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It is almost 2006 and many things have changed.
We have moved John inside for example 鈥 not just because of the recent cold though that would have been reason enough but because it really is asking a bit much of a mature chap to spend long nights in the compound in the Blue Peter garden with only the moon to bay at and anyway the neighbours were complaining at the strange noises he made gumming small mammals to a state of injured stupefaction.
He now sits by the Today Aga in the chair vacated by Ephraim following his sudden, unexpected but cheering demise by spontaneous combustion. We assume John will not meet the same fate as his late friend but you never know and in any event the chair is ideally placed in the kitchen because it allows him to observe all without ever actually becoming involved in anything which is ideal for class 鈥楢鈥 grumping.
Jim is 鈥 we assume 鈥 approaching the end of a question he began in the third week of April and we are all looking forward to hearing its conclusion as is Sir Menzies Cambell to whom the question was addressed prefixed by the entreaty 鈥淐an I ask you this 鈥 and I鈥檇 ask you to be brief 鈥︹. It is strange how history turns out to be directed by these small things but it is quite possible that Sir Menzies Campbell would now be leader of the Liberal Democrats had he not been confined to a small remote studio in the Scottish highlands for the last eight and a half months.
Sarah and Carolyn have been pre-occupied with making little clay dolls with frizzy hair that look a bit like Gillian Reynolds and then doing odd things with them like plunging them head first into a pan of beetroot-based ragout bubbling on the Aga. They do this and other unspeakable things to the dolls while keeping up a low rhythmic susurration and sticking into them the pins that the saintly Ed had set aside for re-tailoring his new chasuble.
But you are right 鈥 they would have been much better occupied on something useful like painting some Today eggcups or working on the washing up backlog.
Some things have not changed.
Here, the house is still bounded on three sides by pasture and on the fourth by the river though now there is a new house a little way down the valley just after the place where the Crequoise swings a hissing 鈥榮鈥 under the valley road and by the place were they cut the plane trees a year ago. A little way in the opposite direction 鈥 up the valley 鈥 the next house is about four hundred yards away and it has been part converted into a toilettage canine which is exactly what it sounds like it is.
So the valley does not have a boulangerie, patisserie or epicerie but it does have a butcher and four cafes as well as a printer, somewhere you can buy solar heating panels, a place where they make centre-pieces for dinner tables, somewhere you can get your brake pads changed for 90 euros, a place where they grow redcurrants and press them into a fizzy alcoholic drink, an aesthetician and a lap-dancing dive though the last two are some distance apart and probably not connected in any way.
There is a light covering of snow and the nights are bright and starry and cold while the days are blue and pink and cold. The stove in the sitting room gets the inside temperature almost into double figures while the wood-fire in the kitchen just about stops the water freezing in the sink.
There is much to look forward to in 2006.
For a start, the days are already getting longer and therefore it should start getting warmer soon though judging from the number of confused trees that went unnaturally into bud and even blossom at the end of November and December spring could well be like an opening scene in one of those 60s sci-fi films where trees have gone into bud and blossom too soon and something very bad happens.
The best thing to look forward to in 2006 is that Nick Clarke will be back at the World at One later this year.
Another thing is that you will be working much harder for us. Actually you already work quite hard 鈥 thousands of you sent photos for our winter 鈥榗old-snap鈥 competition and thousands more took part in our 鈥淏est British Painting鈥 and Powerlist votes. And you send us around 200 emails a day which works out at about 75,000 a year which is a lot especially since only the programme team reads them.
We are grateful for every single one and they make a difference to what we do, how we cover stories 鈥 some of you are even kind enough to alert us to completely new stories that then make headlines. Many of your emails to us would hugely improve newspapers if they were published as articles instead of the tosh that you tend to find there these days.
So during 2006 we鈥檙e going to turn over a bit of our website to give you the opportunity to write your own carefully argued pieces about the news 鈥 our news and your news 鈥 and your editorials and columns will be up there for everyone to read and comment on.
We鈥檒l also be asking you to help us hunt down those who try to get away with the little fibs of public life 鈥 that slight misremembering of history, that misleading figure, that overblown claim. 鈥楾oday Factcheck鈥 will be the place you alert us to something that doesn鈥檛 add up and we鈥檒l put the best brains in the 91热爆 onto it to try to pin down what the truth is.
Two other things that will make 2006 a year like no other 鈥 the conclusion of Jim鈥檚 question to Sir Menzies Campbell and with God鈥檚 help the arrival of your Today eggcups.
Kevin
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