Update 50
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I seem to be in a bad place at the moment. I cancelled this week’s planned lunch with colleagues from London. My confidence is falling away and I often struggle now with getting dressed. Last week my computer died which has increased my stress levels considerably. All in all, things are getting more difficult to handle. Hopefully I’ll be on a more even keel by next week.
Yesterday morning Palliative Michelle came to see me and we reviewed my condition. She is keen to try and regain something of my ability to grip things. To attempt this I will increase the steroid dose to 6 mg per day, starting today. She has also recommended a session with a neurological physiotherapist and she is ordering a couple of physical aids that might help. I’m keen to try anything that might increase my mobility.
I’ve finished Rob Burley’s most excellent book and am on the lookout for its replacement.
I can’t decide which cabinet or ex cabinet ministers are currently the most troubling: Sewerella won’t go away and Sunak is terrified of upsetting her supporters (the rabid racists or the little Englanders). Dodgy Dom Raab is off to spend more time with his family. In the Times, cartoonist Peter Brookes suggests that Raab’s motivation in leaving, is about spending less time with his Tory family rather than more with his blood family.
Meanwhile, the threat of sanctions moves ever closer to B Johnson’s diaries for no 10 and for Chequers. Oh how I long for there to be some kind of resolution of something. The man has been a blot on our nation’s life for far too long.
On a much more positive note, here’s a marriage montage. Looking back at these updates there is no doubt that your responses increase whenever I include photos of my family so here’s a trip back through the years since M and I married in 1967. The black and white one was taken on the way back from the actual ceremony.
At the Theatre Royal I referenced Cat Stevens’ appearance at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. I note he will be billed as Yusuf/Cat Stevens and that he will release a new album prior to that appearance. Another singer songwriter, Paul Simon, has revealed that he is losing his hearing - the announcement comes with the release of his latest album ‘Seven Psalms’. I have listened and in style it returns to the sparseness of his very earliest work.
Every week brings another reminder that my generation of performers are leaving the stage. This week it was the turn of Tina Turner. (83). Although an American, she recorded many songs by British writers: ‘The Best’ by Mike Chapman, ‘Private Dancer’ by Mark Knopfler, ‘What’s Love Got to do with it?’ by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle, who also wrote ‘We Don’t need another Hero’, ‘I Don’t Wanna Lose You’ by Graham Lyle and Albert Hammond. Quite a catalogue of the best of British. In more than 20 years of producing the the Ivor Novello Awards I have celebrated all of their careers more than once. Thank you Tina, for backing Britain so often.
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