23April1995

London: 23rd April 1995
My dear folks,

Sunday morning - and not a bad one considering the evil weather forecast for the weekend. It looks like winter's dying gasp & a mean one at that. Snow and ice in Scotland, deep frosts & temps well under zero in England & a messy little depression that now seems to have cleared the country. We had some rain and could have used some more. It's been very dry. The same is true in Portugal where the forecast showed a solid weekend of rain ahead. We gathered that the Algarve had at least had showers & had turned nippy. Indeed, there a couple of BBC colleagues arrived there yesterday & phoned last night to say they could not get one of the gas heaters to work. Could I help? I advised them to light a fire & Jones phoned an adjacent long-stay guest to beg him to take a peek. But I did think it was a lot of money going in phone-calls where an ounce of resilience would have done as well.

We have had an active weekend. It was Jones's last fling before her return to Portugal & there was a lot she wanted to cram in. I meant to sit down & tell you about it last night. But there's a test of character I have to survive each time I sit down at the computer, a siren song that beckons me to heed the sweet voice of the temptress. It's called Free Cell - a kind of thinking person's Solitaire (a game that arrived on my WINDOWS 95 programme). It's addictive, time-consuming, frustrating & wonderfully satisfying on such occasions as one cracks it. The HELP file that comes with the game declares that: "It is believed [although not proven] that every game is winnable", a statement so evidently false in my experience that I am considering legal action against Microsoft. (The rules are simple & I should be more than happy to explain them to anyone who wanted to try the game with a pack of cards! But beware, it's like deliberately catching the plague.)

The weekend began on Thursday evening when we went, at last, to see Forest Gump. Both of us came away puzzled. It's such a mixture of parts, of credible people in the life of a non-credible simpleton - with lots of irony & low-key very clever special effects. What we couldn't figure out was the message, other than the all-American feel-good factor which presumably had the Oscar awarders reaching for their tissues and their vote-cards. Certainly, the two lassies beside me demolished a box of tissues. Jones & I were impressed but unmoved.

Friday morning we walked along the canal & through Regents Park where we caught a tube to the Barbican (a huge development, comprising a ring of blocks of desirable flats around a core of lawns, lakes, theatres, exhibition halls & restaurants.) Jones wanted to see an exhibition of impressionist paintings. All were either by British artists or of British scenes. I rather like impressionist paintings & was pleased to go along. It was worth it, if only to see Claude Monet's Parliament: the effect of fog, - stunning - the star of the show. There was much else that I enjoyed too & much I passed by. Few of the artists meant anything to me, a reflection as much on their achievements as my cultural education. Outside the pigeons made a good living from the crumbs dropping steadily from the tables.

We joined Richard & Penny in the evening to see Nobody's Fool, starring an ageing Paul Newman. He was nevertheless, still gorgeous, declared Jones. I suspect that whatever success the film enjoys will be due largely to his attractions for it has few of its own. It's not a bad film. It just goes on for a long time about life in a very small American town in the heart of winter. Richard, who spent some years in the US, declared that he had enjoyed it for the memories it brought back. We went on to dine in a little taverna just up the road from us.

Saturday morning, we headed for Trafalgar Square where the National Gallery had an exhibition of Spanish still-life. I took a newspaper along with me, just in case. Still-life is not my strong suit. But the newspaper proved unnecessary. The paintings were exceptional, some of them almost luminous. The detail was microscopic and yet not merely photographic. There was a value-added quality. I was fascinated. So were a great many other people. There were lots of Spanish there & lots of Germans.

I envied the Germans as I was to envy the Japanese so evident in Bond Street a little later. They are the only two nationalities who can afford to travel & shop at the moment. Sterling is heading steadily towards the 2 Dm level while the Yen pounds the dollar into the dust. (I know the Japanese who remain at home are not happy about the situation but that's not the point.)

Thence a stroll up to Oxford Street, where Jones wanted to purchase a table cloth for her new apartment & a roll of grass seed. C.S. Lewis were out of the only pattern of table cloth she really liked. I bought two pairs of half-price silk shorts instead & we proceeded to Selfridges for the grass. It's a new Canadian product. The seed is contained within layers of green wood-pulp. The theory is that the paper suppresses the weeds while the seeds grow into a beautiful lawn with regular watering. The drawback is that it's not cheap. We bought sufficient to cover 25 sq ft, which is about as much as Jones will be able to take down.

Later, we drove over to Islington to fetch a bed that Penny & Richard had offered us. I reckoned we could tie it to the roof of the Rocket, which we managed to do. With it came such a hoard of pillows, a duvet, linen & towels as filled the car & obscured the back window. We were thrilled. The bed is intended for London. But most of the rest will prove invaluable in Portugal where we have promised R & P several lifetimes' worth of free holidays in return. The only problem was carting the load upstairs. Happily, neighbours (whom we were due to join for drinks) lent a hand. Negotiating the narrow flights of stairs with a bed is no easy task even, as Kevin might add, for a superb athlete in the peak of condition.

We returned from the drinks to find Mavis squatting (6 ft high) on top of the vertical divan which we'd left standing in the hall. He was not keen to come down either. Clearly, he wanted to get the better of the intruder & establish his dominance before relinquishing the position. We assured him that his situation was secure & that he had nothing to fear from the new furniture. The bed has since been set up in the study where it ought to prove a real boon.

The story of the week has been the Oklahoma bomb. I think I was just about the only person in the Newsroom who wasn't running around on it. The British media have been going strong (as I'm sure yours have too) on the all-American flavour of the incident. For once, no mad Arabs to point a finger at - & the dawning understanding of the danger of the lunatic home-bred right-wing. There have also been a few mean-spirited editorials and letters to the media saying that the Americans may now comprehend how (some of) the British people felt when Mr Clinton rolled out the red carpet for Mr (Gerry) Adams. But of course they will not. And even if Mr Adams were elbow deep in the Belfast bombings, as he may well have been, they're history now, like Vietnam. I see so many reports about Americans wondering why they ever fought that war. Time and the need to trade eventually cure all.

Sunday evening: Home from work. Mum, thanks for your fax (& the Joseph Sibeko letter & and poem), much enjoyed. You & Cathy will both be counting the days. Cath, we thought of you and yours this afternoon on your very special day & wished it went as well as you might have hoped. Also, that the blessings of the day sustain all for the years ahead. Greetings also, Canadians. There were other things I meant to write about but they have flown out of my head. My page is nearly up and Jones summons me to supper - the last but one before she returns to Portugal.