by Keith Evans
I'm sure the rarefied atmosphere of the tower causes cerebral hypoxia bringing about altered perception amongst the odd balls amongst us. May I share with you some of the gems which have come my way recently, like the earnest young man who swore the water inside the pontoons was higher than the water outside. Optical illusion I suggested. 'Oh no' he said. 'I study these things. It's definitely higher.' Which clinic did you graduate from, I thought, private or NHS?
Then there was the rather gaunt lady with spectacles on the end of her nose who sidled up to me and whispered 'This tower is trembling.' I whispered back 'Do you think so?' 'Oh yes,' she said, 'it's definitely trembling'. Well if there's going to be an earthquake, follow me, I thought. One earthquake in a lifetime is enough.
A chap with a northern accent looked across the river and asked 'Is that glass dome the Eden Project?' No, I thought, it's sloping water where the Cornish practice water skiing. When I explained that it was a plastic covered potato field he looked at me in disbelief.
Yet again, yesterday, the ghost of St Nazaire appeared. After my talk in Lookout an old chap came to me and said his uncle was on one of the few MTBs that returned from the raid. He was then assigned to a destroyer which was torpedoed and sunk a day off Plymouth. He survived that too.
