22March1996

My dear folks

It’s still all beef, beef, beef! And little wonder. Prices have slumped. People won’t eat it, farmers can’t sell it & Europe won’t buy it. There’s talk, even in responsible circles, of destroying Britain’s 11m cattle to get rid of the last vestiges of Mad Cow Disease & inspire confidence in the industry. I don’t know what’s being reported on your side of the world but I should think that this story must have crossed the Atlantic by now. It’s hard to tell. I could never work out - while working at NBC - which stories, that did not affect Americans directly, would interest them. It was like tossing a coin.

I’m about to begin the first of three night shifts. For the past two nights, I’ve tried staying up until about 2 or 3 to maintain my nocturnal rhythm.. But the experiment proved a notable failure. Once I’d got past the late evening snooze point, my body switched into wide-awake mode & laughed at me when I told it several hours later to go back into sleep mode. I made up for it with 4 hours of deep sleep this afternoon. I awoke to find our fat cat equally fast asleep beside me. He knows I won’t throw him off if I’m in bed myself. After I rose, he sat his ground while I straightened the duvet beneath him. But when I dumped my shortie pajama pants on his head, he decided enough was enough. Dignity, after all, is everything for a cat.

Thank you Kevin for your phone message - me thinks my timing was perfect - and Jones for your lyrical fax. I do hope you enjoy a little more of your walks & your good weather although there are new lows mustering their forces deep in the Atlantic. (By the way, I faxed an AFPOP proxy through to the AFPOP office in Portimao giving Tom Shubrook my vote. Shall I do the same for you?)

This morning I finally got in my Sainsburys raid & returned with a car full of supplies, some of them for my neighbour, Stef. After buying a big Mac & publishing programme, she’s begun doing lots of computer laying out of books for her partner, Herman, who’s a designer, & the pair of them are going flat out. When I got back, I took her pooch, Jessie, for a walk around Maida Vale. We met some other owners & pooches in the park with the inevitable polite sniffing of backsides. English dogs really are so well behaved! One woman arrived with three long-haired fat jobs in tow, the smallest of which was wearing a veterinary “funnel” around its neck like some prissy French courtier. I shrieked with laughter. The owner wasn’t amused. News here tonight that new legislation will introduce fines of up to £1,000 for dog owners who don’t remove their doggies’ poos from public places!

I bought in a delicious curry supper from the curry den over the road last night & finished the remaining veges & spinach for supper this evening. Very good it was. Sainsbury’s now got a dozen microwavable curry & spicy Eastern dishes, several of which are now waiting in the fridge. I’m stocked up for at least a fortnight. Let me get this off to you and myself to work thereafter. XXXXXXXXXX T