Overcoming my bad back to care for and about my children today and watching a troubled Cheltenham Gold Cup taking place in snow flurries as Wilson Silcott and others are convicted of the PC Blakelock murder by confessions only, rows emerge after unemployment figures are published and Lester Piggott is charged with more tax offences
Awake this morning to my normal tea, but with my back ache still troublesome as I tried to sit up in bed. I had stayed up a little later, watching football on TV last night and that did not help. Staggered through my morning routine and then down to breakfast with the others. Soon, Daniel left, fully equipped with his pencil case etc, for the maths exam. It seems that, instead of taking this paper this afternoon, he was given it this morning, which came as yet another surprise. I spent this morning continuing my desk work and actually physically clearing my desk out the same time.
For lunch, another salad – no meat and so cheddar and another type of English cheese with my pickled cucumber. Della was good and also ate a cheese salad as well. This afternoon I continued until finishing all of the work and making myself a pot of real (Darjeeling loose) tea to drink whilst reading the local newspapers. Then I took the portable TV to my office and watched the Cheltenham Gold Cup, raced in the snow flurries. Debbie stayed on at the school to do her country dancing and Daniel arrived home earlier than expected, as his examination timing allowed him to attend the St Neots Oxfam shop as usual. I thought he had not taken it at first. He seems to have done reasonably satisfactorily and in line with my 60-70% expectation, but we could be mistaken. At least he probably has a pass mark, with another paper to do on Saturday. This evening I insisted that Dan spend another 1 ½ hours browsing through the ‘O’ level text book I purchased him and also Debbie did another section of her Peak maths. I then tidied up my office and put everything away, which was quite a struggle with my back. My copier cartridge arrived today and my Mum still seems to be recovering steadily. Three men begin life sentences after their conviction of the murder of PC Blakelock. The Jury had been out for 54 hours, but eventually gave a unanimous verdict of guilty. The ringleader, Winston Silcott, had evidently been on bail for another murder charge, was convicted and is already serving a life sentence for murder. Two others, Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip, were also sentenced to life, but at least one of them was of poor intelligence and illiterate. Criticism of the police tactics and treatment of the black residents featured in the trial and October 6th was a bad, sad day for this country in general and Tottenham in particular. Certain youths were acquitted after the way in which they were interrogated by the police; tactics which were said by the trial judge to be illegal. There has been a sharp fall in the unemployment figures, down to 3,225,809, 71,000-odd down in a month. Opposition politicians accuse the government of ‘massaging’ the figures by including a figure of 5% for self-employed, excluding those on job creation schemes and pressurising the long term unemployed to de-register and eliminating 11,000 as being ‘not genuinely unemployed’. Guinness are now suing their former Chairman & Chief Executive, Ernest Saunders, for the return of countless millions, used to illegally support the company’s share price in the Distillers takeover campaign. Lester Piggott, the former champion jockey, has been charged with further detailed offences of income tax and VAT fraud and has had to repay millions of back tax to boot. The Cheltenham Gold Cup race was marred today by an earlier stand roof collapse (when 8 people were hurt, some seriously) and then snow storms delayed the race until early evening and it was very nearly abandoned.