22May1996

My dear folks, 22/05/96

Grey & wet! That’s the way it is & that’s the way it’s going to stay for a while. I guess we should be grateful. Britain needs all the rain it can get right now. And I don’t mind in the least. I have no inclination to go out & find the pattering on the windows quite refreshing. It makes the flat seem all the cosier. Jones, I’m delighted to hear that the sun has emerged over the Algarve & that our guests are basking in it. Thank you for your fax this a.m. & Cath for your rave review of your stay in London. It was nice having you & I’m pleased it was equally nice to be had. That’s how it should be.

Pause there to turn off the radio in the lounge & find a large gift from Mave lying regurgitated & sticky in the hall. A quick clean up & reminder to the fat feline of house etiquette & on we go. Jimmie Rodgers croons away on the CD. I bought the album a few months on the cheap in the hope that he was the cowboy whose songs I had enjoyed so much as a kid. But there were clearly 2 Jimmy Rodgerses & this one - Slim Whitmanish & inclined to yodel a lot - isn’t the one I was after.

What’s to tell.? I finished the 2nd of 2 nights 30 mins early after working solidly through the dark hours on a range of stories. I told the boss I’d earned an early departure & he had the good grace not to demur. I’m back Fri/Sat nights & again Mon/Tues before leaping on a Wednesday plane. It’s a total of 3 extra shifts in a week. They should at least pay for my recent dentist’s bill which hurt far more than the inlay treatment it paid for. Still, I remember a dozen times a day how delightful it is to be twingeless & I don’t regret it at all.

Another pause to consider whether I should junk this CD immediately or wait for it to play itself out. I’ll give it the rest of its duration to plead in mitigation but one way or the other I fear it’s a goner. It was just a cheapie - one of those digitally cleansed jobs. And, seeing the word DIGITAL has cropped up, let me add that we’ve been deluged with BBC info on the digital revolution heading for Britain & its likely impact on the Beeb. It’s set to replace analogue television transmission, making scores of TV channels technically possible for every one that exists today - whether terrestrial, cable or satellite. Also coming is digital radio - eliminating short-wave crackles for good - not to speak of the yet to be named compu-tv-radio-CD-fax-phone-internetter that will combine all these various functions in a single voice-responsive machine.

For Beeb staff, the first revolution will be a new computer system which will enable journalists to edit their own radio reports digitally & give them access to the whole BBC radio archives from their desktop or laptop in the field. Further down the road is desktop video-editing. It’s not going to make life any easier. It will merely shorten the turn-around times & make a whole lot more people redundant as their skills become as antiquated as newspaper printers. But that’s the way it’s been for centuries. Ned Lud failed to stop it & I can’t see anyone else succeeding.

On the flat front, I think I have found tenants for the latest one - a young working couple whose references indicate that they should certainly be able to afford the substantial rent. It’s a lovely flat - if only one-bedroomed - & well worth the £800 a month that it fetches. You need gross annual earnings of £16,000 just to pay the rent. That’s what our own flat would be costing if we hadn’t bought it before the 80’s boom & bust - one of Jones’s inspirations for which I remain deeply grateful. Let me junk Mr Rodgers & send customary blessings!.................T