic by the fact that while all train doors open at the same time, the doors on one side are closed slightly earlier than the doors on the other.

Here’s how it works. The train pulls in, the doors on both sides open and everyone outside the train attempts to get inside the train. Scrum time. Size and strength are a slight advantage here but technique is important too, and the wiry can be just as successful but only when they have enough weight behind them to ensure the passengers on their side win the battle of the bulge against the group attempting entry from the opposite door. Lose that battle and you’re never going to make it. Having observed this practice at close quarters, I can tell you that the key to a successful entry is to force at least two of your limbs onto the train before the doors close. After that you can rely on the action of the closing doors to suction you into the carriage. However, this technique only works when your door is the first to close. If yours is the second, then the sheer volume of sweaty humanity already on the carriage will prevent you from getting on. The only exception to this is if the person attempting entry is slim enough to employ the ‘wedge technique’, which involves working yourself in between two passengers already on the train. This can be difficult, but is by no means impossible. It doesn’t make you may friends though. In fact, getting on makes you exactly zero friends among those already on the carriage who, thanks to you, are now finding breathing a challenge.

Half way to the stadium I realised that a high pitch squeal sounded as the doors closed. Initially I though this was some kind of alarm but closer inspection revealed that a child had actually become wedged into the runners of the closing door.

Kidding.

So, a pretty unpleasant journey all up and one we were keen to avoid on the run back to the hostel, which is why we left the ground 10 minutes before full time and shortly after the home side took a 3-1 lead thanks to their new import, Vagner Love. Interesting name.

Early departure was a good move and left us on a relatively empty train heading back into the city. Everything seemed to be going well for about two stops until the train unexpectedly started heading backwards. This was confusing. More confusing was the fact that when the train came to a halt again we were at a station on a completely different line to the one on which the train had started. Worse still the detour had taken about 15 minutes and the platform was smothered with football fans.

By the time we made it back to the hostel the bar was closed.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

SEX, DRUGS AND WAFFLES

Actually, I’m not going to go into the waffles here, except to say they were delicious. I just threw in a reference to breakfast pastry to soften the headline a little.

I’m in Amsterdam, which is as close as you can get to Disneyland for adults without an invitation to spend the weekend at Silvio Burlesconi’s private villa. Sex and drugs. Legal but not free. It’s like the inversion of the hippy dream. In fact, it’s how the hippy dream would look if it were acquired in a hostile takeover by the Disney Corporation. So yeah, Disneyland for adults it is.

The most striking thing about the whole set up is not its prominence – and it is entirely indiscreet – but how comfortably integrated it is with the rest of the city. There’s absolutely no blush or tut-tut at all. At four in the afternoon school-run mothers cycle past the flesh and sexual paraphernalia on display in the cat-house doorways and sex-shop windows, their children perched on the luggage racks of their bikes. Along the central canal a middle-aged couple feed bread to the hungry swans, blind to the flashing neon behind them advertising dinner and a sex show at a reasonable price. An aging hooker looks on in absentminded boredom as a man buys a falafel from the kebab shop next door. I can’t quite decide whether this is liberated, tolerant or just weird.

Beyond sex slavery, which is abhorrent in all its forms, I find it difficult to condemn the trade, or feel anything about it at all actually. Taken in isolation it feels pretty conventional, particularly in this heavily regulated setting. Just cash for services rendered. What makes it seedy, at least to my mind, is not the commoditisation of sex, which I suppose I should object to, yet feel strangely unconcerned by, it is the voyeurism of those who have absolutely no intention of paying for sex. The sight of groups of men – and it’s almost always groups – intoxicated to varying degrees by various substances, using the district as an informal, un-ticketed ogling tour seems a far more offensive form of objectification than actually employing one of the women. I’m not sure if this makes me an apologist for the sex industry or just an arch capitalist. Either way, it does make me a hypocrite, having treated the district as just another stop on the sightseeing tour myself.

