21May1997

21/05/97
My dear folks

I have meant all week to tell you about the most significant event this year in Maida Vale - & each day it’s escaped me. “The Elgin Lokanta” is no more. It was there that I led my “flat” acquaintances last week, only to find the place closed without explanation. Very puzzling! The Lokanta was one of your 365 day a year phenomena. It was only when I subsequently bumped into the manager outside the tube station that the truth emerged. It was being sold. My horror was genuine, all the more so when I heard that it was to become a Thai restaurant; we’ve enough of those already. The manager told me that his brother & partner had twice had to undergo radical heart surgery & they’d thought it time to call it a day. It feels like the removal of a familiar & reassuring milestone. We’d patronised it ever since our arrival here in 1980 & few were the family & friends we did not take there for a meal.

It’s been a mucky day. I mis-installed some software & had to spend an hour trying to sort it out. Very annoying. I took myself off for a long reassuring walk around Hyde Park, dropping in at the supermarket on the way home to replenish stocks. The cashier’s electronic till gave the ghost mid-way & needed machine heart massage to process the rest of my order. The cashier apologised profusely. I assured her that my computer could be just as awkward & I was quite used to it. I staggered home with a bulging backpack & two plastic bags slung over a stick on my shoulder. Dick Whittington must have walked lopsided by the time he arrived in London. Mavis promptly stuck his nose into a large pack of cat biscuits & indicated that an early tea wouldn’t go amiss. Jones, where did you buy that molasses? I need another bottle.

I see that wedding arrangements continue apace in Calgary. These things do pick up a certain momentum, like a cart that’s over the brow of the hill. As you will gather Canadians, I think a bed in the study or wherever will do me very well. My only complaint concerns the malicious rumours being put about that I dislike presents. Lord knows! the last thing I should want is to dissuade any patrons & sponsors. I am as ready as the next man to accept tribute graciously. What I dislike is merely rushing to strip gifts untimely naked, like some impatiently groping youth. As for your hopeless weather forecasters, they’re probably accountants on career breaks. I’ll send you some of our forecasts instead. They tend to be quite good.

Here, the Labour govt has outlawed the use of personnel landmines & will get rid of its stocks. Interesting! Princess Di, no less, has campaigned for the cause. After seeing the one-legged rural populations of Cambodia & Angola, I applaud the move. As Martin Bell says, personnel mines don’t respect a ceasefire. Sadly, others will quickly step in to supply any demand. Government officials have also been talking to Sinn Fein, making an early start at a resolution of the Irish problem. I wish them luck. In my experience, trying to solve the Irish problem is like trying to dance in superglue!

Cathy, thank you for your call & your considerate offer. I tore up my copy of the Namibia report a couple of years back, consigning it to one of my past lives. I think I shall ask you to do the same with your copy. Jones, I’ve had a message from Lo asking me to call her back, which I’ll do. I also had a letter & cheque today from Mary Cockerell who arrives in Faro at 10.10 on Sunday 8 June for a week. (Sunday to Sunday, not Monday to Monday as indicated on the schedule.) I shall write back & ask her if she’d like us to try to lay on your tame taxi driver to meet her. Do you know approximately what he charges for the trip?