Post 347. OUR LOVELY ROZ.

IS FIFTY. 

Yes, it's hard to believe, but Rosalind Anne Barnden celebrated her fiftieth birthday on the twelth of this month.

The family gathered at local restaurant Cibo for dinner.

I cannot remember when we last met like that, but it was a long time ago. We had a most pleasant evening. The food was good, the company nonpareil, and - for the first time ever at a family function - I came away better off than I was when I got there. By how much? By the value of two British second class postage stamps: because that, my cheerful finance adviser Pauline informed me, as she presented me with a neat little box containing £1 and thirty two pence, is the total amount of my royalties to date on the Amazon Kindle sales of The Badgers of Deep Wood. Well, it ain't J.K.Rowling but it's a start. I shall keep the box containing the cash in plain sight, as a reminder never to get big-headed.
Many Happy Returns, Roz.

HERE THEY COME.

Out of the woodwork.

Just the suggestion of a coronavirus pandemic and already the scaredy cats and the greedy bastards - in alarmingly equal numbers it seems - have cleared the shelves in many supermarkets around the world.

On Saturday March 7 we popped into our local Waitrose to find (would you believe it?) the toilet roll shelves were almost empty. What do people think this bug is going to do? Cause a mass opening of the bowels? It's fear that'll give 'em diarrhea, not some bloody virus. And that's what it is. A virus.

It isn't WW3.

ALL VIEWER RELATIONS @SKY.UK

Some welcome responses. 

In my concluding blog post last month I mentioned that I had sent a message to Sky regarding the disappearance from Sky Arts of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 played by Lars Vogt with the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Herbert Blomstedt and of Brahms' 1 and 2 Piano Concertos played by Daniel Barenboim with the Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

At first the possibility of their reappearance seemed highly unlikely, but a final message (from Iain at Viewer Relations) has offered some hope of a future emergence.

I do hope they will be brought back and I sincerely thank the entire Viewer Relations team at Sky for their friendly and welcome responses to my emails.

Good luck to them

And to you in these coronavirus times.