The house needs repair, summer is ending, I am old and arthritic. Politics has degenerated to infantile levels, nuclear war is just around the corner and the planet is dying.
For some reason, as detailed yesterday, I am inexplicably happy.
There is quite clearly no reason to be happy, and I don’t consider it to be normal. I prefer gloom and think that a sensible man should expect nothing from life because that is what life is likely to give him.
Botham’s Whitby – an excellent pork pie
I could probably go to the doctor for pills – there must be something I can take to calm me down a bit – though they are likely, as so often, to find something else wrong with me. I wouldn’t mind if it was something interesting but at my age it’s usually something that involves taking your trousers down.
With an interesting disease I could have a whole new career ahead of me. If you can build a modern TV career on being from Essex what could you do if you had scrofula, also known as the King’s Evil or, less interestingly, cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis. That has good historical roots, gives a chance to talk about coins and I feel less guilty making jokes about it than I do about leprosy.
Julia – looking sophisticated in Bakewell
Leprosy used to be a good area for humour when I was younger, as Monty Python proves, but when you read up about it and the fact that more than 50 kids a day are diagnosed with Leprosy worldwide it doesn’t seem so funny.
When you think about it, I do have a lot to be happy about.
Maybe I should look on the bright side of life.
Tea, scones and sunshine. Bettys, Harlow Carr
I added the photos later, when WP was working properly – they are things which make me feel happy. And in case you were wondering, they are in no particular order.