I just had
a birthday to which friends rallied, sent wonderful cards, flowers, called (even from Milan and Portugal – thrilling) and I started off laughing aloud in the kitchen as the coffee heated a t 6.00 am (Pam the Painter’s card). My son came to supper (apart from loving him, I like my son) and I tripped on a shoelace and fell , banging my head and full weight under my body on my thumb – not broken thank heaven. And not drunk – clumsy.
We were drowning in cake (the Italian Columba, dove shaped
and M&S Lemon Drizzle) and even lousy television programming turned up the goods starting with David Attenborough’s treatment of wildlife in a British garden – not my garden, impoverished by the Peabody light which has now been on 24/7 for three years repelling everything that isn’t underground – and anyway tiny, or yours, if you have one. A socking great expanse in Oxfordshire, the desmene of a very old house (nearly 1000 years). Fascinating and quite lovely. But oh the music…
Look, if it really is my BBC – that sententious boring campaign (“Everything we do is because of you”) – can we have some input to it ? In my favourite tv column every week, I read complaints about music. It disturbs perception. Why do you think they put it in supermarkets ? Here is the choice – don’t watch: put it on mute or turn the sound up and down because you’d like some of the voiceover: or suffer.
I’ve got to the stage when a whole programme with very little music is a triumph. Old films are often very good for soundtrack without music. I respect Attenborough’s work and life and ability but not enough to put up with an hour of being cued into emotions. It’s insulting.
Stop telling me how terrible it is to be overly dependent on your smartphone
– yes you know it negatively influences those younger than you and the young suffer all kinds of social and mental maladaptation as a result. That’s if they have survived the latest toy giving which is basically tablet before teddy bear – and no, I don’t mean pills. But you are addicted…
I don’t have a smartphone. I loathe the concept of the mobile phone. 24 hours a day availability to me sounds like madness by invitation.
My ex husband told me he could not have built his eventually very successful business without the phone in the car and I understood. But how we have gone on from there terrifies me. And the unholy alliance and crossover from screen to phone and the idea of social media … no no no. Switched off from Facebook on
Defining my life choices by what any number of strangers says sounds suspiciously to me like asking an audience of couple of hundred for clothing and style advice. Wouldn’t contemplate it. Start from a different place. Me.
a sense of self
My shape, my needs, my interests, my weaknesses, my choices (lots of quiet and white hair). And every day, almost without exception, out of that security, I meet people, talk to people, cherish exchange and have such good experience that it sets me up for one more day sharing a world with the madman Trump. Because, be sure, that’s hard to live with.
I could list my pleasures though they are only ever mine. I could tell you truthfully that having enjoyed remarkably reliable health for many years, two years of on/off health problems, complicated by the unavoidable advance of age from which no diet/lifestyle/heritage will insure you though luck, good choices and a few bob may help – that’s been lessons. In multiple.
I am delighted and grateful that the NHS finally came through for me vis a vis my eye, and in the persons of two such kind and competent technicians. But I regret bitterly the hooha I went through for 3 months.
I cheered for the piece on Sir Jim Mackey new chairman of NHS England whos e strategy seems to be to do with thought not money. I read a book I liked so much I bought copies for friends (Operation Heartbreak) though I know that recommending books or films or any other kind of art is a risk because you like what you like.
But you won’t know what you like if you constantly defer to what some devil you don’t know is thinking. Maybe AI is an abbreviation that really stands for Anti Social Intercourse. Or maybe it stand for Absolute Inanity.
It’s all right. Just me.
shining
Annalog 