Stormy Weather

Aerobics Wednesday. V. Good. 2 squares of chocolate and several Walkers’ Lite Crisps. V Bad.

This weather yesterday, reminded me of another January storm. It was after the 1987 hurricane – 1990, so I heard this morning, and I was on my back from a radio interview in Essex – Chelmsford, I think. I arrived at Waterloo station and went to the loo, as one does, obviously, at Waterloo. I could hear someone on the tannoy, but I ignored it, until I heard banging on the doors and shouting - ‘Everyone out of the station.’ Gosh that was frightening for the minute. What was going on? Then it transpired they were worried about the glass in the roof over the station. So this mass of people went outside and a large number of them (me included) had no idea how to get home at this point. Somehow I became attached to two American tourists and we went to Clapham in the hope of arriving at Clapham Junction station. At one point the wind was so wild we were afraid of crossing the road. On this same day, the star of ‘ello, ello’ was hit in the head and seriously injured by a piece of timber coming through his car windscreen. I eventually got home after about six hours. Whereas, in our neck of the woods, we had been very badly affected by the 87 hurricane, we didn’t have the same problems this time.

I’ve been listening with interest to the furore about Big Brother. I have never seen Celeb. B.B. and only once, I think, saw the common or garden version. (Common prob.) A couple of years ago, I was on local radio doing a spot called Prime Minister for the Day, or similar. One of the laws I was going to bring in was to ban BB and other equivalent reality shows. BB in particular sets out to humiliate people and let us all have a good laugh at people showing themselves in their worst light – that’s my impression any way. I also believe it is horribly voyeuristic. When I said this to the presenter at Radio SC, he looked at me as if I was quite mad. Now it seems people are dropping it like the proverbial hot potato.

Now that A Bottle of Plonk appears to be sorted, I’ve done a spot of rewriting on the first three chapters of Tainted Tree, my full length novel. I’m also waiting for a critique from Writers’ News. I’ve dealt with one or two things for Goldenford, and also some business letters for M. We had a meeting of Goldenford on Tuesday night and discussed our projects for the coming year, including J’s new novel, The Gawain Quest.

Today I’ve been to Sainsbury’s (no fruit, no yoghurts, no cakes! Disaster) and this afternoon a woman with her daughter and son came to see the piano I have put up for sale. It was for the very pretty daughter, and she seemed to like it. So it’s likely to be departing this house soon.

This evening my bro-in-law is here for dinner. So I’d best get down to it.