Friday 13th October

Staying in hotels is always a bit pot luck.  The facilities advertised are always the same but the actuality varies.  Sadly disappointed in the past, we now take our own supply of tea bags and milk.  I sometimes wonder just what Hotels think when they give you two tea bags and two sachets of instant coffee and two tiny cream pots.  And an increasing tendency – paper cups….arghh.  So we had to buy two small cups as well.  And I had to nick a teaspoon as it is impossible to squeeze a teabag with a thin wooden spatula.  All rooms are advertised now with TV.  But we were in France and even though many visitors must be from the UK very few have any English TV.

In one hotel we had Bloomberg – which is just American business news and very boring.  In another only French and German TV.  Finally on the last night we found BBC World News.  But oh how disappointing that was too.  Nothing about the UK, nothing about Brexit or Politics or even Sport but long features on far flung lands, and sadly quite a bit of news from America.

But of course, I did have the internet and caught up a bit.  But somehow too I got out of the habit of devouring every scrap of news.  And you know what – the World still turns.  And the only bit of news really was Harvey Weinstein.  And who could possibly be surprised that in Hollywood, where there are literally thousands of hopeful young women desperate to be in the Movies, there are predators like Mr. Weinstein.  I am sure that far more than those who protested that they refused his advances, must have succumbed.  And maybe it wasn’t even a spoken deal, but almost a ritual, just the expected thing.  You sleep with the Producer and the Director and maybe you get a small part…

Hollywood was always like that, from Fatty Arbuckle to Errol Flynn. What I find amazing is how all his so-called ‘’friends’ are now deserting him.  Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but they must have known what was going on.  After Trump and ‘Pussygate’ it must be the biggest open secret that to get on in America that is what you end up having to do.  The rich and powerful doing what they can and the poor doing what they must.  As Trump himself would tweet…”Sad guy. I’m gonna sort him out soon, just after I’’ve done with Korea.”.