Day of successful BT financial investments and press interviews with Jane Bird of the Sunday Times and other coverage as a Labour party delegation visits the Soviet Union and Miners approach holiday pay deadline
A slow start in view of an office day ahead. A time in bed reading Pepys 1665 journals and then The Financial Times when it had arrived. A breakfast of melon and toast and then a quick wash and shave. Out to clean out the pigeons and replenish their food and water after a stormy, wet and windy night. They still seem to be thriving, but the older of the Indigo cocks and the Grizzle have set up their territory on the feeding tray and repelling all borders. I also let out the ducks and fed them before setting down to a couple of hours office work. I sort out my desk papers and reconcile my last two bank statements – working out how to purchase ¼ million British Telecom shares and sell some partly paid government stocks. I receive my Homelink Prestel Building Society pack today and start to ‘play’ with the facilities. Phone calls to Nigel Smith to compare notes on publicity – he tells me of some front page Computing coverage and I brief him on our dominance of this week’s Computer Weekly. We agree some action items for a new campaign to get a cross-party IT policy accepted for Micros and to use next month’s PITCOM meeting to start such an initiative. A call also to Jane Bird of The Sunday Times for briefing on a story. A letter from ICL this morning suggesting further meetings to discuss collaboration.
Soon it was lunch time and Di prepared some sandwiches and after I word processed some correspondence. Letters turning down Kimbolton School appeals donation and Barclays Life Assurance plan. Eventually I get to speak to Nicholas de Zoete, my stockbroker, and resolve the BT share applications and payments and so I can go to St Neots to pay a cheque into the bank and another into the building society. I check that at both The Abbey National and the Gateway they are able to draw my cheques for next week. On to the pet shop to buy some water dispensers and to newsagents to get the latest magazines. Home to find it is time to collect Daniel from school and so I finish my correspondence (including a cheque for £105,000 to de Zoete) and get Daniel to post them as we drive back. Home in time to feed and put away the ducks and a half hour on the Prestel set before a tea of sausages. The early evening putting press cuttings into our album, today’s journal and then to television and the news. Stories of a restart to East/West arms talks as one series breaks down the next will start in January of next year. Neil Kinnock led his Labour Party delegation to Moscow to arrive in a time of some optimism, but the UK Foreign Secretary warned against the expectation of sudden change. In Parliament, the supplementary benefit row continued – The Commons was suspended last night as 30 Labour members demonstrated. The coal strike comes to a head this weekend as the holiday offer ends.