AUGUST DESPATCHES

I am Reconnected

The bit that I hadn't appreciated about the gas board was that it was still going to require two separate people to visit. One came on the Wednesday morning, as advertised, so off went my gas, but then when he left he told me that he had booked the next man to purge and relight, and that he should be along shortly. That was at lunchtime. He finally came at 8.15pm, and of course I had been waiting at home throughout the intervening time, frustrated at not being able to go out and do things. Still, it happened. I got my gas back. Everything is working, and it was our contractors' fault in the first place, so I mustn't moan.


Eviction

"Celebrity Big Brother" is back this week, and there "eviction" is a big part of the fun. It's rather less fun in real life. A housing association tenant has come in with a letter telling her she is to be evicted, or rather that her housing association are going to go to court to obtain possession of her flat. Since she is functionally illiterate this is all a bit of a problem for her, but someone has told her what it means. She asks for my help. Mostly she just wants me to go to court with her, which of course I can't promise without knowing when it will be; there is a date on the letter which she has assumed is the court date, but that's only a date before which proceedings cannot start. My view is, therefore, that this is an invitation to engage with the housing association before that date, and so that's what I try to do for her. But of course it's not that easy. They simply don't answer the phone. I need to have her here when I phone, because otherwise they won't speak to me anyway (which is not unreasonable) but she won't sit still for long. There's also a problem with her gas, and I try to talk to the housing association's gas contractor, but they have to refer it back to the housing association. The same happens with the gas supplier. Nothing comes from the housing association. I emailed the housing manager a week ago, but have had no response. Now I can understand that they are busy. I can even understand that they might want to get shot of this particular tenant, but this is not reasonable. She is making an attempt to talk to them, but they evade talking to her. Other people tell me this is entirely par for the course from this particular housing association.


New Season

So, football is back, after seemingly no break. I was well impressed with Manchester City's new change strip, in dull navy with a widely-spaced pinstripe in sky blue and yellow fluoro, worn with navy shorts and yellow fluoro socks. I also liked Chelsea's simple buttercup yellow with blue socks. But what was going on with West Ham? That appeared to be all off-white, which is not a good look. It's apparently their third kit, and has faint impressions of claret and blue on shoulders and hips, which are invisible on my television. I like Watford's new kit, of black and yellow stripes, with a simple black collar, and no fussiness, but their away kit is deeply terrible, in an implausible shade of green, with lime green details; the shirt is plain, but with one of those lamentable "shadow" patterns, checks, but not just simple checks, but stripey checks. I should also register my distaste for Manchester United's red-fading-to-black affair; that's just a bad design. It always looks undignified (see Barcelona's yellow and orange affair a few years ago) and it's also incoherent. Barcelon's yellow to orange at least makes sense, as does Team Movistar's horrid current cycling jersey, mid blue to navy, but red doesn't turn into black as you get darker, there's an awful lot of maroon in between.    


Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

Today I cycled past a herring gull killing a pigeon. That's not supposed to happen. The gull is a scavenger, so it's supposed to wait until things are dead. This was happening surrounded by a crowd of pigeons, who seemed curiously unconcerned. All in all a very unsettling sight.


Training

I am trying to cycle more than usual, as I get closer to the date of the great ride. My brother-in-law and I are cycling to Paris, in memory of Helen and to benefit Christian Aid Education, so I'm supposed to be training. The extreme heat did rather slow down my progress, but at least I'm doing more now.