Last week Tillerman posted the picture above of two Star sailors for a caption competition. Oh yes, thinks I, what would really work would be bla bla bla. Fortunately before hitting the "Publish" button realised that no one would get why that caption made sense apart from me and (maybe) one other.
It was the result of one of those random chances. Waking up one Sunday morning with the usual pre coffee more asleep than awake brain, without thinking I grabbed the first t-shirt that came to hand.
What was important and worth thinking about over that first and most important latte was how I was to get to a rug shop by bike. This years big flat purchase is a rug for my living room and as they cost about the same as a decent dinghy it's worth spending some time looking for the right one.
This particular rug shop is in a very posh part of west London and while doable by bike meant a smart bit of navigation around the black hole known as Earls Court. However I made it and was soon helping the young salesman to go through a pile of 3 metre by 2 metre rugs.
All of a sudden he asked "So which Fastnet did you do then?"
For a moment I was amazed - they talk about knowing your customer but this was ridiculous! However then I noticed that the random t-shirt picked out that morning was indeed my Fastnet t-shirt, which sort of gave the game away.
We got chatting and it turned out my rug salesman was a bit more than your average weekend sailor, and had done not just a Fastnet but several. Indeed he had done a season or two of the Star sailing circuit, and when I got home I Googled his name, and yup there he was (and no, he wasn't one of those in the photo).
So when I saw Tillerman's picture my suggestion for a caption was going to have been: "Would you buy a new rug from this sailor?"
Hopefully you now know why it (sort of) would have made sense.
But also why that particular comment was never posted.
