Ok, so I haven’t written to you for a few days, didn’t phone, never called…

I’M ON ‘OLLLIDAY!!! ‘AVIN’ A REST!!!! ISS’ALLOWED!!!

Right, so having used up my years’ supply of exclamation marks in one (poorly constructed, verbless, grammatically evil) sentence, I’ll tell you why.

Because I’m ‘busy’. Really busy. Not in the normal sense of being in any way productive or a useful member of society or even a moderately helpful individual. None’a that. Just ‘busy’. When I’m not eating (which already reduces the available time by about 60%) I have duties to perform. Beaches to be sat upon. Rays to be caught. Granddaughters to be checked upon. And, for staying with my (very) old mate who’s lived in France for 25 years, there’s catching up to do, conversations to be had, reminiscences to be remembered or fictionally re-created, things to be done.

All the while whilst enjoying all that Israel has to offer a poor tourist. Most of which is by making him (or her, its certainly equal opportunity) much poorer than he was when he arrived. Not their fault. I blame Nigel fucking Farage. Because the pound has plummeted against the dollar (on which Israel’s economy is based) and the Euro, which is also important, our British coin of the realm is sodding worthless anywhere south of Dover. So the car park we’ve always used in Tel Aviv still costs the same 20 Shekels (NIS) that it did 10 years ago. And then it was ‘3 quid well spent’. Now its ‘good value for a fiver’. Even though strictly its £5.40. Food’s gone up. Wine has moved its price from ‘och’ to ‘vey’. All cos of the pound, cos of Europe, cos of Brexit, cos of Nige.

‘Historic sex offences’ were really trendy in the UK a few years ago, but really only a few late-coming losers like Ted Heath are still trying to get on the bandwagon. But over in the States, always a few years off-trend, Harvey Weinstein is having a pretty bad time of things. First Ashley Judd (oh but she was sooooo exquisite, back in the day) tells tales of how that nice Harvey (who I’m quite sure is every bit as lovely as a person as his appearance would suggest) made seriously inappropriate suggestions to her in a hotel room, using his not negligible weight, both physical and professional, to threaten her into actions that might have upset her and thrilled him. Then everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Cara Delevine have suddenly had ‘total recall’ moments making similar claims against the poor man.

Perhaps, like with footballer-chasing tarts, these women are just publicity-seeking honey-trap babes out for a quick ‘kiss’n’tell’ with the National Inquirer. Then you realise they’re superstars in their own right, needing neither the money nor the publicity, so perhaps there’s something in it after all? All Harvey really did was use his position as head of the casting couch to cajole a few women into sexual favours on the implied promise of film stardom. Is that such a crime?

Yes. I suppose it is. And when you look as ‘fetching’ as Harvey, he’s likely to get 10 years.

Happy Wednesday/Simchas Torah

A xxxx