Fuerteventura: Day 7

I am seated in one of those local locutorios where one can avail of inexpensive phone calls and the Internet. The connexion seems to be woefully slow; still, mustn't grumble.

The weather here is still wonderful. I've finished reading one of my P G Wodehouse books; and now I've begun Diaries Into Politics, by Alan Clark. AC died prematurely - such a shame. He has been irreplaceable as a parliamentarian in the Houses of Parliament; and doubtless his style and views would hardly be tolerated by the Leadership these days. Such a pity. Whilst he may well have been a bit of a bounder, AC held solid right-wing views on many matters which still irritate Timothy Belmont; viz., our membership of the EU, immigration and others. AC would have been utterly horrified at our circumstances today: those loony directives pertaining to Health and Safety, Fishing Rights ... it all infringes our erstwhile way of life and has been so detrimental to the country.

The only English-speaking channel I can obtain in my room is Sky News; and there has been wall-to-wall coverage, ad nauseum, of the Gately funeral. Why, oh why, is the media so obsessed with these kinds of celebrity funerals? Is it a reflection of some dysfunctional, national obsession? I became so bored with the whole thing, including Enya Brady's voice, that I switched the telly off.

One topic Sky did touch on was the "makeover" of Blackpool. I have never visited the resort, though I simply cannot resist a quotation from AC's diary about his trip there in 1973: "...appalling 'steak sandwich' at a roadside pub in Preston on the way back from the Blackpool conference. Isn't Blackpool appalling, loathsome...? Impossible to get even a piece of bread and cheese, or a decent cup of tea; dirt, squalor, shanty-town broken pavements with pools of water lying in them - on the Promenade - vulgar common 'primitives' drifting about in groups or standing, loitering, prominently...". Brilliant prose from AC. I really must start to borrow some of his phrases!