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Skinny dipping, Mad Mike, and an Englishman abroad

My old friend and colleague Mad Mike Magee did his best to catch up with the BBC "Guy Kewney lookalike" story, it turns out. A friend sent me the clipping, which refers to a "skinny-dipping incident."

Ah, yes; a lovely nostalgic memory. And no doubt, you're all wondering: "Just what was Mike doing there?"

I can tell you, but it may not be what you think. Four of us were visiting IBM in Austin Texas, and we had Sunday afternoon off to get over our jet-lag. What you do on a hot sunny Sunday in Austin, is go to Lake Travis. So we did.

When our cab driver dropped us off, he recommended Hippy Hollow, which is a "clothing optional" beach.  It was lovely, and it was hot. Had we brought our swimming things? No, it turned out, we had not.

Well, so what? Nobody was in the least worried about swimming things, so two of us (Terence and Guy) decided to cool down like everybody else there. Into the water we leapt - but when we surfaced, we found the other two, Mike and Peter, had decided not to follow.

I will never forget looking back to the beach, and seeing Mad Mike (and Peter, both) sitting there admid all the nude Texans, in the Texas sunshine. Fully dressed. With his daily paper. And a knotted hanky on his head.

A respectable Englishman to the last!