Brooksy, I know…

This is a dopey question to ask ya…..err….. but what are you taking an elephant to Switzerland for – because she has never been there. It was 1982 and as 14-year-old two things happened in my life that were the bedrock to the man I became today.  My beloved Queens Park Ranger won promotion to the First Division (for the Sceptics, that’s the Premier League in today’s money) and Hannibal Brooks helped an Asian elephant across the Alps.

QPR getting to the promised land seemed impossible and is a feat in itself but crossing the Alps with an feckin big elephant presents a distinct set of challenges. I will shed some light on the task ahead of Hannibal (not Lector, concentrate!). Drum roll please for Craig’s geological fact of the day; the Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range in Europe. Not only that but I have firsthand experience and its feckin difficult to drive through the Gotthard Base tunnel in a coach, so walking an Asian elephant call Lucy over them during the Second World War is a completely different ball game (see what I did there). Watch the film it is a laugh, and no Lucy does fall to an agonising death from Mount Blanc nor is she shot by Nazi soldiers at a border check point. The film was made in a 1969 as a British war comedy starring Oliver Reed as Hannibal Brooks and was inspired by a true story of Olga the elephant rescued from Vienna Zoo in 1944 – Craig’s zoological fact of the day.

From Lucy’s great adventure navigating intense cardiovascular inclines to the humble Bumble Bee. There are 250 species of bees but they all stem from the tribe Bombus but it is not all about social insects that form colonies with a single queen but the distance they travel. Specifically, the way Mother Nature has dealt them a really crap hand to play with. Get comfortable and I will begin. The average bee flies about 8km (5 miles in old money) to find pollen, now Bombus flies at a speed of about 28km/h getting there and 17km/h getting back. Hopefully full of pollen because if he has not Queenie will kick his arse (well she won’t do it but order a soldier bee to do the necessary). Anyway, that is not my point, the poor fecker must be knackered because the humble Bumblebee is the most inefficient flying thing aerodynamically speaking created by Mother Nature – Craig’s mellitological fact of the day.

It sounds like Mother Nature has told the humble Bumblebee to toughen up and stop being a big girl’s blouse. Why? well not only does a bee’s BMI favours gravity, but its left wing flies independently to its right. For everyone else apart from Sir David Attenborough. Bombus uses brute force and pure determination to find pollen so that he does not return home empty handed and get his arse kicked. 

The next bounce……from independent functioning wings to turbulence, which is another questionable decision made by Mother Nature, which has horrific consequences for international jet setters like my good self. Since moving to the promised land that I have chosen to be my home there are times when I must travel back to Blighty. At this juncture I would like to inform you all that I feckin hate flying, yes, I suffer from Aerophobia. I refuse to fly anywhere; I have let my family fly without me and Covid was a god send in that regard. Flying for me is like the Alps were to Lucy – we should not be up there, and Mother Nature knows this that why the bitch came up with turbulence. Let me explain. On one must do journey back to Blighty I encountered WAKE turbulence which in my opinion is the Devils fart that has been wafted in my general direct by Mother Nature herself – get comfortable. 

Getting to Heathrow early so that I could have a couple of checky’s in preparation for a feckin 24-hour flight I waited for boarding instructions. I liken the atmosphere waiting for my seat number to be called out as to that of King Louis XVI starring at the guillotine during the French Revolution. Anyway, I took my seat in the middle of the plane with what can only be described as a squeaky bum moment, buckled up and waited for the roar of the Boeing A384 Rolls-Royce Trent 900 turbofans engines. As we took off, I kept telling myself that it was out of my hands, alcohol was my friend, and we would endure take off together. If you don’t know planes slowly angle up during takeoff at about 3 degrees per second and into the middle verse of When will I see you again (Google it people if your lost – numpties) we start to level out and the pilot yaws (aeronautical term for turning) to the right – then it happens. The right wing feckin drops and I can see Heathrow’s tarmac through the feckin window. In what seems like an eternity the pilot regains a horizonal position and in a very posh English accent informs us that the drinks trolly will be with us forth with. Welcome back my old friend, I have missed you. 

For those unfamiliar with my unusual writing style, I will embellish my last statement. For me alcohol is a dear friend, whose acquaintance I welcome in times of need and a posh pilot indicates a private school education from somewhere like Eton and a graduate of British Airways pilot program. I digress. For fecks sake Air Traffic Control turn to Page 48 of your feckin handbook, about halfway down just under the title Take Off Protocols and Timings it clearly states you should leave THREE feckin MINUTES or 180 SECONDS between take offs to avoid WAKE turbulence negating the need for male passengers to grab the nearest female and join the mile high club before what they suspect will be an untimely death. 

I know what you are thinking, how is Craig going to land the final bounce on the Guildford Stranglers and who are the Guildford Stranglers anyway. Guildford is a town in west Surrey not technically London so no joy with the Heathrow link BUT the Guildford Stranglers took a plane from Heathrow when they played here in Newy last month – pure feckin genius my Global Audience, pure genus – I thank you!! 

The Guildford Stanglers formed in 1973 playing the pubs and became famous for a song that peaked at No.2 in the UK singles chart with Golden Brown. I give you the The Stranglers, who played at the Cambridge Hotel on the 25th of April here in Newy, and they were feckin Corby brillyent. Because you lot are the best people in the world, I recorded it for your viewing pleasure and if you do not know the lyrics to Golden Brown they were about Heroin and a girl, but I do not know the order in which they were taken. With that thought in your mind…..Golden Brown by the Strangler live from the Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle, NSW Australia. 

With that, be safe people, respect our front liners, choose life, and, for pity’s sake, look after each other regardless of pronouns! – SAVVY