How about golf and moles… that would be lively… 
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Bit cruel that Stella
Oh sorry you said and ,not with
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Perhaps a Mole in One competition with SF members:laughing:
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Yes, Falgos is nice, St Cyprien is ok ish imo. It was for sale for ages, I wonder if it’s changed hands yet ?
There’s a nice nine holes at Font Romeu Simon, it reminds me very much of your place.
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Stella, don’t start !!!
There were three things I had problems with :
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Moles which made a mess
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Wild boar which used to enjoy destroying the fairways and greens
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Members, most of whom thought they were greenkeepers. They never stopped moaning, the grass was either, too high, too short, too wet, too dry, holes badly placed, not enough or too much sand in the bunkers…plus just about anything they could find to blame for playing badly !!!
Ahhhhhh !
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I love these posts about exotic foreign pastimes.
Dan, I’m sorry for the delay in replying to your question (above). I was waiting for things (and myself) to cool down a tad.
Briefly, I have huge admiration for the young men who engaged in what was often/mainly gallant one-on-one combat with their German counterparts in the skies over England. Such sacrificial bravery is beyind reproach, and I am not anti-war. My father contributed to the war effort in the 1930s/1940s as a skilled engineer building 4-engined heavy bombers at Longbridge, and was also a “spotter” in the Home Guard on his ‘nights off’ on the factory roof… My father, like many of his workmates, was a Communist, and took a different view of the war than the news bulletins and newsaper accounts of “victories” on the front etc. There is an oral history of WW2 that is worth listening to. This is true, of course, of all wars: Korea, Vietnam, Indochina, the Peoples’ War in South Africa, Mozambique, Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc.
I am not against fighting in a just cause, but not at the say-so of a Government I have no trust in wars cooked-up on phoney charges against a hapless, unprepared and hopelessly outnumbered and out-weaponed “foe”. Modern technological and obscenely disproportionate war that massively and almost orgiastically wipes out tens of thousands of fellow beings at a vast distance from the button-pusher is a human abomination. I will never cease to speak out against it. Another member of SFN lied when he suggested I am a conscientious objector, and his craven innuendo sickens me as much as his assumed image of me sickens him. But I have recovered, because some things are worth a touch of passing nausea.
Anyway time to move on to lighter things. But we should never lower our guard, bow to oppression, or cease to fight for justice, truth, and brotherhood world-wide.
Best wishes to you, I love your acrobatic and lissome cork-popper. Does he/she have a name?
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You quote the wrong example.
The Soviets occupied ‘Stan because they got fed up of incursions, drug proliferation etc and the CIA spooks thought that it would be a good idea to give the “rebels” stinger missiles thus having a proxy war Russia vs America . This was pathetically portrayed in the film Rambo 3 which signed off ‘dedicated to the brave rebels of Afghanistan ‘ .
Thus USA is responsible for much of the troubles today but ultimately no-one can help a nation of individuals who prefer to have an AK47 to a pair of sandals.
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I like your informed analysis. With such a long history of aggressive foreign incursions into their bleak but beautiful country I think I might rate a Kalashnikov over footwear myself if I had the misfortune to be born Afghani.
And if I were, and you and I were to meet on my poor homeland soil, I hope you would leave your Vulcan in its hangar, arm yourself with a piece to match mine, and fight man to man. 
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As an after thought, Raymond, that last comment of yours might be interpreted as, might one say, slightly over the heads of people who live in relative poverty.
A man can’t defend his homeland, his home, his extended family, his wife and children, his few belongings, and his honour with a pair of sandals. He needs a weapon for that.
And having grown up with a deep familiarity with and groundedness on the naked earth, he can move swiftly, surely and silently bare-foot. Many of the earth’s peoples know this. People who were virtually born wearing trainers wouldn’t have a clue what I’m talking about 
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He was a Vulcan pilot.
There is (or was fairly recently) a Vulcan bomber parked just inside the perimeter fence at Southend airport, something of a local landmark.
It always struck me as looking rather vulnerable just sitting there, and - for a bomber - surprisingly small.
I seem to remember there being a bit of a fuss about unpaid charges for being there.
It’s a wonder it wasn’t half-inched for scrap a long time since 
I always thought the Vulcan was like a bit like the class system. The two pilots had ejector seats but the four “workers” downstairs had none. I think one can see the same attitude at work in Brexit. Rees Mogg moves his hedge fund to Dublin, Boris gets a bung from JCB before a speech at their facility, Dyson exhorts leave before doing a corporate runner himself but the workers at Airbus and Mini are for the high jump. Plus ça change…
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