(no subject)

Spent the latter part of yesterday evening and the time this morning between breakfast and our pick-up repeatedly playing the Kasia Kowalska song and practicing my rendition. All through the drive to Fareham, I held the lyrics in front of me and softly sang it over and over.

When we arrived in the Civic Offices car park, feeling fairly confident and wanting to get it over with, I made a bee-line for Agnieszka (though I was intercepted en route by Maria and had to kiss her before proceeding). She said good morning to me in Polish, I repeated it back accurately enough to satisfy her, then without further ado I took out my song sheet and began to sing. After getting over the initial surprise, Agnieszka soon joined in. When I was halfway through, she told me my pronunciation was excellent; I gave her a thumbs-up and a smile and continued singing, not wanting to lose my rhythm. When I'd finished my rendition (I'd only learned the first verse and chorus) Agnieszka warmly congratulated me, saying there were some difficult words for non-Poles in that particular song, but that it fortunately had a slow tempo. By now my mother had joined us, and began telling Agnieszka that, with my repeat plays, she'd come to like the tune and Kasia's voice. Agnieszka explained to my mother how Kasia is a major pop star in Poland, "she's lovely and we Poles love her very much", but that she's sadly on the wane now. Then she turned back to me and said I'd made her day, before telling Charles that he would now have to learn to sing Polish songs to her! Charles seemed a mite embarrassed, especially after taking one look at the song sheet - he's trying to learn Polish to please her, with varying success so far.

At that point we were all waved into the Civic Offices to be welcomed by John and Pam, the Mayor and Mayoress of Fareham, and have tea/coffee and luxury chocolate biscuits (mmm). I talked to Pat the County Council Chairman, Richard from Havant and Tony from Basingstoke. By the biscuit table I met Agnieszka again. "I wish I had someone to sing me Kasia Kowalska songs every morning," she said. "I don't think Charles will." From there I went to meet Katrina the Fareham Deputy Mayor and her husband Peter. I congratulated Peter on his excellent performance in Maskerade a few weeks ago. Pat, who was at the table with us, hadn't heard of the play or even of Terry Pratchett, so Peter explained "It's a spoof of Phantom of the Opera." I told John, the Mayor of Southampton, that there was a big photo in this month's FourFourTwo of his daughter Melanie getting her exam results, but he wasn't interested.

We were driven a short distance to the Lucketts coach company depot and were given a brief guided tour by the boss, then it was on to the Air Traffic Control Centre at Swanwick where we had a slide presentation and got to stand in the viewing gallery and watch the air traffic controllers hard at work in the Operations Rooms.

Next was the HMS Collingwood naval leadership training centre, where after the obligatory photo call (Richard's guest for the day Jackie shocked us by telling us to say 'sex' to smile. I stuck to 'drinks') we had lunch. We were sat with Richard and Jackie, with Jim and Maria next but one to us. It was there that Maria confirmed what the guest list said, that Agnieszka's name is Agnieszka not Annuszka - the latter is just the nearest to getting it right that Charles can manage. Even though my mother's Medieval Night has been postponed to mid-November, it still dominated conversation. Richard, who's now coming as Henry VIII, wanted to know if we'd found a jolly buxom maiden to be his companion for the evening yet (I hinted that Michelle, my mother's PA, would be up for it; he seemed potentially interested). Maria said she wanted to be the village tart... The tournados of beef was very tasty, but chewing one big bit made my newly-filled wisdom tooth ache for a little while :( We were all given a gift each of a handsome clear coaster with the Fareham town arms, the Mayor's name and the year on.

Then we had a guided tour of the centre. When we saw sailors sitting at computers engaged in a battle simulation, giving instructions to fire weapons, Pat soberly reflected that they were simulating World War III. Our tour ended at the assault course, where we saw some large metal buoys - several of the party pretended to egg each other on to try and move them, and Maria said "I'm not interested in getting these kind of buoys. I want to get B-O-Y-S boys!"

Lastly it was the Titchfield Haven nature reserve, with tea/cakes and coffee all round. My mother noted - with disapproval, I thought - that I'd taken a slice of fruit crumble and a slice of chocolate cake topped with a chocolate mint, but there was loads to go round (by the end of the afternoon there was still plenty left over) and there wasn't a sign saying 'only one cake each' so what's the deal? We watched the birds on the water from one of the hides for a while, then made our way back to reception to say our goodbyes.

Back in the Mayoral car my mother immediately told John about me 'serenading' Agnieszka in Polish - cue John giving me maximum stick about being a "ladies' man"...

(no subject)

On one of the Aisleyne fans' forums, I've just been alerted to mickmercer's excellent articles on BB7. Well said, sir. Over the last few days I've been learning a few unpleasant truths about BB...

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