One of the great things about this job is that the material I deal with is so very varied, and yet from time to time things link up in entirely unexpected ways… Over the last couple of days I have been editing the latest newsletter from Deryn Lake – the Queen of the Georgian Mystery – and posting it on her web site. She describes a cruise on which she sailed as visiting lecturer, and it sounds as if she had a wonderful time. How’s this for the life of luxury, for example?

I just want to recount the story of John’s birthday, which was on 12th March. He answered the door of the cabin at eight o’clock in the morning – very scantily clad, I might add – to find a waiter bearing a bottle of champagne, a half lobster each, poached eggs, a card and a present. He was both delighted and surprised I can assure you.

Which has the added charm for me that John (that is, actor John Elnaugh) apparently shares his birthday with Roger, whose “end of the 50s” celebrations have appeared in previous posts.

Deryn’s cruise took her – among other places – to the Canaries, whose over-development she deplored: And I was able to nod wisely, because another site I manage is that of artist Alan Mann, who lived at Los Cristianos in Tenerife between 1985 and 1996, and has been writing a fascinating series of reminiscences of life in the Canaries at what was very obviously a time of great change.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.