Monday, 9 March 98
My dear folks,
I have discarded my recent issue of Private Eye but, if I recall accurately, one of its headlines read: “Fat rich woman not very ill.” It was the Eye’s verdict on Princess Margaret’s recent setback & I strongly suspect that it was close to being the nation’s. HRH’s fondness for gin, tobacco & being entertained – preferably in Mustique -, together with her record as a bone-lazy royal, has not exactly endeared her to the people. Certainly there was more interest in the newsroom in the football results than the lady’s health problems. That may not be representative but it’s certainly indicative. You don’t sell newspapers by putting Margaret’s face on the front page. Interesting, too, to see the changes being mooted by Buckingham Palace as the monarchy tries to hold on to the nation’s affections by catching up with the times (including 1st-born child of which ever sex to inherit the crown & severe trimming of the fringe royals).
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
6March1998
Friday, 6 March 1998
My dear folks,
Can it be that I have not written to you for a full week? I guess it must. Not that you have missed much. Mainly I’ve been working – long hours too. It’s the norm to arrive early, take a short break & leave late. We all commune silently with our computers, lost in our little worlds! The bustling gang at World TV, on the other side of the glass windows, say we look like a lot of librarians. Be that as it may, I have not only settled into Online, I even spent a day inducting another newcomer into its mysteries. He was luckier than I was for, having fallen through most of the trapdoors, I was well placed to advise him where not to put his feet.
I’ve still much to learn but at least I can fly the thing now. I’m still getting to grips with the audio editing software & I haven’t touched the video editing programme. We have specialists who do most of this work although we’re all expected to be familiar with it. It’s been raining lots. I got wet two mornings in a row & sloshed my way along the corridors to Online in my bright yellow waterproofs, looking like an oilrig worker.
On Wed I cycled into town to renew my South African passport which runs out at the end of this month. On the last occasion it was a relatively painless process. This time I found myself filling out numerous lengthy forms that demanded to know all kinds of impossible details of my wife’s and parents’ history as well as my own. Then I was fingerprinted, five & five. I thought I might as well apply for the new 10 year passport until I learned that it would take 3 months to issue. This is now the prerogative of Pretoria. The days when I had a passport renewed in 15 minutes (I happened to know the embassy minister) are gone for ever. Three weeks, I was told, if I was lucky. And £14 to fax the application to Pretoria!
I fell into conversation with the fingerprint lady who had been posted in London for 23 years & remembered the Dawie de Villiers era with me. We both remembered the dignitaries who’d occupied the ambassador’s office in the 80s. She relaxed sufficiently to muse over the twists of fate. “The people who used to demonstrate outside on the pavement are now inside running the high commission,” she informed me. It might be more interesting to know what had happened to the people who used to be inside, making discreet free drinks available to the London constabulary who ensured that the demonstrators toed the line. “We look after our friends,” as one of them once confided. Not that it did them much good in the end.
Stef caught sight of me yest. as I was setting off for the bank. She said I looked so miserable that she felt compelled to invite me to supper last night. I didn’t know that I was looking down but I was pleased to join her & Herman. He turned out an elegant tuna steak & salad while we plotted our futures. They have been outgrowing their garden flat where they both work as designers, he in the study, she in the bedroom. They made approaches to purchase the flat above them but without success. She does all the computer work while he uses more traditional methods. They’re in great demand from artists & galleries & do lots of fat glossies.
I’m reaching the end of Steven Pinker’s language book where he mocks the elegant grammar rules developed mainly by the Victorians to distinguish the well-bred from the working class. He’s no time for those offended by split infinitives or dangling participles. That would probably come as good news for a lot of my colleagues who couldn’t tell a participle from a propeller shaft. I confess I still throw up my hands at some of the mangled constructions that even BBC journalists are regularly guilty of. But then our prejudices are our oldest friends and it’s a cruel person who robs us of them.
I work Sat/Sun from 1100 to 2100. I’m off Mon/Tues; the rest of the week I work shifts that begin either at 0600 or 1400. I responded to an ad in my computer mag for a free ticket to the Windows 98 exhibition at Olympia next week. It’s a saving of £15. The downside is that everybody in the computer business gets your details to flood you with emails & offers.
Sampson could be heard barking loudly as I chatted to Jones this evening. She had planned to join friends for a dinner party but had her plans disrupted by a leaking pipe that required emergency attention. She’s had enquiries from one or two potential guests down there & I’ve had a steady dribble of responses this end to our latest ad in the BBC magazine. We’ve still got gaps either side of the 3-month high season but it’s looking like a busy year.
Blessings
T
My dear folks,
Can it be that I have not written to you for a full week? I guess it must. Not that you have missed much. Mainly I’ve been working – long hours too. It’s the norm to arrive early, take a short break & leave late. We all commune silently with our computers, lost in our little worlds! The bustling gang at World TV, on the other side of the glass windows, say we look like a lot of librarians. Be that as it may, I have not only settled into Online, I even spent a day inducting another newcomer into its mysteries. He was luckier than I was for, having fallen through most of the trapdoors, I was well placed to advise him where not to put his feet.
I’ve still much to learn but at least I can fly the thing now. I’m still getting to grips with the audio editing software & I haven’t touched the video editing programme. We have specialists who do most of this work although we’re all expected to be familiar with it. It’s been raining lots. I got wet two mornings in a row & sloshed my way along the corridors to Online in my bright yellow waterproofs, looking like an oilrig worker.
On Wed I cycled into town to renew my South African passport which runs out at the end of this month. On the last occasion it was a relatively painless process. This time I found myself filling out numerous lengthy forms that demanded to know all kinds of impossible details of my wife’s and parents’ history as well as my own. Then I was fingerprinted, five & five. I thought I might as well apply for the new 10 year passport until I learned that it would take 3 months to issue. This is now the prerogative of Pretoria. The days when I had a passport renewed in 15 minutes (I happened to know the embassy minister) are gone for ever. Three weeks, I was told, if I was lucky. And £14 to fax the application to Pretoria!
