9May1996

My dear folks,

Thursday dawns as bright as the day it replaces. We are warned that it’s going to remain chilly & windy but we can bear that with equanimity. I am pleased to have the day off. BT will be installing a second line in the flat today. The number once again is 2662441. My intention is to put my old fax machine & the computer on that number. I will confirm this. But it should mean that - unless I’m on the Internet after hours - that you can fax straight through to 2662441 while still having a fax option on 2864592, which has been widely advertised as both phone & fax.

Wednesday at work was a series of flat-outs, each of which involved editing to within a minute or two of transmission & all of them on the adoption of the SA Constitution, a subject on which I am established as the resident expert. We got our first pix of the occasion in at 10.55 & were rebroadcasting them to the world at 11.00. By 11.30, we were transmitted a completed report on the subject (ex yours truly) & by 1400 a handsome package with lots of background on Inkatha’s boycott & the main issues. The efforts - on top of late nights, early mornings - exhausted me & I used a late lunch-hour to kip on the floor of the reporters room - waking to find the management clustered around a television set discussing proposed new logos. It’s not congenial having management discussions in one’s bedroom.

However, after their departure, I rose refreshed to put together two more packages during the rest of the shift, winning rare compliments for my efforts from the boss - who took the opportunity to enquire after my health. She feared I might have fainted. I was able to reassure her that it was nothing worse than a mild case of 40 winks (although I only managed 30 before the buggers woke me up).

I got home shortly after Bernie & Flea who had been running around madly & were thrilled to have got tickets to Riverdance from the theatre itself after failing to find them at booking agents (who would have added at least 50% commission). Cathy, I have a message to call the agent who booked ours - about what I know not - but I’ll sue the bastard if there’s a cock up. Bernie had a chat to Iris who has also arrived in the country & is staying with Trish. The pair of them will come to London & stay at the Colonnade Hotel just down the road from us next Mon, Tues, Wed. Daughter, Morna, is also over here - at an Aids conference - & will join us at the weekend.

Thank you Cathy & Jones for your faxes which Bernice enjoyed as much as I did. Jones, your plans for our stay sound perfectly in order. I had a brief word with Maya Fish yest. & am waiting to hear from Jim at what time they’re likely to arrive. I’m delighted to hear of Jacqueline’s successful efforts in the garden, not to speak of your own. Cathy, my dear, your outrage at the sexist Germans hovered in a cloud over the fax machine. One doesn’t have the option of such attitudes in a business such as my own where hardnosed “dears” are often in charge. I regret only the damage done to the English language by pressure to use gender-free constructions (like “If any child has left their book......Our parent in Heaven,...”) & fear that European languages will have to cope with the same perversities.

Mind you, a pox on political correctness. I was reading yest. that some group of Americans who were subjected to “a black & white minstrel show” while on some holiday tour are suing the organisers for several million dollars for psychological & other damage. Stupid bastards! ............. Blessings, T


Second letter sent in the evening
My dear folks,

Two letters in one day may seem excessive but the day has a two-letter feel about it. And if I didn’t sit down to write to you I wouldn’t know what had happened to it. It has been a very busy day like most days. I know that all your days are very busy too & I guess it doesn’t add a lot to say the obvious. Does it help to define the day if I say that it was a Jim Reeves flavoured morning & now, against a superb London sunset, it’s a Don Williams evening? Do you know his song, Gypsy Woman? I love it.

Bernie & Flea took themselves off to Cambridge & were joining a friend in Croydon for supper. They can still hardly believe they are here & are as pleased as 2 children at a party. Bernie says it’s 16 years since her last visit! I can hardly credit it. She had just come down this morning when a nice BT man called to install my second phone line. On which subject, an apology, I gave you the wrong number this morning.

The correct number is 2664211. In short, the usual phone/fax remains on 2864592. I have connected my old fax machine plus the computer - but at the moment, NOT a phone - to the 2664211 line. Both lines will take incoming faxes, but the 2664211 line is set on FAX only & will respond more quickly to a fax call. Hope it will solve your communications problems Jones! Once or twice a week, after 1800 at night & before 0800 in the morning (cheap phone time), I may occupy the line on the Internet. For 99% of the time, it will be free for incoming faxes.

I spent 2 hours writing letters - to tenants who are behind on their rent (a pain) - to occupants of half a dozen flats to which a surveyor needs access (a chore) - to agents, Quinta guests, yourselves, Freglet, - lots of people in fact. Then I toured the local banks depositing cheques, mainly on other people’s behalf. Jones I got your prescription from the doctor & I fetched the Michelin Map from Waterstones (where I found a super computer book to boot). I surrendered to my waistline & walked up to the local charity shop with a rucksack full of trousers that have hung uselessly in the cupboard for years. Now I have a generous tot of the exquisite KWV brandy that Bernie brought over for me, warming the cockles!

I know that all this will seem trivial to folks in SA following the withdrawal today of the NP from the govt. of national unity & all the question-marks that raises about the future. My feeling - a secure 5,000 miles away - is that little changes except the timetable, as the inevitable is brought forward. The NP would have left at latest by 1999 when the next elections are due & the national unity govt would have ended. I’ve been watching the movement of the Rand, which has fallen by 20% since Feb but it seems, if anything, to have gained a little strength after sharp falls yest.

Cathy, my computer diary tells me; Cathy & Rolf Wedding Anniversary. I recall the day so well, & the marquee erected in the garden! And lots of people sitting at tables. How many years ago did you say? It doesn’t matter, happy anniversary!

Blessings

T