under another sun

Camilla strikes again Woke up with a northern cold, souvenir of Yorkshire. Tended to only the most necessary of business, before abandoning myself to the luxury of reading. Finished A Prayer for Owen Meaney . What a cracking book, one of those books that it is a shame to reach the end of, although the end is brilliantly worked. Now reading Summer by Edith Wharton which seems altogether less good, although I enjoyed Ethan Frome . Otherwise had time to marvel at Jane's site Camillalookalike.com which if ever you need a Camilla lookalike it would be foolish to turn elsewhere, as is self evident from the picture below. Jane looks like the Platonic Ideal of Camilla.

Jane and Richard: Special Edition Jane and Richard's wedding. Lorraine and I took a bus into St Peter Port, and then a taxi up to Bordeaux Harbour to join Jane, Richard and June. The ceremony in two parts, one led by Jane was quite lovely with Buddhist chants, and our symbolic binding together with string, and mindful readings. Not long after this the Registrar appeared, a pleasant unobtrusive man who conducted the brief ceremony indoors. Some crying as you would expect. I cried twice. The deed done, we repaired to the garden to drink Champagne and take photos, and slice the cake. General hilarity, and Richard appearing with Camilla and Charles masks. Today was also the day of the launch of the secret viral video for T-Mobile shot by Saatchis that Jane had been part of, and we were the 310th people to watch it on YouTube. Millions were to follow. Rather marvelling at how Jane managed to simultaneously get married and become a global cyber celebrity. Then we piled into a taxi to hea...

Unrest Some French work first thing, then struggling with major decisions on Skelton Yawngrave, deciding that the story must be told in the third person, rather than by Skelton. Converting it from first to doesn't seem to be too tricky, and I worked steadily through two chapters and it seems to be working. This decision throws one or two babies out with the bathwater, but also allows new ones to bob up. The new version seems darker and more dramatic. A noisy student protest starting at the station. I saw a small group of students, all looking rather small and young. Oppressive atmosphere crackling with tension, ramped up by the disproportionate police presence. The students are protesting about having University fees trebled, among other things, and have got a good case. At the weekend some were supergluing themselves to the windows of TopShop and Vodaphone - allegedly owned by tax-avoiding plutocrats. Meanwhile up in London interesting to observe the speed with which this new gove...