Wonders of the modern world, number four

There, on a council estate, in the bit of north London which has stopped being Camden Town and has not quite become Kentish Town, there, just off the main road, slap in the middle of that estate, is a crazy golf course. It's an official one, with all the tricky little holes and tunnels and slopes you get in a seaside amusement park. It even has a sign on it, saying something like: this golf course is for the residents of this estate and their guests.

A crazy golf course on a council estate? I stretch to even imagine the meeting at which that was discussed and agreed. What was said? Could anyone keep a straight face? Did they say things like: swings and roundabouts are so 20th century! Or: it's a narrative which addresses the middle-class hegemony of golf. Or: nothing is too good for council tenants, they deserve a crazy golf course.

I guess that I could, of course, call up someone at Camden council and ask them but, frankly, I'm happier with my musings than I might be with the facts.

I walk past it fairly often and I've yet to see anyone playing on it, though. I've always fancied having a go but the problem is there is nowhere to rent golf clubs for it. Now there's a business opportunity going begging.

Meanwhile . . . Cheap flights

Next up The story of Lacan's con (enfin)

Wonders of the modern world, number three

'Clayton initially lost his place in the team to the more adventurous and flamboyant Eddie Clamp of Wolves.' I read that line in The Guardian's obituary of Blackburn and England right-half, Ronnie Clayton. It was written by Brian Glanville – who, as it happens is a the grandfather of one of my son's best friends and the ex-father-in-law of a friend of mine.

I can't make up my mind what I most love about that sentence. Is it the word 'initially'? Or is it that it's about a football player called Ronnie Clayton? Rather than, say, Amine Linganzi or Benjani Mwaruwari. Or is the charming dislocation between the phrase 'adventurous and flamboyant' and the name Eddie Clamp of Wolves?

Next up Golfing in Camden Town