Read with care

I do wish people read my scribbles with my care. I complained about friendly fire, only to be accused of suggesting that friendly nuclear bombs had been dropped. That was not the case - there were different sentences.

Why don't folk give me an answer to my hay fever instead?

The experts are suggesting it may be genetic (not in my family) or the lack of exposure to pollens as a child (I was born surrounded by fields, walking through the grass every day of my life).

Pollen may be the irritant but I suspect it has more to do with my susceptibility, which may have been heightened because my body is now subjected to an inordinate number of strange chemicals. One researcher suggests that a new chemical is introuduced every 20 minutes. The east of England, where I live, gets all the rubbish carried in the wind from the rest of the country, especially London which is just 70 miles due west.

Again, so I read, southern Britain has some of the worst air pollution in Europe, if not elsewhere.

And another of my critics wants to know why I want to live elsewhere.

Peregrine Worsthorne, a noted columnist, now says that he is no longer in love with England. I agree. The place is going to the dogs.

I've spent the day talking to the Arts Council. They award money to artists. The system is so bound up with red-tape that they have lost all vision. It would be more productive, and cheaper, to give any artist who asked a small sum of money, a few thousand, and see what they produce.

Control should come after the event. Not before. How can imaginations soar when the artist must be able to describe the potential market for their work, and have an established reputation before awards can be made?

A new Age of Enlightenment is not likely.