“If you wait a few minutes,” he said, “your aunt’ll have the joint on the table, and all the flies’ll have gone there.”Tickled by this and other such tales, I decided to look up the author. I found an entry for Ariss in the local phone directory, and dialled the number A man answered “Could I speak to Paddy Ariss?” I asked There was a pause “I wish you could,” he said. “She died three years ago.”I was mortified, as well as saddened. Her husband Peter, for he it was, told me that she succumbed to leukaemia, aged 72, barely a year after finishing the book, but had had huge fun writing it. He explained that Herefordshire Privies was one of a series, and suggested that I call the publishers, Countryside Books. Which I did, and spoke to a Mrs Battle, the owner, who informed me that Molly Harris, who played Martha in The Archers, had written the original, Cotswold Privies, and that a later volume called Hertfordshire Privies was written by the former newsreader Richard Whitmore. You can’t say that this column doesn’t furnish you with conversation-stoppers.There are 11 titles in the series, she added, of which the biggest seller by far was East Anglian Privies.

“The subject is a bit earthy for some counties,” said Mrs Battle. “But East Anglia embraced it with great excitement.”An eggs-titential dilemmaOur egg assembly line has slowed right down as the nights draw in, with 11 hens currently producing only three daily eggs between them. This has led, perforce, to a considerable reduction in our egg consumption. Since early spring the children have, on most mornings, each been eating a couple of boiled eggs for breakfast I quite often poach a couple for lunch. And whenever we have friends round, I like to knock up a frittata to slice up and offer with drinks. With the regular Sunday-morning pancake frenzy, the occasional baking session and the odd omelette, I would estimate, over the last six months or so, a 60-70 eggs weekly average between the five of us.But since production plummeted, we’re down to only 20-30.

Boiled-egg breakfasts have given way to porridge, the frittata to crisps and nuts. Of course, there is always the option of buying eggs, but somehow I can’t quite bring myself to put them in the shopping basket. Such are the perils of semi- self-sufficiency.Privy counselIf I might return fleetingly to the privy, Paddy Ariss also revealed in her excellent book that the two-holer at Great Parton Farm once felt the weight of a famous posterior; that of Mrs Winston Churchill. Which reminded her of the old story about Churchill being visited by the Lord Privy Seal, who had been disrespectful towards him that day in the House of Commons The butler duly went to find Churchill, who was on the loo “The Lord Privy Seal is here to see you, sir,” he called. To which the great man supposedly responded, “Tell the Lord Privy Seal that I am sealed to my privy, and can only deal with one shit at a time.”
More from Brian Viner.

Europe has a valid model of its own which is more suited to the world of the future than the fading American dream. And we should not do it: those straws in the wind for the incoming American president are omens that we Europeans should heed, too.m.dejevsky independent.co.uk
More from Mary Dejevsky. Thus, despite their superior productivity indicators, shorter working hours, superior health systems, more benevolent social safety nets, more merciful judicial systems and more successful diplomacy, even the French and Germans are being bamboozled into following Britain in adopting more American free-market ways.Don’t do it, he is telling us You are on the right track. The world of the future, he implies, may contemplate the two models and prefer European measures of contentment.Rifkin’s argument is so compelling because it uses simple facts and figures to challenge existing US claims of supremacy.

He is also a man with a mission – not only to convince Americans that they must notice renascent Europe, but to convince Europeans that they share important values and that their project is something to be proud of. For, deep down, he fears that Europe and its destiny are in danger of passing each other by.Even as the US model becomes unsustainable, he worries, those Europeans hitherto most resistant to the American model are finally capitulating. He has the sort of ability the NHS hierarchy find invaluable but his skills are portable; the arc of his career can encompass any number of great departments, and we’ll be seeing a lot more of him.
I mean all this in the worst possible way, naturally. The brilliant, tragic Gram Parsons could provide a blueprint for Keats, while the Dixie Chicks could only be the Bront?isters. I see Tolstoy, bearded, battered and wise, returning in the form of the almost equally great Willie Nelson.Few of these projects are likely to cast much light on the way great writers lived in the past but, in that quirky and ironical way of conceptual art, they will certainly tell future generations more than they want to know about the early 21st century’s favourite subject – itself.terblacker aol
More from Terence Blacker. Anyway, he argues, most of the accepted economic indicators favour US definitions of success. France, Germany and others may have flouted the borrowing conditions, but not by much – look at the debts the United States has run up.