5January1995

London: 5 January 1995
My dear Folks,

Let me begin on a mundane note by drawing your attention to the change in the London phone codes. All 071 & 081 codes are becoming 0171 & 0181. Both the 3-digit and 4-digit codes will operate for a few months until the 3 digit codes are phased out. (Calls from overseas continue to omit the initial zero: 44-171-286 4592.)

And, while we are on telecommunications, let me tell you how exciting it has been to hear from Penny Benson, Llewellyn Jones and Lloyd Jones via their email links. Future family letters will whistle through cyberspace to them at a fraction of the cost of snail-mail postage (about 50p a letter) or faxes (generally double that). Cousin Trish (& husband, Mark) will also be emailable on their return from Zimbabwe to the UK. And while it's probably in my own best interest to keep my proselytising low-key, I do hope to win new souls to the cause.

Let me confess that after much heart-searching and research, I am in the process of buying another computer, to supplement rather than replace my laptop. This one is a rather more powerful, multi-media, desk-top model, equipped with CD and speakers. It's due for delivery towards the end of month and comes with a package of software including the Encarta Encyclopaedia. I noted Cathy's reference to this in her last letter, when she said that Rolf was also planning to buy a CD for their computer - with products like Encarta in mind. It's absolutely brilliant Cathy. Click on a page, see George Washington's face and hear his address being recited. Jones sighs for the books she loves so much. It's clear to me which way reference works are heading and it's not down a paper trail.

I have also been spending several hours a week reading about and further exploring the Internet. Both the electronic Encyclopaedia Britannica and the electronic Daily Telegraph have accepted me on their register of reader/testers of the products they're still developing on the Net. You can see that the disease grows worse rather than better. More sighs and some criticism from Jones but mainly she accepts the inevitable. She did ask some searching questions about the expense entailed in the new purchase as she fears that I have not made the necessary mental adjustment from DINKY to (presumably) SINKY and that it's only a matter of time before the wolf comes howling at the door.

The questions became even more searching when it became clear that we had run into major problems with the borehole pump in Portugal. The pump man spent a week hauling out dozens of lengths of piping and installing a new pump before replacing the piping. I had expected a bill deep into 3 figures sterling. In the event, the bill took 4 figures in its stride. I blinked. Jones was convinced that she could already hear the wolves yowling in the distance. I spent another 24 hours head-scratching before deciding to go ahead anyhow.

Jones, who - as you know - is by nature frugal, declared this week that she no longer found any satisfaction in window shopping as there was nothing more she wanted to buy. Everything she wanted, she possessed. Woe to her that barely a day after communicating this lofty sentiment, she discovered in a charity shop (on a half price sale & at an absolutely bargain price) an almost new Karakul coat which utterly stole her heart. Being Jones, she didn't actually buy it, but confessed that she was sorely tempted. Father Christmas got to hear about it and she is now the happiest Jones in the world. She is also - just as it happens - not in a strong moral position to query the wisdom of buying more computers.

Let me add that the Father Christmas in question comes in the guise of nephew, Chris, who has been spending much of the New Year break with us. He is a freelance QS who has come overseas from SA to make his fortune and is currently winding up a road-building contract down in Kent. He has been involved in heavy interviews with various parties for both foreign and local contracts. (Stop Press: Is going to Guyana!!)

He joined us last night when Jones threw a dinner party for Stef (Italian) and partner, Herman (Dutch) from the basement flat - and a retired SA accountant and his wife. The latter pair spent several years in Italy during his auditing days and have a keen interest in Italian culture. They divide their time between their apartment in the country, their apartment in London and their apartment in Somerset West. En route, they manage to visit unlikely destinations like Iran and Uzbekistan. In fact, the word “retired” is a complete misnomer. When they are not travelling, they are taking language courses or art courses. They are very busy people indeed. Jones, by the way, did a fish bobotie that was scrumptious. As always, she prepared far more food than her guests could eat. She is troubled, if everything is eaten, by the notion that her guests may have gone away hungry.

I had worked an overnight shift the previous night and found myself drifting quietly into the land of Nod by midnight when the party ended. I'd had the good sense, for once, to stick to white wine (and lots of water) and slept like a babe (with one rising for a refreshing mint tea) until ten this morning. I've been doing lots of extra shifts (with an eye on that computer). They're easier, now that I've got the hang of the technology and the system, and I'm enjoying producing and voicing many of my own pieces, mainly on Arab and African affairs.

The newsroom is undergoing rapid expansion as BBC World Service TV takes on new commitments and continues to expand into the further corners of the globe. We are running pilots this month for a whole series of new (English) current affairs programmes that are launched in a couple of weeks. Around us, BBC Arabic TV is going from 8 hours a day to 24 hours, BBC Japanese TV is taking off - it's all satellite and cable. I don't know where it's going to end. But for the moment it's all go, go, go. The changes are being accompanied by a completely new rota pattern involving more work and fewer days off. It's gone down like a lead balloon - much moaning in the aisles. At least, I've been assigned to the area I sought. It will involve even more night shifts than I've been doing to date but I can live with that.

It's warmed up today after a week of seriously cold weather, down to -9C in central England which is respectable, if not exactly breath-stopping, even in Canada. The pavements iced up, the puddles glazed solid, the canal froze over (sowing confusion among the swans), the cars wore white caps. It was real winter after weeks of autumnal grey drizzle. I welcomed it. I like to experience four seasons a year. And it takes a real freeze to make any impact on the swarms of rodents who have become accustomed to centrally heated burrows.

Jones and I went walking along the Thames with Chris last week on a lovely, cloudless day, the sky full of planes and contrails. The fields and towpath were frozen solid. So were the ponds and streams. Only Father Thames flowed inexorably on. (He hasn't frozen up, as I recall, since the previous century. I've seen paintings of 19th Century Londoners holding fairs on his icy surface.) We wriggled deeper into our coats, scarves and gloves as the wind froze our cheeks - and thought back to icy Canadian ski-hills and mornings when we'd wondered whether we'd make it from the car park to the cable-car station. On such a day one appreciates a cosy London flat for the haven it is. No small mercy! (Jones has subbed my letter. Says I make her out to be an eccentric. Do I? Hope not!)