Post 346. I'D BE LOST WITHOUT MUSIC.

 IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE. 

Though I cannot read a note of it, music is very much a part of me. 
Throughout my boyhood our home was seldom without it. In old age I become more and more dependent on it. 
Now my day starts with Classic FM (Ts and Cs apply) and ends with something musical (when I can find it) on Sky Arts. 
The end of day musical alternative used to be stored in my television recordings: then along came a Sky engineer to transfer our television from the old living room to the new and, in the process, lose my entire collection.

These included a cherished recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto played by Pekka Kuusisto (with hilarious encore) at the 2016 BBC Proms, which I'll never get back now. 
It also housed Beethoven's 1st Piano Concerto played by Lars Vogt, and Brahms Piano Concertos 1 and 2 played by Daniel Barenboim: both appeared on Sky Arts, which no longer features them: I have sent a message to Sky and am hoping they may be shown again. 

Meantime, I still enjoy a background of music when I'm writing. Currently I am playing the Beethoven (1 and 5 Piano) CD with Lars Vogt and his beloved Royal Northern Sinfonia on the little Steepletone Music System. Superb.

YouTube has some damn good background listening, too, but even an old guy like me finds it difficult not to keep returning to the film when the soloist is somebody as attractive and talented as the violinist Alena Baeva. Nobody should look that good and sound that good. Which I seem to remember was exactly what I said the first time I saw Doris Day ride off as Calamity Jane singing Secret Love. I was in my early twenties then.

Nothing really changes.

THIS LOT NEVER WILL.

Do beware of zealots.

Every country has at least one organization made up of patriotic zealots bent on strengthening the power of the non-elected. America has many. The Orient, Asia, and rest of the world, is packed with them.

In this country the prominent haven for bureaucratic chancers is Westminster where they are described as 'advisers.' They are invited in by certain of our elected representatives who should know better.

None of these patriots does a worthwhile thing for country or mankind. They are professional nothings. 

But just try getting rid of them. 

Or, until next month anyway, ignore them. 

Hasta La Vista.

Post 345. STILL TAKE IN TELEVISION.

WHEN THERE'S NOWT ELSE.

But it has to be good.

Jesse Stone: Tom Selleck (above) in the leading role, is good - as is the rest of the cast - in this series of television films based on detective stories written by Robert B. Parker. The leading actor is way older than Jesse Stone is in the books, but the author apparently approved the casting. Smart man. 

The books are good, too. I am currently re-reading Night Passage, the first of the series, on kindle. Helps me abide the nonstop flow of quiz and property shows that are grist to the television provider's mill. My Leader likes them: I don't.

Robert B. Parker also wrote the Spenser private detective yarns and the western story Appaloosa, which inspired a decent screen adaptation directed by Ed Harris, who starred along with Viggo Mortensen, Rene Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons.

On the 18 January, 2010, Robert Brown Parker was found dead at his desk. Way to go.
Vera: Dear ol' Brenda Blethyn is back as DCI Vera Stanhope. 

Couldn't be farther from Jessie Stone, but tough and humorous in a British sort of way. Ms Blethyn, who is only a couple of years younger than Mr. Selleck is, like him, totally convincing in the title role.
Breaking Dad: Barney Walsh (22) takes his famous father, Bradley (59), on a tour of America in two short series of gently madcap adventures.

Barney plays passable guitar, sings pleasantly, and puts his father through a wringer of don't-do-this-to-the-old-man physical tests. It is charming and, at times, somewhat worrying. 

Maureen and I had a two line conversation after the last series.

I said: “I wouldn't have let our Neil set me up like that.”

And she replied: “No. But they're in show business, love.”

That says it all.
Downton Abbey: Mo decided that viewing the film at home, whatever the cost, was infinitely preferable to sitting in a cinema with me moaning about the ear-splitting sound, the cost of the refreshments, and the Ill-mannered buggers rustling giant popcorn bags in the row behind.

She didn't say any of this, but I got the message and was happy to sit at my end of the settee, with the recliner up, quietly watching the old tele gang (plus Imelda Staunton) deliver the filmic goods. And does anybody not love Maggie Smith at her autocratic best? 
It was almost as daft as Call The Midwife which, nowadays, is utterly dependent on its wonderful cast to rescue it from some inexcusably saccharine story lines.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed Downton: packed though it may be with the type of person I instinctively detest.

