Completely random Thursday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I yearn for coherence, but today I can summon none. Instead, I shall embrace the randomness.

1. Thing I am more upset about than I should be:

The egregiously ugly new redesign of the Oval Office. It is a jarring symphony of beige and caramel and taupe. It looks like a dentist's waiting room, and that's being quite rude to dentists. I spend half my life sticking up for President Obama, and this is what he does to me. You can see I am taking this personally. But really, LOOK:

Do you not just feel as if you are being suffocated in blandness? Why can't they have lovely red sofas and good lighting, like in The West Wing?

 

2. Thing I do not care about:

Whether William Hague is gay. I do, however, care that the BBC decided that was going to be its NUMBER ONE STORY on The World at One today. In the real world, Barack Obama is starting new peace talks with Israel and Palestine, there are food riots in Mozambique, and the Royal Bank of Scotland is sacking 3,500 workers. A prominent Catholic called Edmund Adamus has blamed gay rights for turning Britain into a 'hedonistic wasteland'; apparently, we are living in 'the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death', which is always reassuring. Three suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Lahore. It is Democracy Day in Tibet. Professor Stephen Hawking has said that God did not create the universe. And the best naughty old Auntie can come up with for its lead story is whether the foreign secretary is bi-curious?

 

3. Word I did not know, but do now:

Perissology. It means a superfluity of words, and I am going to use it every day from now on.

 

4. Naughty bit of internet gossip to which I really should pay no attention:

Apparently, Sarah Palin is a very bad tipper.

 

5. Slightly unexpected thing I am fretting about:

The future of cricket.

 

And now for some pictures.

I have never seen my mint flower like this:

I find myself profoundly surprised that my new blueberry bush actually has blueberries on it:

I am mesmerised by this fern; it looks as if it were designed by Hermes:

Some days I think I only really want blue flowers:

The lovely chestnut avenue, in the gaudy September sun:

It was so sunny that some basking went on:

And I think that's quite enough of all that.