Many, many moons ago, way back before Adam headed bovines, I became involved, involuntarily, with some garage sales.
In Timaru at the time was two old men who attended such events, not to view or purchase but to find someone who's ear they could bend.
One spoke, for hours, seemingly without even stopping to breathe, on the Gnomes of Zurich, the other on something else equally bullshit.
Another cruised cricket matches on weekends, trapping poor bastards sitting around while teammates batted. He talked, non-stop, about obscure players who were never selected.
You could tell he was approaching. There would be a mass exodus of all except the unsuspecting doing score-book duty.
Sir Bob Jones, in his columns, made mention of similar men in boxing circles and the impossibility of getting away from one of them once trapped.
Always a reasonably well dressed older man, fixed of stare, unblinking and with a very serious demeanor. Usually carrying "the evidence" in a bag or case and, without fail, terror inducing.
Their arguments only stood up until you had time to think. Mainly unrelated "facts" thrown together in confusion and drawn out to create strange, unsupportable conclusions.
Over the years, on occasion of boredom, I have wondered where these fellows went now TradeMe etc have largely superseded garage and yard sales.
I recently discovered the answer: They now pollute blogs.
Now, did I tell you abo..............................................