AND FINALLY.

Are we being taken over?

In the nicest possible way?

Toodle pip. 

Post 344. LET'S CALL IT A DAY.

WE HAVEN'T WON A WAR. 

So never mind festive fifty pence pieces, Big Ben's buggered bong, or end of war style street parties. Whether you're a buoyant brexiter or a recalcitrant remainer, let's call it a day, eh? Let's hang Brexit out to dry.

I write as a remain voter whose wife was a leave voter and whose nigh on fifty eight years of marriage has resolutely avoided being so much as ruffled by it.

How, you may (or may not – I don't care) wonder, can that be?
It's a simple answer.

We both see the funny side of it, and of each other; that's how.

Well, look at the plethora of silliness there has been ever since the referendum. Everything about it, from the sullen departure of the idiot whose cocksureness enabled it to the elevation of the fornicating liar who has become his ultimate beneficiary, is utter farce. Dear old Brian Rix should still be alive.

To celebrate their narrow victory the brexiteers have heartily enjoined the powers-that-be to laud it on the day with street parties, chiming church bells and the bonging of Big Ben.

I'm surprised none of them thought to suggest the adoption of The White Cliffs of Dover, sung by Vera Lynn, as their anthem.

To add to this nonsense, the reactionary coterie of Little Englanders who became MEPs last year, stood up today like a bunch of spoiled brats, waving their tiny union jacks, to resign from the EU parliament. Ho-hum.

Leavers who have spurned triumphalism (and my wife is among them), are not mooded to set off fireworks tomorrow night, or to miss the bonging of Big Ben, or to hold a celebration party, or to welcome the newly minted fifty pence piece due out tomorrow, or even to smugly reiterate the words “democratic vote.”

And as far as the fifty pence newcomer is concerned, the much admired author Philip Pullman has said it all: 

“The 'Brexit' 50p coin is missing an Oxford comma, and should be boycotted by all literate people.” 

As an elementary school semi illiterate I would not presume to disagree with him, but I would have written his sentence without the comma before 'and should be...' Sorry, Sir Philip.

That's it for this month.

On Saturday morning the lights go on again all over the world and Boris's government starts to give the NHS £350 million a week.

Do you believe that?

If you do, may I suggest psychiatric treatment?

Post 343. I NOW HAVE A KINDLE.

THANKS TO MO. 

Yeah, she did it again. 
Well, I've always been a book lover. Just never considered reading from anything other than a hardback book or, for the reduced cost when I felt I could wait, a paperback. Mo is a prolific reader, too; our home tends to look like the reading room in a public library.
Then came the kindle publication of The Badgers... and the realisation that I would only be able to read it in the off-piste area of our garden room, where resides my elderly computer.

" That won't do.” said the dauntless Leader. “You must be able to read it in the living room. I have ordered you a kindle.”

She had, too.

What seemed like the next morning the postman (or maybe that nice bloke who believes Amazon will behead him if he doesn't run up the drive with our order the instant we place it) dropped said item into our letterbox.

So I have begun a kindle library.

Started with my own book (which I thought was rather good, but I admit to prejudice) and followed that up with Curtain Call by Graham Hurley (pictured), the first book in a three part series featuring Enora Andressen, which is very good.

Enora is an Anglo-Breton actress who has a worrying brain tumour, a teenage son and a very poor taste in men.

Ensconced on the settee in the living room I have enjoyed every kindle page of her story. Quickly established who was who. 
Well, I've been entertained by several of them over the years. 

Always liked her. She's a fine actress.

First encountered her in The Perfect Soldier (1996) where she played bereaved mother Molly Jordan who goes to Angola to seek an answer to her son's death in a minefield: went on to enjoy her sound performance in Permissible Limits (1999) where she played bereaved wife Ellie Bruce who pilots a Mustang aeroplane to thrilling effect: and now here in the autobiographical Curtain Call, where she plays herself on the brink of divorce, is up for the leading role in a radio play, Going Solo (an adaptation of Permissible Limits) and handles a wounded Brixham trawler in gale force wind to thrilling effect. 

I've got to take in the sequels.

My choice of M. Hurley as a library starter was twofold.

In the first place he is a bloody good novelist (few writers would even attempt a faux female first person present narrative – let alone get away with it) and, in the second place, three years ago (Post 258) I wrote that I had sent The Badgers prologue to pal Ian Dillow and “as a consequence, to the novelist Graham Hurley” and both had been kind in their response to it.

