Elephant In The Room?

Saturday. 5.40 p.m. Elephant? What elephant? If it's in the room, I definitely can't see it. There's no connection with the content of this post to elephants. It's just that I couldn't find a better title, so that's that.

Sunday. 6.15 a.m. It's early, but I'm awake and refuse to just lay in bed when I can be at least doing something. I took Alfie out, and we discovered that it was pouring rain, which was something of a surprise. We didn't stay out too long, and anyway, Alfie doesn't like getting wet. He is now fast asleep in his bed.

Monday. 7.05 a.m. Up early as usual. The sun is out. It's pleasant, but not exactly warm. I suppose, given time, it will eventually warm up. On BBC Breakfast, Carol Kirkwood, the weather lady, said that the temperature was going to warm up as the week progressed. I have taken Alfie out and sorted some of the recycling and washed up from yesterday evening.

I have started watching a drama/documentary on Netflix, 'The Last Czars', about Nicholas II of Russia and what eventually led to the Russian Revolution in 1917. I know the story, having read several books on the subject, and the 1970s film 'Nicholas and Alexandra.' I do have a slight connection in that when I was A.S.M. at the theatre in Harrogate in the early 1970s, my landlord was somehow or other involved in drama. I think he was a playwright. I have a feeling he wrote several musicals, one, I think, based on the J.M. Barrie play, 'What Every Woman Knows.' It is some 50 years ago, so my memory is somewhat fuzzy on the subject, so bear with me. He also did another show, based on a book by Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of 'The Secret Garden', 'Little Lord Fauntleroy. The little boy who played the central character in that show was then cast in the part of Alex in 'Nicholas and Alexandra.' He's the character who has haemophilia, a disease which means his blood didn't clot, and even a slight knock would cause bruising and many other problems. The film also featured, amongst others, Tom Baker, who played Rasputin, and it was this performance which led him to eventually play The Doctor in 'Doctor Who.'

10.00 a.m. I have just been to get a few items from Sainsbury's. Milk and bread, you know, the essentials. Alfie has got some treats, which he doesn't know I've got at the moment. He will have a couple during the day. As I drove towards Sainsbury's, along Evans Gate, which is the road that is the entrance into Oldbrook, I noticed that repairs have been made to a couple of the potholes as you approach the roundabout on Childs Way. But I didn't see any such repairs being done to a really large pothole which is difficult to avoid along Witan Gate, virtually opposite Sainsbury's. I do hope Milton Keynes Council can see fit to get around to sending some workmen to fill in that particular pothole, and, indeed, to repair any or all the potholes around Milton Keynes.

Yesterday evening I turned on the television as I was about to eat my meal, and what came on was the new David Attenborough series, 'Animals.' We get swooping shots of ice in either the Arctic or Antarctic. It doesn't matter which, but there was lots of snow and a few polar bears wandering around, and the wind must have been blowing fairly strongly as snow and ice were flying about. In the voice-over, done by Sir David, he says, ' The Arctic. It is intensely cold' 'Now, surely, there's no need to make such a statement. It's cold in the Arctic. So WHY ON EARTH do you have to state the *&@@%=1% obvious? It's the BBC, playing down to the thick audience that they think is watching. Just a bit of an insult, and why on earth did David Attenborough have to say it? It's almost like saying that there are people 'out there' who don't realize that it's very cold in the Arctic. It just shows how down-market the BBC has become. I think John Reith, the first Director General of the BBC, would be spinning in his grave.