But I can’t help feeling that this window-shopping is a massive liberty, making zoo animals of the women who preen and tap the glass like sexualised dancing bears. At least those men who step through the window and draw the curtain are actually paying for the privilege – the negotiation and exchange of money in some ways empowering the woman and giving her a value, which is denied her by those whose approval of the trade goes only so far as to look but not touch. To me, being prepared to look but not pay is hypocritical insincerity; in many ways worse than actually forking out for sex. It’s a condemnation and tacit approval in the same breath.

And I can’t escape the feeling that the most aggressive ‘look-but-not-touchers’, those who spend the most time openly leering at the working girls, are certain to be the men most likely to be implacable if their girlfriend or wife revealed that she used to be on the game. Although that might well say more about my own prejudices than it does theirs.

I guess it comes down to personal morality, a term not unlike ‘absolutely unique’ in that the first half is redundant. Ultimately issues of sex, like issues of religion, are entirely the preserve of the people involved. The degree to which is it exploitative depends on individual circumstances. All I can say is that professional sex is not for me, even if the women plying the trade in Amsterdam are, by any standards, absolutely stunning*.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

* Insert note of heavy irony here.

The European office of the New York Stock Exchange is situated at the south-eastern corner of the sex district. Given the press that brokers have been getting since the credit crunch it is perhaps a neat fit. Although, to be fair, I’m not sure the hookers would be delighted with the comparison.*

* Yes, it is lazy joke making.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM PARIS

To the Musee Pompidou where an exhibition celebrating women in art is taking place. Hard edged, 70s feminist art mostly. One exhibit, a time-loop piece of film involving a number of attractive women writhing nude on the ground is, I suppose, an attempt to demonstrate how members of the fairer sex have to debase themselves to gain artistic recognition.

Thought provoking stuff. The main thought being that standards of feminine pubic grooming have changed significantly in the past 30 years. Or maybe it’s just a French thing.

Emma and I walk along the Champs du Mars and eat a baguette at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. I tell Emma I think it’s just a glorified TV aerial. She’s not pleased. It’s romantic she says. I say it’s a cliché. This goes down badly. She asks me if I’d like to ruin any more of Paris for her. I suggest a walk along the Seine.

I noticed that when wearing my flat-cap and scarf I get approached a fair bit in the street and get babbled at in French. This doesn’t happen when I wear my beanie. The only conclusion I can draw is that no self respecting Frenchman would be caught dead in my beanie. Which is a shame for them. It’s very warm.

Drinking on Thursday night with a prop from the university rugby team in Beunos Aires. Massive lad. He takes his seat at the bar, peeling off his jacket to reveal an English rugby jersey. The locals avoid us like the plague until he tells the barman he’s Argentinean. Relations thaw. The French really do dislike the English.

Every Australian child learns to ride a bicycle in a cul-de-sac. In France, it’s done on a patch of tarmac out the front of the municipal building in Arrondissmont 17.

Everywhere in Paris the Christmas decorations are still proudly on display. I tell Emma that this is because those responsible for taking them down have not yet returned from Christmas holiday.

I buy a chicken sandwich. There is something familiar about the taste. I am half finished by the time I realise the taste I recognise is actually chicken. Not sure if that’s because the chicken is better in France or if I’m suffering the early onset of some kind of taste-related dementia.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

LA FUREUR DE LA FEMME

The French get good press for the beauty and romance of their language which burbles and flows from the mouths of children and lovers as effortlessly as water easing over pebbles. But a lie can be made of that too, as it was this morning, when a monstrous row erupted between the couple in the room adjacent to mine. Actually, row is perhaps not the right word, implying as it does an exchange. This a pretty one-sided affair, with the rush of insults coming thick and fast in the general direction of the poor chap who could only offer up the occasional verbal shrug in reply. The language loses all of its romance when its constituent parts are reconstructed in the sibilant hiss of a furious woman. It becomes more terrifying than anything the Germans or Russians are capable of, their language and accent having been partially denuded of its menace by thirty years of having the piss taken out of it.

I’m not sure what this chap did but unless it involved her sister the response seemed wildly disproportionate. I’ve never been more concerned for someone’s personal safety in my life. And she was only five feet tall.

