Timor mortis conturbat me
These were the parting mots of the great Jack Strang, the classics master at my old Grammar towards the end of his retirement speech back in the middle sixties. He was playing for laughs because he was only 65. He was dead six months later, and I've always believed it was the Black and Decker Workmate presented to him in front of all the school that led directly to his demise. He couldn't DIY a plastic model of the Colliseum!
However, his words came back to haunt me after my lost weekend and - to dispel their horror - I dipped even further back in time to memories of the delicious Françoise Hardy: "Tous les garçons et les filles de mon âge se promenent dans la rue, deux par deux ..." The plaintive bittersweet melancholy of her voice and lyrics convinced me at the age of 14 and some months to read all the blurbs from the works of Jean Paul Sartre, post an overdue library tome by Simone de Beauvoir under the bed and buy an EP by Juliette Greco. In other words I became an instant existentialist.
I still am and Ms Hardy looks as hummable as ever.
After the St Chinian Incident, Tish was eventually recovered. I am sworn to secrecy about the exact locations she found herself in but one of them was outside the tabac on a Sunday.
She hasn't smoked in twenty years.
Sergei is wandering around oddly in various nooks of the terroir. He seems to throw invisible entities in one direction and pace towards them with some deliberation.
I have seen him do this before.
