Catching up

Wednesday, I painfully went about the business of running several errands around town. It was painful as I was recovering from the Bikram (aka sweatbox) yoga class I took on Tuesday. So sore and ended up walking back and forth into Chiswick several times that day. On trip was to pick up two prints we finally had framed. Without a car, I had to walk them to the closest bus stop and I thought my arms (already hurting) were going to fall off!

Skip was working late Wednesday and Maddie takes the late bus home from German class that day. So when I picked her up (another long walk), we went to her favorite restaurant, Giraffe, for dinner.

Yesterday, I was the "Mystery Reader" for her class. To get there without a car required two trains and a taxi and took about an hour-and-a-half for a trip that takes about a half-hour in the car. My commitment to the value of public transportation is waning the longer it is my only option. The good news is that, to get home, I just hopped the school bus with Maddie. She thought that was pretty cool. I imagine that won't be true for much longer. I'll enjoy it while I can.

The news here is dominated by the "credit crunch", the hijacked oil tanker, the continuing crisis in Zimbabwe and the Strictly Come Dancing controversy. If you haven't heard about the last one, Strictly Come Dancing was the British precursor to the US Dancing with the Stars and it's a big, big deal here. This season, one of Britain's most beloved broadcasters and authors, John Sargeant, is on the show and is apparently not one of the best dancers. But he continues to get huge amounts of votes. This week, he decided to quit the show as he feared he might win and didn't think it would be fair. The BBC received so many messages on its web site message board it had to close down the site for fear it would crash. Fans accused the judges of bullying Sargeant and called for all of them to be fired. Sargeant, clearly no dummy, left with his wife for a cruise the day he announced he was quitting the show.

As for all that's going on in Africa, we get much more coverage here than in the US because of our proximity and the number of African immigrants here in GB. The situations in Zimbabwe and Darfur and Nigeria and other areas are just horrifying. And the problems are so massive, one wonders what can ever be done. But I do have to give props to George Bush. Skip told me about a news story once where Bob Geldhof thanked Bush for all he had done for Africa, and I did a little research to find that under the Bush administration the US aid money to Africa doubled. So I think I'll try to remember Bush as the President who vetoed the bill to abolish the clergy housing tax benefits and who helped Africa. I hope he will follow in the footsteps of Carter, Bush senior and Clinton and use his status provide aid for the people who need it most.