Attacked by savage feminist

A woman who knew me in Paris now lives in Chicago and keeps a feminist blog endlessly attacking anyone who thinks that some men aren't all that bad. She apparently reads my other blog sometimes and has just emailed to ask me why I don't write more about feminist issues.
Simple: I like men and don't share her view that we women always get the worst of everything. I guess maybe she's not been lucky that way. This could be because (as far as I remember) she looks rather like Rod Steiger in drag and is very very boring.
Oh, and she says I am patronising about Pieface. Maybe, but he loves us and we love him so the hell with her.

The Constant Gardener

Here's a lovely picture of old Pieface who looks after our garden at Malibu. He has 14 children!

Message to London

I've been in touch recently with an English teacher in London who is having a lousy time at present. She still writes with humour and good sense and is clearly a very brave person who will overcome what she currently faces. Here is a nice picture for her called "The Cellist" and I send her my love and every good wish.

Le Château de Frontenac

Seeing this lovely picture in the LA Times has reminded us of our honeymoon in Quebec.

It was taken just near where we stayed.

What an extraordinary hotel! Chintaman says he only remembers the food but I bet he remembers much more.

Farewell for now

There's been no time to blog for a while and it's clear that the next few months are going to be even more bousculée so I'm dropping this one for a bit. The other two will continue whenever I have material for them.
Chintaman says a woman of my age has no business running three blogs anyway.

Surprise visit

Daddy flew in from Washington today and will stay till Friday. He looks more like a saint than ever, but still drinks too much!

Heart-warming

I must record the fact that I have had a very encouraging response to what I have been writing recently about Iraq (in other blogs and in Soleiman Al Turk's excellent website). Of course there were a few of the usual muddled ramblings from the kind of redneck who hates Europeans and thinks he understands the Middle East because he once met an Ay-rab (these usually proudly flaunt the signature Anonymous), but the great majority were written by Americans with wide knowledge of Iraq based on experience and study. Not all of these agreed with me, but all respected my non-American viewpoint and made useful contributions to the well-informed debate we are having. I have learned much from these responses.This makes me more than ever certain that C and I were right to settle here and we have virtually abandoned the half-formed idea about returning to Europe which we conceived after Dubya was re-elected; after all, nearly half of all Americans despise the present administration as much as we do, and a very high proportion of these seem to live near us; we really feel among like-minded friends here.

The Bush/Kerry thing

It's all getting quite exciting now, isn't it? I can't wait to get at the LA Times every day to see the latest poll results.
Actually I'll be home in Greece visiting my mother on 2nd November. Guess I'll stay there if Bush gets back.

Second thoughts

I don't think I'll keep a journal after all. I wouldn't be able to write it every day and it would worry me when I got behind. So I'll just have a surf around from time to time and leave comments (polite ones of course) in other people's blogs.

Maybe I'll just quote something from yesterday's LA Times which cheered me up:
Most voters who stay undecided until the very end of a presidential campaign traditionally break for the challenger. As a result, challengers often run ahead of their final poll results, while incumbents rarely exceed their last poll numbers.
So Bush's very small lead in today's polls may not mean very much.

Starting today

I am going to put down here things that interest me, that's whenever I get the time. At the moment I have so many things going on - business, domestic, romantic, academic, family - that there is never a spare second. But I like it that way.