I have kept an amiable eye on M. Hurley's output ever since, and the revelation that some of his books had been published on kindle emboldened me to seek our son's help in placing  Badgers there for me.

Don't know whether I'll ever have the time to write another.

But I hope Graham Hurley will go on and on and on...

Keep reading from whatever source.

Post 342. MADE A FEW NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS...

KNOWING I'LL NOT STICK TO THEM. 

This year I have resolved:  

1) that I will severely limit my television viewing. 

2) that when yet another reality show nonentity is described on the box as 'a celebrity' I will not say: "Christ! Really?" 

3) that I will find some good in everybody except, possibly, the overpaid professional foulers on football fields. 

4) that I shall try to refrain from automatically translating the words 'the government' into 'those useless bastards' and that
5) I shall eat less, exercise more and refrain from the sort of invective I would never have used on a drill square way back in my army days.
What? Oh, I know I'll not stick to any of those resolutions. We've experienced over a decade of austerity and have just voted for another five years of it. If you don't curse about that you're a bloody saint. 
THAT BOOK.

  

Freshly revised edition. 
In super quick time the edit of the first print of The Badgers of Deep Wood, my story for children aged nine to ninety nine, has been acted on by our son and cover artist, Neil (Godbless'im), and the freshly revised version - cover above -  can now be obtained on Amazon kindle via Google. 
Not much else I can say except that it's an easy read and I hope some of you will give it a go. 
MY READING.
Philip Pullman. I reached the end of Mr. Pullman's The Secret Commonwealth: The Book of Dust Volume Two and found myself hoping he's far enough through Volume Three for me to still be around when it's published.   
Anthony Horowitz. I finished reading Alex Rider: Ark Angel and am just starting Snakehead, another story in Mr. Horowitz's  Bondlike boy spy saga. They're the sort of yarns everyone who scribbles thinks they can write. They can't.
I have also started reading Bill Bryson's The Road to Little Dribbling: it's a long one so lord alone knows when I'll finish it. 
To add to that, among my Christmas presents are two books of short stories by classic murder story writers and Play All, by Clive James, 'a bingewatcher's notebook.' My cup is full.
FINALLY.
Our daughter Jac says I am still unreachable by blog comment. For anyone who would like to get in touch I can be reached on dennisbarnden30@gmail.com 
But, as you can see, time (to quote General Orde Wingate) is the enemy. 
So I'll not reply to unwell wishers. 
Anyone else I'd love to hear from. 
Go safely now. 

Post 341. GOODBYE TO 2019

A BEWILDERING YEAR. 
Sad, but with a few highs.

One of  the highs for me.
The very recent kindle publication of  my story for children aged nine to ninety nine. 
Thanks to the efforts of our son, Neil, whose artwork graces the cover, The Badgers of  Deepwood (originally written - and still written throughout - as Deep Wood) can now be bought on Amazon Kindle for the princely sum of £2.30. 
I hope you will think it worth giving a try. The price shouldn't break you and it's a good read, even if I do immodestly say so. 
And an even bigger high. 
The progress made by our daughter, Roz, in completing her chemo sessions and making preparation for the reconstruction of breasts operation next year. Keep a kind place in your heart for her. 
More when we know more. 
And then the sadness.

At the putting down of our dear pal for many years, the cat Shadow, He was all of twenty four/five years old and in fast failing health, so I accept it was the kindest, the only sensible, thing to do for him. But I can neither forgive myself for arranging it nor stem my tears at the memory of it. Us and our animals, eh?  
Nor can we help but worry. 
At the health problems undergone by mates like John A. and Ian D. this year. We can only wish them both a full recovery and all the very best for 2020.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 
To you, too, dear reader.

Don't let politicians get you down!

Post 340. SO THAT'S IT THEN.

THE ELECTION'S DONE.

And the Tories won with a massive majority which will see them in power for at least five more years. 

Clearly the electorate disliked Corbyn even more than it distrusted Johnson. 

Now sit back and wait for the blatant lies, the broken promises, the blanking of the underdog, the disregard for public services, the systematic dismantling of the BBC and NHS, and the shameless kowtowing to a fat reality television twat in America. Make no mistake, it's all in the pipeline now. I trust none of them. 

