14April1995

London: 14th April 1995
My dear folks,

Good Friday! Jones & I both woke a mite bleary-eyed after rather too good a supper last night. But a shower, a cup of coffee & a couple of slices of toast saw us right & off to Penny & Richard's house in Islington. I was due to give Penny another WINDOWS lesson & Richard had invited Jones to take the opportunity to go walking with him. Penny & I settled down at the computer & the pair of them vanished. They reappeared 3 hours later, enthused with Islington's treasure-chest. We lunched graciously before taking another stroll, this time down the canal which runs just a few metres from their front door. Indeed, until a few decades ago, the road separating them from the opposite row of houses was a river.

Before I leave the subject of computers, let me tell you that I returned from work last night to find a box of special goodies awaiting me, my WINDOWS 95 trial programme. Inside were 3 manuals, 12 floppies, a CD & a pamphlet advising customers to read the manuals before installing the program. This behaviour, as you may know, goes against all Benson instincts. I shall restrain my enthusiasm to tell you more as I restrained my impatience to get at it. In fact, I've barely had time to glance at the manuals. Exciting days ahead!

At work, I had various brief discussions with my bosses last week regarding my future. This had become a grey area as it became apparent that my pending appointment to Arab TV was a nonsense. The Saudi consortium which buys & markets BBC Arab TV had cancelled their request for extended transmissions until future notice, leaving the Beeb with more Arab appointees than it knew what to do with. As a temporary measure, I was asked to take over Asia Today, a news segment which transmits three 12-minute programmes overnight. The brass indicated to me that I could opt to return to Bush House (the radio service) or stay on in TV. I chose the latter & my permanent appointment to English TV was confirmed on Friday, regrettably, sans the promotion involved in the Arabic appointment. That's life.

So's tooth decay. After a glorious period of painless chomping, the pair of us presented ourselves to Mr Hely, the dentist, for check-ups. He's the nicest dentist, the only one I know to offer his patients a choice of coffee or cognac before & after appointments. He took a poke around our mouths & pronounced lots of work to be done. That was some months ago. Since then, we've been going regularly, Jones walking in to Harley Street & I cycling in for an early session before work. The bills arrived last week. We knew they were going to be eina but not that sore - much more painful than the treatment. There are times in life when one grits one's teeth and these are such. It's possible to get dental treatment on the national health (if you can find a dentist who will accept you, increasingly few & far between) but not the kind of treatment you get from Mr Hely. You don't want dentures, he tells us, and he's dead right. Rather a depleted bank balance than one's teeth in a glass overnight.

Back to today & the 3-page fax that curled in from Canada this morning, followed by another 3-pager from Germany this afternoon. Canadians, you sure have been getting around. But it sounded like an excellent trip. I could empathise with your feelings about Disneyland. Conal, Micaela & I hit the EuroDisney rides just as hard.

And Cathy, golly but the Germans seem to take their religion as seriously as their rules. I do hope the big day goes well after all the effort you've been putting in. This is just meant to be a shortie. So I'll rein it in & wish you Happy Easter and send you lots of love.