Dear Ira

Look here….. you need this… terribly impressed that it’s snowing at Tolmie… real real snow…  which begs the question were you relieved or dis (expecting a report from Diss, the town in East Anglia, any moment) when you awoke to find it all gone??….

Whilst here in the Old Dart it’s humid, people are purchasing cooling devices, (ice blocks, wetted towels, Conder fans), and as there is no air conditioning nor decent air circulation (and not much decent air actually), we suffer sleepless nights made worse by the fact that it’s not really very hot at all, it’s just they don’t understand the concept of cooling, an absence of verandahs, etc…. windows are openable to a height of three inches, (there’s something Dickensian in that)… and the corridors of these hotels are so stiflingly bereft of air, and the milk is off, and the internet connection is ten pounds, the car park an additional 35 pounds and the vat included, and sundry taxes another 20%… and the lady down at the off license doesn’t like my chatty asides…

Though what really irks me, I am made aware of this as the kids are watching the telly (which in itself tends to make confinement more oppressive…  I am flabbergasted by the excitement surrounding the imminent arrival of Prince William’s kid…. It’s nauseating… serious interviews on the BBC… creating non issues from non problems, live crosses to the U.S, to gauge the royal fever there… and some twat being interviewed in Australia, for an antipodean perspective…. it’s not that I’m anti royal, apathetic would be more apt, but I get it… the poms need royalty because their lives are so bloody miserable… it needs a class system, and noble born tonks, (that’s NBT) to forelock tug to stop them from thinking about their non engaged lives….. tons of media, the papers full of it, big questionnaires in the Times, “what name for Kate’s baby”, and it goes on and on and on and on…..

So there!!!!

and above it all this jingoistic bumptious boosterism about the utterly pathetic state of the australian cricket team… and what makes it worse… they’re absolutely right on that score!!!

Respectfully yours
Cockburn

Publishers Note:  Despite asking I have been unable to get “trauma discounts” on account of our showing at the cricket.