4April1996

My dear folks,

I really cannot think of two days when I have worked harder for my living. After the final bulletin last night, the team collapsed like rags into chairs in the BBC Club - if rags can be allowed to clutch pints of beer. The death of the US Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown, landed on top of the beef crisis, the sentencing of the SA right-wing bombers & other dramas. We were carrying 2 newcomers who, having learned to paddle in the tranquillity of the training course pond, were cast - poor bastards - into a roaring torrent. It was hard enough to stay afloat without carrying them too. When there are 30 seconds to transmission, your two lead packages haven’t arrived, the director wants to know what you plan to do & the presenter is wondering what to read, you age! A colleague & I shared the bulletins - & my ant-acid tablets. So that beer tasted extra special. So did the last of my malt whisky when I got home to the famished fat cat.

On Tuesday night, as well as finding famished fat cat, I found half a dozen Quinta enquiries & other phone messages, including one from tenants with a blocked sink drain. Since they’re easily the sweetest tenants I know, I went around - & managed to unblock it. I also wrote to the Quinta enquirers or sought them out yesterday - those working at TV Centre - & forwarded brochures to them. There are various enquiries, Jones, for our emptier periods in May, June - although no firm bookings at present.

Thank you, Jones, for your continued faxes which I greatly enjoy & intend to retail in abbreviated form to other members of the family as soon as I get a chance. My thanks also to Alan whose emails I have been celebrating & responding to. I’ve also had an email from Llewellyn who is now set up with the Argus in CT. Mum, your 3 page fax was waiting for me this a.m. I’ll follow up your enquires & suggestions & respond as soon as I know more. The prospect of a visit to Cathy shortly is wonderful.

Maida Vale - we learn has been the centre of a kidnap drama. A suitably rich Greek shipping agent, walking along the canal, was seized & bundled into a car boot by nasties who took him a mile to Paddington & secreted him, blindfolded, in a tiny cupboard beneath the stairs of a house. They then demanded lots of money for his release. The unfortunate spent 9 cramped & sleepless days in his nook until the police raided the house, set him free & took the nasties into custody. All this emerged last night, as did the abducted agent to give a brief & breathless account of his ordeal.

Like him, I shall be catching my breath today - with little on my diary other than housekeeping & an appointment to meet a fixer who has plumbers & electricians on call. I hope he may resolve some of my difficulties with flat maintenance. I then work Fri, Sat, Sun & Mon nights. I’m off Tues/Wed next week. I work day shifts on Thur/Fri. And I’m off to Portugal for a week on Sat 13 April. Lest my equally hard working relatives should wonder enviously how these frequent excursions can be achieved, it’s by doing things like working 12-hour night shifts through-out the Easter weekend - part of swap I’ve done with a colleague who’s as pleased as I am. I really could not contemplate going back to a 5-day week. It would destroy me. Fortunately, it’s not in prospect.

Let me get this off now to Germany & Portugal - and later to Canada.
Much love,
T