Winter has returned. Showery weather as opposed to a continuous downpour but it has been very cold even with the sun out. Last night I finished going through the new novel for the second time (23 chapters, 89000 words) and am now back to the beginning again. It needs fleshing out without padding.
We have been watching the television “Cranford.” This was one of my set books at school but I don’t recall Mrs Gaskell setting it in Cheshire. I seem to recall it as Hounslow or somewhere like that or is this a memory of some other book? Well, no matter where it is set, it is a lovely piece of work and congratulations to all the ladies involved. I say all the ladies because the main credits are all for women except for the director, and the cream of English actresses are in it. Surprised Miss Thompson and Miss Redgrave aren’t there but this was one project where actresses of more advanced years could not complain about a lack of work. It really is a gem in every sense.
For the third time in a couple of weeks we drove around to the police station this morning to try and sort out our new in perpetuity resident permits and it looks like it is going to take at least one more visit. The young guy who deals with this new piece of Greek legislation has been elusive but we managed to corner him this morning just as he was returning to the office.
So Popie is in Africa and telling the Africans to refrain from sex because they are being very naughty if they use condoms; this in a continent with over 22000000 AIDS victims and he seems to believe that condoms are aggravating the situation. He really is never never never going to face up to the realities of life and nature but will continue to blindly beat his head and wail against that proverbial brick wall. M’lords, ladies and gentlemen! I give you in the blue corner, Pope Benedict XVl (hoots whistles applause prayers) and in the red “in tooth and claw” corner, mother nature. (boos, slow handclap, cries of despair from the religious.) This is an interminable fight of any number of rounds each and every one of which mother nature will win.
Another interesting piece of news, it would seem those of a religious bent are most in fear and most resistant to the thought of dying. I wonder why?
It would also seem though that in previous blogs I have done the almighty an injustice as I discover the story of the Massacre of the Innocents is not headline news in the Bible as I previously thought but in fact is mentioned only once and that tucked away among the small ads in Matthew 2:16. According to the opinion of recent experts(!) Bethlehem being a very small town, the number of innocents beneath the age of two years likely to have been slaughtered would be somewhere in the range of 7 to 20, not the hundreds we have always imagined.
Mind you, even 7 to 20 is 7 to 20 too many, like Bishop Williamson and his three hundred thousand Jews.