As many know, Guy Kewney's final send-off (although there's still to be a party/memorial service next month sometime) was Thursday. It was a surprisingly happy funeral, with much laughter and many good Guy stories told. This was my favorite, told by Phil Kemp, who was Guy's friend for 44 years.
>>So the story goes that when Lucy and Alice were little he decided to build them a sandbox (known here as a sandpit) in the back yard. And he built a very respectable one. Happiness. And then they went on vacation. And came back to find that all the neighborhood cats had said, "Oh, *cool*! An outdoor toilet!" A normal person would empty it out, buy more sand, and keep it covered. Guy was not a normal person. He sifted the sand, removed all the turds, and then decided to sterilize the sand to reuse it. So he poured it all, stinking of ammonia, into a giant kettle he found in the basement, added some bleach and water and god knows what else, and proceeds to boil it up on the stove.
At this point, a French cousin arrives to find a huge cloud of evil, ammonia-smelling steam, Guy dimly visible stirring the pot with a stick like a witch out of Macbeth. Cousin asks, "WTF?" Guy says, "Oh, just boiling some sand." Cousin replies without missing a beat, "Ah, la cuisine Anglaise." >>
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