A tale of two Gibsons

I was up early this morning to take delivery of some fencing panels, which meant that I was standing outside the house when Gibson was taking his grandma for their morning walk.

Gibson is the black Labrador who lives round the corner.  Though he enjoys a friendly fuss, he always wants to get about on business of his own, so he gives an impatient bark if Gran spends too long chatting with neighbours.

When first introduced some months ago I had assumed he was named after Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC DSO DFC of the Dambusters, who himself had a chocolate brown Labrador, which [spoiler alert] doesn’t make it to the end-credits of the film. Guys of my generation were raised on black-and-white British war movies, with heroes that don’t say too much but go out and give Jerry a good pasting. You can watch the film's original trailer by clicking here.

It says much about us Brits that we cry buckets for the dog but not so for the thousands affected by the successful raid on the Ruhr dams. But then if the Germans had sensibly elected a Labrador instead of Hitler, things would have taken a very different course. I mean, we sometimes think of Churchill as a bulldog. And listen to him speak. The clues are all there...

As it happens Gibson is named after the Gibson Les Paul guitar. Hmm.

Anyways G, with his sense of smell up to 100,000 times more acute than mine, immediately detected that I had just eaten a bacon sandwich.  This was reason enough to put the walk on hold while he quickly identified the fact that it was smoked bacon, Danish from western Jutland, from the right-hand loin of the pig. A few moments more and he would have identified the donor pig by name (Labradors are pretty clever). But for once Gran wanted to make some progress and so they set off once again.

This week Dr Michael Mosley set out the startling fact in the excellent BBC TV science series Horizon that eating bacon may well curtail your life by up to 2 years. I like and respect Dr Mosley.  We are roughly the same age and he seems to know a thing or two. I admire the fact that he experiments on his own body, for example by infecting himself with tapeworms or by trying the 5:2 diet. I see no reason to doubt his claim about the foreshortening of life.

Guy Gibson in the centre. He was only 26 when killed in action

Moderation is key to diet, I feel. "Steady on, old chap," as the Wing Commander might have said. "Not bacon every morning." And, of course, I don’t.  Mostly it’s toast or muesli or grapefruit when I can get it.

But the Dambusters of 617 Squadron (like all RAF crews on ‘Ops’) tucked in to bacon before taking off on their fateful flight.

So I thought I’d share that neither Gibson nor I have any intention of eschewing the occasional rasher of back or streaky, whatever the medics may say. If that means clocking-off a tad early, then 'cheerio'.

A heart-warming tale of physics and sweet-cure bacon

Much water has flowed under the bridge, Mr Robinson, since you contributed your appraisal of my grasp of Physics to that 1974 school report – the one that would help steer my O level choices (this being in the monochrome, pre-Bay City Rollers, pre-GCSE world).  How long, I wonder, did your pen hover over the virgin page before you committed your wisdom to posterity by writing the word “Poor”?

Admittedly it would take a barrister at the top of her game to quibble with your assessment, given that I achieved but 15% in the qualifying exam, coming 92^nd out of 93 in the year.  My lack of ability was compounded by the fact that it was a multiple choice exam, offering five possible answers to each question, so that a random selection of answers should, as a matter of probability, have yielded a slightly less disgraceful 20%. (Could never get my head round 32 feet per-second, per-second. Still can’t.)  No, there is no disguising how ‘spot-on’ was your judgment on my performance.  It was poor.  Well done, then, to the Son and Heir (bless ‘Im) who has just graduated with a BSc, so removing the unscientific stain on our family’s honour.

Nowadays, of course, teachers would never be permitted to comment honestly on my performance. They are compelled to use weasel words and wibble, such as “Ivan has been making progress this year towards a level 3 in physics, exploring such concepts as….”, which of course tell you nothing at some length.  No.  “Poor” was honest, accurate and brief.

Well, it’s never too late in this life to change direction and apply yourself.  The last forty years have been spent trying to find a topic at which I can excel, to expunge Robbo’s well-justified sneer and to give Mrs King senior something to drop nonchalantly into conversation at the historical society.  I’d like to think that my attempts at home brewing might be up there above the 50% mark.  True, owing to time pressures I’m back to using kits right now but, in the past and maybe again fairly soon, I’ve mastered brewing bitter from scratch using nothing but malted barley, water, hops and yeast.  Seasoned beer drinkers, experts all in real ale tapped from the wood, have sampled my brews and, through puckered lips, declared them to be “drinkable.”   If I have brewed better than some, it is because I have knelt on the shoulders of giants – so thank you, Dad and uncle Norman.

Or it might be preaching.  I have to ration this nowadays to avoid causing despondency among colleagues less gifted in oratory. When I intoned the call to worship as guest speaker in a local church earlier this year, one lady had an epileptic fit and another had palpitations.  (I say it again: I had warned them several times about the air-horn).

But this morning I had that ‘Eureka’ moment:  here, at last, was an achievement on the strength of which I could look Robbo once again in the eye.  Four years ago I went to study the curing of meats under Ray Smith, master butcher at River Cottage of Channel  4 fame. Since then I have been curing joints of meat with varying degrees of success.  Yes, the flavour is there but all too often they have simply been too salty.  And during those years, ministerial colleagues have occasionally called in for breakfast and have eaten the bacon – often asking for seconds.  Now I need to pause at this point and pay tribute to these colleagues:  stout-hearted, square-jawed, clean-limbed chaps all of ‘em.*  If I was facing a scrap with an ugly crew put up by the local pagans I’d want these guys as my wingmen, watching my back. Are they daunted by saltiness? No sir. 'Never complain' is their watchword. If one or two lay claim to a problem with cholesterol as a polite way of excusing themselves from a third or fourth rasher, who am I to mind?  

But now they need fear excess saltiness no longer.  For, along with Mrs King (junior), I tasted this morning a rasher of home-cure that was Demerara–sweet and not a trace of saltiness. Ray: I returned to your recipe and your years of Master Butchery have been proved again.

Given the lapse of time it is entirely possible, Mr Robinson, that you have already been gathered up by the angels in blatant defiance of gravity. Achieved escape velocity, in fact. And it is unlikely that you would remember me for I was then one of the quiet boys. But, if called upon one final time to exercise your incisive judgement, I am hopeful that though my grasp of physics has continued to pursue its inevitable course towards randomness, you might grudgingly award my home-cure 51% and a “Satisfactory”.

*Sadly, it's been some time since a female colleague dropped by for breakfast.