Serendipity strikes!

OK folks – so there are some teething problems – ‘tis true that when you arrive at Snowblog you find yourself back in January.

An unpleasant enough thought, let alone reality at 6.00 am on a balmy summer’s day. The print is tiny via some browsers, reasonable via others. ‘They’ are working on it.

Actually the site itself will work far better than the old one. I have had to remonstrate with ‘them’ about my photo which has deteriorated from a reasonably twinkly looking soul to a stern old Senator.

Vanity of vanities – cares about his image…dammit…’tis true. I’m trying to hose down the colouring. Don’t panic anyone, it will all come out in the wash.

No sign of my bike, but the police have been excellent. Barry at Holborn is ‘investigating’. I have a crime number.

And I have been contacted by the Mayor’s new Met Police Cycle unit. One of his chaps is coming to see me this afternoon.

The £1000 reward is still unclaimed. No sign of the steed on Gumtree or eBay. This bike’s too hot to handle. I’m going to get it back!

And when I do, I’ll race the flying pigs down the Grays Inn Road. Pigs do fly, and stolen bikes do return. How’s that for optimism?

In between spasms of hunting for my bike, I am preparing for a gig at London’s Frontline Club. The Club is a Mecca for both seasoned, aspiring to be seasoned, and actually aspiring hacks.

I have to do a ‘Reflections’ there on Monday – a sort of Desert Island Clips of stories and people that have influenced by short career thus far.

I was clipping up some Idi Amin, a bit of US hostages in Iran stuff, some death squads in El Salvador, Reagan/Gorby summits, something from our Iran Week, and Africa week, and Haiti.

Mike, the lovely guy who transferred it all onto DVD expressed amazement at it – I felt like something he’d just encountered in a musty old display case in the British Museum.

Hey ho another day is with us, and I haven’t a clue what it heralds, save that I know that it will end in attendance at the Prince of Darkness’s book launch.

The ‘Third Man’ has topped Amazon’s sales list even before it available. You could never have invented him – love or hate him (most who know him have managed both) you could never have invented him!