2008 — 8 April: Tuesday, f-f-freezing
It's 00:35 and a clear, cold, star-filled night. I'm back from the adventure,1 and a screening of Merci, Dr Rey which has (surely) to be the oddest Merchant-Ivory film I've so far seen. It was very good, though.
Later today, we're still planning a little walk, so I shall call it a night.
Getting ready for the "off"
Right! It's 08:47 and the bland banality of Mr Wogan has pushed me back over to Radio 3. The crockpot is stuffed and will shortly start to simmer gently, I trust. If not, it's going to be a hungry Mounce by the evening. The cuppa that completes the morning re-booting process is on its way down, at which point I should almost be in a fit state to do something about either or both a bite of breakfast and a packed lunch. The sun is very definitely shining, the Green Bin men (or, if not, the Green Garden Bag waste collection chaps) appear to be up and about. My initial sniff of fresh air out on the porch doesn't say "beware, frost". So it's looking OK for a walk.
My goodness. The world of opinion looks a tad vituperative this morning. We have Paul Theroux re-slicing his low opinion of his former mentor VS Naipaul. We have Norman Lebrecht suggesting the curtain be permanently lowered on von Karajan. Even poor old Roget gets it in the neck from Simon Winchester (admittedly, in an essay back in 2001):
The index is and always has been what everybody uses. The classification system is something of which almost no user of Roget is even vaguely aware. I defy all but the specialists among readers of this article to claim that they knew, for example, that deodorant, henpecked, box-office, and consuetude can be found in a class Roget called Volition, or that dog collar, privet, fulcrum, and clotheshorse are in the class he called Space. However noble Roget's design, no one uses it and few care about it; if there was once a Platonic ideal for his book, it is subordinate to the relentless usefulness that was brought about, at a stroke, by the inclusion of the index. As Roget might well have grumbled, that index represents the chicane that separates the original intent of the book from its present vulgar function.
Time to raise the blood sugar level, methinks. Wonder where we'll be walking today? Report to follow, if we don't get irretrievably lost. It's now 09:34, the sandwiches are made, and amateurishly packed in what's laughably described as "non-static" cling film. The last bits of brekkie are sitting in front of me. The second cuppa is cooling towards drinkability. Perhaps outdoor clothes would be a good idea?
Just think: I haven't even mentioned the CD that Mr Postie banged me up about yesterday. It's by Pete Atkin, and called Midnight Voices. It features lyrics by Clive James, from the early 1970s, that have now been newly recorded. If only I had time to listen to it...
Never believe anything...
... until it has been officially denied. So, for example, when the Prime Minister (who was, remember, a very long-serving tweaker of the levers of the UK economy before ascending the greasy pole to the top job) dismisses fears of a crash in the housing market, take cover! After all, how wise is it to rely on property prices and values as the main engine of a smoke and mirrors economy in the first place? But what I'd like to know is where were the shared ownership and payment holiday options now being suggested when Christa and I were struggling with our housing costs? These days, it seems borrowers have to find a deposit of 5% — when I were a lad... (perhaps you can hear my teeth grinding?) Yet even if prices fall by the 20% mentioned as "a very real danger" in this article, my son (whose salary comfortably exceeds what IBM ever saw fit to pay me) will still be unable to afford anything within easy reach of his employer in London.
Still, we (Mike and I) had a very pleasant walk out near and around Tichborne for nearly seven miles, without getting rained or sleeted on, or too badly lost. And I have a digital snap or two to show for it. Including this shy chap:
And hardly any mud. Plus the crockpot is, from the aroma, currently (18:23) still behaving according to plan.
Food for thoughts
And now, at 19:40 (to the accompaniment of music chosen by Desmond Carrington — "My canary has circles under his eyes!"), the first serving has indeed nearly finished going down a treat. After this, I shall resume my background task of DVD artwork scanning. I've just reached the delightful film Becoming Jane which Christa and I enjoyed together the day I bought it last October. I came late to an appreciation of the genius of Jane Austen; Christa had naturally already studied her novels at University in the late 1960s. After I'd "caught up" we had a few interesting conversations about them, though I have never been able to tolerate or finish Northanger Abbey for some reason.
My chum Nick (whom I'm delighted to learn keeps a gentle eye on me via these diary pages) knows how much I appreciate the odd trivial datum, and recently supplied me with a corker with respect to young Desmond, having noted my comments earlier:
In 1959 Desmond was engaged to play the young Dr Chris Anderson in the medical soap opera Emergency Ward 10, which was televised live twice-weekly in Britain. His initial contract was for three weeks: he left after six years and some 350 episodes, his name and face known throughout the U.K.
I have not asked Mrs Google where he found this lovely fact — he may well have known it for years, of course. Nor did I realise the programme went out live, though I should certainly have been able to deduce that given what I know about video recording technology. Shame on me.
Happy Days (again)
Christa and I first visited Guernsey in 1977.
I can clearly remember the red shoes, the cream bag, and her lovely warm smile. (She always smiled when she saw me.) I'm also pretty sure that I took this picture on a beach in the North West corner of what was (at the time) a lovely and relatively uncrowded, uncommercialised, little holiday spot. Cars, and the financial services industry, have since wreaked havoc on the island in the 30 years since then — and we both thought that, by the way.
We returned in 1978, and I remember hearing Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" playing on the bus driver's radio as we traversed the island again. Now here's a lovely spot of trivia from the BBC, talking about the album City to City and that particular track from it:
With its rippling celeste and yearning, understated, vocal both Rafferty and his label felt it was too enigmatic and reticent to be a single. But a groundswell of radio play, producing a huge surge of public interest, changed their minds. The reason? That saxophone riff. Urban legend has it being performed by quizmaster Bob Holness (for which we have a young Stuart Maconie to thank), but in reality the solo2 was performed by top sessioneer, Raphael 'Raff' Ravenscroft.
Enigmatic? Reticent?? Crikey, I wish I could write like that. I'm actually listening to Mr Maconie as I type this...