8December1996

Sunday 8 December
My dear folks,

The year is making a sudden spurt for the line. The past week has whistled past while I looked elsewhere. Half way to work, I came across a mammoth traffic jam. The cause turned out to be a large truck & trailer standing face to face with a bus, neither with room to go backwards or forwards - this in a road with cars parked nose to tail on both sides. There were long & growing tailbacks in both directions, with traffic on the feeder roads also at a standstill. It was impossible to know where to begin untangling the mess. I was due to begin work shortly & didn’t hang around to see the outcome. But there were loads of frustrated people who had no alternative. One understands why road rage is becoming a big issue here. It’s no good telling people that the real cause of the problem is the cars they’re driving & that it would go away if they used public transport or bikes instead. It makes you appreciative of Witbank’s wide leafy avenues.

London is working its way towards a frenzy of Christmas shopping that makes the city centre a place to be avoided. The pavements are awash with people & there were coaches - sometimes two abreast - parked all the way down both sides of Park Lane last night as Jones & I went off to a dinner party with SA friends on the far side of London. These bus people in - from around Britain & from abroad - for a day’s shopping. As we passed, the shoppers - weighed down with bulky bags of booty - were struggling back aboard their coaches. For once, I’d opted to be driven, rather than driving. We relaxed in the back of one of Paddington Cars’ more comfortable vehicles & let the driver take the strain instead. Four hours later, he rang our hosts’ doorbell to take us back home again. I could get used to it.

Saturday a.m. we went to Waterperry. This time, I drove. Jones had put in an early bid for the outing. She doesn’t feel properly at home until she’s completed her pilgrimage of English shrines of which Waterperry is arguably the holiest. Cousin Judy came with us. She’s still getting over the effects of a bout of flu that left her pretty miserable & was pleased at the prospect of a day out, especially a Waterperry day out. The day itself was cold & grey; no cloud, but a layer of thin mist that the sun failed to penetrate. Waterperry itself was as good as ever. The restaurant is justly famous for its pies & home cooked goodies & we did them justice before tramping off across the fields & over the river & through the picturesque farm village that lies beyond. Young ladies led horses around the stables or clip-clopped down the street on their mounts. Micaela would have loved it.

We had one other small celebration as well, with Jones’s nephew, Bevan, on Thursday night. For this, we chose another venerable shrine, the Elgin Lokanta restaurant which we’ve been patronising these past 16 years & where we’re welcomed as old friends. Sadly, we thought that it was slipping. The meal was fine & nothing to complain of. It was the little touches that were missing. Bevan filled us in on the hazards of being a steel trader - buying in one country to sell in another. He’s over from RSA & has found himself the ideal base in a small town south of London.

You may be concluding that the real reason for my recent silence is an excess of celebrations rather than of work. But there’s been lots of the latter too, long nights & a hamster wheel of news bulletins. Cath, we’ve been able to get hold of the various bits & bobs you asked for. Jones has got a wodge of Stilton cheese & we’ll grab some smoked salmon on the way over. Let us know if anything else comes to mind. We arrive in Frankfurt relatively early.

My dear folks, Sunday 8 December

The year is making a sudden spurt for the line. The past week has whistled past while I looked elsewhere. Forgive my silence. I didn’t forget to write to you; I just didn’t get around to it in the whirlagig of nights & news bulletins that’s filled most of the time. It was a silence so prolonged by my wordy standards that I got both an anxious fax & an alarmed call from my sister who feared that some mishap might have overcome us. Thank you for your concern, sister! I am pleased to put your mind at rest. We are well & I now have two days off to catch up a little with life.

I ought to begin by saying thank you to the Calgarians & Hambachers for their own news updates. I wish I could say the same of the Witbankers who have met my repeated enquiries about the opening of the coffee shop with the same blank answerphone message. Maybe they’re down in Nelspruit seeing for themselves how things are going. Whatever the position, I have been thinking lots about them & the new venture & wishing them well. (Phone call later from Conal to say that they had indeed been down in Nelspruit sorting out a blocked pipe emergency! All is forgiven.)

Of the Calgarians’ fortunes - or should I say Canadian’s? - I have been reading nightly in the wires. As crunch day approaches, the main news agencies have been filing regular updates. Kevin’s battles with the medieval unions begin to resemble those between Sir Gawain & the Green Gome. I can hear Brendan cursing the SA unions, as I write, & Robbie Jones bemoaning the rival unions that plague his life as well. A little of Maggie’s union-reforming zeal would do not go amiss, methinks. Interesting that Britain’s Labour Party plans to leave most of her union legislation intact when it takes office - as surely it will next year. And yet it’s not simple. Cathy lambastes BASF’s divided & divisive top management &, given the chance, I would fry the useless wankers that run the BBC in boiling oil. While I ache for Kevin, I’d feel nothing if the BBC unions drove its managers to drink! The bastards deserve each other. It’s a bad scene when you wish your generals were on the other side!

It is not a subject to harp on. But let me add that as the BBC goes through the agonies of remodelling itself, our own department is among those that wait to hear where they will stand in the new dispensation. We know that our budget is being cut yet again & that our numbers are being reduced. That’s about all that’s clear. Virtually all our contract & freelance workers have been told that their jobs are likely to end in March. Some staff jobs are also likely to go. Somewhere, way over our heads & our bosses heads, the BBC deities are waging the power battles whose outcomes will dictate our lives in due course.

Much more mundanely, the news team I work on held its own end of year celebration on Friday night. The venue was a Soho restaurant. My attendance was threatened by a transfer from a Thursday night-shift to a Friday day-shift which was due to end late. But, with a generous distribution of Kitkats (chocolate bars) I managed to bribe the overnight bulletin team into putting out my two review programmes & cycled off into the darkness to join the team at the Lexington, some 45 minutes away from TV Centre. Let me tell you that I actively dislike noisy & boozy parties & make a point of missing the annual departmental Christmas bash. But this turned out to be a delightful dinner party - live pianist thumping away on the keyboard - in an unpretentious little place which offered good food & value for money. It was full & it was fun. I cycled home again around midnight, enjoying the bracing ride while my companions hurried off to catch the last subway trains.

I blessed the bike on Friday moly on Friday 20 (LH-4043 0900/1130) & could easily take the train to Neustadt rather than the bus to Mannheim. I think I can sort out the minor problem with Bren’s documents myself. I’ll have a whole lot of Traveller’s Cheques to deposit - on his behalf as well as mine - & would be glad to get that done on the Friday if it were possible.

Blessings for now
T