27October1995

London: 27th October 1995
My dear folks,

So many faxes! And so much happening! Kevin, finding a car dealership elusive, opts for an airline instead. And why not? Aircraft are, after all, little more than Ferraris with wings. Catherine prepares to celebrate another birthday, if she can find time between her committees and German lessons. We always do a bit of proxy celebrating, Cathy, just in case. Mother prepares to join the Canadians just as the Quebecois prepare to leave them. Raving mad! When I rule the world, I am going to make nationalism a capital offence, and possibly religion too. I’m still weighing it in the balance. Our American guests have left us for a few days, taking themselves off to Scotland. The flat seems so large in their absence, as if it has suddenly doubled in size. Jones & I have been squeezed into the study for the past fortnight, together with Mavis & the computer, neither of them exactly slim-line.

Our thoughts have been much with Mum and Ann. This business of bad backs points to a sloppy job of creating which I shall have to take up with the Divine Design Department. I am also considering a suit against the Heavenly Legal Department for double-dealing in real estate, bequeathing the Holy Land to the Jews under the name of Yahweh and to the Muslims as Allah. My researches indicate that these are both merely pseudonyms & that similarly dubious deals have been done with the Catholics and Orthodox Christians - all very irregular & the cause of enduring conflicts. It’s hard to know what God is up to. I’m working on it - grist for Benson’s Bedside God Book.

On the home property front, three new tenants came around last night to sign the lease for the apartment they’re about to rent. They’re newly graduated young ladies, so bright & shiny it’s scary. Also there, at my invitation, was their landlord, over from SA on a flying visit. I explained that while the lease contained all kinds of clauses - which they should read carefully - that it was not a document to be taken to heart. All that mattered to me was that they paid the rent, looked after the flat & refrained from disturbing other householders. Even so, they did ask whether the clause forbidding animals would prevent one of them from taking her pet hamster along. I was able to reassure her, as a long-time hamster owner, that I foresaw no problem. Not only had I looked after my own hamsters, I confided, I had also been landed with the hamster of an emigrating family. What’s more, I had seen to it that the hamster wrote from time to time to its young lady owner - albeit with a little assistance & somewhat grumpily.

There was time for the briefest of bites before I headed for another night at work. It was wet & windy and I took the Rocket rather than the bike. The weather had improved when I returned home this morning. Jones had moved us upstairs. I went to bed alone but awoke to find Mavis - fat, hairy sausage that he is - comfortably ensconced between Jones and me. I don’t know why I love him - but I do, little shithouse that he is.

Tomorrow we shall visit a friend in hospital & try a barge tea-room that has appeared on the canal. Also we shall watch a repeat of the previous & penultimate episode of Pride & Prejudice, ahead of the final episode on Sunday evening. Many thousands of people, unable to wait until Sunday, have bought the videos. Women, we are informed, are just crazy about Darcy. I’ll settle for the heroine, Elizabeth, whose magnificent bosom was well served by the contemporaneous fashions. If we’re to believe the press, the pair of them were lovers off-screen as well as on. Whatever would Jane Austen have said?