25January1995

London: 25 January 1995
My dear folks,

Last letter before Portugal - I promise - to the gentle strains of an Ella Fitzgerald ballad (courtesy of clever Mr Viglen). I borrowed the CD from my downstairs neighbour, the Italian one, who I had taken to the hypermarket a mile away. I may just go down to the library a little later and take a few more out. I do like my Gregorian chanters. But a single CD goes only so far. I don't know about your libraries. But ours are heavily into audio and video-tapes and CDs to try to sustain themselves. I'm all in favour. In this economic climate, it's do or die.

I feel the glow of the housewife who has dusted, vacuumed and polished every corner of the house and is admiring her work (before hubby and kids obliterate all traces of it.) The car has passed its annual test; the post office has issued me with a new licence (you have to take the test certificate and insurance papers with you to obtain one); Westminster Council has sold me a parking disc to stick in my window for the following year. (Parking attendants swarm over the local streets like ants - the industry has been privatised - and they descend on any vehicle lacking the necessary parking authority - to be towed away or clamped in an instant. Clearly there's money in it.

In fact, my windscreen looks like the local telephone box. Because I shall be away in Portugal at the end of the month when licence and parking permits expire, I have to display the old and the new side by side, and there's my BBC Parking Garage sticker. As to the telephone box reference, every box in London has a hundred gaudy cards stuck to the inside of the glass, advertising services available from Seductive Sue, Mary Massage, Miss Whiplash and their sisters. The cards are replaced as fast as they're removed. The authorities have just about given up on them. The school-kids have taken to collecting them, and why not, the modern cigarette card?

Plus I've done the shopping, purchased the odds & sods Jones has asked me to take down, had the bike fixed, done the banking (at 3 banks, mind you), faxed Fregs (whose affairs I'm looking after in his absence), written to Andries (to tell him his rent's going up - and lots of other things) sorted out arrangements with 2 Quinta guests & two flat residents here in London and altogether shone my halo into a gleaming golden ring. I could continue on this theme a bit longer but I don't trust your powers of concentration.

It's getting dark as a write - 16:46 (see that time, I just ask Mr Viglen what date or time it is and he puts it down in a flash. He's an excellent time-keeper. Yeah, I know that these are yesterday's tricks and that your state of the art laptops can just about cook dinner and serve it. But I'm enjoying them.) The weather has been British. It was pissing down when I woke this morning; gales and snow are forecast for tomorrow. There was a light drizzle when I went to fetch my bike, just sufficient to encourage me to use Jones' brolly that only stays open now if you clutch it up under its skirts. (Can see I'm going to get myself into trouble.) I left it at the bike shop - it might serve someone whose need was greater than mine - and rode home peering over my rain-spattered glasses. At least there were no customers in the bank on the way home. I had two tellers to myself. I told them what a wonderful experience it was.

The bike shop is in Harrow Road, a determinedly working class street, full of pokey shops, mothers and children in as many colours and shapes as their clothes. I associate the area with bulky ladies swathed in heavy coats. I noticed one walking down the street on a pair of hams that would have stunned a bull, the sort of woman one stands aside for. Dogs tied to the railings wait anxiously for their owners to emerge from the shops. Mothers clutch children while they hold conversations on the pavements that deal mainly with people and prices, saying things like "spensive innit!" - equivalent to "costs a lot of money, doesn't it?" Few wear make-up and many are far older than their years.

At this point, Ella has sung herself out and a large brandy and coke has appeared on my desk. One reason for having it is to avoid wasting the lemon I bought especially yesterday to make lemon-tea for my "flat" lady. She divides her time between Monaco and Johannesburg and was due to drop in for consultations, as usual, to occupy the hours between (Nice-Ldn & Ldn-Jhb) flights. But the plane out of Nice hit a 3-hour delay and she phoned from Heathrow to apologise. (Also, I enjoy brandies and cokes.)

My thoughts have been much with the Calgarians as they prepare to move into their gleaming new house. It sounds wonderful. And I share your excitement. How about a couple of photos (we didn't see those Conal and Louise took home). And more urgently, what's the address pse - and are you taking your phone/fax number with you????

Much fuss over here over the departure of yet another government minister for the pastures he established while privatising a utility - and over the super-salaries the chiefs of the privatised utilities are seeing fit to pay themselves. Cedric Brown, Mr British Gas, has appeared before a Parliamentary Select Committee to defend his 75% salary increase this year (to nearly half a mil before perks and share options) in the light of the redundancies and wage cuts faced by his troops. As I said to Fregs yesterday, if it was me (were I?), I should consider myself grossly underpaid for my expertise; if I were a mere minion, as I am, I should consider himself an avaricious snout-in-the-trougher with the rare ability to write his own salary cheque. Anyhow, you can see that there is not much here to excite the Brits right now.

I don't want to talk about Grosny and suicide bombers in Israel, or even think about them. I was listening to a rabbi talking this afternoon as the 50th anniversary of Auschwitz looms. Asked if he forgave, he said it was not his to forgive. He was not among the victims and it would be presumptuous. He was a little puzzled about why God had not intervened, as indeed (he pointed out) the Old Testament prophets had also been. When I write my book on God, I am going to have a chapter on the differences between God and Superman. Superman specialises in Nick of Time Rescues. God takes a longer view. There is a wonderful series playing at the moment on BBC TV, on the Crusades. It's tongue in cheek and full of the most amazing visual tricks and reconstructions. What emerges most is that the barbaric infidels were not the Arabs, but the hordes who came to dislodge them from the cities they occupied.

Funny old world. And enough for one night!