I fell into conversation with the fingerprint lady who had been posted in London for 23 years & remembered the Dawie de Villiers era with me. We both remembered the dignitaries who’d occupied the ambassador’s office in the 80s. She relaxed sufficiently to muse over the twists of fate. “The people who used to demonstrate outside on the pavement are now inside running the high commission,” she informed me. It might be more interesting to know what had happened to the people who used to be inside, making discreet free drinks available to the London constabulary who ensured that the demonstrators toed the line. “We look after our friends,” as one of them once confided. Not that it did them much good in the end.
Stef caught sight of me yest. as I was setting off for the bank. She said I looked so miserable that she felt compelled to invite me to supper last night. I didn’t know that I was looking down but I was pleased to join her & Herman. He turned out an elegant tuna steak & salad while we plotted our futures. They have been outgrowing their garden flat where they both work as designers, he in the study, she in the bedroom. They made approaches to purchase the flat above them but without success. She does all the computer work while he uses more traditional methods. They’re in great demand from artists & galleries & do lots of fat glossies.
I’m reaching the end of Steven Pinker’s language book where he mocks the elegant grammar rules developed mainly by the Victorians to distinguish the well-bred from the working class. He’s no time for those offended by split infinitives or dangling participles. That would probably come as good news for a lot of my colleagues who couldn’t tell a participle from a propeller shaft. I confess I still throw up my hands at some of the mangled constructions that even BBC journalists are regularly guilty of. But then our prejudices are our oldest friends and it’s a cruel person who robs us of them.
I work Sat/Sun from 1100 to 2100. I’m off Mon/Tues; the rest of the week I work shifts that begin either at 0600 or 1400. I responded to an ad in my computer mag for a free ticket to the Windows 98 exhibition at Olympia next week. It’s a saving of £15. The downside is that everybody in the computer business gets your details to flood you with emails & offers.
Sampson could be heard barking loudly as I chatted to Jones this evening. She had planned to join friends for a dinner party but had her plans disrupted by a leaking pipe that required emergency attention. She’s had enquiries from one or two potential guests down there & I’ve had a steady dribble of responses this end to our latest ad in the BBC magazine. We’ve still got gaps either side of the 3-month high season but it’s looking like a busy year.
Blessings
T
27February1998
Friday, 27 February 98
My dear folks,
Mave is tucked up in a furry ball on his blanket. Carmina Burana echoes around the study. A wealth of conversations & faxes has brought me up to date with several of your lives. Thank you for your news. After four long shifts, I’ve the weekend to myself. The shifts have been getting easier as I get to grips with the job. The hours this week suited me well, 1400 to midnight. Gave me time to get things done before work & a ride back home along quiet roads in afterwards. Next week, it’s 0600 to 1600. We’re promised foul weather this weekend, snow storms up north & general nastiness elsewhere. Violent winds in northern England have already stripped roofs off buildings & left a trail of capsized trucks along the motorways. If it’s not too nasty, I shall try to get some walking in. I need it.
In-between shifts I’ve been doing the little things that wait upon us. Someone nicked one of our dustbins – we suspect the builder renovating a flat next door - so I bought a new one & painted several large white “90s” on it before installing it. I also changed the light switch on the bathroom ceiling. Don’t sniff. It’s a delicate & challenging job.
For safety reasons British bathrooms have the spring-loaded pull switches whose string-pulls dangle just inside the door. The springs wear out after a few years. Problem is that one has to turn off the power to get at the light switch on the ceiling of a windowless bathroom. And the new switches are much bigger than the old variety that we still have. This means that, having dismantled the switch in semi-darkness, I have to transfer the innards of the new switch to the old switch housing & put it all together again while the spring tries to blow the thing apart. I’m pleased to say the switch works again. Makes me think of the fellows who dismantle bombs for a living.
I cycled out to the fringes of Chiswick one morning for a chat with Simply Travel, the company that may take over our bookings next year. We’ve met their representatives several times & know several people in the Algarve who have gone in with them. Their regional chief is flying to Portugal shortly & will call in on Jones again for a further look at the units before we conclude any deal. Out of interest, I asked a couple of local estate agents around to value the flat. I may one day do a deal with one of my flat owners and I wanted an idea of what the apartment might fetch. Inevitably, the agents’ estimates varied widely. What they did agree on was the strong demand for property in the area – which is nice to know.
Midweek the postman rang the bell with a parcel that turned out to be the new power unit for my Logitech scanner, all the way from Switzerland. I’d spent hours getting the scanner checked by the suppliers who told me (before the guarantee ran out in December) that it worked fine for them. But it wouldn’t work off either of my computers. So I got on to the Logitech Helpline who, in their efforts to revive it, sent me first a new connecting unit, then (when that didn’t work) the latest software package & finally the new power unit – all free of charge. I plugged the power unit in with my fingers crossed. To my great joy, the scanner promptly returned, like Rip van Winkel, to life & has been hard at work ever since. I wrote a sincerely grateful letter to Logitech, thanking them for their extraordinary service.
Such are my small successes. The inevitable flat repairs & Quinta correspondence have filled any other spare moments. And I’ve gone through 18 years of files with a fine toothcomb & emptied tons of redundant paper into the paper bin on the opposite pavement. In spite of the activity I’ve been feeling a bit restless as if there was something missing from my life without my quite knowing what. I’m well aware of my absent wife. Mave has missed her too.
He hates being left alone in the flat all day. And he wants to go out in the early hours after I’ve fed him. I don’t mind his going out during the day but it’s out after midnight. He got so frustrated the other night that he nipped me, something he used to do to Barbara from time to time & for no obvious reason, to her great irritation. I explained to him that he might be able to get away with it with her but as far as I was concerned it was tantamount to a suicide note. After an hour of somewhat strained relations we made it up & he went to sleep on my lap as usual. Mavis is not one to hold a grudge, not while there’s only one lap & feeder in the flat, anyhow.
What many of you may not know is that Mavis writes secret letters to my younger niece in Germany, mainly of a plaintive nature & with atrocious spelling. It’s a correspondence that both parties appear to enjoy to judge by his missives (of which I sometimes catch a glimpse) & the replies he gets. He’s a dreadful whinger & can be a bit of a tittle-tattle but at least he writes with feeling & from the heart.
