Good afternoon.
It is a grey, damp afternoon and Faye ( black trousers and THAT Rolling Stones glitter top again !) and I decided we were in need of a boost so took ourselves off to the canteen. I went for a Crunchie Bar and she for some custard cream biscuits. Still gloomy. What we need is some happiness but where might we find it and from whom?
Perhaps, we need a Happiness Counsellor. Well we know where we can find one! Not wishing to spoil your amusement or to spoil the joke with the punch line, all I will tell you is that the person we have in mind is currently engaged in a re-housing project in Elephant and Castle. Intrigued? It will be more rewarding than a Crunchie bar or, even, several custard cream biscuits.... which is just as well, as they have all gone now.
Second only to a Happiness Counsellor - in fact second and third only to the aforementioned practitioner of mirth-spreading - are French and Saunders. The twin geniuses of Ab Fab and The Vicar of Dibley are about to mount a two-person stage show and they have found time to drop in and share their funniness with you, via us. An entire box of Crunchie bars and the whole output of a Custard Cream factory could not compete.
Nothing, in the bright and beautiful minds of Katie's girls, can compete with High School Musical - they eat and breathe this miraculous example of Disney striking just the right note, (lots of them, in fact), at just the right moment. Tonight number 3 in the movie series has it's premiere in Leicester Square. Lucy is there and Zac Efron - who plays male lead Troy - says he'll be there. He's a fool if he fails to show because the lovely Lucy will be on hand to chat to him.
The judge in the Buncefield oil refinery blast damages case has told the parties to "chat" to one another PDQ - a settlement is all but there and I think he wants to start planning for Christmas. The claimants should get some dosh but the details, His Honour suggests, can be thrashed out now the oil giants have agreed it was their oil on their complex which caused the problems. Marcus dampens down the fire of fury or, if they don't sort it, will fan the flames thereof.
Finally a school that has started before it was finished and a black copper who has ended his career but hasn't ended having his say. I'll say no more but both will raise you eyebrows ... unless they were singed by the Buncefield blaze, in which case we'll never know.
I suspect two of the papers will be left standing by the other one in the race to tell you the latest in the fast unfolding financial chaos that is the death throws of capitalism as we now know it.
And Chrissie, looking even more lovely with her new hair do, will be honest about the weather prospects so you may want to put your fingers in your ears and delude yourself, like the bankers, that it'll all turn out nice.
See you at 6.
Alastair and Katie.
