NEW YORK MARIJUANA, A POOR PRINCESS and a FAST DIET

What’s today been like for me in my ivory tower here in the frozen north.   Well, not so frozen after all.    Believe it or not I have been sitting outside on a garden chair in bright sunshine.   Admittedly, I was wearing two cardigans, but it was warm and bright enough in the lovely light of the sun to sit and start my latest small, home project.   That is to try to take-in or make smaller some of my eight pairs of trousers or pants as our American relations call them.   Yes, you see I am getting THINNER.   It is called dropping a dress size, in my case almost two dress sizes.   Whether I shall be successful with this only time will tell – I mean the sewing and the dieting.   So far it has worked quite well.   For five weeks now I have been trying a version of the FAST DIET, a version which includes a few small glasses of wine in the evening, and an attempt to do the half-fast idea nearly every day.   I have lost 10 pounds so far.   But I don’t want to brag too soon, as I know how easy it is to put the lost weight back on.

How’s this for hot news?   Today I read in the Guardian dated 20^th Feb, 15.38 --just now my clock says 15.58, so it’s hot off the press that Mayor Bloomberg of New York has made a small step towards s rational policy towards marijuana.   It seems that people found to be carrying marijuana will no longer have to spend a night in prison.   The article I read states that it is more black people and Hispanics who have suffered from stop and search policy of the New York Police, suggesting that by rights white people are every bit as guilty of smoking the weed.   Although Mayor Bloomberg has admitted publicly to having smoked this stuff, I have to confess that has not been part of my life experience.    Should I be glad or sorry or regretful?    Well, who knows?   You can’t have every virtue or every vice.   That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Great heat on the media, TV and  Radio and the newspapers about the Booker prize-winner, Hilary Mantel’s comments about Kate Middleton.   The papers have gone to town against the author in a big way.   Apparently she has accused the princess of being having a plastic smile and of being without personality.   However I believe the opinion of the columnist of the Guardian who thinks that the comments of Hilary Mantel have been hyped up by the press.   Apparently the speech was made at the British Museum for the London Review of Books.   Although it was a small part of a long speech, four paragraphs out of thirty, and had been made two weeks before the press honed in on it, they have lambasted the author who was in a way largely criticising the media for the way they used the princess as eye-candy for their papers.  

Going to the theatre tonight to see a team of male dancers perform.   I have no idea what to expect.   The programme was chosen by G. hoping to please our house guests – Ruth, Naomi and Nathan.   Hope it will be a successful outing.   Meanwhile, I have to go and make Spaghetti Bolognaise with some baked cherry tomatoes and left-over minced beef.    Also they can have each have a slice of my high calorie white chocolate and cream celebration cake.   Don’t you just wish you were here?   Don’t answer that!   Keep happy!!