Get Brexit done? 

Bollocks!

SO FORGET POLITICS.

It's Christmas, hence the slight lateness of this post. 

My Leader and I spent yesterday writing Christmas cards to people we like and respect. If you don't get one it won't be because we don't like and respect you, it will be because we are getting older and increasingly lapse into forgetfulness. 
Ah well. Age is a bugger, but it still beats the alternative.
Anyway, whether you're on the card list or not, if you are reading this, I hope you'll have a joyous, heartwarming festive season. Happy Christmas to you! 

Post 339. A SMATTERING OF ADVICE.

FOR THE WOULD-BE SCRIBBLER,

 

Do use a notebook.

If you are the would-be scribbler who, reading this, has the notion of writing a blog of your own, you may possess and even regularly use an 'ideas' notebook. If you do not, I strongly advise that you obtain one and keep it close at hand to instantly record those moments of genius you get when you least expect them.

I have a notebook and a couple of pads: gifts I seldom use (you may not be surprised to learn). I should use them. I would if I could find them. I just forget where they are and when I do find one I lose it as soon as I've made a note in it. I also kid myself, when I get what I think is a bright idea, that I will easily retain it in my head.

Big mistake.

Lord alone knows how many ideas I'll eventually take to the crem. with me. Reason I'm writing these words now is that the bright opening topic I thought up last week was gone from me by the weekend. You may well be less forgetful than me, but take no chances. Use a notebook.

The forthcoming election.

Back in the early days of this blog (Post 8) I wrote: I shall try not to mention anything faintly political again. I lied. But there's a lot of that about at the moment.

Faux humble pie was much in evidence on all sides by Wednesday evening of last week. Apologies abounded from leading politicians for just about everything from speaking their minds to breathing. This is, after all, the age of 'apology for everything.'

The exception to the rule appears to be the leader of the opposition who has adopted “Let me finish, please,” as his mantra whenever an interviewer attempts to interrupt his remorseless flow. 
I wait in vain for the interviewer to say: “No, Mr. Corbyn, you are here to be interviewed. If you merely want to perform your act, please do it somewhere else.”

By the same token, I do wish some top person, both in Health and in Education, had been bold enough to say to the Prime Minister: “No, Mr. Johnson, our hospitals and schools are not pawns to be used by smiling politicians with their shirt sleeves rolled up. Go back to doorstepping and give healthy grown ups the chance to tell you you're talking bullshit.”

As things stand I don't believe a word said by any one of them on either side.

I think the Tories will get back in. 
There will then be at least five more years of total chaos. 

FRIENDS.

Three old pals. 
'Anonymous' John, Ian and David. 
Both John and Ian have had a less than ideal year healthwise. Like most Brits I never quite know what to do or say at such times, but before the year is out I'd like them to know that our (Mo and my) thoughts are constantly with them, as are our very best wishes.

And (combination of dithery memory plus unacceptable inaction) I missed a chance to meet up with David recently. I am sorry about that. Had we met I might have told him how much I appreciated his email comment on the picture below: Just fabulous, I wondered where it had gone! Anyone get the registration number?

Now that's the reaction of a real policeman.

Good luck with the Christmas decorations.            
Mind how you cross the road.

Post 338. AND ANOTHER THING.

ABOUT GETTING OLD.

 

You can't avoid cynicism.
Another election on the way and here they come, oozing from the woodwork, with their visits (jacketless in rolled up shirt sleeves) to hospitals and their paternal posing in schoolrooms surrounded by cute kiddies. It's like a Hollywood casting couch for UK members of parliament. 
Anything goes. 
Today the Tories are saying that if we vote them back in they will drastically cut immigration and that a vote for Jeremy Corbyn will see a veritable tsunami of foreigners flooding our cosy clique of a country. It's an appeal to that shitty facet of the British psyche that used only to be seen on football terraces.

As for old Jeremy himself: at present he seems hell-bent on widening the north/south divide by unfavourably comparing tardy governmental reaction to flooding up north with what might have been had it happened in Surrey. 

