… I was wandering around Fredericton in New Brunswick when I came across a sign that said something like “on this spot in August 1894 nothing happened”.

And I remember another film that I once saw that included the line “in this village in 1853 a tree fell down, and the locals have talked about nothing else ever since”.

That’s exactly the kind of day that I’ve had today

It was another late night when I went to bed after everything that I had to do, and I was asleep even quicker than usual, which is one thing, I suppose.

But going to sleep earlier means that I awaken even earlier, which is a problem in itself but when it’s 02:15 that’s just ridiculous. Luckily I managed to go back to sleep again fairly quickly but not for long.

And that’s how it went on for the rest of the night. All in all it was quite a depressing way to try to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 it was a struggle to get to my feet. The room and the bed were spinning around much more rapidly than they usually do first thing in the morning.

They tell me that that’s due to low blood pressure, and I ought to be monitoring it. Regular readers of this rubbish will however recall that earlier in the year I did, and I have a notebook full of readings to prove it. But no-one ever told me what to do with the readings, and how to raise my blood pressure to an acceptable level and so it seemed like a waste of time

However once I was on my feet I staggered off to the bathroom to sort myself out and to have a shave – otherwise my face would qualify me to play bass for ZZ Top

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised by the amount of stuff on it. There was a big group of us who hung around together in the USA One was of course a nice girl. This girl and I became friendly, but not as friendly as I would have liked to be, which was a shame. She was being pursued by a guy who was a junior congressman but she wasn’t particularly sure why but she suspected that she might have made a good trophy wife and that was possibly maybe his interest in her. She wasn’t convinced that it was sincere and was just “politician’s bluff” and she tended to leave it. One day she, I, this politician and one or two of his friends were together. He engaged her in conversation and was busy chatting away with her. I could see that she was not enjoying the experience. I had a blackboard and some chalk so I was writing an account of what I was seeing, about this girl being chatted up by this junior congressman but she’s not happy in the least and he’s pushing things but wasting his time etc. While I was busy doing this I turned my back to them and carried on. The girl came to sit next to me and made one or two suggestions about the two of us going for lunch together, something like that. I was still writing this stuff about her and this congressman on the board then he turned up. He was most offended by what I was writing. He asked me if that was what I thought. I told him that it was so he asked if he was going to have some kind of grief from me. I told him that I didn’t understand what he means. It’s not my intention to resort to violence at any moment. What about anything else? He was pushing me then either to try to have some kind of response or try to goad me into making some kind of intemperate remark or doing some kind of intemperate reaction. I could see that unless I was very careful this whole situation was going to go South at a rather rapid rate of knots too quickly for me to be in any kind of control of it.

Here I go again, with a girl almost within my reach but not quite. And a situation rapidly escalating out of control through no fault of my own and there’s nothing that I can do about it. All of this has a very familiar ring.

Did I dictate the first half of this dream about this situation about people having to challenge about Health Insurance etc … "no you didn’t" – ed … but eventually the second part is that the get down and produce some videos showing escapers, getaways. I could see the one from my situation shown on this video so it looked as if the people concerned thought that they were getting away with it and evidently gave me a real incentive to fight even harder for justice. But as I say, although justice was eventually on my side, trying to have the Judge’s decision enforced was something far more complicated and is still awaiting implementation after all these years.

This sounds like a right load of gibberish but there’s an underlying truth in it, in that having Right, Justice and the Law on your side is all very well, but any decision that is made has to be enforced and the situation isn’t complete until enforcement is made. Any other interpretation of the situation is meaningless.

There had been some kind of museum display at a museum in Crewe. When we first arrived we couldn’t find out where we were going so we ended up going back home and borrowing a compass. Then we arrived again but the exhibit wasn’t going to be shown until the last hour so we all went back home again. At the end of the evening we all trooped off to the museum. The first thing that we did was to check the compass, how is it performing? Bang on! absolutely perfect! Once we had the museum hall in view we took a final check with the compass and sure enough it was exactly what we wanted. We walked into this building. As we approached the top of the steps someone began a conversation with one member of our party. He was telling us about Crewe Alexandra’s football match that afternoon. Their star defender had apparently scored an own goal, the second that he’s scored in as many weeks. He had a moan about it. One thing that I noticed was that this guy was blind so I turned to my friend and whispered to him “I suppose that his guide dog told him about the match” which did not go down very well but I thought that it was hilarious

So now I’m telling jokes – and good jokes too – in my sleep. I must admit that when I transcribed that little note I did have a good laugh. But it also underlines the fact that having a sense of humour is dying a death these days. Modern people won’t find it funny but I’m 50 years behind the times – a museum piece myself, if you like. I don’t belong in this modern World.

The nurse had a good moan at me this morning. I must have bled at some point because one of my trouser legs has a load of blood on the inside. She told me off and ordered me to wash them. It’s called “laying down the law” and I have to obey. She didn’t tell me what the “or else” meant.

After she left I had a leisurely breakfast, reading my book on walks around Montana in 1911 and 1912 and you’ll be surprised how interesting it is. The author was discussing the signing of the peace treaty with the native Americans 20-odd years before and had quite a lot to say on the procedure, especially about on how many of the obligations of the Government that were subsequently overlooked.

And then after a slow start to the morning I made a start on the next radio programme.

Actually, not the next one. I’d leapt a few dates because there are three or four weeks that are going to be really complicated. So today I decided to bite the bullet and attack one of them.

For that, I needed a pile of music that I didn’t have and so I’ve been tracking down obscure music from obscure groups, downloading it, converting it to an acceptable format, choosing selected tracks, remixing them and then pairing them off.

And then if that’s not enough, making a good start on writing the notes. I’ve not gone very far with that, and I could have done better had I not gone away with the fairies at one point. I’m actually impressed that I managed two whole days, Sunday and Monday, without crashing out at all after the events of Saturday.

My cleaner stuck her head in and gave me the cheese she’d bought for me at LeClerc. But it seems that the vegan cheese slices have disappeared off the shelves. So what’s going on here then?

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg. It might be simple fare but it’s nice and tasty and that’s what counts.

So having written my notes I’ll wash my trousers to keep the nurse happy and then go to bed

But talking of museum pieces and the like, My friend Liz seems to think that it’s appropriate that I’ve bought an apartment in an Ancient Monument. "You’re actually something of an Ancient Monument yourself" she told me.
"You’re too kind, Liz" I told her ."What you really mean is that I’m an old ruin"