To begin at the beginning

I'll start as I intend to continue, with a rant (and if my dearest friend A happens to read this, "I'm going into head to head ranting competition with you, darling". She, by the way, is a jolly good ranter!). And then a joy...

Suddenly the police are once again making spectacular fools of themselves, sometimes apparently vicious fools. I'm priveleged to count among my friends a number of serving coppers and I know that the vast majority of them do bloody good work on our behalf -- it's not an easy job! But the two violent uniforms at the G20 demos, should they prove guilty, (and the second post mortem has just shown that the newsvendor who died was killed not by a heart attack but by internal bleeding -- what might that indicate?) should be kicked straight out of the force with loss of all pension rights, as well as whatever a court of law might pass down to them. Such stinking apples can rot the whole barrel.

And what about the two "officers of the law" (a laughable description in the circumstances) who apparently stopped two tourists from Vienna, a father and son, because they were taking photos of buses and bus garages? They had to delete all their photos, because "photographing anything to do with transport was strictly forbidden". What next? Mass raids on assembled train spotters? Vielen Entschuldigungen, Herr Matzka! Ich hoffe, dass Sie und Seiner Sohn London wiederbesuchen werden. Nicht alle Londoner sind trottelhaftig!

And a joy... Or rather some joys. Yesterday I spent with darling A (see above) and others for a special day, and then in the evening with a good mate I went to the Princess of Wales in London's Primrose Hill, for good beer and trad jazz. Lovely! And this evening it's to "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" at the newly reopened St Stephen's Church in Hampstead. This dramatisation is by Adrian Mitchell, who sadly died recently and was unable to see this production.

Hours before he died, Adrian Mitchell wrote his last poem, and it's delightful:

As I prowled through Parentheses
I met an Robin and a Owl
My Grammarboots they thrilled like bees
My Vowelhat did gladly growl
Tis my delight each Friedegg Night
To chomp a Verbal Sandwich
Scots Consonants light up my Pants
And marinade my Heart in Language
Alphabet Soup was all my joy!
From Dreadfast up to Winnertime
I swam, a naked Pushkinboy
Up wodka vaterfalls of rhyme
And reached the summit of Blue Howl
To find a shining suit of words
And joined an Robin and a Owl
In good Duke Ellington's Band of Birds

Tonight's performance of The Lion... is in celebration of Adrian Mitchell, and is a fundraiser for the Anti-War Coalition. If you've enjoyed reading the poem above, why don't you make a donation?

Toodle-pip!