Michel

Hiya,

Yes, you are correct – not what one would call an easy read, with all the details you put into the book. Quite interesting though. And, as you very well know, I simply love your English – your vocabulary is slightly larger than the middle-of-the-road gibberish one is obliged to listen to these days. Innit? 

 The fact, by the way, that your co-author Pete was going through a rough patch at the time with his first(!) wife, suggests that he did not stop there. There must have been at least a second one. Or did he decide to turn gay 

 after that? Well, come to think of it, I may not want to know actually 

.
And, yes, the manuscript you sent me, is certainly worthwhile to publish, if you ask me (uh…which you did). Young enthusiasts at diving would love to read about your adventures, I am certain of it. The only qualms I have (I believe I told you before): you are so damned honest. You are not making up diddly, you are telling your adventures exactly the way they happened, relentlessly sticking to the facts. Once upon a time I had a good friend called Michel. Michel was a great storyteller. Me and my mates hung on Michel´s every word. But, every now and then (probably when he was thinking he might be stretching it a bit), he would look at me kind of sideways and say: Isn´t it true, Jaap, isn´t that how it happened?Of course I always corroborated his story – what are friends for? But I must admit that most of the times I did not have the foggiest what he was on about it. I would need to dig deep into my memory and then I might stumble across an uneventful occasion I had been part of, which Michel had turned into an absolutely great story. I hope you understand what I want to tell you (as I know I don´t). Well, I seem to remember one occurrence in your manuscript, where you tell the story about the party you attended in a small coastal town, and afterwards when you wanted to get to the boat in order to go home, there was a black-out, and all the boys and girls were giggling, some of them having had one or two too many, and the slippery steps, as it was low tide… Well, something like that! By then the reader is ripe with anticipation: Yes, it is going to happen… someone is definitely going to fall in, I´m sure of it….And then you: Well, the next morning I went to the office and set down at my desk. (or something like that). Oh, my god, Arthur! We wanted someone to fall in! What do we care if you pushed her or not? We want a laugh!I remember a scene on telly with the two Ronnies. I must have been 12 at the time. The tall one poured a spot of wine in a large glass for the other Ronny to taste. Well, when he did he immediately flew into one of those fits of coughing and choking that last at least five minutes. During those five minutes I was tearing myself up – I had tears in my eyes, I swear to God – because I knew in advance that at the end he was going to say – all cool, calm, and collected – “Yes, that´s perfect, thank you!”But…. he HAS to say that, if you can see what I´m getting at, otherwise the joke is… incomplete!Well, maybe you haven´t got a clue what I´m on about. Then again, you may.
Let´s see – what else is there? Nothing much, really. Hang on, isn´t there something going on… wait, don´t say it… it starts with Br… and it ends with… exit.Well, my friend, I am sure you are right about all that. Y´all voted at the time for joining an economic bloc, not a political one. Although I fail to see what is so horribly wrong with “The United States of Europe” as you call it. Then again, I am not the smartest cookie in the jar, am I now. Actually I could not care less if the UK left the bloc, with or without a deal. But that was before Lucy went to live in the UK. You see now, how having children changes a bloke? In my case, a fully grown one 

! Now I have a child living in the UK that needs her medicine on time, I suddenly want you to leave WITH a deal 

!But, coming back to the fact that the economic bloc has turned into a political one without consulting the British people first… you are not really serious about that, are you? To me it sounds a wee bit like: “Hey, I agreed to being born into the UK (Scarborough of all places on top of that!), but that does not automatically imply that I agreed to paying taxes! Let me renegotiate my deal!”What I mean is (I guess 

)… that´s exactly the reason why we choose representatives, don´t we, to decide on important questions too complicated for us to waste our time on, haha! And when our particular representative in our view is doing a poor job, next time around we give our vote to the next one. Isn´t that how it works, representative democracy… uhh, should work? We cannot have a referendum about each and every political issue, can we now. Or am I missing your point? Well, we haven´t seen the end of the suffering yet, I´m afraid. At least one more year of hooliganism, I am hearing. 
Sorry, pal, I have to get back to work. I received another batch of files to translate about half an hour ago. But, as I had just started this email to you (finally) I thought I might just as well finish it first. Although I am certain I leave plenty of things uncovered. C´est la vie!

Our love to you both,
Jaap