Stoat - Where?

Unfinished Sympathy

Despite lots happening in the last month, I’ve found myself unable to finish an entire post on any one topic. So, in preparation for Spain in a few days where I’ll be wanting to write a lot more, here are the subjects that I’ve started on, but not been able to finish in the last few weeks:

• The shabby treatment of Emily Benjamin by Heathrow Immigration staff as we came into England.
• The hectic first week in London where we shopped, were evacuated from the British Museum, saw Legally Blonde: The Musical and I tested Emily Benjamin’s will with many nights out with various groups of old friends.
• The wonderful hospitality of Chris and Mel in London, who made us feel very welcome for a whole week.
• Why You Are An Idiot If You Voted Against Voting Reform.
• Thoughts on being back in Liverpool after so much time and finding so little has changed. Also that the new Museum of Liverpool, while not exactly a Fourth Grace, didn’t turn out half as bad as I’d expected, though the new apartment block beside is a bit much. Though getting to Heswall by train still takes longer than getting to France.
• A write-up of the code involved in You Need A Montage.
• How I’m stuck in the middle of three books at the moment, Infinite Jest, The Trial and A Secular Bible and keep starting new ones instead of finishing them.
• Thoughts on privacy, super-injunctions and their inefficacy in the modern world. Also, how Ryan Giggs and Gareth Barry (or at least their respective lawyers) should really have learned about Barbra Streisand before proceeding to out themselves.
• A brilliant week in the South of France, including The Most French Day Ever in Avignon, winning at boule and the extreme generosity of godparents.
• How much I hate the overly complex, arbitrarily applied, poorly thought out rules of modern air travel in general, and RyanAir in particular.
• How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Age. (Not written, because I don’t know how yet.)
• How nice it is to have home-cooked food again, especially when I’m not the one cooking it.
• The lovely surprise of having lots of my family hiding in the lounge as I came back from the Calday Sevens Rugby, to wish me a happy birthday.
• The not so lovely surprise that every one of the cards had 30 on it in huge letters.
• Emily Benjamin’s new site design.

Some Pulitzer-worthy material there, certainly. I might finish one or two of them. But I probably won’t.