Good afternoon.
Harvey Parry is two years old and told his doctor that all he really wanted to do was "to jump in puddles". Messy business, puddle jumping. I always found some of the muddy water got inside my wellies and there is nothing as bad as a damp sock. Friends got angry when they got splashed, and really big jumps put mud on your face which dried quickly and felt nasty. But the sheer joy of leaping a few inches off the ground and landing, splodge, in a muddy puddle so hard you saw the dry ground for a moment before it whooshed in the air and scattered hither and thither, made up for all those inconvenient irritations. The odd joys of childhood.
Harvey, however, can't because he has no legs. He lost them when he contracted meningitis as a baby. That is horrid. But there is an answer which is good, but it brings with it an equally horrid twist. America and the NHS are factors but I won't spoil your sense of anticipation save to say you'll be hooked and angry, but hopeful.
Real anger, too, for the parents of 3000 other kids whose personal details were on the laptops that were stolen from St. George's Tooting. We've the latest from the frontline or the interface, as some call it, between security and ineptitude.
Is eptitude the opposite of ineptitude? Dunno. You'll have met people who are "overwhelmed" and some who are "underwhelmed" but I bet you've never met someone who is just "whelmed". Anyway, it seemed to us to be a clear case of "ineptitude" when Littlewoods sent a couple of refunds to a pensioner, then found she wasn't due them and so sent in the bailiffs to get their money back. We are delighted to celebrate their Road to Damascus u-turn which has left the aforementioned pensioner "overwhelmed". Details at 6, unless they change their mind again.
Sixty years ago, a band of people from the West Indies set sail for these fair isles in the SS Empire Windrush. A couple of generations later, some of them have gone back to the Caribbean and, in a delightful report, Derek Johnson went to find out why.
Maybe property prices? But they are now falling , as we will explain, so maybe we can expect Empire Windrush:The Second Coming - good movie title there, no?
"Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" isn't a good title, in my view, any more than "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" was. Great books, brilliant author and wonderful movies but those titles don't have the clipped cache of "Stuart Little" or "Garfield", have they? I speak with the expertise of a father of a 10 year old: they talk in short bursts with real passion - too many words and they get bored. I only mention it to help Hollywood and the British film industry. Short-sharp titles and free popcorn and you'll retire early, dripping in wealth.
If Chrissie backs the right horses at Ascot she, too, can retire early, enjoy an early trip to Brighton and experience the luxury of living in a penthouse between Paul McCartney and Fat Boy Slim. Methinks she'll be with us a little longer but I hope you enjoy her enjoying Ladies Day at the great equine festival.
I am left wondering if the delicious Faye, in those favourite black trousers with the satin strip down the side, perfectly topped off with an elegantly yet not rudely see-through top in a splendid shade of orange-red, got on the wrong train this morning: she looks Ascot-bound but, I am delighted to say, is firmly out at the front in the 6 o'clock London Tonight Stakes.
And they're off... at 6.
See you then
Alastair and Katie
(Salma is in training for tomorrow, I am told: is there something else I should know???)
