THE MIGHTY EOTWQ, ON A TUESDAY WITH LITTLE PICS.

I'm embarrassed about these pics, no idea why they're so tiny, you'll have to put your specs on.

Oh dear, I don't know what possessed me to volunteer for this week, hundred and eight bloody comments, an all-time record and I have to choose to be the mug, I must be bloody daft. Alright, let's get on with it, this has been lurking at the back of my feeble brain for some time and I've come up with a list that should be interesting but that bit's up to you lot.

1. The Forks in the Road. Decisions and events where your life changes.
Some time back I had the thought of making this question a 'standalone' topic for the Spill, instead we'll slip it in here.
When I was 12 right after WW2 and was living with my granny in Sheffield, one day my recently demobbed dad sat me down for some serious chat. He and my birth mother were separated and he was starting a new family in London with the woman I'd always thought of as my stepmother; the question he posed to me was, "Would I like to come and live with them in London or would I prefer to stay in Sheffield with my granny?" It was a hard choice, I was perfectly happy with Sheffield, it was all I had known, I'd lived with her from the age of 2, but I also realised that granny was getting on in years and wouldn't last forever, I chose London.
Looking back I've wondered who I might have become had I made the other choice, little education with not much chance of getting any more, in a war devastated dirty industrial city and a granny who had little idea of counseling a young lad re. career options. I would have probably wound up getting a menial job in some industrial company which might have set a lifelong pattern. That was the first 'fork', there were many more after that, points where I can look back and see decisions and events that were in retrospect, life changing.
So the big question is 'what were the forks in your road', with details please.

2. The most unforgettable character you've ever known. This used to be a regular feature in Reader's Digest way back, I've stolen their title. I've known quite a few but my longtime friend Bruce fits for this topic. He's a machinist at the university where I worked, he makes whatever the professors in the Engineering dept. need for their experiments. He was hired as a young man with no skills and no ability to read or write through a program that existed to help train young people. He became an assistant to an English bloke who ran three machine shops. Bruce, though illiterate is very smart and very intelligent and he learned everything the English bloke taught him very easily so that when his teacher retired a few years later he was promoted into that position. He still can't read or write, part of our friendship involved me doing that for him but he can glance at a drawing and tell you instantly how to change it for the better and he'll go ahead and make it his way anyhow, no-one's ever complained. He's slightly eccentric, he owns a Greyhound bus, several military vehicles, nine motor cycles, mostly racing bikes, several everyday cars and a collection of guns sufficient to arm a small army; he has one of everything. He doesn't pay anyone to do anything, if something needs to be done, he does it whether it's putting a new roof on the house, designing and building specialty guns, rebuilding the Greyhound's engine or maintaining any and all of his fleet of vehicles. His wife is Chinese and he has two teen age kids, both musicians.
Who's your most unforgettable character?

3. I realise I'm in the midst of a bunch of sorts nuts here, not a passion I share. So here's one just for you.
If I could arrange for you to spend an evening with any sports figure in history, who would you choose and why and what specifically would you want to talk about? I'll also pick up the dinner tab. I enjoyed the Federer/Nadal Wimbledon final a few years ago and there's a few of the 80's Lakers I'd enjoy meeting. I twice got to sit under the basket as a photographer at finals games with the Celtics, what a perspective!
So who's your favorite sports personality?



4. Art, we've got to have some art. Money's no object [I'm going to talk to Blimpy about this, he's got the bankroll]
What piece of art would you want to have in your house permanently, and you can interpret 'art' in any way you choose, if your ideal is Don Bradman's bat, I'll get it for you. In the early 60's I went to a Picasso exhibition at the LA county museum of Art, I had a camera slung round my neck. There was a small very simple pencil drawing from his early period titled 'Bride and Groom', it was a realistic frontal view of a peasant couple standing and holding hands, I thought it was beautiful, I took a photo. There was a tap on my shoulder and I was read the riot act about taking pictures in art galleries by a big burly guy. A friend, a single mother, lived in a house with a large, [8ft by 12ft] empty white wall in the dining room, I asked her if she'd like a Picasso on it, 'Yes'. I put the slide in a projector and projected the image life-sized onto the wall, I traced the pencil outlines with a stick of charcoal and then sprayed over them with a matte fixative, it looked spectacular!
But that's not what I'd want for my piece of art, I've always wanted to have a Rolls Royce Merlin Engine, it's the aircraft engine that was used in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, Mosquitos, Mustangs; in everything, it's the engine that won the war. I'd like to have one on a plinth in my living room, polished and painted to original specs. They're big, 6ft long 4ft high, V12 water cooled, 3/4 of a ton, 2000hp. If it came with a 3 blade propellor I'd mount that on the wall. And I'd like it to be a 'used' one.
What piece of art would you like to have?

5. OK, since we've just been to the museum, let's make that the last topic. What is your favorite museum anywhere in the world. In an ideal world I'd live in California and own a nice, centrally located flat in London. Whenever the urge would take me, and it would be quite often, I'd jump on the SF-Heathrow Virgin 747 and spend my days visiting all the museums and galleries in London that I've enjoyed all my life, the highlights are Science and Industry, [I lived in there as a kid, one of the benefits of my choice in #1], The British, the Imperial War, the V&A, National Maritime and all the galleries including some 'new' ones I haven't yet seen. And I love that London's museums are free to the public.
So which is your favorite museum and why?


5A. For extra credit you can if you so choose write your epitaph, something simple that'll fit on a headstone. If you need help try Google. I kinda like Here lies W.C. Fields. "I would rather be living in Philadelphia."
He hated Philadelphia.

OK, have at it and don't forget we have a huge challenge if we're to topple the mighty Toffee. Vote and vote often, cheat if you must!
Sorry about the tiny pictures, I've no idea why they've come out so small, I scanned them the same as usual.