Jones, for her part, has been spending much of her days looking after our dog, Sampson. Sampson has been walked & brushed & cooked for within an inch of his life. Jones can’t believe how much he eats, although his ribs continue to show. He has been much bothered at times by an itchy skin that he scratches until he bleeds. Still, he appears, by the sound of things, to have settled in well enough. Jones’s cat, Noite, for her part, has ignored her & continued to live her contented life in the cottage with our house sitters. Jones misses the comfort of her cat which, I assure her, will move back into MCP the moment the house sitters depart. Jones accepts this but still misses her cat.
Saturday:
No sign of that weather yet, not in this part of the world anyhow. In fact, apart from a really cold wind, it’s been a lovely day. I walked into the computer fair via Regents Park and home again via Hyde Park. There were signs warning of the traffic chaos tomorrow when an estimated 250,000 country life enthusiasts are expected in London on a mega-march in support of a variety of causes. The legally threatened fox hunting fraternity are said to be the moving spirits but the march’s aims are sufficiently diverse to have attracted leading lights from both government & official opposition. It’s a good day to stay out of town. And I guess the foxes will get a day off as well while the huntsmen rally.
Jones, I found two Portuguese language CD ROM courses at the computer fair, one for absolute beginners at £25 and a 2nd one that didn’t specify for £14, which I bought. I’ll load it up and let you know how it looks. Strange that after months of looking in vain for anything on the subject, I should walk into a choice. The proprietor showed me a selection of similar courses in languages ranging from Finnish to Chinese. I also managed to change my new mouse for one with the right fitting although I have yet to persuade it to function properly.
I stopped over at Dillons to get Steven Pinker’s new book “How the Mind Works”. It’s had some excellent write ups here. At the same time I bought Michael Hawkins “Hunting down the universe” which has also enjoyed favourable reviews. One of these days I shall know a great deal.
Bevan is joining me for a Chinese supper this evening, whether ordered in or consumed out remains to be seen.
Blessings.
T
My dear folks,
Mave is tucked up in a furry ball on his blanket. Carmina Burana echoes around the study. A wealth of conversations & faxes has brought me up to date with several of your lives. Thank you for your news. After four long shifts, I’ve the weekend to myself. The shifts have been getting easier as I get to grips with the job. The hours this week suited me well, 1400 to midnight. Gave me time to get things done before work & a ride back home along quiet roads in afterwards. Next week, it’s 0600 to 1600. We’re promised foul weather this weekend, snow storms up north & general nastiness elsewhere. Violent winds in northern England have already stripped roofs off buildings & left a trail of capsized trucks along the motorways. If it’s not too nasty, I shall try to get some walking in. I need it.
In-between shifts I’ve been doing the little things that wait upon us. Someone nicked one of our dustbins – we suspect the builder renovating a flat next door - so I bought a new one & painted several large white “90s” on it before installing it. I also changed the light switch on the bathroom ceiling. Don’t sniff. It’s a delicate & challenging job.
For safety reasons British bathrooms have the spring-loaded pull switches whose string-pulls dangle just inside the door. The springs wear out after a few years. Problem is that one has to turn off the power to get at the light switch on the ceiling of a windowless bathroom. And the new switches are much bigger than the old variety that we still have. This means that, having dismantled the switch in semi-darkness, I have to transfer the innards of the new switch to the old switch housing & put it all together again while the spring tries to blow the thing apart. I’m pleased to say the switch works again. Makes me think of the fellows who dismantle bombs for a living.
I cycled out to the fringes of Chiswick one morning for a chat with Simply Travel, the company that may take over our bookings next year. We’ve met their representatives several times & know several people in the Algarve who have gone in with them. Their regional chief is flying to Portugal shortly & will call in on Jones again for a further look at the units before we conclude any deal. Out of interest, I asked a couple of local estate agents around to value the flat. I may one day do a deal with one of my flat owners and I wanted an idea of what the apartment might fetch. Inevitably, the agents’ estimates varied widely. What they did agree on was the strong demand for property in the area – which is nice to know.
Midweek the postman rang the bell with a parcel that turned out to be the new power unit for my Logitech scanner, all the way from Switzerland. I’d spent hours getting the scanner checked by the suppliers who told me (before the guarantee ran out in December) that it worked fine for them. But it wouldn’t work off either of my computers. So I got on to the Logitech Helpline who, in their efforts to revive it, sent me first a new connecting unit, then (when that didn’t work) the latest software package & finally the new power unit – all free of charge. I plugged the power unit in with my fingers crossed. To my great joy, the scanner promptly returned, like Rip van Winkel, to life & has been hard at work ever since. I wrote a sincerely grateful letter to Logitech, thanking them for their extraordinary service.
Such are my small successes. The inevitable flat repairs & Quinta correspondence have filled any other spare moments. And I’ve gone through 18 years of files with a fine toothcomb & emptied tons of redundant paper into the paper bin on the opposite pavement. In spite of the activity I’ve been feeling a bit restless as if there was something missing from my life without my quite knowing what. I’m well aware of my absent wife. Mave has missed her too.
He hates being left alone in the flat all day. And he wants to go out in the early hours after I’ve fed him. I don’t mind his going out during the day but it’s out after midnight. He got so frustrated the other night that he nipped me, something he used to do to Barbara from time to time & for no obvious reason, to her great irritation. I explained to him that he might be able to get away with it with her but as far as I was concerned it was tantamount to a suicide note. After an hour of somewhat strained relations we made it up & he went to sleep on my lap as usual. Mavis is not one to hold a grudge, not while there’s only one lap & feeder in the flat, anyhow.
What many of you may not know is that Mavis writes secret letters to my younger niece in Germany, mainly of a plaintive nature & with atrocious spelling. It’s a correspondence that both parties appear to enjoy to judge by his missives (of which I sometimes catch a glimpse) & the replies he gets. He’s a dreadful whinger & can be a bit of a tittle-tattle but at least he writes with feeling & from the heart.
