time flies (and so am I!)
Well where the time went is anybody’s guess, but it’s finally time to pack the travel kettle and Yorkshire tea bags since my New York trip is only days away – woohoo!
A very quick (and frankly rushed) update for now, although hopefully since I have a full six days in Manhattan next week I may find time to nip on from a park, canteen or similar since just about everywhere has free wifi. Joining Mr Kettle in the suitcase are Bombay mix, salt and vinegar chipsticks, Marmite and instant Horlicks, none of which (as far as I know, although I’m happy to be corrected) are readily available in NYC – for my part, those who have requested saltines, grape jelly and Triscuits can look forward to their arrival when I return. I promise to remember to buy my own too!
First up is That London, and it’s back to Victoria for a couple of days where even sleeping in a room without dust – first wood and now Artex, following an afternoon of nearly-naked wall sanding resplendent in nothing but knickers, a shower cap and a respirator (and which left me looking like Casper The Friendly Ghost – sadly in my haste to clear up I forgot to take a photograph) or bare wires hanging out of holes in the wall (next project) will be a luxury in itself. A quick stroll up to Piccadilly to see the garden paintings at the Royal Academy is also planned before a steady hurtle to the airport and a very welcome few days in Manhattan; various outings are planned for the week and availability is gradually dwindling, but there’s plenty of wriggle-room and the requisite info is all there over the page.
Back at the ranch, and as some will have already seen the responses to the Parliamentary prostitution inquiry have been published – plenty of good stuff from the common sense end as well as *shock* actual prostitutes as well as some genuinely baffling, emotive and ill-informed rubbish which made me wonder whether some of the respondants were still living in caves. Most amazing of all there are still – in 2016 – people citing as evidence the work of one Melissa Farley, an anti-prostitution ‘researcher’ long since discredited for her flawed, biased methods of sample selection, and pretty much a laughing stock to anybody who isn’t already one of her accolytes or dumb enough not to realise that if you deliberately choose only to ‘research’ people whose experiences will give you the result you have already decided you want before you started, you can’t really present your findings as ‘facts’ to people who are not.
Maggie McNeill has Ms Farley’s antics comprehensively covered already for anybody interested; having forced myself to sit and read through all the responses (a course of action I don’t recommend to anybody who hasn’t carefully moved anything breakable from within their reach) I can no longer stomach random shiny-faced bigots earnestly telling me what I think and how I feel about everything from my job and my clients to myself (I know) for another second, so I believe I’ll pass on any further detailed dissections for now at least. Hopefully the people at Parliament will share the sensible attitude demonstrated by a good number of their peers already. There’s a list somewhere, which I’ll try to find for another time.
Anyway, the final arrangements are calling me and the alarm is set – I’ll be officially back on Monday 14th! The DIY at home is continuing apace for the immediate future – a week off over Easter to make an unholy mess get on with the decorating is tentatively being planned, but I’ll keep everybody posted. This years’ quiet times have been almost entirely spent devoting muchas time and money to finding pictures, light fittings, appropriate furniture and poking through the Dulux colour picker for Farrow & Ball duplicates but real progress is being made and I may even have the place finally finished inside ten years, not forgetting there’s still the flat to sort out. As with the likes of Farley and her oddball sympathisers, it’s just as well I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.
For now, the bag is packed and I’ll be on my way in the morning. Report to follow soon-as, but it’s time for bath, hair wash and a spot of fridge clearing – to New York readers, see you there!
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