Some friends of ours are moving to Singapore and are having to abandon two middle aged cats. The Cat Protection League will take them but intend to off them and use their pelts as mittens. I have to say that that is not how I had understood the term "protection" until now.
I am doing one of those cases. Last week I had a conference with clients that lasted 4 days. Two of those days were 18 hours long, the others not much shorter. My leader is becoming ever more like Alec Guinness in the Bridge on the River Kwai. I feel as if I am on a death march.
Dad,
I have thought about you from time to time over the last 20 years though I confess that I have put some effort into not doing so.
In the past, my thoughts have always followed the same course: I draw up an indictment. The accusations have been held and turned in my hand for so many years that they have worn smooth. They lie polished and comfortable in my palm as I close my fingers over them. It’s as much as I can do not to run through the whole charge sheet now. Let me pick one. Do you remember when I was four or five I wandered into the neighbouring field where older boys were trying to start a fire? I scared you so you scared me. You climbed the stairs shouting, enraged, dangling me by my wrist and kicking me as we headed to my bedroom. I was released at dinner time and made to eat dinner naked to “teach me a lesson”.
Because the indictment is forever in draft, I have never heard your defence. If you had a barrister he would tell the court that you are a product of your own parenting and education: your father the headmaster, your time boarding at school or as a cadet on HMS Conway – so much discipline. I accept the force of the argument.
If you represented yourself your theme would more likely be exculpatory self-justification. Hasn’t it all turned out alright? Haven’t I done well enough? Weren’t all those lessons you taught me ultimately valuable ones? I have to say that I am not sure that the lessons I learned were those you intended to teach me. I cannot bear to have people stood behind me as I eat. I cannot believe that anyone, even P, is sincere when they say they love me and when a girl I once cared for first raised a hand to touch my face I flinched. I know you would despise that weakness and one lesson you certainly taught me was to despise myself.
When H called me, she said she had news but wasn’t sure how I would react. She said you have cancer. I gather it is in your bowel, your lung and your liver.
H was concerned I would be pleased. She worried that I would see this as you getting what you deserve. That is not how I feel at all. No-one deserves what you will be going through.
I did not feel happy; I felt nothing. That, I am afraid, is what you deserve – I stopped caring. Don’t misunderstand, I have no animus; I am not angry with you; I do not hate you. I have, I suppose, forgiven you. So let me say, not as son to father but man to man, I hope the treatment goes well. I hope you are spared the suffering and the indignity and I hope you find peace. I am sorry.
Being a man, I am now hopelessly caught up in the pop and swirl of the Olympics. I love its ability to throw up occasions such as the war-fuelled grudge match between Russia and Georgia ... in women's beach volleyball.
Suddenly it's a grim old world. People are, as usual, suffering and dying in poverty for want of the miniscule amounts of money that would transform their lives. Now, as we tip towards recession, debt and its associated anxieties are spreading misery and destroying families even if you live in the paradisical affluence of the West.
All of that is bad enough but now ... now even football is suffering!
Look at poor Frank Lampard. He's gone on record to make to clear to me (and the other Chelsea supporters) that he loves us with an unquenchable passion. His athlete's heart is dangerously inflamed with affection for the Club and he wishes nothing more than to be able to see out his career serving us faithfully.
Unfortunately there is a problem. It's a small thing; a trifle really. Frank wants to stay in blue but he can't let his unshakeable loyalty be used as a way of cheating him of what is due to him. What is due, apparently, is £140,000 per WEEK for the next five years. Do the math. No actually don't do it. Frank - fuck off.
Voting has kicked off for Tenuous Connections 08 and Katja has floated into an early lead. Vote at here.
Only now it occurs to me I should have set up an 0898 voteline (though since, I gather, one should only do that once the real winner has been decided, I suppose I still have time).
I am doing the Tolley's proofs today. I sent off my first batch a few minutes ago. No doubt the in-house editor will be impressed that I appear to have mis-labelled them as "Corrected Poofs"
As it is summer, I am reading a bit of Wodehouse. The plots are convolted and the characters stereotyped but the language is so wonderful I can't help but revel in it.
Just to take one example: I am reading "Uncle Fred in the Springtime". Early on an engagement is broken off and the jilted man asks: "so you are handing me the mitten?"
It is phrases like that (probably few of which are original)* that are so colourful and so pleasurable that they are the literary equivalent of a boiled sweet.
The proud boast of the Hotel Cosmos is that it was designed by the French and built by the Yugoslavs. It may not be immediately obvious to the traveller why either fact justifies much in the way of crowing. The French have certainly been proud enough to have erected a 100 foot tall statue of General Charles De Gaulle outside. He stands grimly, his back to the jauntily corruscating neon frontage of the "Kasino". For admirers of statuary, or french derrieres, it is worth making a visit to the Terrasse Bar on the third floor which affords an immediately impressive view of the General's enormous bronze bottom.
The rooms have been decorated in a charming "penal" theme. The double rooms each have a pair of beds with mattresses like pieces of damp toast and pillows like half-inflated bin bags. Should you have time to spare,each room also has a television set which may be tuned to range of channels each one being broadcast direct to the hotel from 1979. Should that not excite you plenty of other entertainment is on offer. The lobby is dominated by rows of slot machines that tinkle merrily into the early hours. Not to be missed is the arrival, at around 6 pm, of a phalanx of prostitutes. The visitor is struck first by the bowwave of perfume and then the heart is gladened by the sound of 12 stiletto heels clacking on the stone floor. The procession of leather skirts and designer handbags makes its way to the somewhat over-priced 24 hour cafe where the ladies sit demurely smoking and being entertained by their pimps. The pimps themselves affect a henchman chic of ultra-tight t-shirts stretched over gym-honed musculatures. It is a sight, as impressive in its own way, as Red Square itself.
The hotel staff are reassuringly brusque but despite their obvious resentment are prepared to assist you should the need arise. For the hurried businessman there is a diverting mezzanine of shops selling tat with which to stuff your bag with guilt-assuaging purchases for the family.
