Decisions Easy and Hard.

I had a phone call from Mel this evening. ‘Something urgent has come up,’ she began. She went on to explain that her cat had developed a condition which she’d been advised could be fatal if not treated quickly, and could she borrow £250 to pay the vet’s bill. She had a taxi booked to take her to the surgery because her car’s in dock at the moment. And so I went online and paid the requisite amount into her bank account and felt relieved that I’d finally been able to do something useful for the first time in a long time. Louie is very precious, you see, and still young. This is a picture of him as a kitten – irresistible, don’t you think.

 

And then I decided to watch the final episode of Inside Number 9, which has been entertaining me at the rate of one episode a night for the past eight weeks. Half way through the programme I entered a dreamlike state in which I was standing on a balmy tropical shore with the waves of an azure sea lapping gently against the golden sand and the air suffused with the combined aroma of pineapples and camel dung. Standing in front of me side by side were Cary Mulligan and Amanda Abington. They looked imploringly into my eyes and spoke as one: ‘Please take one of us as your own,’ they began, ‘for without you we can no longer revel in the pleasure of being alive. Which one of us shall it be?’ And then I turned into the Buddhist goat – you know, the starving one faced with two paths, each of which has a pile of food at the far end; the one that stands there wracked with indecision until it dies of starvation.