On their chosen subject of stress, I recently gave a talk to fifty seniors in a girls’ school. I enjoyed it and it appeared that they did too. Nobody threw or smashed anything.
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03Jul
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03Jul
“People think we’re married but we’re not really: he’s drunk all the time.”
That must be one of the saddest comments I have ever heard. We had the husband in treatment once, for a week, but he left because he didn’t believe that he had a problem. In a way, I suppose, that is true. His wife has the problem – him.
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03Jul
I see more foxes in Central London than I do in the wilds of East Kent. In the small hours of this morning, I was greeted by a very fine specimen with a magnificent brush. The dustbin pickings must be good.
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02Jul
As Corus, the steel-maker, contracts even further, I wonder if Gordon Brown will now get the blame, as Mrs Thatcher did in her time in his position, for ravaging the north of England. Perhaps it is different for a Labour government: different rules apply.
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01Jul
Another great chunk of human flotsam and jetsam has just been put on the dole. I wonder if anyone – apart from the people themselves and their families – really noticed.
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30Jun
Recently a dramatically striking picture was published of a young Afghan girl looking firmly into the camera lens. She had most remarkable eyes. There was something particularly notable about her pupils.
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29Jun
Life can be extraordinarily unfair at times. Two members of my extended family are in medical difficulty at present. One was told that he had a one-in-a-hundred chance of a particular surgical complication and, of course, he got it. The other was told that her treatment was working – until it didn’t.
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29Jun
He is committed to parliamentary reform but, at the same time, knowledgeable and respectful of parliamentary tradition. He could be rather good, despite his facetious election by the Labour Party majority in the House of Commons. I doubt that he will sing their tune now – he doesn’t need to.
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29Jun
He gave so much. That should be his epitaph – nothing else.
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27Jun
Terry Pratchett’s novel, “Nation”, is not in the Discworld series. It is a straight adventure story and love story. Very soon I was enthralled by it. I read it straight through in one day and night. It was very good for me to be so totally absorbed by it that I put all current difficulties aside.
But what a man! Battling against Alzheimer’s disease, this could be his last novel, although I hope not. Yet I remember that Iris Murdoch and Bernard Levin, both magnificent writers, had to stop writing because of Alzheimer’s disease. Life can be extraordinarily selectively cruel at times.
“Nation” is a story of what a nation really is and what it takes to create and defend one. “A personal philosophy” could be an alternative title. Terry Pratchett certainly has that and I am much the richer from him illustrating it in his books.
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