Ah, the jokes of my youth…

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
A: A newspaper

Tell that to kids today and they just don’t understand. Happily,

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
A: A nun in a blender

still works.

Printed newspapers are almost gone, and those that remain are a shadow of their former selves. While this has saved a lot of trees, there were so many useful things you could do with newsprint when you were finished reading it: making paper hats, lighting fires, wrapping fish and chips. These days fish and chips are wrapped in plain paper, so you can’t enjoy greasy football scores or the occasional malt vinegar scented page three girl while munching your battered haddock.

Tudor buildings are also known as black and whites, so if you want your fish and chips in black and white these days, you just have to find a chippie in a Tudor building. This is the second one we have seen on this trip.

Market Drayton has a few nice black and whites. The town center had a big fire in 1651, so these were put up shortly after that.

Our old friends Peter and Sherri joined us this afternoon, and we set out up a flight of five locks. It was very windy, I gave a fine demonstration of how to bounce a boat off the sides of the lock entrance for the first couple of locks. At least when they take the tiller now they won’t be worried embarrassed by hitting things. I wanted to moor up after the last lock, but I had a mutiny on my hands. There were cows in the pasture across the way, and the moorings smelled of cow dung. So we went on another mile or so, and found a dung free mooring.

Here are some more black and whites.