{"id":2328,"date":"2013-09-10T00:28:11","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T00:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=2328"},"modified":"2017-07-02T06:49:46","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T06:49:46","slug":"sunday-8th-september-2013-nothing-is-more-empty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=2328","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 8th September 2013 – “NOTHING IS MORE EMPTY …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"clinton<\/a>… than a deserted fairground” said John Betjeman in his book First and Last Loves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So I reckon that he must have been to Clinton, Maine in the past because, believe me, this was empty and deserted. Mind you, it was something silly like 07:30 in the morning in the middle of a torrential rainstorm so that might have something to do with it.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we didn’t hang around any and we were on Interstate 95 pretty early heading back northwards. A stop at Dysart’s truckstop for breakfast (for me, beans on toast with hash browns on the side) but, unfortunately, no cheerleaders, and then off shopping to a place called Sam’s Club. <\/p>\n

Anyone from the UK will immediately recognise the concept only under another name – Makro – a trade warehouse for small businesses. <\/p>\n

We ended up with three trolley-loads of stuff to bring home but I reckon that I won the prize, finding a copy of “Dragon”, the speech recognition software that works with my new dictaphone, and all for $45, which is cheap in any kind of currency.<\/p>\n

We were so long in there that the sun was out when we left, and by the time we arrived at Houlton, it was a pleasant evening. Here we changed partners. Darren and Rachel were in a rush to get back home but Zoe still needed some shopping so I swapped passengers, and Zoe and I went on a rather fruitless expedition around some of the Houlton shops.<\/p>\n

\"abandoned<\/a>The border crossing is at Bridgewater in Maine – that brings us over to Centreville, and here at Bridgewater is a junkyard and a sight that you don’t see every day – a scrap Rolls Royce. THat shows you just how much these new Rolls Royes have degenerated since the days of the Silver Cloud in the earky 1960s. <\/p>\n

It’s not the first Rolls Royce that I’ve seen in a scrapyard. The legendary McGuinness’s in Longport, Stoke on Trent had a Rolls Royce in there for a few years, but that was full of silt to a depth of about 9 inches – clearly major flood damage and probably only Third-Party insurance. Beyond the financial capability of anyone to put right, I imagine. <\/p>\n

But this one seems to be undamaged in the general scheme of things – I reckon a major repair bill that is beyond the capacity of the owner to put right and enough to frighten off any prospective purchaser.<\/p>\n

But what a way for a Roller to meet its end – stuck at the back of a junkyard off the beaten track in the wilds of Maine. That’s a sad story. <\/p>\n

-2<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
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… than a deserted fairground” said John Betjeman in his book First and Last Loves. So I reckon that he must have been to Clinton, Maine in the past because, believe me, this was empty and deserted. Mind you, it was something silly like 07:30 in the morning in the middle of a torrential rainstorm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1427,1430,143,1412,1535,2799,4507,1429,4763,281,311,1428,1573,1410],"tags":[1420,1435,1624,5507,1415,5543,1431,1352,1419,2560,7371,1434,3658,2801,1432,1437,1440,5513,1441,5370,312,1436,1433,1438,1442,1581,5512],"class_list":["post-2328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bangor-2","category-bridgewater","category-canada","category-clinton","category-darren","category-dysarts-truckstop","category-eric-hall-2","category-houlton","category-i-95","category-old-cars","category-rachel","category-sams-club","category-usa","category-zoe","tag-bangor","tag-bridgewater-2","tag-canada-2","tag-centreville","tag-clinton-2","tag-darren","tag-deserted-fairground","tag-dragon-speech-recognition","tag-dysarts","tag-eric-hall","tag-first-and-last-loves","tag-houlton-2","tag-httpwww-amazon-com","tag-interstate-95","tag-john-betjeman","tag-junkyard","tag-longport","tag-maine","tag-mcguinness","tag-old-cars","tag-rachel-2","tag-rolls-royce","tag-sams-club-2","tag-scrapyard","tag-stoke-on-trent","tag-usa-2","tag-zoe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2328"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8619,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328\/revisions\/8619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}