Post 277. IT'S BLACK OUT THERE.

COULD IT BE OPHELIA?
Or is that racist and sexist?

 And do I care? Well, you never know whose corns/bunions/suffering feet you are going to tread on nowadays do you?
My Leader continues to monitor her husband's occasional plunge into the pit of the politically incorrect, but unless she chooses to mention it he is mostly unaware of such transgressions.
No working class Englishman, brought up in the nineteen thirties, should be expected to have a doctorate in diplomacy anyway.
Diplomacy is for politicians and look what a backstabbing, lying, undesirable bunch they can be.
That having been said: I did learn tact in the NHS. Just decline being tactful to an angry dentist (former navy officers were particularly prone to tantrums), a pompous GP (would-be consultants could be the most fearful snobs), a self-pitying pharmacist ("Our profession is bedevilled by bureaucrats and doctors' handwriting!"), an irate optician ("We'll all be back to 'private' soon anyway."), or an always aggrieved member of the public ("Oi pays me stamp."); let alone upset that political pain in the arse member of your governing committee ("The people who voted me in won't like this..."): and see where it gets you.
Out in the street sans pension is where.
Oh yes, I learned to be tactful: albeit with difficulty and a tongue scarred from the biting of it.
But that was long ago.
I finished up with early retirement and my pension so it shouldn't still rankle. In any case, the protagonists from my time are all dead or retired now. Unlikely I will come across any of them again.
What?
Oh, it's not that small an island: and after I've kicked the bucket I doubt I shall encounter any of them playing a harp in some cloud-cuckoo-land in the sky, or stoking up a devilish furnace in the bowels of the earth.
But enough of the light-hearted stuff...
TAKE A SERIOUS LOOK.
At this lovely artistry.

Our friend Anne (see Post 276), the semi-retired GP whose former surgery is now our home, has, at our request, emailed us a selection of her recent art work.
She attends a part time course at an art school in Cornwall and is currently concentrating on the realistic reproduction of hands and feet. Hands here. Feet and the rest at the end of the month maybe.
And there's more.
Not only does she produce this remarkably promising artwork, she is also a highly qualified professional acupuncturist and a constantly active chorister who has sung in cathedrals all over the world. I know. I'm in awe, too.
But I shan't tell her.
She won't read this.
When it comes to the written word though...
READING.
Anthony Horowitz (pictured).

I have just read the first two books in Mr. Horowitz's Alex Rider series: Storm Breaker and Point Blanc.
Alex, a fourteen year old schoolboy, is destined to transform into a teenage James Bond; a role he has no innate desire to play.
The stories are delightful tosh, clearly aimed at the teenage market and I (at 87) have loved every glorious, unbelievable, mad moment of them.
Well, what would you expect from the man who wrote Foyle.s War?
Eight more to read.

Quiet please in the library.