The lesson here is never, ever cross a French woman. Because you don’t want to see a French woman cross.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

GIUCHIE, GIUCHIE, YA YA DADA

I walk down Rue De Clichy on my way to pick up Emma from the train station and find myself passing the Moulin Rouge as a busload of senior citizens is whisked past the queues and into the famously saucy nightspot. I think that perhaps the entertainment on offer is not as cutting edge as it once was. Or possibly it’s just that the old folks back home get a raw deal. The last day trip my Grandma went on involved a visit to a jam factory. It’s really not the same thing.

A few hundred metres down the road I pass a building called the Sexodrome and try to imagine a less sexy name. Can’t. It seems decidedly un-French. I think on it a while and decide the proprietor must be German.

A little further down the Rue I start getting propositioned for sex. A lot. This is a novel experience but I start to worry that I have the look of a man who either wants or needs to pay for sex. I’m not sure which is worse.

The arrival board at Gare du Nord lists Emma’s train as “retarded”. I consider this an unnecessary slight on a perfectly operational, if slightly delayed train.

Later that night as we leave a packed wine bar a young lad gives Emma the once over and raises a brow. I catch his eye and throw him an upward nod just to register that he’s been clocked. He smirks in reply and as we pass in the doorway I am told to “enjoy”. Later that night I tell Emma. She says she’s not sure whether to be flattered or offended. I take that to mean she’s flattered.

The ogling continues at the next establishment, although we’re both in the petri dish this time around, even if we are slow to recognise it. Questions fly in about our relationship from a man who looks, or so we are told, like Robert De Niro. He doesn’t, but that’s not really the point. It’s the set-piece opening in his amour gambit. The conversation is well advanced by the time we realise that our new friend assumes Emma and I to be a couple, his questions designed to gauge the boundaries of our relationship. This explains why he becomes wide eyed with encouragement when I mention that while away in South America my friend Leigh will be moving in. And thus, an innocent scenario involving flatmates becomes, in the mind of Mr De Niro, a wildly liberated piece of sexual generosity. Fortunately, a middle aged French lady – a Juliet Binoche look-alike perhaps – makes a timely intervention and we make good our escape.

It is only later we discover that we had inadvertently stumbled into an orchestrated monthly social mixer for dateless middle-aged Parisians. On reflection I feel somehow cheated by this, assuming as I do that contrived romantic settings are too banal for the French. Beneath their dignity even. For them, conquests are supposed to be effortless, spontaneous… elegant. It’s disappointing to find them resorting to such mechanical socialising in order to find love. It’s a bit like going to Ireland and accidentally going to a meeting of the temperance society. It may go on but you’d prefer not to know about it.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

THUD NOT PHWOMP

It fell like a house brick and struck her right on top of her head. With a thud. It’s the first time I think I’ve ever heard a thud. A genuine one I mean. I’d always thought ‘phwomp’ a more accurate representation of the sound of impact. But thud is definitely the sound six hundred pages of Alan Bennett memoirs makes when it comes into contact with the head of a smiling French woman.

That she was still smiling afterwards goes some way toward validating the theory that the French are nothing more than a nation of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Pathetic.

I’m kidding of course. I like the French. I like their bread. I like their doors. I like their letters. I like the coffee I’m drinking while I’m writing this. And I like the café I’m drinking it in. Tres bon, mon ami. Tres bon.

Actually, she was very gracious and nonchalant about it, which I was grateful for because she’d taken a pretty solid hit to the bonce and I was embarrassed. The train hadn’t even left St Pancras Station and already I was laying down friendly fire.

I don’t know what it is about long-haul vehicles but I really struggle to get stowed and seated in any coordinated way on a plane, train or coach. No matter how prepared I am or how little I am carrying, by the time I reach my seat I invariably find myself with more stuff than hands, making all attempts to safely consign any bags to the overhead compartment an examination in advanced juggling technique. I also seem completely incapable of carrying a bag down an aisle without scalping a nanna or poking a toddler in the eye.

