Good afternoon.
Our lovely producer Robyn is feeling virtuous, having had a salad for lunch. Salma and I are stuffing ourselves on chocolate so no virtue here.
Unexpectedly, Salma proffers page 7 of the Daily Mirror that features a friend of Wayne Rooney in a thong. From the a-moral Salma to virtuous Robyn, a harmonious "Ugghh!". Unity restored.
The school summer holidays are a few weeks away. Mock GCSE and A levels at one end of the spectrum and sack loads of doodles and odd bits of pottery to take home, at the other. September 07 seems a long way back, doesn't it? So you will be aghast, I am sure, to know that several borough bounders are yet to resolve their school places crisis. What will rock you even more will be the solutions some of them have come up with to solve this problem in the short term. Rather like putting a fourth child on the roof-rack because the first three are safely occupying the back seats, Kingston have put their overflow kids in temporary classrooms hardly giving the little darlings a fair and reasonable start to The Best Days of Their Lives. Send for Mr. Chips or even the Blessed Matthew Arnold I say. Phil dons the mortar board and flowing, faded cape and screams "Pay attention, at the back!".
The rising population in these areas may have been a demographic timebomb some time ago but you'd have thought they'd have had the wit to sort it out. Maybe the borough bounders were educated in portakabins which might explain their ineptitude.
A real ticking time-bomb is still making them sweat down in Bromley-by-Bow. I spoke to a wonderful young Major at lunchtime who was so cool he was the sort of man I wanted to be in charge of defusing this Nazi hang-over from the 39-45 effort to level our great city.
He and his brave battalion are "sweating" the explosives out as I write. Rachel stands in the Harris spot from last-night to bring us up to date on this deed of dare-doing.
Equally daring is our own answer to W.E.John's "Biggles", Fl.Lt Glen Goodman, AFC.
He takes to skies over Biggin Hill on the eve of their great weekend of aeronautical extravagance. Whether in a balsa-wood model or a slightly bigger than average paper-plane, I am not sure, but I am assured he flies. Per Adua Ad Astra, Glen... and good luck!
Chrissie, meantime, has gone to the races. Epsom Down to be precise as I am sure her forecast will be.
"They wait, he doesn't turn up, they leave" -Waiting for Godot.
"So that's what I get for helping a friend" -A Tale of Two Cities.
"Winston Smith doesn't like rats and Governments can't be trusted" -1984.
"No, I still don't get it".-Catch 22.
Encapsulating the thrust of great books into a line or two is a great dinner party game for over-educated anoraks but, in the hands of the man who gave you the Reduced Shakespeare Company -(("She's not dead, you fool!"-Romeo and Juliet))-it is an art form. Nick Wallis gets the full treatment and you can have Great Expectations for this Pickwick Paperful of enlightenment. Not a Bleak bit in the House!
What is bleak is the death of lovely Nathan Foster, the horse-mad youth-worker whose life was taken by a listless lout. The later gets his sentence today not that that will bring Nathan back but it may give his family some closure.
Super-hero of cinema reviews James King is back from the south of France and he reviews Super Hero and Waiting Room. So, if the weather falters, you can decide if a one of them, plus a bag of pop-corn and a coke, are the answers to your yearnings.
My yearning to present What Not to Miss remains painfully intact with no respite or relief. She slipped away as I wrote the bit about the time-bomb. She was there. I glanced down and then up. She was gone.
My point about our mutual lack of virtue needs correcting slightly - she is devoid of all virtue, morality, decency, kindness and doesn't even know how to spell equity.
Hurrumph. I'll do my bits and she'll do the rest, including WNTM. I think she needs to see a consultant. This is deep rooted.
See you at 6
Alastair and ....the name is on the tip of my tongue but why should I share? Oh make me virtuous, said St Augustine, but tomorrow.
Yes, it is Salma.
Who else?
