Post 460. IF I WAS A VIDEO MAKER.

OUR KITCHEN CATASTROPHE

MIGHT GET MORE PUBLICITY.
At least, more than the few words it is going to get here.
There had clearly been a long-standing leak - maybe more than one - soundlessly and insidiously attacking from somewhere within our kitchen water system. Beneath a covering of cracking tiles and sodden surface board, floor joists had gone black with rot. The entire floor was a goner. 

I never thought I would write this about an insurance company, but thank the gods for our insurers: they retain D. Challis Property Services Ltd. as their repair works specialist.
Challis' tradesmen arrived and went to work. They were courteous, cheerful. careful, and competent: out came the refrigerator and suchlike heavies and, when the full extent of the damage was realised, up came the floor. There was a degree of sawing, hammering, relevant chatting, toing and froing, and tea and coffee drinking. In a week the job was done. Well, all except the actual floor surface which is going to be vinyl rather than the former stone effect. I'll try to obtain a picture when that's all over. Our thanks to the Challis team which has been first class.
One thing for sure: our new kitchen floor will outlast us.
NO APOLOGY.
I could be apologetic that this is another blog post in such a personal vein but, when I look at all the gubbins going on around us, what would be the point? Truth is, I really don't give a toss whether some multi millionaire Tory MP gets the sack or some royal prat uses the money gifted him by his late mother to buy all the favourable publicity an expensive PR firm can obtain for him.
They are of as much interest to me as I am to them. But, unlike them, I am not in the public eye.

I don't think I would enjoy being a public personality. Donning an expected persona every time you go out must be quite hard work if you are not a born extrovert or a dedicated actor.

Whatever you are, public perception can be frighteningly fickle. So to photos on...
TELEVISION.
When you are watching the murder mystery of your choice (Paradise, Midsomer, Vera, Lewis, whatever) have you ever wondered how it is that the wall of the detective's incident room becomes decked with superb equisized photographs of the suspects? Could it be that each of them has been asked to provide an up-to-date portrait from their collection of theatre foyer pictures? It must help when all your suspects are actors, mustn't it? Just a thought.  

ALL FOR NOW.

BACK WHEN IT'S ALL DONE           

Post 459. A TRIP TO THE DENTIST

 AS AN NHS PATIENT.

FOR LUCKY ME LAST WEEK.
Chipped tooth trouble. Some nagging pain. Phoned our dental surgery, Fradgley and Willetts of Ventnor, I.W. (upstairs in the above picture), and was given an appointment to see Mr. Tim Fradgley a couple of days later.
Sitting in the dental chair at the appointed time I reflected upon the good fortune of those in this family signed on as patients with a dentist still prepared to provide us with such a service. Tim's father, Keith, was dentist and friend to Mo and I for many years until he retired. Tim was not beholden to transfer us to his NHS list then, but he did. Our grandson, Ellis, thanks to his late mother's good sense, is also on Tim's list. We are three lucky people.
Few dental practices, including ours, are currently taking on NHS patients. The Service is dissolving. Excessive reorganization imposed by political lackeys has so increased the burden of paperwork that, together with niggardly and often tardy reimbursement, the provision of NHS treatment has become a liability even to the most charitable of dental surgeon. Forget the greater good. There's no curbing the march of private enterprise.

So I was decidedly upbeat when, nagging pain tooth treated and broken top front tooth excellently camouflaged I returned, smiling, to Mo and she said:
"Oh my love! He has put everything right again! You look absolutely great!"

I felt it, too. There should have been a group of trainee dentists at that session. I think I was the patient in a dentistry master class.

I've grinned at myself in the mirror more in the last few days than I did in the entire lengthy time since my last visit to the Ventnor surgery. Thanks again, Tim.

AND, WHILE I'M  ABOUT IT.

Thanks to my lovely Mo, too. She drove me to and fro in the same uncomplaining way she nowadays drives me wherever and whenever I have to go. My driving licence is still valid, but there are far too many old fools cluttering up island roads and I can no longer be arsed watching out for what one of them might do next. So I've dropped it all in Mo's lap, at least until Ellis passes his driving test - and I'm sure he will.
I may then sometimes scrounge a lift from the youngest member of the household.

WE-E-E-ELL: WE'LL SEE...

Post 458. LIFE WAS MY UNIVERSITY'.

I ENVY THOSE YOUNG PEOPLE SCHOOLED

BY EITHER OF THESE GIFTED ACADEMICS.
Mary Beard interviewing Philip Pullman on Front Row Late (pictured) was one of those amiable treats that makes BBC Four a must, even for a practising plebeian like me.
I envy those who had the good fortune to avoid the often bullying, strictly regimented, corporal punishment driven, elementary education afforded in the days of my youth: I do remember with gratitude those teachers whose dedication outweighed their resentment at being called from retirement to replace younger men conscripted for war service, but I also remember the sarcasm, negativity, casual violence, of the many who inwardly railed against the hopelessness of their lot. 

So yes, I do envy those young people schooled by Mary Beard, by Philip Pullman, or, at Oxford and here, by our daughter, Jacqueline.
Teachers should be better paid even if, as a consequence, they do not become authors.
A university education should still be free to those born in Britain.

Politicians should stop interfering and trying to run everything like a two-bit business.  

BBC Four must not be commercialized and littered with adverts. Last night I saw Mark Lawson talking to Stephen King, who would rather be thought of as a novelist than as a writer of horror stories. The author's candid musings, including the revelation that his mother considered, when it came to taste, all his taste was in his mouth, were dry and compelling. Liked him.

I am keeping this short. Now I am away to read Philip Pullman's DAEMON VOICES on Stories and Storytelling. It will be good. He mentioned it on Front Row Late.
Well you don't appear on a television chat show if you've nothing to sell, do you? 

And he sold it to me without a single advert in view..
Where BBC Four is concerned, let's keep it that way.
CHEERS, FRIENDS

HAPPY NEW YEAR