Sorry about the non-availability of the blog for most of today. I was given sufficient warning by my host, but due to a major domestic crisis I felt completely unable to post to blog yesterday. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Suffice to say that I reached home at half past seven, tired, but not exhausted, only as tired as one should be after a day at work, looking forward to a prawn curry purchased from the absolutely brand new Sainsburys just opened a hop skip and jump away on Brixton Hill, bang opposite the bus-stop, and exponentially better than the three-month-old Tesco on the South Circular.
I opened the front door - which is a good thing, because last week, coming home from the Wigmore Hall, I didn't need to bother because it was already heart-stoppingly wide open - and immediately smelt a very strong and unmistakable smell of gas. I also heard the sound of unlit gas and went straight to the gas cooker, where one of the hobs was on, but not lit.
Let's just say that major words were exchanged, many of them sweary. I was petrified even to switch a light on until I was fully satisfied the gas had dispersed - by dint of opening the back door, something you really want to do on an cloudless November night /sarcasm.
I posited the possibility that I might have accidentally left the hob-knob on when leaving the house at nine-ish. If so, it is probably reasonable to assume that it would have been smelt at four-ish, the next time the house was occupied. If it wasn't smelled after being on for seven hours, there is a problem with the non-smeller. Alternatively, the house did not smell of gas at 4-ish, but did at 7.30, which suggests the hob-knob was switched on sometime in between. I was surprisingly not beside myself with rage: I think I was just numb with the shock of 'what ifs...'. And I made it absolutely clear that someone who risks the security of our home one week, and then risks our lives, not to mention that of our immediate and not-so-immediate neighbours, for the sake of too much vodka, has to take a very very serious look at themself.
About the only thing I did last night was watch a recording of the increasingly excruciating The Awful Mrs Pritchard, which is becoming more and more watchable for its 'so-bad-it's good' qualities.
My personal lowlight/highlight last night was the way they sit around in Cabinet Meetings like it's the coffee party after the Sixth Form Debating Society. No notion of briefing papers, pre-meetings, discussions in Cabinet Committees, one-to-ones between PM and Cabinet Ministers. And the almost total lack of officials.
The PM seems to have a total of three - the Press Secretary, where Jodhi May is admittedly rather gorgeous, the daffy bag carrier, and the token bloke, who manages to be, I think, Cabinet Secretary, Principal Private Secretary, and Chief of Staff, quite a tall order I think for anyone, especially one supporting a PM so utterly devoid of the ability to think through the consequences of any action, let alone think in any sort of joined up way or outside of a vacuum.
I'm in desperate need of Yes (Prime) Minister. Compare and contrast. I don't remember Jim Hacker spending a great deal of time in Cabinet.
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