Bolted

Oliver’s school has started to become very excited at the idea that one of their Old Boys is going to be at the Coronation, and they are planning all sorts of celebratory parties on his behalf, since presumably the Old Boy in question will be too busy to be making trifles and stringing bunting around his own front door.

I don’t know if he is going to come back and tell them about it afterwards, but I don’t suppose it matters since I don’t imagine he will have much of a view from his standpoint, and frankly, you will probably see a great deal more if you just watch it on the BBC.

I can’t do that because of being at Cambridge on that day, and I am distinctly cheesed off about it. Cambridge seems to be becoming something of a hotbed of republicanism, as most places full of young people usually are, and I suspect there will not exactly be cheering and strings of bunting, although there jolly well ought to be, because the same Old Boy went there as well.

He didn’t go either to Lucy Cavendish, which is my college, or to Madingley Hall School For Old People, which is where I do my classes, so I don’t suppose either of them will be interested in the least, which is a shame, because I absolutely am. I was very sorry to lose the Dear Old Queen, and I would like the opportunity to stand up and cheer for her eldest offspring, even if I just happened to be in the living room by myself at the time.

Still, if I can’t watch the Coronation I would rather be not watching it at Cambridge than anywhere else.

I am feeling very chirpy about Cambridge at the moment, because I have just been invited to a ceremony next September during which I will be presented with a certificate assuring me of my own cleverness. I earned this on the Diploma course which you might recall I did last year. I am very excited and pleased.

I have considered the happiness of becoming a real Certificate Holder, and have decided that I will affix it to the wall behind where I sit at my computer, probably with the words Cambridge University circled in red ink to make sure nobody misses the point. This will mean that when I have online telephone calls with people, they will also appreciate my cleverness, and be a little bit cautious about trying to outwit me. I might also post a copy to the Taxi Licensing Office just so they are pre-warned about the calibre of their opponent next time they write me a grumpy letter.

Talking of taxis, which I wasn’t but I was looking for a way to segue neatly into the subject which is the sort of thing they teach us to do at Cambridge and for which I am now a Certificate Holder, I am pleased to announce that we are almost a two-taxi family again, because Mark has added the new engine into his.

From out of the heap of bashed-up rusty bits in the alley he has rebuilt a flying machine.

Well, he has almost rebuilt it. Misfortunately he has lost one vital bolt which will prevent the engine collapsing on to the top of the axle. He is cross with himself about this.

I am quite sure it is not really lost, because he has not thrown any bits away, and so presumably he has still got it somewhere.

He thinks that probably it has been put in his shed, which is more or less the same as being lost forever. Whenever I find out that something has been put away in his shed, I know that the simplest course of action would be just to buy another one.

I have suggested that a couple of zip ties might work just as well as a bolt, but he is determined. I am writing this on the taxi rank, and as far as I know he is at home hunting desperately through the tons of rusting detritus on his workbench.

LATER NOTE:  I became distracted there with customers and am now at home. I am pleased to tell you that a) I have made fifty quid, which is magnificent and can go towards the electricity bill deficit, and b) Mark has found his bolt, which he had borrowed to replace a previously lost one to hold his engine stand together.

I gave him a little lecture about personal organisation and methods which one can apply in order not to lose vital bolts, but he was not at all appreciative.

Still, his taxi is going. He has rebuilt it almost completely, and all there is to show for Saturday’s disaster is a small oil slick in the alley, which he will have to clear up tomorrow when it is daylight.

It is going to be Bank Holiday weekend, and we are in business.