by Yesterday when I called Mum and Dad – I’m doing that a lot at the moment – Dad was pulling his hair out trying to get his Skype transferred to Teams. A good sign, I thought, if you’re worried about that rather than Mum’s health. Conversation then turned to Rory McIlroy’s play-off win in the Masters and a packet of coffee beans that Mum showed me with an annoyingly pointless Māori translation on it (Pīni kawhe; there’s no B in Māori, so they use P, its voiceless counterpart). More good signs. Then they talked about actually booking a flight to the UK for 22nd May and luggage allowances and all that stuff. (They’re scheduled to arrive in Timișoara on the 8th.) Mum was looking good once again, and seems to be more regular now. She still mentioned nausea, and hasn’t played golf (which was always a given in her life) for some time. No guarantees of course, but things are much more positive than two weeks ago when my brother had almost accepted that we wouldn’t be seeing them.
Big news from the snooker qualifying. I mentioned last time that Jackson Page was in line for a bumper payout if he could somehow make a second maximum break. Well, he went and did it in the same match. Nobody had ever made two in the same match before. One of the commentators was left practically speechless. For Page, who is ranked 35th in the world and is just 23, that £147,000 (plus various other assorted prizes) will be life-changing. I stayed up last night to watch two matches (at the same time) that both finished 10-8. In one of them, Matthew Stevens got over the line after the lightning quick Thai player Thepchaiya Un-Nooh went for a kamikaze shot on a red. Today and tomorrow the final-round qualifiers take place. The spectators in Sheffield pay just £12 for a day’s action – such great value. It reminds me of qualifying for grand slams in tennis. I really wish I’d seen Wimbledon qualifying when I was younger. I had no idea of what drama can unfold until I saw Australian Open qualifying one time (for free).
A wet day today. I called Mark’s car mechanic guy but he said he’ll be on holiday until 5th May, so I’ll just leave it until then. There are many reasons to like my car, such as its Frenchness (I’ve always thought French cars are cool), its age (it pre-dates the era when “everything’s computer” as Trump put it), and its incredibly low fuel consumption. I really hope it survives.
Encouraging news on the book front, which I’ve sort of neglected of late. I have a recommendation from somebody Dorothy used to know, and may also have a second one. That should increase the chance that it gets accepted by the Minister of Culture. (I still don’t properly understand all of this.)
Trump called the latest Russian attack on Ukraine “a mistake”. It really is a case now of “make America go away”.
