84. Back from abroad, untanned but refreshed.

ANNUAL OVERSEAS JAUNT SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED.

Yes, another annual jaunt has been successfully completed. My Leader and I and granddaughter Jess went abroad again.
Same exotic location as last year: Cornwall। Visited daughter-in-law Pauline and son Neil। Basked in their warm welcome, in the sublime scenery of The Lizard and in the joy of once more meeting our friends, Anne and Peter, who have almost reached the completion of their stunning new home at Mylor, Falmouth (above).

Pauline and Neil have not been idle, either. The building of their art studio is practically finished and will provide the perfect facility for Pauline to resume her pottery business and for Neil to continue with the painting and allied art work which has been his gift since early school days.
Our journeys to and fro were uneventful: the modified A30 is a joy.
We stopped at a Little Chef in Winterbourne Abbas, Dorchester, on the way down for a couple of all day breakfasts - masquerading as Early Starters - and a baked potato with cheese for Jess (her choice).
The staff were young and friendly and efficient. They provided a takeaway container for Jess's unfinished Fanta drink and we departed full of goodwill and unaccustomed fried bread.
On the way back the following week we stopped off at the Little Chef, Shute, Axminster, for drinks and were impressed not only by the concern to please of the young staff but by the impeccable cleanliness of the place. Current owners of Little Chef please note that a fresh coat of paint on the outside of the building and attention to doors in the Ladies from which the old locks have been removed to be replaced by bolts (my wife commented) is all that needs to be done to make this spotless establishment absolutely top grade.
We enjoyed the break and returned refreshed. The roads in and from Cornwall were pristine. Wightlink gently ferried us across to the Island where we ruefully reflected that had we been kidnapped and blindfolded we would instantly have known to where we had been taken: the roads here are a disgrace.

HOME AGAIN.

When we came across the courtyard from the garage we were amused to find the cat Shadow and his pal Manners waiting in the kitchen like a reception party. Manners departed right away. He still knows me as that man who used to ask: "Wotter-youdoin'ere?" in an unfriendly voice. My subsequent blandishments have been rejected. Quite right too.
Shadow ate a hearty meal (leaving just enough for Manners to see off later) and took root on my lap for the evening. He can't be having with all that indignant at being left business.
I switched on the computer the following day to find a load of e-mails including pleasant comment about the last blog stuff from John (Anonymous) A.
Thanks again, John, you're such a nice change from all the invitations to buy stuff!

MATCH OF THE DAY LIVE - ENGLAND v GERMANY (BBC1)

Twenty minutes before the end, with England trailing 1 - 2, the cat Shadow stood pointedly by the front door.
It was an unnecessary question but I had to ask it: "You want to go out...now?"
"Why not?" he said. "There'll be nothing more to see here."
"But England could still manage a draw," I ventured, unconvincingly.
"Not them. They couldn't score if all the Germans were sent off."
"It's a friendly, though. Steve McClaren's still trying people out."
"It's never a friendly against Germany," he said. "They come here for an unfriendly. And as for trying people out, there are probably less than half a dozen worthwhile English strikers in the entire Premiership. Two of them, Owen and Rooney, spend more time on the physio's table than they do on the field. Be real, man, the current England team is relying on midfielders to score goals. It prays that Becks will do something special. If he doesn't, it doesn't. Tonight he didn't."
"Well that all sounds positively negative," I said.
"Sad but true. We're very good losers. We'll get nowhere until we became very bad losers."
"You really are a rotten sport," I growled.
"That's right," he said. "But I usually win. Now kindly open the bloody door."

ROBBIE COLTRANE: B-ROAD BRITAIN (ITV1)

This is another of those "extract the urine from a celebrity" documentary series in which the powers behind a television programme put a well-known and probably unsuspecting public figure through a series of mostly pointless, frequently undignified and often personally frightening experiences. For what? Because they imagine it to be good television?
Robbie Coltrane (the giant Hagrid in the Harry Potter films if you are an immigrant from outer space) drives around the B-roads in a fifties open-topped Jaguar. He is a big man who seems to have some difficulty getting about once he leaves the car. He remains affable and professional, however, whatever nonsense he is called upon to attempt.
I think he has suffered this particular nonsense for long enough now. He should take the Director and the Producer to one side and fall on them.

MIDSOMER MURDERS (ITV1)

Yesterday I was reminded again of daughter Roz's assertion that she would not set up home within fifty miles of Cabot Cove or Midsomer.
Midsomer Murders was back with a repeat of a programme entitled The Straw Woman. It contained the usual helping of far-fetched killings, religious weirdos, village bigots, the slightly breathless Tom Barnaby, a slightly lovesick DS Scott, and Doc Bullard played by Barry Jackson. For good measure, Keith Barron was in it, too.
Daft but still watchable.