Jones, for her part, has been spending much of her days looking after our dog, Sampson. Sampson has been walked & brushed & cooked for within an inch of his life. Jones can’t believe how much he eats, although his ribs continue to show. He has been much bothered at times by an itchy skin that he scratches until he bleeds. Still, he appears, by the sound of things, to have settled in well enough. Jones’s cat, Noite, for her part, has ignored her & continued to live her contented life in the cottage with our house sitters. Jones misses the comfort of her cat which, I assure her, will move back into MCP the moment the house sitters depart. Jones accepts this but still misses her cat.
Saturday:
No sign of that weather yet, not in this part of the world anyhow. In fact, apart from a really cold wind, it’s been a lovely day. I walked into the computer fair via Regents Park and home again via Hyde Park. There were signs warning of the traffic chaos tomorrow when an estimated 250,000 country life enthusiasts are expected in London on a mega-march in support of a variety of causes. The legally threatened fox hunting fraternity are said to be the moving spirits but the march’s aims are sufficiently diverse to have attracted leading lights from both government & official opposition. It’s a good day to stay out of town. And I guess the foxes will get a day off as well while the huntsmen rally.
Jones, I found two Portuguese language CD ROM courses at the computer fair, one for absolute beginners at £25 and a 2nd one that didn’t specify for £14, which I bought. I’ll load it up and let you know how it looks. Strange that after months of looking in vain for anything on the subject, I should walk into a choice. The proprietor showed me a selection of similar courses in languages ranging from Finnish to Chinese. I also managed to change my new mouse for one with the right fitting although I have yet to persuade it to function properly.
I stopped over at Dillons to get Steven Pinker’s new book “How the Mind Works”. It’s had some excellent write ups here. At the same time I bought Michael Hawkins “Hunting down the universe” which has also enjoyed favourable reviews. One of these days I shall know a great deal.
Bevan is joining me for a Chinese supper this evening, whether ordered in or consumed out remains to be seen.
Blessings.
T
22February1998
Sunday 22 February 98
My dear folks,
Maida Vale is at rest, soaking up the welcome warmth of a sunny February afternoon. I took myself off on a long hike this a.m., up through Swiss Cottage to the further reaches of Hampstead Heath. En route I discovered parts of London, barely a mile away, that I hardly knew existed, including a none-too-savoury section across two railway bridges, past some factories & down a long graffiti-inscribed passageway - not an area to be out at night. At the Heath I joined the swarms of families & joggers & dogs that were celebrating the glory of the day. The dogs rush all over the show but with typical British reserve tend to mind their own business & bottoms & expect other dogs to the same. I’ve never seen a fight. The daffodils were out. I went my way again after a brief pause on one of the many benches installed in memory of one or other Heath lover, a far more sensible idea than a grave stone.
I’ve been off since Friday. It’s taking Mave & me a while to accommodate the change of pace and mood that has accompanied Jones’s departure. I gathered from her that Samson is safely retrieved from Sheila’s & installed at the Quinta. He’s getting lots of walks & food & love & we’ll see how things go from there. I was meant to see a rep from a holiday company on Friday to talk abut going into business with them. But the lady concerned went down with flu & postponed it. I spent most of the day at my desk instead, catching up on banks, recalcitrant tenants, lawyers & all the other detritus of looking after other people’s flats. I’ve also started a process of clearing out 19 years’ accumulation of files from the shelves in the study. Jones & I have both been trying to shed belongings. But we are both somehow more inclined to keep our own possessions & give away our partner’s so we haven’t made much progress.
After lunch, I borrowed Jessica, a neighbour’s dog, & went off for a wander through Regents Park. As we returned, I caught the sleeve of my favourite leather jacket on a nail sticking out from the wooden fence surrounding the mosque. The sleeve was rent, to my distress. I tucked away the flap as best I could. Was this, I wondered, a sign from Allah of his displeasure at the imminent bombing of Iraq by the perfidious Americans. I gave the thought some consideration before dismissing it as unlikely. It took me 30 minutes of fine darning that evening to repair the damage.
Saturday a.m.
I cycled off in the drizzle to the computer fair that’s held off Tottenham Court Road to get myself an Intellimouse. I’ve been using them at the Beeb & find they save a lot of arm work when one is drafting a long document. Prices at the fair are generally half of those in the shops. There’s nod-&-wink sales as well but that’s as may be. The intellimice go for £20, less than a third of the standard price. I carefully selected one with the right fitting for my computer & set about installing it on my return. The computer responded by playing seriously silly buggers with me. I eventually worked out that the fitting concerned was for my keyboard & I that was sitting with two mice plugged in but no keyboard. If you saw the mass of wiring that emerges from the back of the computer you’d understand. I shall take the mouse back next week & eat humble pie in the hope of an exchange. Meanwhile, I work afternoons through till midnight from Monday to Thursday.
My perseverance with my book, “The Language Instinct” by Steven Pinker, is paying dividends. I bought it because I have so often wondered how primitive peoples came to speak such complex & differently structured languages. The book hasn’t quite answered the question but has come close to it. Most interesting are examples of how children, whose parents are thrown together from different language backgrounds, rapidly develop their own language. The early chapters, on the innate structure of language, were hard work. But the author is gifted both with an exceptional knowledge of his subject & a pleasing turn of phrase in conveying it. His illustrations are a joy, many of them from Alice in Wonderland. Let me leave you with one, as he dissects the mystery of pronouns:
“I proceed [said the Mouse].
‘Edwin and Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him; and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable....”.
“Found what?” said the Duck.
“Found it,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know what ‘it’ means.”
“I know what ‘it’ means well enough when I find a thing,” said the Duck:
“it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?”
Indeed.
Blessings
T
My dear folks,
Maida Vale is at rest, soaking up the welcome warmth of a sunny February afternoon. I took myself off on a long hike this a.m., up through Swiss Cottage to the further reaches of Hampstead Heath. En route I discovered parts of London, barely a mile away, that I hardly knew existed, including a none-too-savoury section across two railway bridges, past some factories & down a long graffiti-inscribed passageway - not an area to be out at night. At the Heath I joined the swarms of families & joggers & dogs that were celebrating the glory of the day. The dogs rush all over the show but with typical British reserve tend to mind their own business & bottoms & expect other dogs to the same. I’ve never seen a fight. The daffodils were out. I went my way again after a brief pause on one of the many benches installed in memory of one or other Heath lover, a far more sensible idea than a grave stone.
