2 (47) JUST A FEW LINES...

TO END THE MONTH.     

RADIO. 

I still listen in. Do you? Think I may long ago have heard the best of it, but show me an oldie who is not of that opinion. 

I tired of Chris Evans' Breakfast Show a year or so back and thereafter abandoned Radio 2. 

Nowadays it's mostly BBC Radio 4 with the ubiquitous Woman's Hour and The Archers, the seasonal I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and Just A Minute and the inexhaustible Desert Island Discs: Warwick Davis (above) had a good Desert Island selection a few weeks ago. A nice guy. 

Today it was Jilly Cooper: unsurprisingly, hers was a classy choice. 

Her racy books and her non-racy personality are equally intriguing. A nice lady. 

My Leader and I seldom listen to any radio but 4 now. Shan't speak for her (I'm not daft), but in my case you can put it down to age. 

TELEVISION. 

The Musketeers (BBC1) will finish tomorrow night. Apparently there will not be another series. 

If King Louis, as depicted in this and in the BBC2 Wednesday evening series Versailles, bears any likeness to the actual person, France just had to have a revolution. 

Repeats (everywhere). I am still avoiding all except Endeavour and the occasional Vera: there are mesmerizing leading actors in both of them. 

Golf ((BBC2) Women's British Open. The cat Shadow slept soundly through it so it had to be good. 

HOME. 

A wedding celebration. On the evening of Saturday 30th July, at the invitation of our friends Drs.Arun and Bettina Baksi, we went to Island restaurant Valentino's with fifty or so other guests to meet recently wed John Baksi, his wife Ana and Ana's parents. John (Arun's son) and Ana married in Spain. This get-together introduced Ana and her parents to the world of John's upbringing. The Island medical community. 

The majority of the those present, including the bride, the groom and the bride's father, were active or retired members of the medical profession. 

Dinner, as usual in this popular restaurant, was excellent. It was a splendid evening and a good time was had by all. 

Maureen even managed to sneak a vague snapshot of the happy couple cutting the cake (something that - along with a best man - is apparently not part of the ceremony in Spain).

We wish this worthwhile pair a long, happy and successful future.   

2 (46) BACK TO THE STATUS QUO.

 ABROAD.

Another insane atrocity. 

In Nice a madman deliberately drives a lorry at hundreds of innocents celebrating Bastille Day. 

Where and what next? 

We can only express sympathy with those who suffered it, decry Isis (the twisted religious outcasts who claimed 'credit' for it - well they would, wouldn't they) and wonder how and when it will all end. Sadly, there's nothing more we can do. Murderous lunatics abound and France has had more than its fair share of them in recent times. We can but stay alert.

Most antisocial acts of lunacy carried out by individuals and small groups are precisely that. They are not master plans devised by the head of any cult of religious sociopaths, whether they think they are 'true' Muslims or 'true' anything else, including Christians. 

And they are not the reason we need a nuclear deterrent: though plenty of warmongers in this country would like us to see every conceivable threat as requiring one. Christ almighty! We are sixteen years into the twenty first century! Can nobody conjure up an iota of sanity? 

HOME. 

A new government. 

Same meat - different gravy. 

Yet more broken promises? 

CLOSER TO HOME. 

One of Mauren's nephews, Phil (Philip Butler), a thoroughly nice bloke, was recently admitted to Queen Alexandra Hospital, Cosham, Portsmouth, for major surgery. In my young days the Q.A. was a military hospital; now it is probably the most badly sited regional hospital in the south of England, particularly for people who live, as Phil and his family do, in the Gosport area. 

On the bright side, we are happy in the knowledge that the operation was successful and that Phil, cheerful and full of optimism, was discharged yesterday.

A swift and full recovery to you, buddy. We still think of you and your brother, Steve, as "the boys." Shows our age, doesn't it.

EVEN CLOSER TO HOME. 

Daughter Roz, our youngest - who had a knee replacement some weeks back - has been in hospital again (St. Mary's, Newport I.W.), this time for keyhole surgery on the other knee. Her surgeon did a fine job in both cases and she, thank him and the gods, is progressing well. 

The NHS has its detractors but what would we do without it? 

TELEVISION. 

Repeats. 

You don't need foul weather to remind you that summer is here. Just look at the schedules. Even the newer films are being shown on television for the second, and even third, time. 

Some programmes are worth watching again, of course, but many were never worth watching in the first place. 

The cat Shadow constantly reminds me that everything I detested on the box ten years ago is still going strong. He sleeps through the lot without fear or favour. 

This year he even slept through Andy Murray's Wimbledon win.

"Why not?" he said afterwards."He's done it before." Which was a cat-like dig, but I suppose he was right. It was a sort of repeat. One worth the watching, though, eh? 

Think I'll finish on that happy note.

And a reminder, if only to myself, of the way this

Watching The Detectives lark started. It began:

WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2006 

1. The Oldies 

Where has that ten years gone?