Rats

1 And double rats. I was prepared. I had cleared my desk; I listed the operas; I had the two booking forms on the desk together with my own credit card. And it was not yet 0950. An incoming telephone call was concluded by 1002. I was speaking to a friendly person at the ROH by 1004. By 1006, after short, amiable exchange, the conversation had concluded, and I had drooped. Ordinary Friends can book from 8 June.

2 Meanwhile, perhaps you have been looking at The Times online. If you have, you will have seen the double-page advertisement for (i) Guinness, and (ii) Mr O'Bama's Irish connexion. The firm and the politician were hand-in-hand. In one afternoon, the villagers were given enough to talk about for the rest of their lives (though those one or two who refused to pass through the metal detector were subjected, so I read, to what amounted to house-arrest). The firm's dominance in Ireland was affirmed. More importantly, Mr O'Bama, as he drank his pint in the pub, captured, lassoed, nailed down, scooped the allegiance of the Irish diaspora in the USA. A black, Protestant man, one with gleaming white teeth, is transformed into an Irishman, a stalwart not only of the Great Republic but of the Irish one. (If you haven't been looking, do look.)

3 The preparation for Worth Abbey Guiding deserves a mention. There were 15 of us, in addition to the organiser and the monk who wrote the notes. The refurnished Abbey church will be a hit. The chairs round the altar have been replaced by wooden stalls, some 30 of them. In the auditorium, the chairs have been replaced by benches. New lights. More generally, the guided walk around the church, the parish office, and the walk in front of the monastery and the old school, with the estate stretching away on the left, will also be a hit.

3.1 And what about the monks? The guided will hear about the work which the monks undertook before they became monks. Let me give you five occupations and assign each occupation to a monk: probation officer, aero engineer, architect, Royal Marine, and composer. Then you can turn to the question: what are monks for? The estate and the monks - there will be plenty to talk about as the guide and the guided follow the route.

4 Low-level: Liam has just telephoned to say that, as a result of technical failure, he cannot complete last Thursday's bridge scores. Ah well. I will explore my ScoreBridge. If I need to, please allow me to use your PC this evening.

5 Later today I will visit the detainee. . He is still continuing his struggle to remain in the UK. He remains explicitly grateful for my compositional efforts on his behalf. Yet I exercise my compositional skills in a matter-of-fact way. If the past is a guide to the future, the detainee and I will separate when he is no longer in Brook House, either because he has been given bail, is given ILR, or else because he has been deported. He will join the other names in the book or in the electronic folder. I sense that I will take a leave, probably a short one, from the GDWG when his case is resolved.

5.1 And there will be a couple of SSAFA or RAFA visits. (And I should cycle or Vespa my way to Weirwood reservoir in search of information about the swimming.)

6 You're on the run. I reckon you're close to completing the first of the two circuits. By tomorrow, you will be the second circuit. Just keep moving. By Saturday, you will be close to the run-in on the field.

7 In the meantime, send me some news about what you and everyone eats, about the local television and newspapers, and about the nearest production of A Doll's House (in Norwegian).

Come home whilst the sun shines; come home and the sun will shine brighter.

Stayathome