Back again

Haven't posted anything for weeks, in fact haven't put hand to mouse since January. This is mainly because Tash and I have been staying with the d'Ascoynes at Aigues-Mortes, and lovely as their château is it has a mediaeval kind of electricity supply and Hugues doesn't have a computer. I never take my laptop to France - there are so many better things to do there than play with a keyboard.

Our friends, like many non-Parisian French and some Parisians, are not at all sorry about the 2012 Olympics going to London. If boar-hunting were in the program Hugues might be interested but I can't imagine Aglaonice wanting to watch any kind of sport. But we did all agree that the IOC was right to throw out baseball, which no-one cares about except Americans (though not us) and the ridiculous softball. Pity they didn't put squash in - even Tasha thinks this is a great game. Happily, that splendid sport ping-pong is still in - my English friend Tony has a great piece about it in his blog, here. He also gives a link to a post explaining its political significance.

Since we came back I have been looking at a few weblogs to see if I can find any interesting ones but had little luck; most are illiterate, self-obsessed or obscene, and just about the only one I found to admire is by a Palestinian boy who writes with remarkable restraint about his family's sufferings. His sister had her legs blown off by an Israeli shell and his father was shot, but he expresses no malice or self-pity, only a great and weary sadness and a determination to survive. He is 15.