I’ve been off since Friday. It’s taking Mave & me a while to accommodate the change of pace and mood that has accompanied Jones’s departure. I gathered from her that Samson is safely retrieved from Sheila’s & installed at the Quinta. He’s getting lots of walks & food & love & we’ll see how things go from there. I was meant to see a rep from a holiday company on Friday to talk abut going into business with them. But the lady concerned went down with flu & postponed it. I spent most of the day at my desk instead, catching up on banks, recalcitrant tenants, lawyers & all the other detritus of looking after other people’s flats. I’ve also started a process of clearing out 19 years’ accumulation of files from the shelves in the study. Jones & I have both been trying to shed belongings. But we are both somehow more inclined to keep our own possessions & give away our partner’s so we haven’t made much progress.
After lunch, I borrowed Jessica, a neighbour’s dog, & went off for a wander through Regents Park. As we returned, I caught the sleeve of my favourite leather jacket on a nail sticking out from the wooden fence surrounding the mosque. The sleeve was rent, to my distress. I tucked away the flap as best I could. Was this, I wondered, a sign from Allah of his displeasure at the imminent bombing of Iraq by the perfidious Americans. I gave the thought some consideration before dismissing it as unlikely. It took me 30 minutes of fine darning that evening to repair the damage.
Saturday a.m.
I cycled off in the drizzle to the computer fair that’s held off Tottenham Court Road to get myself an Intellimouse. I’ve been using them at the Beeb & find they save a lot of arm work when one is drafting a long document. Prices at the fair are generally half of those in the shops. There’s nod-&-wink sales as well but that’s as may be. The intellimice go for £20, less than a third of the standard price. I carefully selected one with the right fitting for my computer & set about installing it on my return. The computer responded by playing seriously silly buggers with me. I eventually worked out that the fitting concerned was for my keyboard & I that was sitting with two mice plugged in but no keyboard. If you saw the mass of wiring that emerges from the back of the computer you’d understand. I shall take the mouse back next week & eat humble pie in the hope of an exchange. Meanwhile, I work afternoons through till midnight from Monday to Thursday.
My perseverance with my book, “The Language Instinct” by Steven Pinker, is paying dividends. I bought it because I have so often wondered how primitive peoples came to speak such complex & differently structured languages. The book hasn’t quite answered the question but has come close to it. Most interesting are examples of how children, whose parents are thrown together from different language backgrounds, rapidly develop their own language. The early chapters, on the innate structure of language, were hard work. But the author is gifted both with an exceptional knowledge of his subject & a pleasing turn of phrase in conveying it. His illustrations are a joy, many of them from Alice in Wonderland. Let me leave you with one, as he dissects the mystery of pronouns:
“I proceed [said the Mouse].
‘Edwin and Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him; and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable....”.
“Found what?” said the Duck.
“Found it,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know what ‘it’ means.”
“I know what ‘it’ means well enough when I find a thing,” said the Duck:
“it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?”
Indeed.
Blessings
T
20February1998
Friday 20 February 98
My dear folks,
Jones has gone to Portugal. I drove her down to Gatwick early yesterday a.m. & kissed her goodbye at the entrance to the terminal. Mave & I will have to cope alone for the next few weeks. It will only be a few weeks because she returns to London on March 19. She needed to go down early, largely because our dog rescue scheme was not working out. You may recall that Samson had been retrieved from a barrel at the bottom of the road, cleaned up & taken out to live with our friend, Sheila. Samson appears to have approved of the scheme, making himself thoroughly at home. But Sheila’s cats did not. And Sheila, who is elderly, struggled to manage him & incorporate him successfully into the household. Eventually, she wrote to us, confessing that the scheme had run into trouble.
So Jones persuaded two of our regular guests to take her out to Sheila’s to fetch Samson who has now moved to the Quinta. Jones believes fervently that a dog is for life! His arrival raises all kinds of other questions but none that need instant answers. In the meanwhile, Jones & our winter house sitters will walk & feed Samson who has taken up temporary sleeping quarters in my workshop. He will need to remain on a chain for much of the time, initially at least, while Noite adapts to the situation. How Noite copes remains to be seen, not that I have any fears on this score. Noite is one of life’s great survivors & has wooed and won over our house sitters in Jones’ absence, taking over their bedroom in due course.
Our plan is to drive down to the Quinta early in April. That depends a bit on the Beeb. But, all going well, we shall take the ferry – either to France or to Spain - & then amble down to the Algarve. It’s the first time we’ve contemplated driving down, something that Jones has always wanted to do. It appeals to me as well. Some of our guests regularly motor down but the drive takes at least 2½ days as compared with 2½ hours in the plane. Jones hopes to get the place ready for its summer influx in the meanwhile so that we can relax a little in April.
Back in London I have been working quite hard, with 3 long overnight shifts closed followed by 2 equally long (12-hour) day shifts. The working process in Online is very different to that in television which calls for a lot of interaction & frequent rushings off to the gallery or VT suites. In Online, people tend to glue themselves to their desks for hours at a time as they build up the stories they are working on. It’s very intensive & there’s minimal conversation.
The text for the story comes off the news wires. The pictures come either from television broadcasts or web-based picture-libraries. The audio, equally, comes from radio or TV, or from BBC radio files that are collated on databases to which one dials in. Experienced workers have half a dozen applications open on the desktop & whirl through them at bewildering speed. Finding stuff in the maze of ever growing files is an art in itself. Once you have, every picture needs to be processed, trimmed to size, filed & placed on the page. Each bit of audio has to be edited down, transferred to a Web-friendly format, filed & entered. (I haven’t had a crack yet at video editing!) The pages need to be laid out with sub-headings & breaks, for easy reading. And, of course, as the story changes or new pictures become available, so the pages are updated.
