Next One's a Ruby!

On this day in 1973, at the tender age of 20, I took the plunge and married my university sweetheart. Of course, I hadn't yet graduated, and he had another term to go, but we were in lurve!

We split in late 1977, just after buying the house I still live in. He moved back in with his mother, and a few months later she married the man who'd been pestering her for years and moved out! That obviously wasn't far enough, because they then moved to Kos (she was Greek).

We were finally divorced on Leap Year's Day 1980, just a couple of quick signatures on a form and a fee of £25 (I made him pay).

I subsequently went to his second wedding (which also ended in divorce) and his grandmother's and his mother's funerals, and he came to my mother's funeral. Then he phoned me in drunken state (not unusual) sometime in 2000 and asked me if I'd come to his next wedding, and be the only other person there who'd been at all three of his weddings!

A while later, when I was looking into my family history, I had some wonderful news that I thought he would enjoy sharing. I got his answering machine, and left a message. He didn't return the call. A week later the same thing again. The third time I told him to get stuffed, and that was how a relationship that had stood the test of 27 years was finally finished, all because he couldn't be bothered to return a call.

I'm pretty sure wedding number 3 never happened, so perhaps he was too embarrassed to call back. Whatever the reason, it was his loss.

Untethered - Day 21

Pressed up against the wall by Bobby...mmm. Reminds me of that scene in Entertaining Mr Stone. God bless Wendy/Portia.

Untethered - Day 20

Just give me that Chief of Detectives for five minutes, and he'll regret how he treated Bobby.

How to deal with a drought

At midnight, an order came into force from several water companies banning the use of hosepipes. This is one of them, and it's the one that supplies my water:

Apart from a long period of low rainfall over the last two years (climate change? what climate change?) our water companies, sold off by the wonderful Mrs Thatcher (wait while I wash my mouth out with soap), have appalling records on finding and fixing leaks. It is said that up to 60% of the water that passes through the pipes leaks out before it gets to its destination. Thames is one of the worst.

Once a fortnight or so I pass a leak in the pavement, and until last week I assumed that before I passed that way again someone would have reported it.

Well, maybe they did, because last week I decided to do so, and STILL it is unreported. Two efforts to report it via their website failed, and a phone call produced a rather snotty assertion that I must have the post code wrong, as young Darren couldn't find either street on their system. (Sorry - Station Road? And its busy junction Loampit Vale, part of the A21 along which the Olympic torch will pass in a couple of months?)

Twitter has been as useless. It's taken me several days of insisting on an email address so I could write the problem out in full before someone finally tweeted me one that worked. Everyone else kept sending me links that either didn't work, or didn't include the option of "complaining about service when reporting a leak".

For this "service" they expect the average household in my street to pay in excess of £360 per annum.

Glad I've just had a meter installed.

Untethered - Day 19

Baby's had enough - leave him alone!

Untethered - Day 18

Now leave him alone, you bastards - I've worn him out!

Why didn't anyone else think of that?

This is our illustrious Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. Or it may be Mr Bean.

Anyway, he is meant to be in charge of education for England and Wales (though I think Wales has a bit more say in its own education these days; Scotland always did).

To get into university ove here you have to pass 18+ exams called A levels. Lots of people have been saying for years that they are getting easier, and that students arrive at uni needing remedial classes for their chosen subjects. I have no trouble with believing that, having seen the quality of learning of new teachers coming into the profession, and the ignorance of people in almost any walk of life you care to name.

So our genius boss has decided that the universities can assuage their doubts and remedy their complaints by having a say in the content of the exams and their teaching.

They don't want to know. They say, quite rightly, that A levels are not just used for university entrance. Plus actually putting your expertise where their mouths are might have unforeseen repercussions we cannot begin to imagine for these poor beleaguered academics in their ivory towers.

Thing is, although I've always taught in tough inner city schools where most kids even by 14 don't opt for languages, which is what I taught, I did have A level students on a couple of occasions. To make sure I did the best by them, at a couple of university reunions I asked my former lecturers (what in the US you call professors; for us professors are more illustrious experts who chair departments) if they could let me have a few essay questions for my students. They obliged. And when one student applied to my old university, then didn't quite get the grades they'd specified in their offer, I tried to save her a bunch of sleepless nights by phoning up to find our their decision - then found that my phone call was enough to tip the scales in her favour.

I have to believe that, just as they don't make students like they used to, they don't make lecturers that way either, 'cos 20+ years ago they played a part they seem unwilling to play today. Everybody's loss.

But Mr Gove, you weren't the first to think of it. Credit where it's due.

Untethered - Day 17

I have dozens of pictures of Bobby tied to this table. At my mercy...

Not Forgotten

My beautiful boy Shelley would have been 21 today. He's been gone for more than 18 months, but I still miss him every day.

Untethered - Day 16

Noooooo! He knows what's coming, and he's scared!

This actually wasn't the best picture to illustrate this, but the other one wouldn't display. Technology!