Y'know what? North/south/red/blue/stay/leave, I'm sick of the bloody lot of it. 
Will no one ever wake up to the fact that we're now just a piddling little spot on the world atlas, not the Great British Empire we were brought up to believe we were (and had a divine right to be) when I was a boy in the nineteen thirties? Those days will never come back, thank God, no matter how much we depressingly creep to America or try to convince ourselves we are still of worldwide importance. We're not big enough to constantly be indulging in petty area rivalries, either. The North -  South thing is just as stupid as the Catholic - Protestant thing and almost as self-destructive. 
Rulers divide to conquer.
So let's try to find somebody who wants to govern for the benefit of country, not self, without childish point scoring, or playground bullying, or appealing to isolationism. 
I might even vote for them.
What? 
Yeah. It's an impossible dream.
I'd be convinced they were lying.
YOUR AGE SHOWS

In your musical taste, too. 
I know I've said as much before, and may well do again, but I have been reminded ever since Lauren Laverne took over Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 that my musical taste is no longer compatible with that of the majority of modern castaways chosen to reside on that imaginary island. Many of my favourites are no longer with us. 
As I write this, Harry Nilssen (above) is serenading me for the umpteenth time on the Steepletone with A Little Touch of Schmilsson. He follows Georges Guetary whose Ma belle Marguerite CD features 23 mono recordings 1946 to 1951. Wonderful. 
While I would determinedly row my boat away from the music I heard from most desert islands now, Nilssen's rendering of This Is All I Ask and Over The Rainbow, or Guetary's I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise would have me  landing on a tide of musical enthusiasm. 
Takes all sort, don't it.
Back again before the election all being well.
Mind how you go.  

Post 337. WHY SUCH HATRED?

IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY.

 

Is this all there is?
You can buy a hunting knife on the net. You don't need a licence. You can carry an entire set of kitchen knives and, if questioned by the police, say you are a chef. There has been a steady increase in knife crime since 2014. Fatal stabbings take place almost daily. It's as though we are steadily marching back to medieval times. 
What the hell has gone wrong?

Well, for a start, successive governments have depleted the entire public service system. 
We have long had too few police officers (certainly too few walking the beat) and, of those currently serving, many at the top were enlisted from outside the force and have never so much as given evidence in court, let alone stood toe to toe with a wrong 'un. 
Over the last forty years there has been one reduction (impertinently described as reorganisation) after another in every public service: customs and excise, education, local government, the fire service, the N.H.S. You name it... 
No doubt some smart-arse government adviser has been promoted each time on the strength of it, but it has clearly been done to cut costs rather than to benefit the population it is supposed to serve. That population has risen by around eleven million since 1980 and there has been no let up in the government's turn-of-the-century austerity programme. 
Don't be bullshitted by politicians. Since 2010 there has been a reduction of over £30 billion in public spending. This in a country that, determined it can manage its own affairs, is going back to the polls on December 12 after three years of shilly-shallying over Brexit. Is this all there is then? 
It's hard to be optimistic. 

TELEVISION.

One can appreciate the madness of The Walking Dead (FOX). It is based on a comic book so it has to be barmy.

Whether the same can be said for the exuberant supporters who flock to The Talking Dead is open to question, but I see actors as the royalty of America, with their fans as voluntary courtiers, so I allow for madness in them. I still watch both programmes, tongue in cheek. 

Well, they're better than antiques, or cooking, or reality rubbish, or quizzes, or people looking at houses they do not intend to buy.

The Dublin Murders (BBC One) is a modern psychological thriller containing characters who are neither entirely sane nor particularly likeable. It dodges to and fro between then and now (the current trend) and at eight episodes is at least two episodes too long. Finally: how many more examples of the headcase hero with whom to bore us can there possibly be?

Ah well. It's better than antiques, or cooking, or reality...    

That's it for another month.
 

Post 336. COMING TOGETHER IS SLOW..

BUT HELPED BY FRIENDS. 

Who are not always human. 
I have written very little since we said our last goodbye to dear old Shadow on 30 August. This is just a quick catch up to let readers know that we amble on aided by Roz, Ellis and the animals. 
Their dog Buddy (above) has seemed particularly concerned that we suffer not from loneliness and is now keeping us company every morning in the same way that Shadow did. He takes up much more room on the bed but obviously means well.

My story for children aged nine to ninety nine, The Badgers of Deep Wood, has long been finished and is currently lingering somewhere between “I really ought to try it out on a publisher but am too bloody old to wait around while one after the other of them throws it on the slush pile for a month or two before returning it unread” and “Our (son) Neil has a memory stick copy of it and has occasionally talked about online publishing. But he's a very busy fellow and when it comes to modern technology I am a complete duffer.” 