I had thought of myself as reasonably fluent on a computer. But I’ve felt this past fortnight as though I were learning to drive all over again, & being taught largely by people who could be my children. The place is full of 20 & 30 somethings. It’s not an old man’s game! The technology is so complex that a squad of “teccies” is constantly engaged in maintaining, uprating & fixing the awesome array of equipment. In spite of their 128 megabytes of RAM, the PCs sometimes slow down to speeds when you want to shake them in frustration. At times I’ve felt that I should have stuck to what I know. On the other hand I have learned more this past fortnight than the previous year - & it’s useful knowledge.
The schedule meant that I was working most of my last week here with Jones. On our last day together we drove up to Hampstead Heath in glorious sunshine for a long, reflective amble. The weather has remained unseasonably mild although the latest forecasts are warning us of a coming winter blast. No doubt, Mavis & I shall survive it.
Blessings ever
T
My dear folks,
Jones has gone to Portugal. I drove her down to Gatwick early yesterday a.m. & kissed her goodbye at the entrance to the terminal. Mave & I will have to cope alone for the next few weeks. It will only be a few weeks because she returns to London on March 19. She needed to go down early, largely because our dog rescue scheme was not working out. You may recall that Samson had been retrieved from a barrel at the bottom of the road, cleaned up & taken out to live with our friend, Sheila. Samson appears to have approved of the scheme, making himself thoroughly at home. But Sheila’s cats did not. And Sheila, who is elderly, struggled to manage him & incorporate him successfully into the household. Eventually, she wrote to us, confessing that the scheme had run into trouble.
So Jones persuaded two of our regular guests to take her out to Sheila’s to fetch Samson who has now moved to the Quinta. Jones believes fervently that a dog is for life! His arrival raises all kinds of other questions but none that need instant answers. In the meanwhile, Jones & our winter house sitters will walk & feed Samson who has taken up temporary sleeping quarters in my workshop. He will need to remain on a chain for much of the time, initially at least, while Noite adapts to the situation. How Noite copes remains to be seen, not that I have any fears on this score. Noite is one of life’s great survivors & has wooed and won over our house sitters in Jones’ absence, taking over their bedroom in due course.
Our plan is to drive down to the Quinta early in April. That depends a bit on the Beeb. But, all going well, we shall take the ferry – either to France or to Spain - & then amble down to the Algarve. It’s the first time we’ve contemplated driving down, something that Jones has always wanted to do. It appeals to me as well. Some of our guests regularly motor down but the drive takes at least 2½ days as compared with 2½ hours in the plane. Jones hopes to get the place ready for its summer influx in the meanwhile so that we can relax a little in April.
Back in London I have been working quite hard, with 3 long overnight shifts closed followed by 2 equally long (12-hour) day shifts. The working process in Online is very different to that in television which calls for a lot of interaction & frequent rushings off to the gallery or VT suites. In Online, people tend to glue themselves to their desks for hours at a time as they build up the stories they are working on. It’s very intensive & there’s minimal conversation.
The text for the story comes off the news wires. The pictures come either from television broadcasts or web-based picture-libraries. The audio, equally, comes from radio or TV, or from BBC radio files that are collated on databases to which one dials in. Experienced workers have half a dozen applications open on the desktop & whirl through them at bewildering speed. Finding stuff in the maze of ever growing files is an art in itself. Once you have, every picture needs to be processed, trimmed to size, filed & placed on the page. Each bit of audio has to be edited down, transferred to a Web-friendly format, filed & entered. (I haven’t had a crack yet at video editing!) The pages need to be laid out with sub-headings & breaks, for easy reading. And, of course, as the story changes or new pictures become available, so the pages are updated.
I had thought of myself as reasonably fluent on a computer. But I’ve felt this past fortnight as though I were learning to drive all over again, & being taught largely by people who could be my children. The place is full of 20 & 30 somethings. It’s not an old man’s game! The technology is so complex that a squad of “teccies” is constantly engaged in maintaining, uprating & fixing the awesome array of equipment. In spite of their 128 megabytes of RAM, the PCs sometimes slow down to speeds when you want to shake them in frustration. At times I’ve felt that I should have stuck to what I know. On the other hand I have learned more this past fortnight than the previous year - & it’s useful knowledge.
The schedule meant that I was working most of my last week here with Jones. On our last day together we drove up to Hampstead Heath in glorious sunshine for a long, reflective amble. The weather has remained unseasonably mild although the latest forecasts are warning us of a coming winter blast. No doubt, Mavis & I shall survive it.
Blessings ever
T
12February1998
Thursday 12 February 98
My dear folks,
Midnight looms. Jones has retired to bed. She wilts after 10. Mave is curled into his usual furry ball on the blanket that we now lay on the couch. It’s not for his comfort but to collect his hairs. Jones says he’s losing weight although I can’t say I’ve noticed it myself. Mavis too likes to retire early, preferably after a back scratch & a warm up snooze on one’s lap. He’s up early mind you, clambering over the bed to remind us that he’d like breakfast sooner rather than later. Dr Hannibal Lecter is glaring at me from the miniature TV in the corner as The Silence of the Lambs builds towards a heart-pounding conclusion. Damn scary I found it when I first saw it – and it’s pretty damn scary the second time too.
Two fairly pleasant days have drifted off into history. Wednesday we walked into town to see an exhibition of the history of British art collecting at the Royal Academy. Jones decided she was going to be smart; put her hair up & wore glad rags. Looked pretty good too. We stopped for a bite of lunch at the crypt of a church in Marylebone Road. Several churches now offer food in the crypt & do good business. This one did good quiche too. A small boy solemnly counted out our change.
Thence to the exhibition, which was huge & fortunately not too full. Jones is the arty member of the family although I did spot a Turner from a distance. I don’t suppose you get many marks for that. There were lots of Virgins and Child, most of them featuring distinctly unattractive models. Maybe virtue was thought incompatible with beauty or maybe it’s the eye of the beholder problem. There was lots of everything in fact, portraits, landscapes & modern stuff, certainly enough to linger over & to talk about afterwards. Jones loved it. I was pleased I’d been. There were more than a few I’d have gladly put up on our walls. We cheated & took a bus part of the way home.