Untethered - Day 15

Words fail me.

Untethered - Day 14

If he was on top of me, he could wear any expression he wanted.

Untethered - Day 13

Ooh, what a look! Didn't some idiot once say Vincent only had one expression? Like to see them on the receiving end of this one!

Quality!

That's what we have at Universal Channel UK. I wrote to them about the old "bitch gone in the teeth" quote, and have just received their answer.

No use of "bitch" regardless of context and meaning. Who decides it might be unsuitable and cause offence?

As for "It looks like you was watching..." well, if they can't employ people with knowledge of basic English grammar to answer viewer queries, they must not value us very much.

Dear Valerie

Thanks for getting in touch and apologies for the delayed response.

I’ve checked the schedule, and from the time you sent the email, it looks like you was watching Criminal Intent Season 2. Ep 3.

As it’s on at 7pm we have broadcast the daytime playable version. The use of the word ‘bitch’, regardless of the context, could be considered unsuitable and likely to cause offense within this daypart. However, we do take viewer feedback very seriously so please rest assured that I have passed your comments on to our compliance team.

Best regards

Lindsay

Viewer Enquiries

Untethered - Day 12

How strong do you have to be to resist a truth serum?

Double Birthday

When I got Jaspa and Amber, I estimated that Jaspa was probably a week or so older than Amber, so I gave them birthdays a week apart. This made Amber's birthday the same as mine.

Unlike Jaspa, Amber has not fared well in her 18 years. As a naughtie tortie, she has been pretty grumpy, and has devoured every morsel of food she could find. She was overweight until old age, when thyroid and kidney problems led to considerable weight loss and poor condition. She rarely grooms any part of herself (even busier sleeping than the average cat) and she won't let me do it for her, so her coat is matted and lumpy, unlike this photo of a few years ago Nevertheless, she loves life (and food, still) and her face is as cute and pretty as it ever was.

Untethered - Day 11

Tethered. What wouldn't I do to him if I had him in chains...

Best Prime Minister we never had, worst one we did

After "13 years of Tory misrule" in 1964 Britain finally elected a Labour government under Harold Wilson. People didn't like or trust him, but he was a brilliant man and an exceptional politician.

One of his greatest assets was Barbara Castle, a red-headed firebrand who said what she meant and meant what she said.



You can imagine how men took it when this petite non-driver, as Minster for Transport, introduced the breathalyser test. Obviously it was their right to drink, drive and kill the innocent. Then as Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, she introduced the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme (SERPS) which, in a ministerial broadcast on TV - I can still see and hear her - she introduced thus: "We're going to do away with poverty in old age".

I was barely a teen, but I was impressed (see how I remember her words to this day) and she seemed to me to be someone who would make an excellent PM.

But women were not considered for party leadership till more than a decade later, when we were unfortunate enough to acquire Margaret Thatcher in that role, then as PM.

We're still suffering from what she did to our society. Well, actually, she said there was no such thing as society. Greed was good, every man for himself. Sounds a lot like the philoshophy of today's bankers, doesn't it?

She sold off every asset and resource we owned to her pals in the private sector, just as the current bunch intend with their NHS bill. She sold off the railways, Cameron wants to sell off the roads. She decided to break the unions and the miners, and she did, so now workers have relatively few rights and almost no one to help them protect those they still have. She sold our gas, water and electricity companies (I think she would have sold off the air if she could have found a way) and she even sold our North Sea gas and oil reserves. We might be as rich as the Arab states otherwise.

One person can really make a difference. Thatcher did so for the bad; Castle might have changed things for the good. She's long gone. We'll never know.

Untethered - Day 10

Psychotic break complete.

Reverse Robin Hood

You have to hand it to our wonderful Government - they insist we are "all in this together" (ie. the recession) in spite of evidence to the contrary - and only evidence to the contary.

Last week our 12-year-old Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced a tremendously fair budget, in which the highest tax rate was reduced, giving a bonus to high earners (like himself and his fellow cabinet members), but froze the additional allowance to pensioners with a view to phasing it out.

It's true that he is increasing personal tax allowances next year, but the intermediate tax rate, which kicks in at a surprisingly small income, will be paid on an even smaller income.

Public servants such as social workers, teachers, nurses, doctors, etc, are going to have to retire later. We must pay more for a smaller pension for when we do manage to get old and decrepit enough to retire, and when we get there, we have to pay more tax on it.

Meanwhile, the rich can pay a quarter of a million pounds to influence policy and have a private dinner with our Prime Minister (which the tax payer will pay for).

Before they were elected, this bunch said they would be the "greenest government ever", and they proved this in the budget by giving huge sums to the oil and gas industries, while freezing funding for renewables.

They didn't have any policy on destroying or privatising the National Health Service either, but they've gone ahead with doing so despite huge protests from the public and from health professionals. After all, what do we know?

How do you know a politician is lying? He's speaking.