A Right to bear cucumbers.

A long time ago, long enough to think it happened to someone else, I was in a park in Barcelona with my business partner Dave and a couple of hundred other men women and children who lived in the city; Dave and I were just passing through.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful park and we had found a perfect spot for a show, our backs to an ornate fountain that offered potential improvised comic possibility and we had a commanding view of the walkways from where are audience finally emerged.

We had started the performance, finished the joke about Madrid and completed the three-ball routine, we were probably just about to cut the cucumber with the knives when a policeman marched into the centre of our juggling circle and demanded that we stop.

He had a gun on his hip, we had a cucumber and six knives made from blunt steel by a friend of Dave’s who had a workshop in north London. We were prepared to stop.

But before we could the audience started shouting at him and suddenly he was faced with a 200 strong Catalan protest, everyone protesting that it was our right and he should leave us alone.

He tried to argue for a moment and then stormed off in defeat.

There was a pause.

The cucumber remained where it was.

Water from the fountain splashed contentedly.

“Carry on”, said a man at the front.

That would never have happened in England, we knew from experience. If a man in blue told you to stop, you stopped - and he would stand there until you had packed everything away, including yourself.

Later that week an American warship arrived off the coast and a small boat full of officers tried to tie up in the harbour.

An old man was standing fishing in the only space available and they asked him to move – he declined.

Very quickly a crowd gathered in his support and an international crisis was only averted when he hooked a sardine and left to ringing applause. The Americans were eventually able to dock but were forced to cordon off a small section of concrete and post two armed guards to ensure that they would be able to embark when the trip to the city centre was over.

This week, at the football world cup, an event occurred that seems to confirm that Europe still has a different attitude to authority than the English.

A footballer swore at his coach, really swore, got sent home and the rest of the team went on strike because they hadn’t been consulted - and the player who was sent home hadn’t even been playing that well!

It can’t be something to do with republics because Spain at the time of the events I describe was a dictatorship.

Maybe it’s the sun?

Missing Mendezies

Dave sent me an email recently – “Sad to say the >Amazing Mendezies entry on Wikipedia is no more. It says they have deleted it as it was not notable enough.”

Now some of you have met Dave before; he features in these pages more than once.

He has stylishly contributed to The Mirror Posts, was hugely influential in the end-of-summer Improvisation Posts and if it weren’t for him the Down the Rabbit Hole post would never have existed.

He holds the official, unbeatable record, as the first person to leave a comment on my blog and the official world record (108), probably beatable, for spinning plates.

Which makes him the only double record holder I have ever met.

He also, incidentally, has had more superfluous internal organs – like tonsils – removed than I had ever imagined existed.

But have I ever introduced him properly?

Bitsnbobs readers – this is Dave.
Dave – this is a bitsnbobs reader.

Dave lives in Ireland, way down South West in a little village that they call a town, which has a fishing fleet, the world’s dinkiest car ferry and one of the World’s greatest Pubs – McCarthy’s.

The village also has Dave, and it would be a poorer place without him.

I am thinking of Dave this morning as I have just read that the Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race (an event of staggering unimportance yet a huge part of my childhood) took place on Saturday.

On another Saturday 28 years ago, Dave and I decided to take our comic juggling show to Putney where the race ends, we had read that historically buskers had worked the event.

We wandered along the bank of the river looking for a pitch, came across a small festival, did a show there and wandered onwards.

Somewhere near the finish line we found an open space, a bridge behind us and a huge crowd waiting to see the finish.

It was a risk, but we were fairly confident of our ability to do a good show. The problem was that the best moment to start the show was just after the boats had crossed the finish line as the people turned and headed for home. Too early and no one would pay the slightest attention, too late and we would be left staring at the litter they had left behind.

We set up – a small snare drum, a carpet, a unicycle, some juggling clubs, boxes, balls and fire sticks, and two bowler hats; we took time on the aesthetic design.

Then we waited.

The boats slipped home.

It was frightening – a wave of humans turning towards us like a Tsunami, heading for the bridge, parked cars and away – could we stop them?

“Ladies and gentlemen!”

I guess there is something about sitting on the river bank, waiting hours for two rowing boats to slide past that will make most people desperate for entertainment of a more direct nature.

They all stopped.

Even those up on the bridge.

It was a perfect auditorium.

And the show was brilliant.

Dave finished the email that he sent me recently with the question – “I don’t know, WERE we notable?”

We were that day.