Thursday we had ideas of going for a walk along the Thames but I was distracted by flat problems. “My” apartments have been full of faulty boilers & other hassles. Means making arrangements with the tenants & then getting keys to the fixer & getting them back again. And I’ve been engaged in a daily exchange of faxes with a set of rogue tenants & our lawyer. I also had to cycle into the Beeb for a meeting. When we finally got in our walk after lunch, it was to Kensington High Street for some minor business & purchases. The sun came out. It’s been marvellously warm these last few days. We headed up through Notting Hill. Jones loves the houses there & wishes she could have one. If we win the lottery I dare say she can. We came back through Hyde Park, stopping for coffee at a kiosk & watching the kids chasing the pigeons.
We’ve seen a little of the Nagano Olympics. But mainly it seems that the events we’re keen on are postponed & we get curling instead. I’ve learned more about curling these past few days than in the whole of my previous existence. I didn’t even know that those items they slide down the ice were made of solid stone. The competitors take the game with desperate seriousness, pulling agonised faces & yelling like the devil at the stones to slow down or speed up. As for the sweepers, they’re like religious fanatics. We did get to see the ski event, involving the amazing mogul descents & stunts. I ached for the competitors’ knees.
Friday p.m.:
It’s a day May would have been proud of, never mind February. Temps of C15, birds raising families, daffodils shooting up. Makes you wonder what happened to winter. We drove out to Cookham & went walking down the Thames towards Maidenhead, stopping midway at our regular café for teas & carrot cake. “Anythink more?”, the waitress asked each customer in turn. Jones even took off her coat, so warm did it become. Lots of other folk were strolling around in T-shirts. Absolutely balmy – the weather that is. We walked back talking of future plans and prospects. I work the next three nights, so I’ll go & put my head down.
Blessings
T
My dear folks,
Midnight looms. Jones has retired to bed. She wilts after 10. Mave is curled into his usual furry ball on the blanket that we now lay on the couch. It’s not for his comfort but to collect his hairs. Jones says he’s losing weight although I can’t say I’ve noticed it myself. Mavis too likes to retire early, preferably after a back scratch & a warm up snooze on one’s lap. He’s up early mind you, clambering over the bed to remind us that he’d like breakfast sooner rather than later. Dr Hannibal Lecter is glaring at me from the miniature TV in the corner as The Silence of the Lambs builds towards a heart-pounding conclusion. Damn scary I found it when I first saw it – and it’s pretty damn scary the second time too.
Two fairly pleasant days have drifted off into history. Wednesday we walked into town to see an exhibition of the history of British art collecting at the Royal Academy. Jones decided she was going to be smart; put her hair up & wore glad rags. Looked pretty good too. We stopped for a bite of lunch at the crypt of a church in Marylebone Road. Several churches now offer food in the crypt & do good business. This one did good quiche too. A small boy solemnly counted out our change.
Thence to the exhibition, which was huge & fortunately not too full. Jones is the arty member of the family although I did spot a Turner from a distance. I don’t suppose you get many marks for that. There were lots of Virgins and Child, most of them featuring distinctly unattractive models. Maybe virtue was thought incompatible with beauty or maybe it’s the eye of the beholder problem. There was lots of everything in fact, portraits, landscapes & modern stuff, certainly enough to linger over & to talk about afterwards. Jones loved it. I was pleased I’d been. There were more than a few I’d have gladly put up on our walls. We cheated & took a bus part of the way home.
Thursday we had ideas of going for a walk along the Thames but I was distracted by flat problems. “My” apartments have been full of faulty boilers & other hassles. Means making arrangements with the tenants & then getting keys to the fixer & getting them back again. And I’ve been engaged in a daily exchange of faxes with a set of rogue tenants & our lawyer. I also had to cycle into the Beeb for a meeting. When we finally got in our walk after lunch, it was to Kensington High Street for some minor business & purchases. The sun came out. It’s been marvellously warm these last few days. We headed up through Notting Hill. Jones loves the houses there & wishes she could have one. If we win the lottery I dare say she can. We came back through Hyde Park, stopping for coffee at a kiosk & watching the kids chasing the pigeons.
We’ve seen a little of the Nagano Olympics. But mainly it seems that the events we’re keen on are postponed & we get curling instead. I’ve learned more about curling these past few days than in the whole of my previous existence. I didn’t even know that those items they slide down the ice were made of solid stone. The competitors take the game with desperate seriousness, pulling agonised faces & yelling like the devil at the stones to slow down or speed up. As for the sweepers, they’re like religious fanatics. We did get to see the ski event, involving the amazing mogul descents & stunts. I ached for the competitors’ knees.
Friday p.m.:
It’s a day May would have been proud of, never mind February. Temps of C15, birds raising families, daffodils shooting up. Makes you wonder what happened to winter. We drove out to Cookham & went walking down the Thames towards Maidenhead, stopping midway at our regular café for teas & carrot cake. “Anythink more?”, the waitress asked each customer in turn. Jones even took off her coat, so warm did it become. Lots of other folk were strolling around in T-shirts. Absolutely balmy – the weather that is. We walked back talking of future plans and prospects. I work the next three nights, so I’ll go & put my head down.
Blessings
T
3February1998
3 February 1998
My dear folks,
I am inspired to respond, briefly, to the welcome arrival of faxes & emails from around the world. Many thanks to those responsible.
The week is rushing past slowly in the way that some weeks do. My cold is going away. I had no sooner mentioned in my last letter that my condition had improved than I was afflicted with sneezes more violent than before. I thought of the man in the bible whose old devils were driven out, only to be replaced by new devils so that his last state was worse than his first. Jones was sympathetic and steadily increased the size of the porridge bowls she prepared for my breakfast until a whole tribe might have fed from the pot. Much as I enjoyed the porridge, it did not get to work on my condition. I did try one night to see if it was possible to expel cold germs with red wine. (You can’t!) This was the night before I began my attachment to News Online so my first day was distinctly rough. I arrived with streaming red piggy eyes, as much from cycling in sub-zero temps as other afflictions – I & drizzled miserably for the rest of the day.
