Only asking, like...

I was only asking...

...right? All I said was “what day is this jubilee thing, actually, because it seems to be going on a bit”. Maybe I could've phrased it better. “What day is the actual jubilee, because I'm really enjoying the celebrations and am fully behind their protracted nature.” But that would have led to some “I'm looking at him but who's that doing the talking” confusion. Apparently I should be grateful for the four days off. Later it occurred to me that three of the four were days off anyway.

On the morning of a night duty, the morning when Princess Di's car crash was all over every channel to the exclusion of all else, one of the guys said “haven't we had enough of this now? Palace were supposed to be the main game on Match of the Day”.

Anyway, what's good for wet bunting? A Royal jubilee in June. It's been sad to see the acres of soggy red, white, blue and red, white and blue paper tablecloths and empty tables here and there.

Stalker

A science fiction film by Russian director Tarkovsky totally devoid of any special effects whatsoever, but one that provides plenty of tension. The idea is that after something (presumed to be a meteor) landed, an area called the zone completely changed, and one room in an industrial complex in it had the power to grant the deepest innermost wishes of all who entered it. The military had set up an exclusion perimeter to the zone, and people paid Stalkers to get them through the security and to the room.

Beautiful and compelling, strange and weird, a fantastic film.

A suicidal squirrel

The dogs love a squirrel patrol. Their success rate: zero, in about seventeen million missions to eradicate the woods of the menace that is the grey squirrel, they have given chase then stood around looking up at trees, then moved on. Today they chased one, then got very excited at the foot of the tree. I watched in disbelief as the squirrel actually started climbing downwards, towards them. They were looking at each other in a mixture of incredulousness and extasy. A suicidal squirrel. Finally a success. This can't be happening.

At the last minute the squirrel's survival instincts kicked in and he made a jump for it. He landed about two feet away from black dog. Lucky boy. Two yards in range of white dog and he'd probably have been toast. Black dog's reflexes are not so sharp. Not sharp at all, really. Blunt, in fact. Two inches away from her would probably have been sufficient to make good his escape. Double lucky, black dog got in white dog's way and slowed her down just enough for him to reach an identical tree to the one he'd eschewed taking refuge in, and he bombed happily up this one to safety.

The dogs seemed pleased too, not too dispirited by the near miss and happy to continue with their mission, motivated by their near-success.