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NAKED WILLY – Sept /Oct

I keep getting correspondence concerning the Daily Telegraph and ‘concern’ is the correct word. What people cry is happening to this once great newspaper and what am I going to do about it and especially about the Weekend. I have to say that I seldom see the paper now. but it is writ plain that the DT is swinging to the left. I mean it is impossible to pick up a copy without Mrs Blair’s ghastly rictus leaping off the page and attempting to sink its teeth in your carotid. It is obvious in many ways that the Editor is trying to suck up to Blair. Why this should be, I cannot tell, unless he has already realised that the skids are under him and he is trying to crawl into ‘The Tent’ and crawl out the other side with some nice fat quango stuck up his arse.

As for the Weekend, forget it, which is simple enough to do, as it is very forgettable. This unhappy state will maintain as long as that sad person is running it. It would be very unfair of me to divulge her nickname, which might be ‘The Chocolate Tea Pot’.

I have never met the DT Editor but I have now seen his pic in the paper and he should never have allowed himself to be photographed. The eye, they say, is the window of the soul. The first thing I look at in a horse, a dog, or a human, is the eye and all I can say about Mr Newland is that if he was a horse, I would certainly not buy him. Come to think of it the sad Weekend person also has a ‘sleekit’ eye. I would not buy her either.

I have spent the last couple of weeks in a sort of haze, as a result of having a general anaesthetic. I had forgotten how ghastly and long lasting the effects can be. Not least amongst these is the most profound and painful constipation. By the fourth motionless day I felt as though someone had stuck a breezeblock up my arse. So intense was the discomfort that I went to the casualty dept. There I met a breezy and very competent doctor, who rubbed his hands and gave me some things:

“Industrial strength,” he said – “clear out a road drain.”

“And do I swallow them?”

“No you fool, you stick ‘em up your arse!”

So I did and … Hooshyerbugger!

I was reminded of Arica Nut. Arica Nut powder was the great specific for worming hounds in the old days. It looked a bit like cocoa. You mixed the powder with ‘oil of Buckthorn’ and lard and made up little balls about the size and shape of a chocolate truffle, which they closely resembled. So similar were they that my brother in law as a young MFH had been mixing up a batch of Arica Nut balls (they were administered by opening the hounds mouth with one hand an sticking the ball down the back of the throat, with whatever fingers you might have left on the other (Like most of us, hounds do not enjoy being done good to) But back to the brother in law and his row of things that looked like chocolate truffles – so good did they look that when he had finished the batch, he absent mindedly licked his fingers – not a good idea. For the next few hours he nearly disproved the theory that perpetual motion is mathematically impossible.

October

October has passed in something of a whirl. I had three weeks of speaking engagements from Sussex to Ireland to Cumberland. What this meant in practice is that during that period, I seldom hit the pillow before 02.00, which is a bit late for an old man like me.

To cap all of that at the end of the month I had to go to London for my son’s engagement party and to dine with the future in laws. I was under a three-line whip to attend and to ‘behave, Dad!’ as if I wouldn’t. I did not even attempt to sing at the party and strenuous and devious plans are afoot to prevent me singing at the Wedding. I just don’t understand it! In Ireland and the Lakes I was encouraged to sing. What is the matter with people in London and Sussex? Just up themselves, I reckon.

Apart from that, things bodge along. We have had a very good cub hunting. Foxes are plentiful in most places and in very good nick. Foxes always do well in a wet summer – plenty of slugs, snails and other easy protein. Now the Opening Meet looms up, but that is for November.

I wish you all a happy and successful season