the A666 revisited again

"Get your kicks on the A666." With apologies to Bobby Troup (also Nat King Cole, Bob Dylan ....)

What is it about the middle classes shopping on Saturday? Why must tousled haired children ride their scooter through the cramped health food store calling out the names of products to Mummy, who replies from behind a huge buggy "Yes Josh darling, very good. Could you get me some quinoa?"?  My hackles really shouldn't rise. It's a British disease, class conciousness. This healthy child banging into people's legs is a testament to the importance of literacy, and of a healthy diet. In any case, what with all that wine and pasta last night, not to mention getting the Guardian this morning, I must be pretty middle class myself. Accept that I'm earning £100 a week. Maybe I just don't like wheels in shops.

Saturday on the A666, is good cheap entertainment, whether you're being grumpy or not. Today, for example there are quite a lot bikers on Harleys and ancient British bikes. With their white pony tails and beards they look like Hell's Walruses. They've probably all got allotments like me. There's also a man playing the accordion. He espouses French and eastern European styles. He plays rather quietly and might even be asleep. He wears a bowler hat and and dress trousers, so perhaps he represents the European Union having a lie in. He's not making a lot of dosh. I think opening his eyes might help.

The European theme continues at lunch. Cho and I have Chorizo (just a coincidence) in a French stick. If we were really Spanish we would bang some Chorizo into a baguette-style loaf that just had some olive oil on it. Being British, we tart it up with an assemblage of leaves and tomato. We have a history of going round the world improving things.

We have a reputation for wet weather too. This is sometimes deserved. For instance it's the Ryder Cup, which is a golf tournament between Europe and the USA in Wales. This contest perhaps demonstrates that we really are - despite Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair's fawnings over Ronald Reagan and George W Bush respectively - Europeans. This comes back to the weather because the American team have had to go and buy more waterproofs and the whole thing is going on an extra day because it's so wet. How exciting is that?

The afternoon, however, is quintessentially British. It is grey and damp with some fitful sun on the allotment. You can almost hear the Kinks. And if the paper is to be believed the forthcoming unemployment may be at one and the same time both quintessentially British and truly global. Good luck everyone. Keep digging