Smouldering

Working from just after seven on the final two chapters of the novel, which is now called The second kind of darkness. Some of my favourite ideas have to be given the Herod treatment, but after all these years, the end of the story is literally is in sight. 

After four or five hours with blood on my hands, an omelette for lunch (made with turmeric as standard now). Then I slunk off in the gorgeous weather to sweat in the gym, where I had a good workout, doing the cross trainer but adding in a bit of rowing machine and one or two weights machines. Doing this gingerly as I am unfit. But things are slowly improving.

Thence to the ideologically unsound Starbucks where I drank tea and worked till gone five. Walked home and spoke to Bob about various hypochondriac subjects, and then to Mum, who showed me the new rose arch in the front garden when I got home. 

When Lorraine got home, we no-brainered down to the Preston Park Tavern for some cold beer and a bite to eat and a cheery debrief on the week.   

Still feeling furious about the Grenfell Tower, which seems to stand as a smouldering monument to Dickensian greed and the indifference of those in power to London's poor. The inability of Theresa May to demonstrate empathy is genuinely shocking. I can't think of a single prime minister in my lifetime who would have not visited the scene and talked to some of the people affected. Even the Queen managed to talk to some people. Politically it was an ideal opportunity for May to demonstrate some leadership, to get her hands dirty and try to draw people together with a simple display of compassion. To have a leader who is unable to do this simple and human thing really is astonishing.