No More Cake

We took a cake round to K's. I'm not saying it was a bad idea- exactly- but John was the one who loved cake and the rest of us could happily do without- Ailz and K because they're supposed to be dieting and me because I'm really not that fond of the stuff. Next time we'll do something different.

Specifically we'll pick K up from home and take him into Manchester. He's restless. He doesn't like being in the house if he can be somewhere else

He gave us a couple of books that had been John's. As keepsakes, perhaps, but more, I think, because he wants rid of the reminders. If we hadn't taken them they'd have ended up on a charity book stall.  He was making a point of sitting in what had been John's chair. "I don't want to create a shrine," he said.

Stuart Hall

The Mail had a quote from Stuart Hall's autobiography. Apparently as a young man he turned down the chance to become a professional footballer because the wages wouldn't have been enough "to keep me in tarts and fags".

Tarts, fags- same thing really- two of life's little pleasures.

Is that his view of women? I suppose it must be, because if he saw women as persons I don't think he could have done the things he did and lived to 83 being all jolly and such.

Did he never feel a twinge of self-disgust? Never feel tempted to put a gun-barrel in his mouth?

His youngest victim was 9. 

It's For Charity

Stuart Hall's son says he should keep his OBE because of his charity work.

Yes, says Ailz, but he used his charity work as a cover- just as Savile did. It made him look good and it gave him access to potential victims.

My father-in-law was a Mason. If you challenged him about Masonic skullduggery he'd say, "Yes, but the Masons do a lot for charity."

As Dr Johnson almost said- and might have said if he were around today, "Charity is the last refuge of a scoundrel."