21June1995

London: 21st June 1995
My dear folks,

Another lovely evening! And on mid-summer's day too. A couple of druids managed to get down to Stonehenge to celebrate the occasion. There were TV pix showing them robed to the hilt, having muttered the essential incantations to placate the sun or whatever. Mind you, I don't mean to poke fun at them. Nobody's religion makes much sense to anybody else and after the conspiracies of Aum Shinri Kyo, what's a couple of druids between friends, especially if they can persuade the sun to rise again tomorrow? Just imagine if the authorities banned the ceremony & the sun stayed put. What a fuss there would be then!

I spent several hours putting together a fancy report on a competition for models in China. It may sound crazy but I have to tell you that a classy Chinese model is just as classy as anything you'll find in Paris or New York. The days of baggy overalls have gone. It took a long time to package the report because there were lots of short bursts of music behind the shots & these required painstaking marrying to each other & to the track I was interspersing. I managed to find myself a female picture editor with a keen interest in modelling who did a fine job. Another package I was trying to organise fell through & I left my successor with rather less (material) than I like to. I normally spoil him silly so it won't hurt him to graft for once.

I have chatted to Bren & to Mum & received a fax from Jones. Thank you. I'm glad the cassettes arrived safely Cath & look forward to viewing them during our next trip. We still harbour ideas of an October visit. Mave is fed and Maureen is out to dinner. I spent two hours last night trying to stick the 8 metre flexible drain clearer down the wretched shower drain which I had been unable to block by other means. It meant crawling into dim corners and, having wrestled the pipe joints off, wriggling & wiggling & poking the apparatus into smelly, leaking pipeholes. I didn't seem to encounter the blockage at any point but after sticking the pipes together again, I flushed some hot water down the shower and it seemed to work again as good as new. I was thrilled (with just a hint of doubt that I might have poked a hole in the pipe into which the water was vanishing). Maureen left a note saying that she had showered & that I was hired.

I bumped into a downstairs neighbour when I arrived home (Elaine) to hear that she was marrying her long-standing boyfriend, Harry, a pleasant Greek businessman whom I've encountered from time to time. I was pleased that they were pleased and said so. I confess I tend to think more of who's partnering whom these days than who's gone through the formalities. Our grandfathers and great grandfathers would have been horrified. But times change. An Anglican bishop has got himself into hot water with some of his flock for suggesting that it's possible for couples to be married (and thus living holy lives) in senses other than being formally wed. Poor old church! With half the flock gay, half the flock living in what used to be known as sin and the other half disgusted with both the previous halves, life ain't simple.

Let me get this off before the witching hour. Then I shall go outside and water the patio and whisper sweet-nothings to Mavis.