Update

Blogging has been recently suspended due to  battery failure on the laptop.  A new one is winging its way towards me.

I am very lucky at my age in life to be so well looked after by Hilary who is quite simply a "Ministering Angel" and will henceforth be known as the M.A.  This in spite of her own problems which cause permanent pain and may be compared to what Henry James called "my obscure pain"  (This got him out of the American Civil War in spite of two younger brothers going out to fight.  This is going to be literary name dropping week.)

Orwell's book about the Spanish Civil War is now finished leaving me with the problem of why is it that people will leave their own firesides, put on uniforms and find themselves lying in a ditch with rats running over them trying to kill a complete stranger against whom they have no personal animosity? It was this that so intrigued Tolstoy as Isaiah  Berlin pointed out in "The Hedgehog and the Fox" and led him to write "War and Peace".   No answers to this but to recall that many people behaved bravely and thought they were doing their bit in the fight against Fascism - a very real threat at the time.  Moving on to Tony Judt's book of European History since 1945.  800 plus pages will keep me quiet for a time.  (Incidentally, Churchill once invited Berlin to lunch during the War and ended up with the wrong man and found himself drinking brandy with the composer of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Irving Berlin. I wish I had been a fly on the wall.)

Aaaaaaaaagh!  Here is a horrible name to drop - Chris Patten, who is to become Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the BBC.  Rod Liddle did quite a good hatchet job in the Sunday Times but failed to remark that Patten nearly scuppered the General Agreement on Hong Kong when he was governer.  A special envoy from the Foreign Office had to fly out to Peking and reassure them that Patten was a paper tiger.  Actually more like a paper pussy cat.  The worst sort of Tory always trying to placate the left while publicising his own trendy views.  He flew out to Hong Kong with two dogs - one called whisky, the other soda - and two leggy teenage daughters in mini-skirts.  Once there he did a new broom act which only infuriated the Chinese on the mainland and soon disillusioned those in Hong Kong. He is supposed to be able to stand up to those already at the BBC.  But I could do that and would have no trouble in sacking the Depouty Controller of Light Entertainment (Fishguard division) and any other administrator who just got in the way of better programmes.  Perhaps I should start with the man who gave 15 million pounds to a foul mouthed slob whose name will not sully this blog. 

Medical bulletin:
                          Head:  Just about OK
                          Body: Mostly functioning
                          Legs:  In need of complete replacement

I have discovered what is wrong with Dave but this will have to wait until the next exciting  instalment.