Saturday

Cold and grey - lots of snow at the top of the hill, much less down below at the bottom - more due later - but I could really do without it. The light has that odd, sinister quality that makes me nervous. The dogs like it - don't know why - even with their coats on, their feet must be freeing.

I'm pretty angry about the Lance Armstrong thing - it's so dishonest. I know that the Americans view celebrity and success differently to us, but really - it's clear that he's re-inventing himself cynically as a new kind of heroic underdog, and will fight his way back to rehabilitation and back to the 'winner' he wants to be - and Orpah is pretty complicit in this, getting all the bad stuff out of the way in the first 30 seconds, and then looking at the pain HE has felt and how HE wants to make amends, the strain on HIS kids and HIS charity - no thought for the people he destroyed, he say's that he wasn't the only person abusing drugs and it wasn't a big deal - that's because he created a culture of dishonesty and bullying. The camera loves him, he can re-cast himself into the flawed hero mode and be back at the top table in 18 months. Bastard.

Read all the papers, nothing of note once you filter out all the snow stuff. Interesting if lightweight article about the high street here and a reasonable if, again, lightweight article about book design here.

Time to clean house, do the washing and settle down for work.