I have just spent the last few weeks shaking off sciatica. I have been lucky as it was only really bad for a few of days and I was able to work out the likely cause and a possible solution. So far, the solution (padding on my typing chairs) seems to be working. I’m also walking round instead of sitting all the time and limiting my typing time in the evening. It’s not 100% gone but it’s gone for 95% of the time and the severity is much reduced.

As that declined, I found myself becoming more agitated about Roald Dahl and the Sensitivity Readers. The more I read about it, the more I realise it’s about money and pushing an agenda rather than real sensitivity, and when I see that Matilda’s favourite authors have been changed from Conrad, Hemingway and Kipling to Austen, Hemingway and Steinbeck I find myself completely lost.

I don’t understand why Hemingway is seen as more sensitive than Conrad and Kipling. And I don’t understand why Austen and Steinbeck are considered adequate substitutes. Dahl presumably wanted to portray Matilda as a girl who enjoyed reading the sea stories of Conrad, a Polish emigre who had been persecuted by Russian invaders and taught himself to write classic works in English. The revision sees he as a girl who enjoys reading the mannered stories of jane Austen –  undoubtedly a writer of great stature, but not at all the same. As for Steinbeck, I don’t know what to say. It just seems a random selection, probably from an American reader, as he doesn’t feature heavily in UK reading lists.

And then we have the drive . . .

Our drive adjoins the drive of the people next door. The previous people damaged the edge of ours when they had their new one laid and the present people tend to catch ours as they swing into theirs. It’s one of those things that is no big deal, but just a minor irritant of suburban living.

Yesterday morning we stepped out to go to work and found that the cast iron drain cover in the drive has collapsed. It’s been cracked for years, but I never drive over it, so I’ve never done anything about it.  I think that the neighbours have driven over it as they swung in and it has collapsed. However, it may have simply collapsed under it’s own weight, or the footsteps of a passing fox may have been the last straw. We will never know. All I do know is that they rushed past us last night without stopping as they took the dog for a walk, which is suspicious behaviour. . .

I’m currently waiting for quotes, which are, no doubt, going to look more like ransom demands than the bill for a simple repair job.