13November1996

Wednesday 13 November
My dear folks,

My day has chased itself around in circles like a dog after its tail. It dawned bright & blue & cold. I arose reluctantly from my bed at eight, with lots of good sleep still unslept inside me, to cycle to the Beeb for another elbow-mending session with the physiotherapist. I’d had a phone call yest to say she’d had a cancellation which was available to me & thought it prudent to attend. The elbow is improving gradually. The moral is to avoid excessive key-boarding.

On the way home, I dropped in at Mr Sainsbury’s to top up the larder, stuffing sufficient victuals into my knapsack to see Mave & me through to the end of the week. It was a lovely day, such a pleasure after the rain & wind (of which more is expected tomorrow). I divided it into bits of work at the computer, interspersed with little outings - one to drop a letter off to tenants, another to the greengrocer, a third to renew a lease with other tenants. For some time I have had a children’s tale revolving around my head & now I have begun writing it. I don’t know whether I shall finish writing it; that remains to be seen. Writing children’s tales is a hazardous affair at the best of times, as - Budgie the Helicopter & Fergie have discovered. But since my tale is being written essentially for my own amusement, it doesn’t matter.

I had a quick chat to Jones who is now booked to fly back to London on 28 November, the same day I get back from RSA. At lunch time, I sat down in my comfy TV chair to watch the early afternoon news bulletins, with a glass of red wine & some ham sandwiches, waking to find my glass empty & the bulletins nearly over. I never sleep better than in my TV chair with a glass of wine & a news bulletin to send me off. Mave came inside from his constitutional to demand early supper, lingering under my feet & thumping my ankles by way of reminder. He didn’t get much sympathy. One understands that fat cats get just as hungry as thin cats but one is somehow inclined to feel that abstinence might do a hungry fat cat a deal of good.

Last night I watched the Dimbleby memorial lecture given on TV by Prof Richard Dawkins, who made an eloquent plea for more media effort to make science part of human culture - in preference to astrology & other nonsense. He had my attention & my sympathy. I do not know what errant gene there is in human nature that inclines us towards the phonies & the frauds but it sure is dominant. Having said that, I think I do know why we chase off after rainbow bubbles & gossamer - for there aren’t many certainties available to us & those that are mainly unpleasant. Professor Dimbleby found himself an unlikely ally of the Church of England in arguing against astrology & the occult. Asked whether he found it ironic to be fighting the church’s battle against false gods, he replied memorably that “all gods are false gods”.

Today I received another long letter from a former SABC colleague who has retired to (his native) Zimbabwe where he has become as vigorous a proponent of the African cause as he was once a zealot for apartheid. His retirement is spent mainly in long visits to remote game parks & life-threatening encounters with their denizens. In-between he chronicles every bird & animal he has viewed or bumped into & most of those he has not. His letters are not uninteresting, they just go into overpowering detail. What I wonder reading them is whether I am reading my own letters through somebody else’s eyes - if you follow my meaning.

Blessings ever
T