Sedayne - I enjoyed your last post

To which I might add in terms of Englishness, a consideration of the history of Delaval Hall is most enlightening, especially as it's still in essentially the same family as it was when the lands were granted shortly after the Norman Conquest. Worth a visit - the hall is Vanburgh's masterpiece and the chapel dates from 1102, and there's some charming landscapes thereabouts too - the beautiful Hollywell Dene for example (wherein I once sang Long Lankin), and the historic harbour of Seaton Sluice itself - and all within a short bus ride of Newcastle. All this and Davey Minikin's Blue Stone Folk Club at The Delaval Arms in Old Hartley on a Sunday Night too...

and, to quote the ex-Aus.-PM, Bob Hawke, "let me say this": I am not against you moving to another part of England (you and Bobby Chalton, e.g., prefer, for the time being at least, the NW; I prefer the NE) BUT I would be very disappointed if you left permanently for Aus.

I am an assured citizen of but two things: firstly, my own skin, and secondly the planet upon which (according to family tradition) I was born; the rest is just so much conceptualised clap-trap, however so intriguing in terms of anthropology (which is just so much Academic Voyeurism based on the myth of Cultural Hierarchy) but ultimately useless in terms of our actual humanity. Without human individuals there'd be no culture in the first place, so ultimately, as I say, as long as there's satisfactory atmospheric pressure to maintain the integrity of our human form, then I don't suppose it matters where we live.

As for tennis, you may like to have a classless slash with Phil and I sometime - FOR FREE!

In England at least, WAV, nothing is ever quite classless, but I welcome the invitation even though the last time I ever held such a thing as a tennis racquet I was fourteen, 1975, and I was soundly thrashed by my friend's 11-year-old sister in the courts at Whitley Bay thus losing all interest in the game thereafter.