Post 312. LOOKING FOR INTERNATIONALISM?

YOU WON'T FIND IT HERE.
In Personal Corner.

Where it's our family news: starting with Jess Daisy White who is currently back on the Island and living with mother Roz and brother Ellis.

Last Monday she and her mum went to Southampton to buy her graduation dress and in the above picture she can be seen wearing it. Gran (who took the photo) and Popsy (who has her permission to reproduce it here) are proud, fond and slightly in awe of her. She has done commendably well at the University of Hertfordshire, obtaining - alongside a MPharm - an award for best clinical student of her year. Right now she is working her pre reg. year at the pharmacy in East Cowes and continuing her studies, simultaneously proving to be a sympathetic, and much appreciated, applier of Roz's weekly inoculations. Roz, despite an unpleasant forty eight hours of bone pain and the departure in tufts of her remaining hair (she has now just about completely shaven it off), continues to radiate positivity.
Yesterday she went for her second chemo.

Next Tuesday she and Jess's dad, Daryl, will drive up to Hatfield with Jess for the graduation ceremony.

Back here in Ventnor our daughter-in-law, Pauline, and some of her artist friends put on their annual Inspired By Wight exhibition at the Botanical Gardens.

It was a delightful collection, well attended, and we enjoyed every minute of our visit to it.

My Leader and I plod along our disparate paths, she doing anything she can for family, friends, anybody; me currently concluding the revision of my book for children aged 9 to 99 (first undertaken in the 1970s) by adding more chapters relevant to the 21st century. Title is still The Badgers of Deep Wood: Mo likes it.

Well, it stops me joining a moped gang.

Oh, we were visited last week by Mo's nephew Phil and his wife, Julie, who came from Gosport early one morning and spent the day with us. Phil, who is making a slow but sure recovery from cancer (thank the gods and modern medicine), also brought me a present from his brother, Steve, of a little book called Beecham Stories, which I much enjoyed.

I always liked 'Tommy' Beecham (pictured) and thought of him as a musical version of my roguish Uncle Charlie.
They don't make 'em like that anymore.
TELEVISION. 
Sky Arts. We have recently been 'discovering' those fine actors Ernest Borgnine, Gene Hackman, Leslie Howard, Lee Marvin and Richard Widmark again with this sympathetic biographical series. There are more that I must watch out for. Four of the above five started their film lives as 'baddies' and went on to become popular 'goodies.' That's acting.
The BBC Proms, modern music notwithstanding, was mostly good again this year. I particularly enjoyed the Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Ivan Fischer: their Hungarian 'gypsy' night had me feeling happily Brahms and Liszt (sorry).
I was initially less certain about the Grieg Piano Concerto, played with impressive hair by French-Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, but it too was a resounding success. The Estonian Festival Orchestra, conducted by Paavo Jarvi, also performed Sibelius's Symphony No.5 in E Flat. Bit out of my zone.
Picnic At Hanging Rock on BBC2 was not to my taste either. 
I've never liked al fresco dining.
Bodyguard on BBC1 looks good so far. (SPOILER) Keeley Hawes plays ambitious Home Secretary Julie Montague and Richard Madden plays war torn DS David Budd, her protection officer.
Episode 2 has just gone by and already they are at it like knives.
In reality I have only known one Special Branch policeman good looking enough to be a television-type protection officer. He had (still has) a pretty little wife and far more sense than to have ever become involved in an impossible relationship with a female politician.
No, this is just excellently acted television twaddle.
I shall, of course, watch every episode right until the (doubtless bitter) end.

Enough now. Mind how you go.

Post 311. HERE WE ARE AGAIN.

HOME.

Roz Barnden.

Current news of our Roz is that the lump in her breast was found to be a collection of small lumps for which a mastectomy will be required; armpit lymph nodes have also been effected.

Tests on her liver showed it to be clear.

She has been for her first session of chemotherapy and afterwards reported having her best night's sleep for weeks. To date she has experienced no adverse side effects that she has cared to mention, but she is now prone to bouts of tiredness.

She is determinedly upbeat.

We would expect nothing else. That is her.

We remain hopefully positive.

Our friends Ian and Jean - who have never met her - have told us she will be in their prayers, and other kind and reassuring words have come from kith and kin. People really can be nice.

I am at a loss to do more than proffer sincere thanks to all those who have so sincerely expressed concern: their goodwill does wonders.

Mo Barnden.

No picture of my Leader who right now has a shiner of a black eye and would welcome being pictured even less than usual.

How did it happen?

Well I wasn't responsible for it.

Proof of that denial is simple: I have not lately been treated at A&E or admitted to Casualty.

No, my dear girl (out of the goodness of her heart as usual) declined taking our Roz's dog-hair-infested car to a car wash as requested and, instead, brought it home to clean.

She made an impeccable job of it, too.

Then came the sponge too far.

When she had vacuum-cleaned it through she decided to wash the upholstery. She got a bucket of water, washed the front seats, turned to tackle the seat at the back, fell over the bucket and landed head first on the stony car park.

I was indoors making her a cup of tea and heard not a sound through the double glazing.

Derek next door became aware of her distress and came round to help.

Thank the lord for neighbours like that.

Fortunately she was not concussed (grazed temple) and suffered no damage to her eyes, but she does now have the pop star look when she goes out, even on overcast days, in dark sunglasses.

Enough said I think.

TELEVISION.

The Repair Shop (BBC2).

People take their ill-used/neglected/recently unearthed furniture/luggage/clocks etc. to a band of superb craftsmen who reassemble them for the people to come back and say “Wow!” about them.

It's an eye-opener and great fun.

Celebrity Eggheads (BBC2).

The holiday season off-piste quiz show where the hardest thing to answer is 'who are these celebrities?'

Proms Extra 2018 (BBC2).

Lovely Katie Derham is back to talk Proms with a weekly line-up of musical talent and to introduce a fascinating Chord of the Week session by piano maestro David Owen Norris.
Violinist Pekka Kuusisto is here again this year too (hurray!), has been on the programme, and on August 17th premieres a new violin concerto by Philip Venables. It will have to be bloody brilliant to match his rendering of the Tchaikovsky in 2016 or the hilarious encore. Now that's a hard act to follow.
The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (ITV).
Those clever codebreaker women from Bletchley Park have been relocated to America, presumably in an attempt to resell the series over there. They're all good actors, but it is a bit formulaic, like those afternoon B pictures they show on Channel 5.
What?
Oh, it will probably run forever now.
They usually do if I knock 'em.

Cheers.