What do you write about when you wake up in the morning and find out that one of the great men and statesmen, and iconic figures of our collective lifetimes has died overnight...?
I was all ready for a bit of a whinge.
Yesterday had not gone well, what with spending much of the day wrestling with the mysteries of my shiny new work telephone which managed to bamboozle and annoy me in equal measure when I couldn't see the point of it.
On the same another project that I'd been up against it to complete in the available time collapsed into the mire meaning that it's going to need a major revamp in absolutely no time at all and it will all need redoing and the pressure is going to be very much on for the next few days.
Meanwhile the country was being battered by a massive storm which found us all suffering in 75 m.p.h. winds and lashing rain and wondering what damage we might all get home to find, assuming, that is, that we would get home at all.
I had to travel over to Warrington because the Beloved had another appointment with her osteopath and, because the only route I knew involved the motorway which had turned out to be closed because of lorries being blown over and the roof flying off the "Chill Factor", I had to find another one and head out into the darkness and the chaos without really knowing whether I'd get to where I was going.
After a four hour battle, we finally made it home to the mild disappointment that the Royal Mail seem disinclined to deliver the several parcels which now appear to be massively overdue, and that Barry Jackson, the actor who played the pathologist on "Midsomer Murders" had died, and I went off to bed feeling thoroughly miserable with pretty much everything about my little world on the fifth day of December, 2013, and with the sure-fire sense that I'd wake up to find Australia still batting with over 500 runs on the board.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the strange cyberverse, there was a slight sign of a silver lining as the work telephone, which had spent all day resolutely refusing to have a working connection to a network, finally lurched into life, and when I did wake up, it was to discover that Australia hadn't quite got to 500, but they did so within half an hour.
But of course none of that matters now.
Nelson Mandela has died and nothing about our world seems as if it's going to feel quite the same ever again...
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, July 18th 1918 - December 5th 2013
I had to travel over to Warrington because the Beloved had another appointment with her osteopath and, because the only route I knew involved the motorway which had turned out to be closed because of lorries being blown over and the roof flying off the "Chill Factor", I had to find another one and head out into the darkness and the chaos without really knowing whether I'd get to where I was going.
After a four hour battle, we finally made it home to the mild disappointment that the Royal Mail seem disinclined to deliver the several parcels which now appear to be massively overdue, and that Barry Jackson, the actor who played the pathologist on "Midsomer Murders" had died, and I went off to bed feeling thoroughly miserable with pretty much everything about my little world on the fifth day of December, 2013, and with the sure-fire sense that I'd wake up to find Australia still batting with over 500 runs on the board.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the strange cyberverse, there was a slight sign of a silver lining as the work telephone, which had spent all day resolutely refusing to have a working connection to a network, finally lurched into life, and when I did wake up, it was to discover that Australia hadn't quite got to 500, but they did so within half an hour.
But of course none of that matters now.
Nelson Mandela has died and nothing about our world seems as if it's going to feel quite the same ever again...
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, July 18th 1918 - December 5th 2013
No five gold rings on this 'fifth day' Martin. Sad news, my own small tribute was written last night and will follow later in my habitual way.
ReplyDeleteThat's just it, though, isn't it…
DeleteIt's too big a topic to ignore and makes all of my other gripes and grumbles (of which there are MANY) seem even more insignificant than usual…
The problem is, though, that anything I found to burble on about would just show me up for the ignorant idiot I undoubtedly am...