It's a good yarn and (who knows?) maybe after I've kicked the bucket it will be published. 

Meanwhile I am 134 pages into the reading of Philip Pullman's Book of Dust - Volume Two - The Secret Commonwealth which has just been published and is another master class in the art of story telling. 

I may manage to feign an interest in Brexit, or Extinction Rebellion (or even the next bloody election) by the end of the month, but if I'm not there, start without me. 

So that's it for now, dear reader, except just to mention that it is 

THE BIRTHDAY TODAY 

of our courtesy granddaughter 

lovely Hannah Woods. 

Wishing you a great day 

and a wonderful future, little buddy.

Post 335. IN MEMORY OF SHADOW

A TRUE FAMILY CAT. 

Shadow Barnden  circa 1995 – 2019. 
It is with deep regret that I report the death of the cat Shadow. He was, of all our feline companions throughout many years, the most family-minded cat ever to befriend us. 
Some time around the year 2000 he came five doors down the terrace in Newport, where we then lived, to permanently reside in our home. He had made up his mind. The nice people at number 7, grandson of whom had left him with them when he moved to the mainland, were to become occasional friends only: they liked him but their resident cat didn't. He would be better off with the new people down at number 2 who were obvious cat people and didn't have a cat. Thus we were adopted: and when we moved here in 2015 it was as a family of which he was a member. 
I like to think the subsequent four years, despite the occasional setback, were happy retirement years for him. 
Sadly, over the past few months old age took its relentless toll and it was with much soul- searching that we had to arrange for the mobile vet to visit him here on 30 August. We were with him when his life ended. 
He was a dear friend and there will never be another like him. 
I can write no more right now. 

Post 334. NOTHING REALLY CHANGES

AS THIS POST SHOWS.

 On the 13th August 2008 (Post 109) I wrote: 

Perhaps I should feel more urgency about things, but I try not to kid myself that my views are of earth shattering importance. A month free of my meanderings will not have global repercussions. For that matter, I do not think the opinions of most people, no matter how honestly held, are of particular consequence. If they think anybody gives a toss they are sadly mistaken. 

In the same post (remarking on an email I had received from a blatant racist) I opined: 

Seems to me most of the trouble in this world is caused by religious fanatics and politicians of every persuasion. I cannot be bothered with them: or the blinkered morons who support them. 

No change there then. 

No change either in the following disclosure from the same post: 

I sometimes think I would like to have been an actor: but know I could never have made it. I have a dread of being regarded as a show off, suffer excruciating stage fright and am mortified by rejection. As compensation, I get great pleasure from watching professional actors skilfully practise their craft and enjoy putting together a few words about them when they have particularly impressed me. I feel I need not worry that they may read it. The good ones will be too busy learning their lines. 

Heck! This is an elderly chap's occasional blog, not a column in a national daily. 

Anyway, for what it is worth, as a scribbler I suffer depression occasionally and fools not at all. The depression usually comes at the outset of winter or when the fortnight which constitutes summer has gone. It is remedied by bright colours and plenty of light. The remedy for fools is deletion. And if you are the sort of smart arse who says it takes one to know one...

Click! 

Yep! Nothing really changes. 

Cheeky television programmers are still swamping us with repeats rescued from the archives: eternal damnation would be theirs were it not for the excellent performances of such fine actors as Nicola Walker, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Michael Kitchen David Suchet and the late Geraldine McEwan (to name but a handful of those currently on our screens). I try to resist second – or even third – viewings, but can still find it beyond me to ignore Ms Walker and Mr. Bhaskar's believability in Unforgotten, lovely old Geraldine McEwan's likeability in Marple, Mr. Kitchen's wry twist of the mouth in Foyle, or Mr. Suchet's definitive depiction of the most overplayed detective in fiction, Poirot. I can still be caught watching Endeavour and Lewis, too. 

I continue to have no interest whatsoever in reality television. 
Big brother? Love Island? Christ no! 

I do have a Facebook account, but I seldom look at it and I determinedly avoid Twitter on the grounds that one-liners are for stand-up comedians. 

FINALLY. 

It has been brought to my notice by daughter Jac that she has been unable to message me on the blog. I have no idea why. 

To anybody who has experienced similar difficulty I can only apologise. 

Go safely, my dears. 

There are few of you left.