Dear Couch,
All very encouraging and the Irish connection sounds fascinating! As to the weave of the stripe - this is impressive attention to detail! Any other members have views on this aspect?
Secondly, all members might like to know that - possibly the first - meeting of any members of the club,
as members took place today: beginning outside the British Consulate in RdeJ when my Dear Wife and I met Marcelo, by arrangement. I quickly filed my forms for renewal of my pasport and then we all made off, under Marcelo's direction, to a delightful cafe, near the entrance to the cable car for the Sugar Loaf Mountain. There, Marcelo kindly lent me his copy of Farid Chenoune's History of Men's Fashion and we had coffee and ice cream and talked (to the shame of my dear Wife and me in English - owing - as evident in the LL - to Marcelo's superlative commmand of it, in comparison with our Britishers' stumbling attempts to master any other language), until Marcello's own Dear Wife arrived. Her first language is German and we asked whether she minded speaking in English. She replied that she had little chance to practise it but then demonstrated a linguistic ability equivalent to her husband's. They speak together with, to us, equal facility, in German or Portuguese but, so far as we could tell, they might just as well converse together in English. Presumably, their abilities in German and Portuguese exceed their abilities in English - if this unlikely possibility proved true, then I might truly consider eating my hat. After this, they took us on a delightful cliffside walk around the first mountain, between the cable car entrance and the Sugar Loaf itself. Hearing of our wish to visit a bookshop, which sold books in English - they took us to a magnificent one, which also had the benefit of a gallery where we had lunch and talked much more. No minutes were taken, no decisions even suggested and we all had a thoroughly enjoyable time, in the best spirit of the club; promising before we parted, to meet again very soon.
NJS