83. The Usual Price of Fame

THINGS SHOULD LOOK UP AGAIN (EVEN IF I HAVE FINISHED THE LAST HARRY POTTER BOOK).

I know, just lately these posts have contained some irksome blogger niggles.
First there was my disillusionment with the NHS (not down to the majority of its staff who try like hell despite shadowy, frequently shitty, management); then there was my irritation at some of the blatantly uncharitable manoevres of an old established charity organization (well I do think they should know better) and finally there was my doubt that there exists such thing as a personhood of bloggers.
It reached the stage where our old friend John 'Anonymous' A. asked my leader: "Does he feel better now that he's got that lot off his chest?"
Oh dear.
Truth to tell, though, I do.
So things should look up again, even if I have finished the last Harry Potter book.
First thing I'll do is re-open the letters page to (preferably friendly) comment. Them as don't read me need not bother, nor need them as have decided not to like me (though they probably don't read me anyway).
A tiny Jess (aged about three) once said to my Leader (a pre 'Allo 'Allo Edith who had burst into song): "Stop it now."
They do get it right, don't they, kids...
I'll stop it now.

LAST WEEK IN VIEW.

Do you still buy a tele listings magazine? If you do, have you wondered why?
Last week my ultimate digital tv and radio guide informed me that on Thursday, 9th August, at 8 pm on BBC1, I could see the first of a new series of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. Yes, "the much-loved detective drama" would be back.
Eager for a change from the usual diet of wheeler dealers, new home seekers, property developers, television cooks (chefs, huh!) and auctioneers, I was ten minutes into the new dim aristo Lynley and bright pleb Havers concoction before I realized I'd seen it all before. I looked at the Today's Choices page and found the series to be firmly unloved by the senior critic. Had the new stuff been dropped for that reason? Surely not. Were they worried about nine o'clock competition from Mock The Week? Well that's repeated on Fridays at 11.35 pm, so presumably not.
Big Brother was on at nine, too, but surely only the committed (or those who should be) watch that any more?
I retired baffled. Perhaps the infamous programme muddlers will trot out the new series next week and the ultimate digital tv and radio guide will list it as "brought over from last week."
Makes a bit of a farce out of keying those numbers into your video/DVD recorder though, doesn't it?
Never mind, earlier in the evening we had seen Top Wild Dives with Tanya Streeter. Ms. Streeter is the world champion freediver; a brave young woman who clearly loves the sea and most of the creatures it contains. She is also singularly graceful under water and very watchable. On Friday 10th we watched Ganges, River of Life, the second of a three part exploration. Fascinating stuff on BBC2.
On Saturday we saw Carry On Up The Khyber (Channel 4) for the umpteenth time and laughed aloud yet again at the wonderful dinner party where Peter Butterworth gives a master class in comic genius as a terrified missionary.
Later, on the same channel, we were all at sea again. Swimming With Sharks was the story of two divers who were swept away while exploring in the South Pacific off the Solomon Islands and found themselves undergoing a nightmare marathon swim in shark infested waters. It was a true story and, though told by the protagonists, kept you on edge for their well-being from start to finish.
If you add to the weekend Law & Order: Special Victims' Unit and Angela's Eyes (Saturday on Five) together with Vanished and Killer Instinct (Sunday), I reckon, all in all, you will have had reasonable square eyes entertainment..
What's more, football's with us again.
Last of the Summer Wine is back, too. Love it or hate it, it's got staying power. I love it, but I love anything written by the splendidly lugubrious Roy Clarke.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE FAMOUS?

"Would you..." demanded the cat Shadow suddenly, "like to be famous?"
I pondered. "Might have done when I was younger," I said eventually. "Not now unless it made me very rich."
"All those talented people you've seen over the years, though, they must have been famous."
"Some more than others, but most of them were, yes."
"So wouldn't you enjoy being instantly recognized and asked for your autograph and that?"
"Not really. When the sonwriters Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Julie Styne wrote Make Someone Happy they counselled ...Fame - if you win it/Comes and goes - in a minute...and they were right. It can be a very fleeting thing can fame."
"Bit like popularity?"
"Lot like popularity."
"I'm popular," he said immodestly. "On sunny days when I sit on the wall out front lots of people make a fuss of me."
"I know, I've seen them. Whole families: grannies, little children, the lot. It's very nice."
"If we'd lived in the right place I'd have been an actor," he said. "Then I'd have been really famous and on a roof in Coronation Street or something."
"I don't think soap stardom's all it's cracked up to be," I said. "Anyway, what do you know about Coronation Street? We never watch it."
"I see it at Manners's Manor sometimes," he said airily. "Mrs. Manners's Manor watches it all the time."
"No bloody wonder he's always round here," I said. "No, mate, you wouldn't want show business. You'd finish up being a manky old character part cat,"
"You can be very negative at your worst," he grumbled. "I think I'll go out."
"It's raining," I told him.
"Oh bugger," he said and I thought: how very Noel Coward.
He headed back to my Leader's vacant chair.
All he needed was the dressing gown and cigarette holder.

