Post 381. I KEEP READING.

VERY SLOWLY...

BUT WITH NO LESS ENJOYMENT. On Jan 8, 2020 (yes, 2020), I wrote that I had just started reading Bill Bryson's The Road to Little Dribbling and conjectured: it's a long one so lord alone knows when I'll finish it. It turned out to be 460-ish pages long. I have just finished it. Droll, informative, sharp, straight, and gloriously humorous, it is typical Bill Bryson and I should have absorbed every last word by February 2020, even at my island driver's speed, but I got lost somewhere between his views on the paucity of worthwhile BBC television and his final weird experience of the Duchy of Cornwall. When I finally returned to it last week I found myself smiling, laughing, agreeing, regularly saying: “Only a very popular Yank could get away with a comment like that, mister,” and respectfully admitting: “Well there's another thing I didn't know...”right until the end. The man has national treasure status. I like him despite that and I hope he's here for keeps. 

NOW I'M READING

THANKS to daughter Jacqueline I am also a quiet disciple of Ian Rankin. One of my two book Christmas presents from her was the latest John Rebus thriller, A Song for the Dark Times (Orion 2020). which I started mid week and am already about two thirds through: fast reading for me but Ian Rankin is that sort of page turning writer. In this one, the begrudgingly retired detective is called back into action by a late night telephone call from his daughter, Samantha, whose husband has been missing for two days. It's splendidly written of course. I empathise with the ageing Rebus, a man well aware that he is no longer up to knocking your average thug's head off. My fervent hope now is that the writer avoids a Morse, a Van der Valk, or even a Wallander, ending for John Rebus. I think the old guy should enjoy a peaceful retirement: or is that just me? He was a tough cop, not a NHS desk jockey. 

AND WHAT WAS THE OTHER BOOK?

 Oh, The Secret Language of CATS by Susanne Schotz (HQ 2018). Haven't started it and when I do I probably won't believe a word of it. I'll ask the pair we have living here: they'll know.

TELEVISION. 

We have watched The Investigation, a Danish crime drama on BBC2. Six episodes covering the investigation into the death of Swedish journalist Kim Wall. This is a compelling police procedural series and the excellent cast includes (in the role of Kim's father Joachim Wall) Rolf Lassgård who was arguably the best Wallander ever (on a list that includes Kenneth Branagh).

FINALLY THIS MONTH. 

It is with deep regret that I record the death from cancer of Maureen's nephew Phil Butler: a brave, cheerful, popular Gosport resident and lifelong Pompey FC supporter. Phil was in his early sixties, worked hard all his life, and only recently retired. We loved him and will never forget him. I do hope you've found your mum and dad, mate. 

 

 

Post 380. SECOND APPOINTMENT CANCELLED.

SO NO SECOND JAB YET, 

DON'T CALL US, WE'LL CALL YOU. I had the letter two days before I was due to attend for the second of my Covid-19 vaccinations. Don't bother coming on the date originally set, it advised me, and concluded in the way I understand most unsuccessful stage auditions have since time began: Don't call us, we'll call you when it's convenient for you to be given your second appointment. Unlike Dame Joan Bakewell,  I shall not be threatening the Health Secretary with legal action. I can't afford lawyers. Anyway, both our daughters are in the teaching profession and our granddaughter is a pharmacist at the only hospital left here since successive governments and their civil service minions set about buggering up the NHS. From the outset all three of them should have preceded me in the queue for a jab. Their lives are still ahead of them. I will be far happier when I know they have been protected than I would be in knowing that Pfizer's recommended twenty one days between doses had been strictly adhered to in my case. All in all it's the usual government cockup. C'est la vie. 

MUSIC.

 I have never taken much to awards. That could be down to the fact that I have never been caught winning one: I am not a willing - or even slightly interested - competitor. It is also something of a certainty that I will never choose the person who is going on to win any competition I am watching, or to which I am listening - ever. I blame the judges. I hear now that a rapper has, not for the first time, been given a music award and, even in a world where nobody over seventy dare venture an opinion in any but a PC way without incurring the wrath of Fractious on Facebook or Tantalised on Twitter, I have to admit that, (like most modern classical music which to me is discord for the tone deaf), rapping comes over as an indecipherable monotone delivered on one unmusical note. These youngsters don't know what lyrics are. We had the real thing in my day. Lyrics like Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey: A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you? and  When you come to the end of a lollipop: Plop goes your heart! It was the stuff of romance. They don't write gems like it anymore. I wonder why? 

As Dave Allen used to say: "May your God go with you."

  

   

Post 379. NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS.

MADE ANY HAVE YOU?

I TRY NOT TO. Can no longer be bothered with promises I know I won't keep, even to myself: though I must admit the temptation is there. This year I was tempted to resolve the routine switching on of my mobile (cell) phone every morning. I may have resolved that last year, too. It didn't happen. I forget and it doesn't seem all that important. Hell, nobody is going to press the red button because I'm not on my mobile. Friends can always phone me on the land line. Few do. A great deal of my NHS career was spent on the phone placating disgruntled members of the public, mollifying the more demanding of doctors, ignoring the frequent incandescence of (mostly ex RN officer) dentists, and sympathising with put upon pharmacists for the multiple scrutiny their professional competence underwent. So I have not been a particularly keen or sparkling telephone conversationalist since, nearly 32 years ago, I retired. 

AND AS A CLASSIC FM LISTENER

YOU NEVER STOP HEARING that Ts and Cs apply. It is advice that concludes the majority of Classic FMs multifarious adverts, to none of which I ever listen. I also blank the 'this is me' ramblings of the handful of presenters who have drifted over to commercial broadcasting since it was ruled that the income of high earning BBC presenters would be publicised if they were not simultaneously employed by another broadcaster: dual employment apparently labels them freelance and shields their earnings from publication. I honestly don't give a toss how much any of them earns. I do wish they wouldn't keep reminding me who they are, though. They (and all the bloody politicians in the country) should be better known by what they purport to do than by name. Their names really do not matter. Inside a year after their departure, from whatever post, they'll be forgotten by all but those closest to them. As Jimmy Durante once sang: 'fame, if you win it, comes and goes in a minute.' So make someone happy, you lot. Stop reiterating who you are. At the beginning and the end is quite enough. Politicians should only be named when they've cocked up of a job: most of those in the UK government would qualify.          

AND IN AMERICA.  

THE SILLY BUGGER DID IT. Yes, departing President Donald Trump finally pushed a few hundred of the inbred sociopaths who support him into attacking Congress. What did he think he was doing? And what sort of country gifts an egomaniacal reality television tosser such power? Well, it showed the world on Wednesday. Anarchists with guns. Only this wasn't the OK Corral in 1881, you gun-happy morons, it was Capitol building in 2021.

You're a big country.

Do grow up.