He spent seven years teaching at a school in Southall, west London, before taking up a job in Leominster, Herefordshire. And, just two weeks into the Leominster job, he found himself back in London, taking his new charges on a trip to Wembley Stadium. He remembers their looking out of the coach window and laughing at passing Rastafarians "I was appalled," he said, "but it wasn't their fault. It wouldn't be as bad now, because there are more black people in sport and music But we still have to work at it. I sometimes think that, with the Government's drive toward literacy and numeracy, we are so preoccupied with attainment in schools that we overlook things at least as important." Clearly, my children are in good hands.Who needs literary references when there's children's TV?My wife, Jane, let out a shriek in bed last night.
Nothing to do with being buzzed by flies, as it usually is, but because she is reading Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History and in it came across a golden retriever called Milo We have a golden retriever called Milo. We bought him from a breeder near Hereford the day after we moved here last summer, as a bribe to our children, who were worried that they would miss their friends. We thought his name original, although we have since come across several other doggy Milos, including, now, a literary one.Our more intellectual friends have always assumed that our Milo has literary origins, that we named him after a character in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22.
06/12 - 08/12 Attain War Horse Tickets staging in Curran Theatre, Morrison Center For The Performing Arts. War Horse is staging in San Francisco, Boise and New York. War Horse tickets
07/11 - 09/11 Procure Milwaukee Brewers Tickets performing in Coors Field, Great American Ball Park. Milwaukee Brewers is performing in Denver, Cincinnati and Milwaukee. Milwaukee Brewers tickets
07/11 - 08/11 Land New York Mets Tickets staging in Nationals Park, Petco Park. New York Mets is staging in Washington, San Diego and Miami Gardens. New York Mets tickets
We are happy to go along with that, but the truth is that Milo is named after a TV character greatly revered by my younger son. Milo owes his name not to Catch-22 but to The Tweenies.These anecdotes are hit and myth My slightly grudging thanks to all those readers who wrote and e-mailed in response to the story I related last week about my clergyman friend.By an extraordinary coincidence, it turned out that an uncannily similar story had appeared in this newspaper's property section only the day before, related by an estate agent (although, as I dispatched my column the day before that, I am able to plead not guilty to the charge that I don't read my own paper). Most readers pointed out the repetition good-naturedly; a few revelled in my perceived embarrassment. Just this morning, I received an anonymous letter cattily addressed to "Lord" Brian Viner, containing my column and the relevant Confessions of an Estate Agent.There was an arrow pointing at my head, and the old Herefordshire word "twazzock". Twazzock yourself.Another reader e-mailed me with the withering observation: "I could enjoy a most convivial evening at the pub, given a pint for every inspector in the life-and-pensions office I worked for who told the tale of the fierce dog and his balls in posh ladies' gardens."But even urban or semi-rural myths have to start somewhere. As we in the country know, there's rarely smoke without fire. And the partner of my clergyman friend assures me that he has been describing his encounter for 43 years, so quite clearly it did happen to him, and all those estate agents and pensions inspectors have been appropriating the story as though it had happened to them.Besides, you have to admit that, as an anecdote, true or false, it really is the dog's bollocks. And had I not told it, it would not have prompted another reader to recall a "young curate" story told to him by the vicar in the village in which he grew up. The young curate, said the vicar (for it had been he, 20 years earlier), was a muscular Christian with a love for the great outdoors, but also a shy man. He agreed to instruct his flock in the art of canoeing in a nearby swimming-pool and was teaching one busty female parishioner how to execute the eskimo roll when he saw, to his horror, that although she had successfully righted the canoe, her bikini top had somehow failed to complete the same journey.Far too embarrassed to point it out, he took the snap decision to do nothing and, in the words of my correspondent, "was therefore subjected to the sight of a topless woman bobbing in and out of the water" for quite some time, presumably until she became aware of her predicament.That was the vicar's story.
