Letter from Manila - Santol - of course!

By heck, it's a while since I heard that. Thanks.

The car needs jar holders though!

And you haven't changed a bit except for the bl00dy Flat Cap!

I remember stocks being on the tv quite a lot when i was a nipper. Think i may have seen (f2??) at par stadium many many moons ago too...long gone now though. Been a retail park for donkeys years now.

So yesterday was a bit of a Red Letter day, or should that be Brown Box Day...


Madam looking on in amazement


Tania? Food? Like a horse and carriage! Five tins of various processed meat and a bag of rice. Note Whiskey trying to teleport the tin out of Tania's hand using her laser eye.

So yes, last night we received our first food parcel. I suggested to Madam that we tell them to find someone who needs it more than we do but apparently, the guys have to get a signature from each household, although what we do with it after that is up to us. Fair enough, we can find homes for them.

Apparently, we're going to get two a week until the lockdown is lifted. Whenever that may be.

Got to say, I'm impressed. It doesn't look much, but this'll be a huge help to the poor and those with (no) subsistence jobs. Well done PhilGov! 

And in other news, We've re-homed the kitten. The reasons:-

1) We're not really cat people.

2) She was too small to be let out of her box unsupervised and whilst the dogs didn't seem to have a major problem, the two rescue pups (collectively known as The Brothers Dimm) are a tad boisterous and have large feet over which they have virtually zero control. Consequently, she was stuck in her cage. Not ideal.

3) Ate Crazy loves cats (figures - she'd make a great witch) and has a nursing mother at home whose last litter was mainly stillborn, so has a load of spare nipples.

So last night she was whisked away complete with feeding bottle (just in case) and eye drops. Apparently she's been accepted by "Mom" and is suckling happily.

Right, best get some work done!

Do you still have the water business?
Could sell/gift food via that...

Our newest Tesco is built on the site of an old oval racetrack, at least they’ve had the decency to put pictures up in the entrance of old races & cars, maybe when this blows over I’ll get some pics and put them up, but not going anywhere near it at the moment!

Most of the F1 Brisca tracks have now gone - all either supermarkets / retail centres or housing estates we used to race all over the place - Nelson, Blackburn, Bolton, Rochdale, Bury. Manchester Belle View (old circuit), Manchester White City, Crewe, Stoke, Newton Aycliffe, Boston, Long Eaton, Leicester, Cleethorpes, Coventry, Wimbledon, Newcastle, Ipswich

I think the following still survive - Sheffield, Northampton, Kings Lynn, Mildenhall, Skegness, Buxton, Birmingham, Hednesford - possibly a few more have survived but I never raced at them

I remember Belle Vue and White City as a kid. I also remember freezing my thingy off at Buxton High Edge, when I should have been old enough to know better!

So, this morning, as the emails were quiet, I decided I'd go and fuel up the '38. One, it needed a quick run anyway, two, low on gasolina and three, what was in there was a few weeks old, so time to throw some fresh ethanol in.

Spoke to the Barangay chappy on the roadblock and he said, "No problem."

Fired her up and delicately reversed her out of the garage. A bit tight, as the Jeepney driver who lives next door can't find his a66 with either hand. As a consequence, I can't open one garage door fully.

Out on the street, they move the barricade for me, and I'm loose and free on Manila's empty streets. First time out of the house (apart from a quick walk to the vet the other day) for 15 days!

Now, gas station? The nearest to me is about 1/2km and I've never heard of the stuff, so deciding that 'Gaso' is probably not my fuel of choice, then Shell is a good as anything. Staying within Malate, which I must do, there is a choice of three. But one is brand spankers new, got them nozzles that come from the roof and everything. More to the point, lovely clean tanks, unsullied by years of flooding. Used to be the Caltex station I always used but now completely rebuilt. That'll be the furthest away though. Oh, go on then.

Arrive there and delighted to see the old crew were staffing it. I pull up and a cheery voice says, "One thousand Peso of 95 Sir George?" "Carry on my good man."

I was stopped twice at army roadblocks. The question was the same at both. "Where you go?"

To the first I answered, "Gasoline," and was waved through, despite there being a fuel station about a hundred yards back. Nobody questioned why I'd just driven past it.

To the second, I replied, "Home," and was waved though. No one asked where home was. Could have been Palawan!

Just nice to be out for an hour. What? I had to come come home the pretty way...honest.

I wonder just how far you could get with just the words, "Gasoline," and, "Home"?

I remember watching these being built as a kid in Salford, where the houses had been flattened during the war...



Not only were they 5hitholes from the day they were built, they sat on top of a huge coal mine complex and immediately started to sink. Thousands of tons of concrete had to be pumped underneath to shore them up.

Lifts didn't work, everywhere stank of pi55, brave new world.

Now they're student accommodation!