My dear family & friends
I didn’t write last week because my computer, a Sony Vaio laptop, failed. I went to check my email one afternoon and the screen looked like a television set with no signal, essentially just a hash of random dots. I fiddled for a bit, rebooting the computer, but it swiftly became apparent that the problem was fairly terminal. I searched for a solution on the Internet in the evening (on an old laptop) and eventually isolated the problem through a public discussion group on Sony’s website. To cut a long story short, the Nvidia graphics chip (the thing that makes the screen work) was faulty and has caused problems for Dell and HP as well as Sony. But knowing the likely source of the problem didn’t really provide much consolation because my computer was four weeks out of warranty. I called the Sony helpdesk in the morning expecting they would demand a lot of money to fix the problem, and was none too happy about it. I couldn’t have been more wrong. After a few questions and checking with his boss, the helpdesk agent said the computer would be fixed in warranty, and that DHL would be around to fetch it the next day. And so it was: DHL picked it up as expected and returned the computer four days later with a new motherboard. The service was clearly exceptional.
I sincerely hope that this is it though. The repair warranty is only six months and I feel a nagging worry that the graphics chip on the new motherboard might also turn out to be a dud in a year’s time. This is my fourth laptop: I have had two Acers and an HPCompaq and I’d never had such a major failure on any of them. I did once bugger the hard drive on my first Acer, but that was entirely my fault.
I won’t bore you with everything we’ve done in the intervening period. Actually I can’t remember. I know I was pissed off about my computer for days on end. That takes a lot of energy. I know Lucia finished painting the wicker and cane furniture for our conservatory blue last weekend. I confess I was a bit sceptical at first, but it looks really good. It’s endowed the furniture a new glossy blue lease of life given that we bought it all at the rubbish tip. In the UK people are encouraged to take useable goods to the recycling office before they toss it in the big skips headed for landfill. The recycling “officers” either take it or they don’t, but, if they do, they then sell it on for a couple of pounds. Everybody wins. To put this into perspective, they must have between 50 and 100 bicycles at the Warwick tip. I’ve seen somebody arrive at the tip, choose a bicycle, pump up the tyres, pay £10 and ride off. The UK is such a “throw-away” society that you can get some exceptional bargains at the tip or any charity shop.
And still on last weekend, we were walking in St Nicholas Park with the dogs when we were accosted by a young brother and sister who adored Edgar and Hazel. Their mother, looking at Edgar said, “Aww, tell me his name’s Scooby.” I said, “Well, no, er, Edgar actually. Who’s Scooby?” which plainly put us in the realm of people who don’t have children. I looked up Scooby-Doo on the Internet when we got home and I don’t think he looks anything like Edgar. She must have been taking the wrong drugs. Either that or she has really poor eyesight. Poor children.
We also had dinner with some people we’d never met before last Saturday night. It happened like this: You may remember that we went for Christmas drinks to the Fosters who are the parents of Lucia’s ex-boss in South Africa. We met lots of interesting people there. One of those people, John (there were quite a few John’s, so I don’t remember exactly which one) has family who live here in Leamington Spa. John said that he’d get them to give us a call, and they did, and invited us to dinner along with a large group of their friends. (In UK style, this was all arranged weeks in advance.) We went to a pub first, then to an Indian restaurant, and then to another pub. It was interesting and fun within the constraints of my memory and my hearing. If you introduce me to more than two people at a time, I struggle to remember their names. So it took me a while to get everybody’s name right. Well, I got the men’s names. Eventually. The other problem is my hearing. In a loud environment, my right ear does its own thing: clicks, pops , bangs, whistles and other assorted noises. So I didn’t really hear everything that transpired. But it was fun. I hope I didn’t talk too much. Or say the wrong thing.
My memory of this past week is much clearer. On Tuesday evening we had Stephen van Coppenhagen and his wife Sue around for dinner. Stephen went to school with Lucia’s brother, Justin. They live in Ireland now. It was lovely to have them: to talk with people whom you can instinctively relate to based on all those nuances of accent, society and socialisation. They were in the area for an art workshop for Sue. Stephen went fishing – and brought us two freshly caught trout. We gave them one of my stir fries for dinner, but Lucia and I baked the trout with spices and onion the next evening, and they were delicious.
