4 September 2011

Alice had one or two jobs she wanted to do today so she engaged the services of Paul, my computer friend, to sit with me for a couple of hours which was very useful sorting out small problems I have been having with my laptop other than those being dealt with by Dragon. Paul is quite brilliant on the computer and it seems a pity that he is not currently employing his talents in this area were. He certainly a great help to me when it comes to WordPress which are used for my blog.

The one area that I am relying on Paul to resolve is an easy way to embed videos, photos and PowerPoint slide shows into my blog as I have quite a number stored on my computer waiting to be used and they certainly liven up my written work which I believe can become rather boring without something light-hearted from time to time.

For those readers who share my love of cricket ,and even those who do not, I have included a piece of work by one of my cricketing colleagues, John Fawkes, for which, sincere thanks. In order to put this into context I need to explain a little more as to why John wrote it. If you start off by reading The Cricket Match, in the Anecdote section of this blog, at the end you will find another piece of work by the same friend, rhyming couplets describing my first game of cricket ever, at the age of 70, in India. You do not really have to read the whole of The Cricket Match unless the subject is of interest to you, but the rhyming couplets are very amusing, particularly when you consider they were read out in the presence of an internationally known poet, who, to his credit, find them hilarious.

There was an excuse for the first work from John, as I was given a wonderful private dinner at Rules restaurant in London, by my oldest friend, Geoffrey Hanscombe, to celebrate my 70th birthday, where most of the guests felt constrained to make some contribution. Jamie (Snowdon Barnett) did me the honour of writing a special poem for the occasion – I believe he called it Heroes m – and bearing in mind his international fame as a poet, this was a great honour. Unbeknownst to us John Fawkes had also written what he considered was a poem but what James, in his usual forthright manner, described as doggerel. Doggerel or not it was cleverly written and gave us all a great deal of amusement. Now John has done it again for no special occasion other than the urge took him, or it may be to celebrate my 77th birthday.

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I make no comment on this work, other than to express my gratitude to John for taking the trouble to write it and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as .I did..Although the courage said on what John has written is greatly exaggerated I do hope he’s right about the blog being inspirational, for that indeed was its original purpose.