Where the Water Meets the Land

Clotted cream it was that set everything in motion; the French slyly claiming it as their own creation to the great surprise and blubbering exasperation of the Brits who sought to defend their solitary culinary foothold. A Great Debate ensued with much shouting and finger pointing. Bombastic experts provided conflicting historical evidence, each succeeding claim topping the previous by half a century or more till the French pounded their collective fist and brought everything to a momentary halt with the presentation of a disgusting bit of maybe-once-white-dried-something extracted from the crop of a prehistoric bird discovered quite fortuitously in a boggy area on the outskirts of Nice. There being no further ground to explore in that direction, the debate swung from the origin of clotted cream to who was going to damn well have whatever clotted cream there was.

The challenge of an epic tug-of-war was hurled by the British and accepted by the French. 14 red blooded souls set sail from London, each one hand selected from prestigious rugby and darts clubs, each one a bulking marvel of cornfed fitness; legs like tree trunks and nuclear arms.

The French team was no match for the Brits in size. Relying instead on guile, the cunning French schemed distraction of their grunting adversaries with clever limericks and promises of Beaujolais. The tug-of-war had barely begun when two of the cleverest Frenchmen dropped the rope to engage croissants, and a third called time out for a bathroom break -- but there are no timeouts in tug-of-wars so the French team was dragged mercilessly across rough ground, into the English Channel and clear across it before the lagging three caught up and slowed the route.

On the shore of Brighton the tide did turn as waterlogged Brits howled their laughter and rolled in the sand to 'There was a young lady from Kent' and those French guys saw their chance and darted back into the water . . .

And so it goes with our struggle, back and forth. One minute we've got the upper hand and the next we're in the muck of deep despair. It's us against the contractor, then us and the bank against the contractor, then somehow the bank against us; and possibly even us and dreadful contractor against the bank before we're done. Nothing's easy. And we're not squabbling over clotted cream here.