YOU CAN'T HELP WONDERING.
The recent discovery of a pile of old snapshots has set me off again
One of the troubles with knocking on a bit is that you find yourself recalling people with whom you lost touch many years ago. It happens suddenly and indiscriminately and is a thoroughly pointless exercise because those you remember will either have kicked the bucket or, if they are still alive, would probably pass you in the street without a second glance.
Buoyed on by the millions to one chance recorded in my last post, however, I was tempted to publish a list of oft-recalled names from the past and take a chance that one or more of them would see it or hear about it from somebody who did.
But you can't go back.
As I said, those who are still alive would probably not recognize me. If they did they might not wish to know me. I seem to remember being the sort of young man I would find hard to tolerate now.
You can't help wondering, though, can you?
ANOTHER BROADSIDE FROM A CLASSY COLUMNIST.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown was in full flow again in The Independent last Monday. In an article entitled A digital bedlam of narcissism and bullying she wrote of her fears that the internet is fast becoming a menace to our culture. People can have terrible power, she maintained: "Today they blast away in their blogs to threaten, libel, bully, intimidate and turn freedom itself into a hostage."
Oh dear.
Perhaps it is because I am not a professional soothsayer that I find it hard to attach importance to the outpourings of incensed Bloggerdom. I simply ignore anything that savours of bloggerdegook or gratuitous effing and blinding or blatant intimidation.
My own prejudices (pro - my Leader, my family, anything decent on the tele and J.K.Rowling; anti - all politicians national and local together with their advisers, anything smelling of reality television and anybody who feels they have a right to rule me) are quite enough to keep me grinning or growling to the grave. That some acid head in America, daft digger in Australia or barmpot in Barnsley might fancy bringing down World Order neither interests nor alarms me. I suppose a few sadsacks will read and believe them, but their supporters will surely be fewer than those who listened to and believed Adolf Hitler or, for that matter, Margaret Thatcher. You cannot legislate against them with any success and you'll lose an awful lot of sleep if you let them worry you.
Ever since I saw her face up to what I took to be a BNP infiltrated audience on Question Time a couple or so years ago I have had considerable respect for Yasmin A-B. She's a classy columnist and a doughty little scrapper and I shall continue to support her absolute right to deliver the hefty broadside; even when I think she's talking tosh.
THE LAST DETECTIVE (ITV1)
'Dangerous' Davies (Peter Davison) is back in a new series. Only the characters bear any relationship to Leslie Thomas's stories now, but writer Matthew Thomas and director Nick Laughland kept to the spirit of the original works and the result was very satisfying.
It bodes well for a series that, as well as attracting back regulars like Sean Hughes, Emma Amos and Charles De'ath, it can welcome the likes of Roger Daltrey, Anthony Valentine and John Shrapnel as guests.
I hope ol' Leslie T. enjoyed it.
I certainly did.
SO MUCH FOR SNOOKER AND SOCCER.
It has been World Snooker from The Crucible at Sheffield on BBC2 again over the past fortnight. I find it makes a decent stand-in while I'm waiting for something I really want to see on the box and an excellent replacement for all the usual daytime rubbish.
The cat Shadow believes it is a game invented to lull a cat to sleep, preferably on my lap or in my Leader's chair. So he has had a very restful couple of weeks. He didn't even look up when Milan knocked Manchester United out of the Champions League and when I relayed the result to him he just grunted.
So much for snooker and soccer.
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