Picture
a whitehaired respectably dressed woman hooting with laughter over her newspaper. The Times headline “PM rebukes police over treatment of women,” pots and kettles, anyone ? Of course two wrongs don’t make a right but … Subsequent print features a long serious article on Priti Patel, she of the ill fitting shoes. Apart from sneakers (laces attach them) everything flat or heeled falls off the back of her foot. Is she webbed or some extraordinary size like 3 and four fifths ? Can’t a minion organise the admitted expense of a special last which means that everything subsequently fits ? It is hard to credit her power when she looks as if most of her attention must be focussed on avoiding a over t.
Tim (not his name) lives in the country and sends me messages about the weather and the light, the birds he feeds, the glimpse of a kingfisher
-and every so often, he hauls off and has a rant. About rabid religiosity (he is a regular communicant), the manufactured petrol crisis or the Chinese manufactured security light – three days of effort, two further pieces of equipment and the patience of Job.
I thought I was up for a rant this morning, exhausted by every new tv series featuring missing children, violence, dark secrets and something nasty in the woodshed. If you want to make a start against misogyny, television drama would be a good place to begin.
I don’t need hearts and flowers and Busby Berkeley but the misery ratio has been high for two years and I’d like a break. There is a new David Attenborough film but he loves crawlies and I bet the venture is syrruped in supermarket music.
Many of the doctors wish to continue to work via Zoom but the best I can see that as is as a preliminary and then some of us will have to be seen for real – and I think that’s medicine. Private medicine in London averages around £113 per fifteen minutes but they will see you, (less than the price of many a hairdo) while in many medical contexts, Zoom is like an upmarket edition of those Victorian dolls on which ladies indicated where it hurt (too indelicate to look at for real) and the doctor wrote a prescription.
Mary (NHN) a single mum is up the hospital for the fourth time with her 9 year old daughter’s ear infection
– three courses of antibiotics, abreaction so severe to the middle lot of pills, her mother had to take her back in the middle of the night. When is an ear, nose and throat surgeon to look at the source of the infection ? I went this route 30 years ago with my own child, it’s terrifying and by the time I got to the surgeon ( the then secretary for the National Deaf Children’s Society told me in no uncertain terms) my son had 30 per cent reduced hearing.
Winter sweaters need replacing (after 20 years) but the quality is questionable, thin and won’t wash. Sheep would be ashamed of it. So I kept looking and had a buy for the first time in Uniglo – all wool, becoming colour, nice shape, good price. It’s not that I don’t want to support British companies, I do – but what I want isn’t there.
I don’t drive, though Tim sent me a local story of a man shifting mortar in a tanker who was pursued by a trail of vehicles who thought he had petrol. The queues at the local pumps
added 40 minutes to the bus journey but I am still cheering an Asian driver who refused with gentle resignation – and a twinkle in his eye – to give way to a blowhard in a 4×4.
A visit to an antique show permitted for the first time in over a year was wonderful – full of interest and light and because it was pouring with rain, only those who really wanted to be there made the effort. I went with a new friend (Italian) who redeemed my creeping disenchantment through her different point of view.
This isn’t a rant is it ? I’m not really fed up … oh good.
Annalog 