Authors Electric

Two very different experiences during the last month have made me feel very happy. One is the fulfilment of a long-held ambition. The other is a minor triumph which most readers would regard as small beer but to me is something I would a few months ago never have thought myself capable of. I've mentioned before my long connection with Harefield Hospital and the wonderful thing they did for me back in 1983. One particular person had about as intimate a connection with me as it's possible to imagine. He delved inside my chest, disconnected my heart and substituted a small electric pump, proceeded to take two veins from my right leg and then, daringly because it was then an almost unheard-of procedure which pretty well only he could do, took another from my chest wall, grafted on all three to replace arteries already blocked, reconnected my heart, sewed me up again and thus gave me an extension  of life I could easily not have had, which has lasted thirty-two years already and i...

We're going away on January 8th for our annual pilgrimage to New Zealand for two months, so I thought I'd better get my my next two blogs ready and scheduled.           January's blog seemed to be going well: a reasoned discussion of something which I think is of some moment even if nobody else does. Then, as the old year died, something happened to stop me. I left Blogger for a moment and switched over to the football results. And there I saw something which shocked me and made me postpone January's blog to February.          League 2.  Portsmouth 0, Northampton Town 0           No, they must have got it wrong. Portsmouth have been rubbish all season but they've got a new manager now and he's put the fear of God in all the under-achieving players and they beat Dagenham and Redbridge last week and now everything would go BRILLIANTLY and they'd win and win and win...