Let me jump to Friday. Lucia had to go to London for work and we arranged to meet up in the afternoon first to go to the Bodyworlds exhibition of the work by Dr Gunther von Hagens at the Millenium Dome (now called The O2) in east London, and then to our favourite Portuguese restaurant in Vauxhall for dinner. The Bodyworlds exhibition was really fascinating. Von Hagens developed a technique of preserving human remains by infusing the body with plastic polymers. He has then dissected many of these bodies for public presentation. I suppose that might seem quite gruesome on the face of it, but it’s not. Even Lucia, who wants to faint every time she sees a skinned rabbit at a market in Portugal, was impressed by the exhibition. It certainly gave me a new perspective on life as we experience it, from conception through to old age and frailty. I’m glad I stopped smoking: you really have to see what that shit does to your lungs.
I was also much taken by the Millennium Dome itself; it really is a stunning piece of architecture and engineering. On the way in and out we came across a long queue of people waiting to buy tickets for a promised Michael Jackson comeback concert. WHY? The music is crap and (on the balance of probabilities) he’s a paedophile. Back in my days at The Argus in Cape Town Jackson came to play a couple of concerts in SA. All the financial journalists in Cape Town got free tickets courtesy of a now non-existent insurance company. Halfway through the concert he hauled some young lass onto the stage with him while singing one of his songs. Problem: this young lass did not take it in her stride and just screamed and screamed. Bigger problem: given that she was screaming directly into his microphone, one would certainly expected to hear her verbal incontinence come blaring out of the massive sound system – but all we heard were the sweet, dulcet tones of whatever dross he was allegedly singing. Conclusion: he was lip-synching, the venal shit. Things got a bit ugly as some unflattering catcalls emanated from the press contingent annoying some Jacko fans further forward. Fruit was thrown. Security was called.
But that wasn’t my first experience of Michael Jackson. During the Cape Town leg of this tour, he stayed at the Table Bay Hotel. As it happened, my ex-girlfriend, Fran, was interviewing the American CEO of that pyramid scheme... I’m sorry, I mean multi-level marketing company, Amway, at the Table Bay. Anyway, for whatever reason (another long story) I was fetching her. And it came to be that we were all standing in the lobby of the hotel – me, Fran, the people from the PR company and the Amway folks – when the lobby suddenly filled with security people. Seconds later, a lift door opened and out stepped a little boy dressed exactly like Michael Jackson, followed three paces later by Jacko himself. I yelled out: “Hey, Mikey!” – he looked up – “Who’s the kid?”
You could have heard a pin drop. The Americans from Amway looked like they had swallowed a spoon, Nicola from the PR company turned bright red, and Fran looked like she was about to stamp on my toes. Well, I thought it was funny. Still do.
From The O2 we retraced out steps on the Jubilee Line to London Bridge station to find a shopping concourse called The Vaults. My goal was to find The Savanna, a shop/kiosk selling South African goods. I was disappointed to hear the shop assistant speaking with a distinctly Eastern European accent. (The UK is really clamping down on SA. Even tourists need visas now.) We bought some more biltong and All Gold tomato sauce. (I haven’t made my biltong box yet.)
Then we joined the Friday afternoon hordes on the underground again for the ride to Casa Madeira, the Portuguese restaurant in Vauxhall we enjoy so much for dinner. When you step inside, you are in Portugal. The decor is Portuguese, the staff is Portuguese, the food is (mostly) Portuguese, it has the friendliness of Portugal. I would heartily recommend it to my London correspondents. Even Helder, who runs the Pastelaria Portuguesa here in Warwick, and who went there on my recommendation, says it’s probably the best Portuguese restaurant in London. MI5 is just across the road, but I’ve never seen any spy-like looking people (old Burberry raincoat, dark glasses, wide-brimmed fedora) loitering around. The restaurant is in the arches underneath the railway line. There’s a café (typical Portuguese) under one arch, the restaurant under another, and a Portuguese deli under a third. You can hear trains periodically click-clacking over the top of you, but it’s not an unpleasant sound. I had chicken piri-piri (no surprise there) and Lucia had tuna steak done Portuguese style.
We kicked back on Saturday, but on Sunday we went to the beach in Norfolk. It’s only a 500km round trip. (It would be nice if the roads were wide and straight to get there. I wouldn’t like to drive that route on a summer weekend when every man and his dog heads for the beach.) But the sun was shining and I could smell the salt and the ozone. We’re seaside people; we’ve booked ourselves a weekend in Cornwall at the end of this month. I hope the weather stays as balmy as it’s been. Nearly every morning the weather presenters on TV have noted how warm it is for this time of year. I hope that means that we’re actually going to have summer this year.
You can find some more pictures in the usual spot at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
