Update 4

First things first:

Johnson’s resignation speech was simply appalling - but at least it was consistent with his overbearing sense of entitlement and self satisfaction. He’d done nothing wrong, the Conservative Parliamentary Party was behaving like a herd ‘cos that’s what they do and I don’t want to go home. Me. me, me, it’s all about me and how smart I am so why are you being so beastly to me? 

The end was always going to be like this because he never had the remotest intention of ever doing a full day’s work, of ever reading any papers in full, of ever telling the truth when the lie was so much more attractive, nor recruiting good colleagues when a supportive cabinet of dimwits were readily available. In short, his two and a half years have been catastrophic for our country. 

Getting the big decisions right was the mantra delivered by his declining band of sycophants - they claimed he got Brexit done - no he didn’t. He made a deal that was so bad he had to turn his back on it and attempt to have another go - to date he’s gone nowhere on that one.  He claimed we had the fastest roll out of cv19 vaccine because he did Brexit - yet another lie - as an EU country in an emergency we were always able to choose our own vaccine route, just like Poland and Hungary did. 

I’m glad he’s going because he is a charlatan who cares nothing for truth, justice, history, loyalty, or respect. He’s trampled over every decent instinct known to man and shown no shame. With every second that he retains a role in public life he demeans our nation, dragging our international reputation ever deeper into the toilet. Go from this place and please go now.

On the tumour thing, this has been a fast moving week . After Monday’s initial appointment, the stair lift was installed on Thursday - these guys don’t hang about - time trials are underway tho’ 0-60 is not impressive. Michelle rang on Tuesday and wanted my steroids reduced even further so I’m now only on 6mg per day to see if I can cope. Walking more than 300 or 400 yards is now very much a challenge and I’ve adopted a walking stick which gives me just a touch more confidence when out and about. My saving grace is that 100 yards from our back door is an Italian restaurant called Gianni’s which as well as providing some fine Italian family cooking, also offers a limited but remarkably well chosen selection of the Italian wines I love. I still have a chesty cough and thanks to the steroids, my ankles are starting to swell.

Margaret tells me I’m becoming less tolerant - you too might have noticed. It’s usually in very small unimportant things. For instance, when I order a sandwich in a pub, that’s what I expect  to be served. But the  plate will inevitably turn up cluttered with an unrequested and usually undressed heap of dried-out lettuce, cucumber, raw onion and a bit of tomato - I didn’t ask for it and I’m certainly not going to eat it - who on earth decided raw onion was ever a good idea?

I’ve been bald since my early twenties so quite naturally I take an interest in other people’s hair. In particular, in those strange pony tails still worn by chaps who are almost as bald as me. I’m reminded of an interview with Bill Nighy (whose suits I admire) when he questioned having more than a single shirt button undone he asked, “what on earth is that all about?”

To compensate many years ago for my lack of hair on top, I decided to grow some a little lower. we were moving house and I’d booked ten days holiday - long enough I thought to get a decent growth started before I returned to the office. It went well with no unpleasant gaps revealed. What I did discover was that a new beard itches like mad for quite a while until the skin gets used to its new neighbour. My scratching so annoyed my then boss at Radio One that he paused a meeting to demand that I stopped. It’s something that a “parent who gives birth” will never experience - see what I did there? just to show I’ve been paying attention to a recent silly trend that also annoys me. I feel very sorry indeed for the poor souls who are so tortured they can’t bring themselves to describe a woman as a woman any more.

Another came up on a recent Sunday morning in Sophie Raworth’s tv show. Her guest was Brandon Lewis, a rather ordinary ex solicitor (and now ex minister) who whilst going full on as Boris Johnson’s fan club secretary, insisted on mangling the English language. He refused to pronounce the letter ‘r’ - “Bwandon”, for that is his pronunciation of choice, has opted for lazy talk. I asked my GP about it and the explanation came back that when we’re first learning to talk some of us find it easier to say ‘w’ than ‘r’ and some parents then find it cute and encourage the indulgence - the route to adulthood then sees ‘w’ retained as the easy but “wong” default option. In similar vein I’m disliking the laziness embraced by say Pritti Patel (still digging the personal hole in which her career will be  buried) who ignores the letter ‘g’ as in “I’m doin’ somethin’ about the small boats”. On Radio Two, the recently demoted Steve Wright has turned it into a thing with his “Serious jockin’ “. I must, even if not getting out more, at least try to look at life on a larger map.
There was a time when broadcasters were employed partly because they knew how to use their voices well, to introduce dynamics, to vary pace, inflection and to enunciate clearly. Those days are gone and clarity of delivery is now too often regarded as a low priority. The listener is the loser. I’m reminded of my first and only voice test. I was training as a BBC Studio Manager - an excellent and all encompassing training for any career in audio. I harboured the ambition that one day I might read the news and understood that in order to do so I’d need a 1A grading. Ms. Fanny McLeod was the assessor and it was with a sunken heart that I heard the term 1B pass her lips. ‘Can I please ask why I’ve been designated 1B?” - ‘Because” she replied, “I’m afraid some of your vowels are a bit Northern”. I’d spent my teenage years in a town called Blyth in Geordie land.

Laura Kuenssberg has stepped down as BBC’s Political Editor. She managed to do a highly challenging job for seven long years and deserves the break. I regret to note however that her coverage of the period since July 2019 has in my book, been less than impressive. I refer to a seeming inability to report on several key matters: where was there any serious attempt to cover the lies being constantly repeated by the government? Where was coverage of the numerous reports describing the negative economic impact of Brexit? Indeed there were reports where it appeared the only sources she wanted to quote were the Conservative Party’s spin doctors. It was as if a BBC edict had been issued that no criticism of the government was ever to be seriously referenced - I still have friends who serve as BBC journos and they assure me they have seen no such edict, but some accept there has been an assumption by news staff that the government is anti BBC so that it might have been in their own interests to look away from BJ and his sleazy activities. I admit that once the Tory papers began to report on the lies, she did cover a little more, but to this observer, the Tony Hall/Tim Davie editorial era has been one of which it’s been hard to be proud.