82. Don't Rely on a Personhood of Bloggers

COMMENT IF YOU MUST - BUT EXPECT NOTHING.

I was talking to son Neil on the webcam last week and he expressed regret that my year of blogging seems to have attracted little by way of comment.
But, y'know, I am not sure that either the proffering or the receiving of comment is necessarily a welcome addition to anybody's blog. (See my post Not Everybody Will Like You.) The first thing to bear in mind is that there is no brotherhood/sisterhood/personhood (curse all that bloody P.C. stuff) that will guarantee a favourable response should you approach another blogger.
If, for example, your one hobby is patchwork quilting it is unlikely that you will find much in common with a football fanatic or a jazz fiend or a train spotter. If you don't know your website from your blogsite you are unlikely to obtain anything but instant deletion from a computer buff. If you are an old guy who plays all the Harry Potter PC games and reads J.K. Rowling you will probably be regarded as retarded by the younger blogger who plays chess and reads Marcus Aurelius.
From the little I have gleaned in the last year, bloggers are understandably suspicious of any encroachment upon their blog space. If a complete stranger crossed the road and sought to enter your life, that stranger would probably be advised to depart and multiply; so why should you react differently to an unexpected arrival at your blogsite?
Bloggers see most unsolicited approaches as attempts to gain oblique advertising.
And even if you appear to have everything in common with one of them, don't be fooled.
Bloggers are writers - well, some of 'em are - and you should never judge a writer by his writing. Some very accomplished writers have been far from likeable human beings (think of Somerset Maugham, Evelyn Waugh and Randolph Churchill for a start), so I would neither expect, nor necessarily give, a hail-fellow-well-met response to blog comment, no matter how well meaning. That having been said, I have made the mistake once or twice.
But I constantly bear in mind the words of the playwright John Eliot in his book MOGUL, The Making Of A Myth (1970). "Writers...live in shells, sucking nourishment from the world and only giving out squirts of ink. They brood. They harbour grievances. They are subject to fits of depression; and are tortuous and difficult to know. They are cast down by criticism and elated by praise, but secretly, and it goes into their work."
After one of the films in which he appeared it was remarked of the actor Charles Laughton that he stood around the edge of the set waiting to be offended.
In my experience, quite a lot of writers are like that, too.
I don't intend to be one of them.
Can't speak for you.

A CERTAIN AGE.

On the 26th July it was our daughter Jac's birthday. On the 31st July J.K.Rowling reached the same age. According to Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, each of them on that particular day became The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.
Jac is a teacher at a primary school and Jo is an internationally famous author. I think Mr. Adams was right on both counts.
Oh, neither of them looks anything like their age, either, but I won't say so for fear of being labelled smarmy.

THERE ARE FEW THINGS MORE CERTAIN.

In this life there are few certainties.
I can think of but three:
If you have gone up to the attic there will be a knock at the front door.
If you are using the lavatory the phone will ring and
If you have finally broken your links with your car insurers...
It was obvious that I was not going to receive my No Claims Bonus details from Age Concern's motor insurance people once I had told them I had found another insurer. I sent a SAE with the request which they returned with a note telling me in so many words that they'd deal with the matter when they got around to it. My letter to them went on 24th June, my new insurance started on 6th July. It is now August 5th.
Not so much as a kiss my...
Am I surprised? No.
I'm sure I'll manage without them.

MORE SPORTING WORDS WITH THE CAT.

"That was a helluva result for England, 62 - 5 against Wales at Twickenham," I said to the cat Shadow.
He was in dozing mode on my lap.
"I think you'll find it was the Welsh second team," he said. "But yeah, it was a helluva result."
"Good to see names like Lawrence Dallaglio and Jonny Wilkinson back in the England side, too."
"Be better still when you feel they can win without names like Dallaglio and Wilkinson in the side," he said.
"Did you go round to one of your mates to watch it on Sky?" I asked
"Na-a-ah. I stayed here for the Women's British Open at St. Andrews. I sleep much sounder with the golf. Mexican girl, Lorena Ochoa was in the lead when I dropped off. She was looking good." He grinned his cat grin. "Playing well, too."
"A lot of them look good now," I said. "I think the days of statuesque golfers like Dame Joan Hammond are long gone."
"Didn't you once say she was a singer?"
"Yeah, she was. Healthiest looking Mimi I ever saw on stage."
"Good was she?"
"Bloody marvellous. Her One Fine Day from Madame Butterfly could last me all week."
"Can't see any of today's bunch being that versatile," he said. "You've seen some remarkably talented people over the years, haven't you?"
I have indeed. He didn't need a reply.
I sighed contentedly and he went back to sleep.