SNUGGLES (not her real name) is, or, rather, WAS a hamster, as I discovered from her obituary on the internet social site Facebook.
My friend Alison (again, tediously, not her real name for reasons which will shortly become clear) had written: “Snuggles escaped again last night, but sadly one adventure too many: I've just found her floating in the downstairs toilet. Have hidden her in the shed as Charlotte has friends coming for tea tonight before Cubs. . .trauma!”
What is it with furry creatures and water? When my children were small a neighbour found them and some friends playing happily in her kitchen while what looked like a rat crouched in a corner beside the dishwasher.
Quick as a flash, Ruth scooped up her dustpan, felled the creature with one blow and raced down the hall to the bathroom where she deposited the flattened corpse in the toilet and flushed it away.
Minutes later a second neighbour appeared at her door with a weeping child in tow.
“Ruth!” she screeched, beseechingly. “Tell me you haven’t done what Simon says you’ve done to his pet gerbil!”
Anyway, back to Facebook, which is where I seem to get all my bad news these days. Having shed a tear for Snuggles I then find a former News of the World editor friend of mine – whom I haven’t been able to contact since she disappeared a month ago, SUPPOSEDLY to write chapter six of our joint newspaper novel – sharing grubby jokes online with the Sun’s ex-Royal reporter!
Frankly, it feels like infidelity.
THE Outlaw is back in the village so I’ve left home and moved in with her while the missus is away.
It’s not as bad as it sounds: the Outlaw is Gemma’s mother, who’s just spent a month in .hospital having her broken hip pinned and has been allowed home while Gemma is in Provence following the Andy Goldsworthy sculpture trail (she said if I mentioned Goldsworthy ‘cultural types’ would understand).
They’re a pair of one-offs, the Outlaw and ’Er Indoors, if that isn’t too much of a contradiction. “While you’re here you can set up my new computer,” growled the Outlaw.
Yes, at 94 and (only temporarily) slowed by a healing hip she’s bought a whizzy new computer set-up to keep in touch with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren across the world.
Truly, a woman batting towards her first century and a whizz-kid a heart!
WERE you surprised that Sarah Ferguson was recorded asking for half a million quid in exchange for an introduction to her ex-husband, the Duke of York? I can’t say I was.
That’s the way people in public life behave nowadays. It’s only six weeks since three Labour Cabinet Ministers were taped by Channel Four as they negotiated fees for introductions and lobbying services. Would that have been for what they knew or for WHO they knew?
Ken Clarke wasn’t long out of government in 1998 when he gratefully accepted the deputy chairmanship of British American Tobacco, a company accused of using dubious strategies to promote its products in Third World countries.
Would that have been because he was a QC and a celebrated cigar smoker? Or because he knew the right flesh to press?
And Tony Blair? Don’t get me started on Britain’s newest multi-millionaire. He’s not content with his peacekeeping role in the Middle East, his seven-figure consultancy salary from the Wall Street bank JP Morgan Chase and his £400,000 an hour speeches on the international lecture circuit.
Now he is to lend his expertise and his ‘global relationships’ to Khosla Ventures, a Silicon Valle technology company. For love or for money? “Not pro bono,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
And we’re worried about Fergie?
My friend Alison (again, tediously, not her real name for reasons which will shortly become clear) had written: “Snuggles escaped again last night, but sadly one adventure too many: I've just found her floating in the downstairs toilet. Have hidden her in the shed as Charlotte has friends coming for tea tonight before Cubs. . .trauma!”
What is it with furry creatures and water? When my children were small a neighbour found them and some friends playing happily in her kitchen while what looked like a rat crouched in a corner beside the dishwasher.
Quick as a flash, Ruth scooped up her dustpan, felled the creature with one blow and raced down the hall to the bathroom where she deposited the flattened corpse in the toilet and flushed it away.
Minutes later a second neighbour appeared at her door with a weeping child in tow.
“Ruth!” she screeched, beseechingly. “Tell me you haven’t done what Simon says you’ve done to his pet gerbil!”
Anyway, back to Facebook, which is where I seem to get all my bad news these days. Having shed a tear for Snuggles I then find a former News of the World editor friend of mine – whom I haven’t been able to contact since she disappeared a month ago, SUPPOSEDLY to write chapter six of our joint newspaper novel – sharing grubby jokes online with the Sun’s ex-Royal reporter!
Frankly, it feels like infidelity.
THE Outlaw is back in the village so I’ve left home and moved in with her while the missus is away.
It’s not as bad as it sounds: the Outlaw is Gemma’s mother, who’s just spent a month in .hospital having her broken hip pinned and has been allowed home while Gemma is in Provence following the Andy Goldsworthy sculpture trail (she said if I mentioned Goldsworthy ‘cultural types’ would understand).
They’re a pair of one-offs, the Outlaw and ’Er Indoors, if that isn’t too much of a contradiction. “While you’re here you can set up my new computer,” growled the Outlaw.
Yes, at 94 and (only temporarily) slowed by a healing hip she’s bought a whizzy new computer set-up to keep in touch with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren across the world.
Truly, a woman batting towards her first century and a whizz-kid a heart!
WERE you surprised that Sarah Ferguson was recorded asking for half a million quid in exchange for an introduction to her ex-husband, the Duke of York? I can’t say I was.
That’s the way people in public life behave nowadays. It’s only six weeks since three Labour Cabinet Ministers were taped by Channel Four as they negotiated fees for introductions and lobbying services. Would that have been for what they knew or for WHO they knew?
Ken Clarke wasn’t long out of government in 1998 when he gratefully accepted the deputy chairmanship of British American Tobacco, a company accused of using dubious strategies to promote its products in Third World countries.
Would that have been because he was a QC and a celebrated cigar smoker? Or because he knew the right flesh to press?
And Tony Blair? Don’t get me started on Britain’s newest multi-millionaire. He’s not content with his peacekeeping role in the Middle East, his seven-figure consultancy salary from the Wall Street bank JP Morgan Chase and his £400,000 an hour speeches on the international lecture circuit.
Now he is to lend his expertise and his ‘global relationships’ to Khosla Ventures, a Silicon Valle technology company. For love or for money? “Not pro bono,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
And we’re worried about Fergie?
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, May 28 2009
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