Lederhosen

If you are in two minds and restless, why not read today’s Telegraph’s front page?

Germans, yes, I know, it’s awful; they are everywhere; as indeed is everyone else. 

British David Burnish paid £4,000 to holiday with his family in Kos, Greece. Activities were supervised by the Hun, so poor David didn’t understand a word; for his pains, and being too dull to devise his own entertainment, he has now won a £750 compensation award. Talk about a discount.

Before you send disparaging remarks (though please do – anything is better than silence) or, even better, some well worded hate mail in my direction, let me assure you that I am the first, when leaving the safety of the British isles, to deliberately not understand one word of German. I don’t drink coffee and I don’t eat cake.

U

My old self

I am as good as new. In fact I am in rapture.

My study is cleared, restored to its former glory. I can see the desk, I can see the floor. I have chucked, I have filed, I have archived. I can breathe again.

I always knew I am a decluttering consultant at heart.

U

Taking the biscuit

There are three types of people in the world: Those who dunk, those who don’t and those who judge you on whether you do or you don’t.

I recently perfected the art of baking an Italian chocolate biscuit complete with chopped walnuts; it’s not quite as hard as your average Amaretti but not that soft either. Thus guests’ attitude to the challenge of my offering and a cup of coffee/espresso makes interesting reading – and not only about the relationship between them and their dentist.

U

Touching

I like Bill Gates. I am not saying that I’d expect him to be the most entertaining person in the world; but he is a good guy who has put his fortune to many uses trying to help ease suffering in various parts of the world.

However, Bill, do not come between me and my keyboard.

Today’s “Times” informs me that you plan to do away with both keyboard and mouse. The mouse is immaterial to me. But do away with the keyboard? It’s the piano of the written word; it’s the decipherable pen of bygone days; it’s speed, it’s rhythm, it’s happiness as you bash away.

For someone who grew up to the tune and the happy sound of an IBM golf ball and who has a typing speed which is almost off the Richter scale of typing pools your suggestion is a shock if ever there was one.

And, Bill, my dear fellow, how much more nerdy can you get, expecting “users to talk and use a pen to interact with their computers as well as CARESS them”? Why not get a hamster instead?

U

Sanctuary

If I were paid for wasting time – particularly my own – I’d be a rich woman.

Every so often there is a moment when even I realise that a desk is a desk and not a depository for everything that happens to come my way. I shudder to think being the object of attention of that programme “Through the keyhole”, hosted by Sir David Frost; a panel has to guess – on filmed evidence of a house and its contents – which celebrity lives there. You’d only need one glance at my study and you’d know that, whilst I am not a celebrity, only I could live here.

However, there is always an up to the down. So I intrigue myself endlessly by finding scraps of paper with handwritten notes of mine. They must have made sense at the time; ten days later they inspire mystery and bafflement.

U

Backtracking

I knew it was on the cards – now it’s been played.

“If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly” – good old Chesterton, always on standby. Or, as I have decided, sometimes a thing is worth not to be done at all; that comes from being a reformed perfectionist.

There are two men in my life (roughly the same age) who, independently and within days of each other, brought to my attention that “the first step on the road of wisdom is admitting that you don’t know anything”.  Not exactly what I had anticipated or hoped for in the first flush of youth, but as time wears on one mellows like one of those octopus beaten and flogged on the quay of a Greek fishing harbour. (What’s the plural of octopus?)

Anyway, I am now drifting on a lovely train of thought. Instead of even glancing at any of those crappy lists of what one should do, read or climb before one snuffs it I will make a list of all the many things I have NO intention of doing, and breathe a deep sigh of relief.

U

Successful friends and dear sweet friends

Further to my last entry:

One quote of Gore Vidal which keeps popping up all over the place, and it’s beginning to get on my nerves: ”Whenever a friend succeeds, a little in me dies”.

I don’t understand why so much is made of this particular quote when there are so many better. It marks him as an ungenerous person, an ungenerous friend – it’s not funny, it’s not clever. But then, as he also said: “Shit has its own integrity”.  

It hurts when a person you like and admire shows a deep flaw. In the market place of friendship you can’t even trade: Here is one of mine if you give up one of yours. – No thanks, I’d rather keep mine.

U

Soaring

Best quote of the day, so far, and do I not just like the guy who spouted it: “Asking Americans to make coffee is like asking them to draw a map of the world”.

You may pause now, make yourself a cup of coffee and then proceed to draw a map of the world. Please do include rivers since they make such lovely reading. The ”Nile” will score nil point.

Bruce, you probably won’t read this, but here is one for you: Our very own Gore Vidal, and good for him: “Homosexual, heterosexual are nouns I would not use. It’s like saying I prefer rice to potatoes.” Are they nouns? Not so sure. But let’s not nitpick. If you’d like me to expound I will.

Vidal is old and has left Italy, so little chance for me to ever lock horns with him. Leaving his vanities and name dropping aside, what a man to like and annoy one intensely, at the same time. He reminds me of my father. Opinionated, fiercely intelligent, a downright nuisance, to be taken on at every corner.

Then there is the Bird, one of my favourites.

U

Lost the blog

My heart is not in it.

I shall return to what I like best. Which is, apart from talking to friends and family, to write to you privately, answer your own blogs, personally. You know who you are.

U

Up to speed

I have a letter on my desk stating “Notice of Intended Prosecution”.

One of my friends occasionally tells me, in writing, and cooly, that there is no need for my being overdramatic. Which I quite agree with; except need doesn’t come into it. Yet, even by my standards, to be threatened with the courts just because I exceeded the speed limit (36 mph instead of 30 mph) along some god forsaken overcliff drive seems a little excessive.

Considering that it was the day of my nosebleed and the lost wallet somebody up there in the sky is really cocking a snook at me.

Also, looking at the letter with its various threats, warnings and mentions of section1 and 172 of The Road Traffic Offenders Act, 1988, you can’t help but feeling sorry for the clerk at the Central Ticket Office, Dorset Police, who has to fill in these forms.

Felix believes that it’s a joke how on the strength of being an “authority” money can just be conjured out of a private wallet. For the pleasure of which I will also get three penality points on my driving licence.

Only a couple of months ago I managed to write my way out of a similar situation (4mph over the limit) but they’ll probably have me on file now; so I really need to come up with a good excuse this time. It’s a full time job.

And, since we are on the subject of traffic, who would ever want the job of walking around car parks, checking parking tickets, and then writing out nasty little notes? I’d rather sweep the street and look at mankind through the magnifying glass of discarded cans, sweet wrappers, empty cigarette packets and the odd little lost toy.

U