November 8-14, 2025
SATURDAY 8 I do love the way in Mick Herron’s Zoë Boehm stories, the titular heroine does not dominate but is still forever active in the story. Zoë pops up at certain moments that at first seem a bit convenient to the suspense but are in fact rigorously consequential to the plot. The ensemble of “other people” in Zoë Boehm stories actually move the story more than Zoë does, but it is Zoë’s distinctive personality and voice that pervades the tone of the narrative. It is clever, subtle writing.
📌 Picture of the day…
SUNDAY 9 It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. An interview in the New Statesman with a former prison inmate describes how, due to staff shortages in Wandsworth Prison, he, the convicted fraudster, was put in charge of the register that monitored the whereabouts of each prisoner at any moment in time (eg, Wally in the exercise yard, Barry in the kitchen, etc).
📌 My wife’s appearance on stage at the Barbican for the annual Symphonic Gospel event was as pleasurable as ever, only minorly diminished by the trio of attention-seeking, hand-waving neo-baptist choristers in front of her.
📌 They could both be dead already for all I know, but Radio 4 Extra’s content at the moment seems to be the sole work of either Simon Brett or Paul Mayhew Archer.
MONDAY 10 There’s been a vicious right-wing culture-war coup at the BBC and the director general has resigned.
TUESDAY 11 I will be fascinated to see how the government handles the BBC coup controversy and Trump’s threat of legal action. It could be a defining moment. Stand up to Trump, protect the admittedly flawed BBC. That sounds like a plan to me, though by the end of the week I could be eating my words.
📌 Van der Valk was on our train back from Whitechapel after the launch of my Royal London Hospital/Headway/Vital Arts project in which I cut a ribbon with a very blunt pair of scissors and was asked lots of questions by various “comms” departments.
WEDNESDAY 12
📌 On the way to Gatwick Airport my wife noticed at London Bridge that she’d accidentally left a bag on a seat at Blackfriars Station. It contained all our cash euros for our holiday in La Palma and all of my wife’s medications for two weeks. The bag was still on the same seat when she returned to Blackfriars asap and we then proceeded to Gatwick with minimal time lost. And, more importantly, no money or drugs lost.
📌 Wearing shorts is prohibited in our hotel in La Palma.
THURSDAY 13 I accidentally carried a Swiss Army knife through security at Gatwick Airport. They detected it but accepted my explanation that it was part of my stitchwork toolkit and did not confiscate it.
📌 Some members of the Gatwick Airport staff refer to pilots as “drivers”.
📌 Our driver stated that Tui has a zero-tolerance of people lying or sleeping on the floor of the plane. We never even knew this was a thing.
📌 The scariest plane journey yet. As we came into land at La Palma, the wind turbulence was so fierce that our “driver” had to pull out of the descent, abort the landing just before we hit the runway, soar skyward and divert the plane to nearby Tenerife. I quite enjoyed this dramatic moment, but my wife was locked in a state of borderline hysteria, clawing at my clothes and gently sobbing on my shoulder.
📌 After four hours stranded at a Tenerife airport terminal the driver told us we would fly to Gran Canaria, stay there overnight and “hopefully” proceed to La Palma tomorrow.
FRIDAY 14 In Gran Canaria the Radisson hotel spa/resort they put us in last night is like a set from the satirical TV show The White Lotus, so vast and zoned that to enjoy it as a single experience is impossible. You could spend 2 weeks just working out where you go to get breakfast (which does at least include a free glass of cava).
📌 If you have read all the three previous books in Mick Herron’s Zoë Boehm series, you will know immediately at the start of book 4, the last in the series (at the moment), why Zoë isn’t dead… Yet.
📌 Screw-ups give birth to screw-ups. So it was at Gran Canaria airport for our short flight to La Palma. A disgruntled mob congregated at an international gate for what was technically an internal flight. The poor staff were overwhelmed but we eventually departed just after 1pm and arrived safely in La Palma half an hour later.
📌 Dining in a package holiday destination should be redefined as refuelling. The saving grace tonight was a selection of cheeses, which we were horrified to find did not include Manchego.
Read all of my scrapbook diaries…
PLEASE MESSAGE WITH ANY CORRECTIONS, BIG OR SMALL.
Billy's Scrapbook 