Peter Rhodes on a black-swan event, a perfect evening and not that Tom Jones, the other one

WE were sitting on the sea wall at Topsham, wondering whether this glorious Summer of '18 would be a black-swan event. This is a fascinating term. In medieval times, a "black swan" was used by philosophers to describe something that did not exist. Then explorers discovered Australia and spotted thousands of 'em. So the term "black-swan event" has morphed to mean something that is unpredictable but not entirely unlikely.

ANYWAY, just as we were having this earnest debate, as the sun set over the Exe estuary and the gulls cackled in the reed beds and all seemed exceedingly well with the world, a couple of black swans paddled across to say g'day. This was not so much a black-swan moment as a bloody-hell-look-at-that moment.

IT turns out there is a little colony of black swans further down the estuary at Dawlish. Most years one or two pairs fly up to Topsham for the season. "Makes sense," a local told us. "After all, who'd want to spend summer in Dawlish, hohoho?" I take no sides in this parish-rivalry stuff; I merely report it.

MORAL of this tale. This summer may indeed prove to be a black-swan event. The question is whether it is a conventional black-swan event (rare) or a Topsham black-swan event, otherwise known as a racing certainty. Anyway, black swans are agreeable little chaps. I hope they spread around a bit.

ACCORDING to the saying, while all cities are different, all villages are the same. But times change. Today's it's the cities that all look the same, with street after street of national-brand stores, while the villages, having preserved their little shops and local architecture, are distinctive. Exeter was a disappointment. Maybe it's wrong to judge a city on a couple of hours but it could have been any other city with its soulless post-war concrete buildings, boarded-up shops, smack-heads sleeping off their drugs in the cathedral close, and hapless victims of Britain's obesity epidemic wobbling about. On the day we visited, some expert on the radio was holding forth about "the prosperity the EU has brought us." Patchy sort of prosperity, isn't it?

TOPSHAM is a little harbour town surrounded with nature reserves, a place where elderly folk go to wear beige and watch curlews. But occasionally the old place rocks. The posters are still up for Tom Jones's concert at Powderham Castle last month (before he had to cancel some shows on doctor's orders). I was reminded of a colleague some years ago who had a win on the pools and celebrated with a week in Brighton. He and his wife saw posters for Tom Jones and, being huge fans, rang to book a pair of tickets. They were amazed to find tickets were still available and the best seats in the house that night were just £7.50.

THEY arrived at the theatre to find the show was the comic opera Tom Jones, based on Henry Fielding's 18th century novel, as performed by the local amateur-drama society. Definitely no, no, no Delilah.