Suspense: Joseph Conrad

 A high-minded young English milord (who is more interesting than this brief description makes him sound) arrives in Genoa in February 1815. Napoleon is in exile in Elba- just across the water- and (I'm paraphrasing here) makes a third wherever two men come together.  He meets again with a French girl he knew in childhood (possibly his half-sister) who is now married to a parvenu Piedmontese Count. They fall in love. Almost everybody else he meets is an agent- secret or acknowledged- of some faction or other and those who are not active agents are spies. He falls in with a bunch of carbonari- Italian patriots who aspire to create an Italian empire with Napoleon at its head- and has a night-time adventure involving boats...

And at this point Conrad dies.

As far as it goes it is a wonderful book- full of atmosphere and feeling and vivid personalities. 

A Change of Perspective.

 Ailz and I walk round the garden admiring the plants and what they're up to- just as my parents and their friends used to do. When I was a kid those perambulations used to bore me silly. Why look at green things when you could be duelling with bamboo canes- something that adults- inexplicably- have no taste for....

Grown-ups Are So Weird

 Another really boring thing grown-ups like to do is sit around and talk about other grown-ups- mostly ones whom aren't present- which makes the  exercise highly speculative- and what's the point of that?

They also like to talk about things that happened ages ago and so can't be helped.

One has to feel sorry for them. They have no idea how tedious they are. It's tragic, really 

Not To Worry After All

 The Internet is a place people go to let their hair down.

And among the things they do when letting their hair down is say mean things about politicians and the actions politicians would rather keep secret.

So when a politician-  Jeremy Hunt for instance- talks about regulating the Internet in the interests of morality and keeping children safe and their parents free from worry- I suspect him of ulterior motives.

But I comfort myself with the thought that politicians- Jeremy Hunt for instance- are old and slow and the upcoming generations so very much smarter.

It Continues

 The April heatwave continues. It got very heavy yesterday afternoon- when Mike and I were playing piggy-in-the-middle in the garden with Ivy- and it rained a little in the night- but the threatened thunderstorms didn't happen. Today has been a little cooler- with a pleasant breeze. We were told to expect two summery days and have now had five.