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I never did understand what people saw (or heard) in Mariah Carey’s music, so I’m not surprised her last album didn’t sell well. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, though, it appears I’m in the majority this time: ‘The spectacular failure of Mariah Carey’s album Glitter has contributed to the sacking of 1,800 workers at music giant EMI…’

In other news, CNN reports that George W Bush wanted to send Oprah Winfrey to Afghanistan. It’s not April 1st until tomorrow, so it must be true. Anyway, she turned him down.

With any luck Kilroy will do the decent thing and go instead.

CNN opened another story with:

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) — U.S. President George W. Bush worked the phones from his Texas ranch early Saturday

They make it sound like something he’s been trying to get right for quite a while…

The Queen Mother died this afternoon, which is probably very inconvenient for the government’s new driving-while-sleepy campaign. One of the ads says there is no better way to die than in your sleep with all your family around you (unless you’re all in the car and you’re the driver). And how did the QM die?

In her sleep with her family around her. Not in a car, obviously, but still a little tricky.

The Royal website has a very short press release:

THE FOLLOWING ANNOUNCEMENT IS ISSUED BY THE PRESS SECRETARY TO THE QUEEN

The Queen, with the greatest sadness, has asked for the following announcement to be made immediately.

Her beloved mother, Queen Elizabeth, died peacefully in her sleep this afternoon, at Royal Lodge, Windsor.

The announcement was only made an hour and a half ago, but already the memorial website is up and running and the Government’s News Coordination site has changed its front page to reflect the news and provide a list of links. Like the biographies and tributes in the media they must both have been prepared in advance and updated on a periodic basis.

It only struck me after a few hours that of course this is the day we have all been talking about for a long time, especially in the media. It has been said that the death of the Queen Mother would be a career defining moment, and that most news editors prayed that it should not happen on their shift. Get it right and all is fine. Get it wrong and it is the one thing you’ll be remembered for.

The fabled wardrobe of black dinner jackets sitting idle at the BBC, wrapped in plastic to keep them clean for the evening the corporation would have to show its loyalties does not seem to have been opened … yet. But a lot of the other predicted measures have certainly come to fruition.

The radio stations have all adopted a universally bland music policy. QVC has gone off air and replaced its usual programming with a static graphic announcing the death, much like they did when Diana died. Radio 2 is taking Radio 4’s output. BBC 1 is showing the BBC News 24 (or is it the other way around?) Radio 1 is playing relaxing, mellow music. No jingles. Newsbeat is downbeat. LBC is doing its usual sterling job of news and comment.

As for me… Paul and I got up early so we could get on with the painting. Paul got down to the kitchen first and by the time I arrived was having misgivings about the colour not matching the tiles. It looks fine to me, though, and I said as much.

So, we skipped breakfast, which he got on with gloss and I gave the walls a second coat. We broke for sticky fudgy cake at 11, then continued working out way around until we got back to the points from which we’d respectively set out. It was at that point I made my excuses, showered and set out to get on with the other jobs of the day, leaving Paul with the ceiling, the tidying up and the remains of the chocolate cake.

I headed out first to Freeport to buy jeans. I also wanted to have a look at some shoes I’d been trying on the last time we went but didn’t end up buying because we got sick of the rain and came back home.

It turns out they were as good as I remembered, so I bought them then headed out in search of jeans, the real reason for my visit and in the end, it was a very successful trip. I’d never noticed before how good Freeport is for jeans and I found a pair in my size in a very fetching dark green. Quite combat like, only without the pockets.

I brought them home, along with two new t-shirts, and so began an expensive afternoon.

I wanted to wash them so I could wear them for the pub tomorrow night. It’s so rare I buy new clothes it seems a shame to put them straight in the cupboard. So, to clear drying space on the doorframes I put yesterday’s washing in the tumble dryer and went to read my email.

I took it out twenty minutes later and my white t-shirt had turned brown.

My dryer has always run a little hot but I think that the first sun of summer has turned it a bit mad, and it’s scorched everything. Only one thing for it - it would have to go. So, I logged on to Comet and found another at a reasonable price with more functions and before I could talk myself out of it I clicked ‘buy now’ and ticked the boxed for installation and removal of the old machine.

It’s coming next Saturday.

In a sad and geeky way I’m actually quite excited about it. I shall have to save up lots of washing to test it out.

So, shopping spree well and truly over I packed my boxes and bags and moved out for the week to mum’s where I’m cat sitting. They’ve gone off to the Dales until next weekend for their annual trip to see the rain of County Durham.

The telly is still wall-to-wall memorials. I can see the Scrabble board coming in handy this week.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 30th, 2002 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.