If all else fails, there’s always basket weaving

The only thing left for me now is to embrace humility and take up basket weaving. In our dog and ferret club in the 1990s we had a ferret guy called Ron. Ron was an old sweat Royal Marine and he applied Royal Marine levels of commitment and organisation to our dog and ferret shows, as a strategy, I think, in his battle against the bottle. In the Royal Marines, he told me, anyone suspected of alcoholism was sent on a basket-weaving course. All his ferret cages were hand woven and I went to his house once and his TVTimes had a beautiful basketwork cover.

Or the harmonica. I’ve lately made a serious start to learning to play licks on the blues harmonica. It is harder than it looks and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll be around long enough to master even the simplest Sonny Terry or Magic Dick harmonica lick.