Jones has been busy attending to the needs of her nephew, Bevan, who has moved into a slightly run-down townhouse belonging to absent friends of ours in a very posh part of town. We drove 90 mins down to Balcombe on Sunday to load up the Rocket with Bevan’s possessions & bring them back to town. The car braced itself for the trip back to London, every inch crammed with belongings. Bevan himself had to take the train. To his credit, he’s one of the few people we know whose entire worldly possessions can be divided between the back of the Rocket & a rucksack.
Jones spent Monday doing up his kitchen. On Tuesday she arrived with a carpet cleaner to find that the plumbing had run wild as Bevan tried to take a morning shower which then refused to turn itself off. She was met by a soaking & wild-eyed nephew at the door. Luckily she had the number of a fixer who rushed over to save her (and the carpet cleaner) from gushing pipes & leaking ceilings but not until the townhouse had undergone a thorough soaking. Matters were made worse when the fixer flushed the contents of a (disconnected) loo cistern into a cupboard as part of his repair attempts. The dwelling is due to undergo far-reaching renovations in a few months’ time when the owners return from abroad. Meanwhile, Jones is anxious to keep maintenance costs to a minimum on their behalf.
Online is kinda interesting. I have spent two days getting to grips with the in-house software used for constructing the BBC website. There’s the application used for building up illustrated pages, a huge graphics package, software for capturing live video grabs off air, browsers, the BBC’s Intranet, the old radio & TV news systems, email & about 20 other applications, all lurking on the desktop. The money that’s been lavished on software & equipment is just mind boggling. Every worker sits with a large monitor, a potent computer, & a TV & video recorder clustered around the desk, & there’s lots of workers. All have immediate access to every newswire, audio report & video image that comes into the BBC. These are stored in huge computers as files that can quickly be retrieved & built into stories. The problem is finding them.
On the far side of the room, programmers work constantly to build up the underlying structure as the site grows. Those who dial into the site, if they prefer, can listen to the latest radio news bulletins (in several languages) or watch the TV news or do the interactive stuff - or whatever takes their fancy. It’s serious & ambitious as well as very high tech, clearly the way the BBC believes the industry is moving. It’s fascinating to see how technologies are converging. Clearly, within a few years, only one item of electronic equipment will be required in the household. Whatever you call it, it will combine the family’s computer, radio, television, cassette player, CD player, fax, phone & much else. It will supply programmes on demand. The huge advantage of the technology is that every “hit” on every page is recorded & the Beeb knows the following morning exactly how many people have looked at the site the night before & what pages they’ve been interested in.
That’s enough, I think. I am in danger of running on!
Blessings as ever
T
My dear folks,
I am inspired to respond, briefly, to the welcome arrival of faxes & emails from around the world. Many thanks to those responsible.
The week is rushing past slowly in the way that some weeks do. My cold is going away. I had no sooner mentioned in my last letter that my condition had improved than I was afflicted with sneezes more violent than before. I thought of the man in the bible whose old devils were driven out, only to be replaced by new devils so that his last state was worse than his first. Jones was sympathetic and steadily increased the size of the porridge bowls she prepared for my breakfast until a whole tribe might have fed from the pot. Much as I enjoyed the porridge, it did not get to work on my condition. I did try one night to see if it was possible to expel cold germs with red wine. (You can’t!) This was the night before I began my attachment to News Online so my first day was distinctly rough. I arrived with streaming red piggy eyes, as much from cycling in sub-zero temps as other afflictions – I & drizzled miserably for the rest of the day.
Jones has been busy attending to the needs of her nephew, Bevan, who has moved into a slightly run-down townhouse belonging to absent friends of ours in a very posh part of town. We drove 90 mins down to Balcombe on Sunday to load up the Rocket with Bevan’s possessions & bring them back to town. The car braced itself for the trip back to London, every inch crammed with belongings. Bevan himself had to take the train. To his credit, he’s one of the few people we know whose entire worldly possessions can be divided between the back of the Rocket & a rucksack.
Jones spent Monday doing up his kitchen. On Tuesday she arrived with a carpet cleaner to find that the plumbing had run wild as Bevan tried to take a morning shower which then refused to turn itself off. She was met by a soaking & wild-eyed nephew at the door. Luckily she had the number of a fixer who rushed over to save her (and the carpet cleaner) from gushing pipes & leaking ceilings but not until the townhouse had undergone a thorough soaking. Matters were made worse when the fixer flushed the contents of a (disconnected) loo cistern into a cupboard as part of his repair attempts. The dwelling is due to undergo far-reaching renovations in a few months’ time when the owners return from abroad. Meanwhile, Jones is anxious to keep maintenance costs to a minimum on their behalf.
Online is kinda interesting. I have spent two days getting to grips with the in-house software used for constructing the BBC website. There’s the application used for building up illustrated pages, a huge graphics package, software for capturing live video grabs off air, browsers, the BBC’s Intranet, the old radio & TV news systems, email & about 20 other applications, all lurking on the desktop. The money that’s been lavished on software & equipment is just mind boggling. Every worker sits with a large monitor, a potent computer, & a TV & video recorder clustered around the desk, & there’s lots of workers. All have immediate access to every newswire, audio report & video image that comes into the BBC. These are stored in huge computers as files that can quickly be retrieved & built into stories. The problem is finding them.
On the far side of the room, programmers work constantly to build up the underlying structure as the site grows. Those who dial into the site, if they prefer, can listen to the latest radio news bulletins (in several languages) or watch the TV news or do the interactive stuff - or whatever takes their fancy. It’s serious & ambitious as well as very high tech, clearly the way the BBC believes the industry is moving. It’s fascinating to see how technologies are converging. Clearly, within a few years, only one item of electronic equipment will be required in the household. Whatever you call it, it will combine the family’s computer, radio, television, cassette player, CD player, fax, phone & much else. It will supply programmes on demand. The huge advantage of the technology is that every “hit” on every page is recorded & the Beeb knows the following morning exactly how many people have looked at the site the night before & what pages they’ve been interested in.
That’s enough, I think. I am in danger of running on!
Blessings as ever
T
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