September 19-25, 2026
SATURDAY 19 The trauma that comes and goes around Donald Trump always seemed to blow over in the long term. But lately it has started to look like his second presidency is different, and in fact just the start of a sustained period in World history where chaos, disorder and turmoil are the natural order.
📌 Cue the annual return to TV of Strictly Come Dancing, which prompted the discovery that a male ballet dancer is a “ballerino”. Which doesn’t soften the blow on the fact that the new series is so bad that I will most likely schedule something else to do each Saturday evening for the next 13 weeks.
SUNDAY 20 Grand intentions for what to do during my recovery from hip surgery have been thrown into chaos by an overwhelming daily urge to finish word puzzles.
📌 I do so look forward to going to bed at night because I know that every morning brings a new step on my road to recovery. Each day I can physically sense the six-inch wound closing.
MONDAY 21 Managed to get an appointment in a week’s time for a nurse to remove the gruesome metal staples from the top of my right buttock.
📌 Very disappointed to learn that there will be no Series 2 of the Prime comedy action thriller Ride Or Die, starring Hannah Waddingham as a menopausal serial killer. Hope it’s fake news.
📌 My Fallopian Jesus stitchwork has made it to the poster of Jennifer’s Secret Artist sales project.
TUESDAY 22
📌 It was tempting to follow the live coverage of Andy Burnham’s meeting with Donald Trump, and I did check before finishing that last sentence that it had not included homicide. But when you are nursing a big surgery wound, only an assassination would stop you momentarily from thinking about yourself and wallowing in self-pity. That and a message from my wife saying she once again had a smelly person sitting next to her on the bus.
WEDNESDAY 23 A wound-related trauma in the middle of the night left us both scrabbling around trying to salvage the situation, a moment of disturbance in which we both failed to wish each other a happy 38th wedding anniversary.
📌 Had my first encounter with Prince, Yvonne’s new ginger cat. He was sitting on the fanlight shelf above her kitchen window. He didn’t seem aloof or distant, as had been reported. I was doing my first post-surgery short walk and Prince miaowed gently as I walked past. I stopped to say hello and I will look out for him tomorrow. My relationship with Prince could become a metaphorical marker on the road to recovery.
📌 One of the great rewards of having my wife’s cousin Mike stay with us while appearing in A Month In The Country at the Donmar Warehouse is that he often comes home with bunches of fresh flowers routinely presented to members of the cast at the end of the show. Tonight the character Vera (Rachelle Diedericks) kindly donated her bouquet to our collection.
THURSDAY 24 There’s a new poll out that predicts Labour as the majority party in a hung parliament. I suspect Andy Burnham would take that offer happily. He likes friction and would revel in the chance to seduce old-school Tories into following him into whichever lobby he’s going down at any particular moment. It would also usher in the kind of collaborative coalition style of governing that used to be practised in countries such as Sweden and Denmark, and which he has the potential to be good at.
📌 Reinventing what counts as exercise is rather enjoyable. The number of different ways you can rhythmically move your legs and ankles in a half-doze stupor while lying on a bed or sofa listening to music and doing word puzzles is endless.
FRIDAY 25 The liquid morphine I have been prescribed as pain relief for my surgery will run out in two days, so those dreamy doses that bring instant relief will stop. Theoretically, the timing should overlap with normal recovery and oral painkillers should suffice for the rest of my journey down the Highway of Pain. Notice the double use of the word should in that last sentence. A heightened state of paranoia, and a small dash of melodrama, means I can’t help but imagine a case in which the overlap, like a bungling relay runner, is not successful and I’m left writhing in agony with no medication to turn to.
Read all of my scrapbook diaries…
PLEASE MESSAGE WITH ANY CORRECTIONS, BIG OR SMALL.
I am glad about your stitch work being selected. Here if such an artwork had been made about our Gods there would have been a riot !!! People have been brainwashed about religion in the last 12 years. Good you are recovering. Take care.
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I agree with you about Trump , his giant ego and his desire to destroy the world.
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