I have such difficultly that I am now convinced that all luggage is, in actual fact, organic. And by that I mean that every single suitcase, backpack and rucksack is a living, evolving entity, capable of changing shape and dimension in a way that is imperceptible to the human eye. Exactly what triggers this alteration is a mystery, although a working thesis suggests that the sound of pneumatic door mechanisms may be involved, as may the sound of people patting their pockets to reassure themselves that they’re still in possession of their passports. Whatever causes it, the end result is that all items of luggage will undergo subtle but instantaneous variations in length, width and depth the moment they are brought onto a vehicle. The extent of these variations is dictated by the width of the aisle and the number of people waiting to be seated. And they are continually altered. While your bag may appear to fit comfortably between the chairs or slot into the overhead compartment. It won’t. It just wanted you to think that it would. Masters of subterfuge these bags. Tricky bastards all of them.

The function this shape shifting plays in the wider scheme of nature is also difficult to assess. On today’s evidence its purpose may well be the removal of smiling French ladies from the gene pool, but it strikes me that the use of autobiographical novels as a means of natural selection is not only arbitrary, but entirely unnecessary. And thus, entirely unnatural.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson

FONDUES AND FONDU-NOT-DUES

So we almost burnt down Renee’s flat on Friday night, which would have made a lie of Chris Bull’s assertion that “fondue is fun”. Or not, depending on your enthusiasm for naked flame.

Enthusiasm possibly wasn’t quite the word to describe the general reaction when the fondue burner started to exceed its remit. But the galloping flames lapping at the outside of the cheese bowl had a mesmeric quality which made it difficult to feel complete animosity toward what had become an impressive piece of combustion. Even if the initiative was misplaced.

Someone ventured a rather conservative “I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be doing that”, which was fair comment considering the fire alarm had just started sounding in the kitchen. The fire alarm precipitated a more general alarm among the houseguests and in particular Renee, who retreating to the sofa, where she stood like a cartoon 1950s housewife trying to evade a mouse.

“I think I should leave” she said, as the house began to fill with acrid, yet slightly intoxicating, black smoke. Chris, who still had a piece of cheesy bread impaled on the end of his fondue fork, agreed.

Emma helpfully suggested that the fire should be extinguished; A point she emphasised by kicking over a bottle of beer. Somewhat alarmed by this new turn of events Chris reacted by side-footing a glass of red into the coffee table. Torn between her fear of naked flame and her passion for unstained living quarters Renee paused just long enough to hand out paper towels before making a break for the door.

Someone hoisted up the lounge room window in an attempt to clear the thickening smoke. It was an effective technique but the cure came with a few unwelcome side effects, one of which was impressively enhanced pyrotechnics. The open window, combined with the now open door, also created a funnel effect, sucking smoke out of the flat and into the apartment stairwell, where it triggered the first floor fire alarm.

After a brief discussion it was decided that it was perhaps better for all concerned if the window was shut; a process that was successfully completed but only after another glass of rioja was volleyed into the sideboard.

While this was going on, a search was being made for a receptacle deep enough to entomb the fondue set and smother the flames. Unfortunately, the only pot in the house big enough for the job was sitting on the stovetop, half full of cheese.

Out in the hall, neighbours were starting to show some interest in proceedings, with lights coming on and doors creeping open. In response, Leigh was dispatched to deactivate the hallway fire alarm and provide a reassuring presence to fellow residents. “It’s nothing to worry about”, he was heard to say to the young mum in flat number three, “we’re having a bit of a fondue-related incident but it’s all under control.”

Which wasn’t a complete fib. The fire was still pretty much contained in the general vicinity of where it started but certain logistical problems had not yet been overcome. The principle issue being that Renee’s wok, which was the largest, non cheese-filled pot in the house, was not deep enough to smother the flames without the blazing fondue set being partially dismantled first.

Initial attempts to hoist the cheese rack clear of the burner almost came at the cost of Lauren’s eyebrows and the use of fondue forks as shifting implements was abandoned. Emma expressed concern that something called a ‘woven table runner’ was in peril.

Leigh scampered back into the room with a set of BBQ tongs and plucked the frame from over the burner. The wok was clamped down over the inferno and the fire smothered out.

“Fuck me,” I said, as the smoke cleared, “I think that might be why fondue parties went out of fashion.”

Just before leaving, Renee handed me a bottle of fuel spirits. “I think it’s best for all concerned if you keep this at your house”.

I am now very much looking forward to BBQ season.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson