Dru, Steinbeck and the Book of Deer

Dear Juliet Hi honeybun! I did have two calls this evening but unlike a redshirt in Star Trek , I'm back safe. So I think I'll take a small risk and say this: I'm really not a redshirt, and I will return from London without a scratch. God help the British government, though! A minister and a defence secretary have just resigned so you'll probably see the latest UK government collapse just as I'm pulling out of Victoria coach station. Happy days ... Anyway, the fact that you're loved for who you are, good and bad bits included, is pretty much carved in stone for all eternity. A book's permanence and longevity is one of the few absolutes. I regularly handled print-only books which were nevertheless four or five hundred years old at Corehouse. I even sometimes sum up Dear Miss Landau as the Daleks: no matter what you do, one of the little buggers survives somehow... I'm afraid it's forged in titanium for all time that you were truly loved for who you ...

Dear Juliet Sorry, few things to do (including work), but I should be back in by about 2.30 pm your time. I haven't forgotten you and I'm not going to. Love James

Dear Juliet If past is prologue, and the world but a stage... I can't speak for Tony, but there's something you should know. Something so straightforward, simple and yet profound you may never have thought of it. A book is forever. Dear Miss Landau exists in ebook and audiobook format as well as paperback. It's not going to go out of print in our lifetimes and probably not at all. I've known I had literary immortality for years, but that's not important. What is important is this: There are literally generations yet unborn who will read Dear Miss Landau and know that, despite your imperfections, you were truly loved. They will know you were the best gal in all the world, that when fatigue crawled through my limbs like slow-moving rust and I was weary to the bone, I got up and went on for you. For that woman I knew, and did not know, and loved. That I'd crossed an ocean and three thousand miles of land to reach you, and now I'd come down to the sea and it w...

Dear Juliet I know you're very sorry about Tony and you're under the duvet. If that's where you want to be, okay. Just one thought for today, it's in the photographs juxtaposed below. Just try to imagine you're there, time has stopped and tomorrow is another day. I hope this helps. Love, James

Dear Juliet How are you? I haven't got much of a theme for today except a meditation on the everyday. Off to Open Door at the church, I'll light a candle for Anthony in the lady chapel (see below), four calls as part of my job tonight. Not driving today, so I'm not going to have to worry about the Range Rover-obsessed maniacs clogging up Shropshire's roads. London is looming on the horizon and Kier Starmer is hiding under his desk, knowing that when I arrive his government will fall in an apocalyptic orgy of destruction reminiscent of the sack of Rome by the Visigoths and the Vandals in 410 and 455 A.D. respectively... Ah, the glory that was Rome, and at times like this I get nostalgic for the good old days in the arena at comic-cons . You were my Empress and I loved standing before you. I always rather wanted to say: "Ave, Julia Drusilla , we who are about to die salute you!" Well, maybe one day. My little trip probably won't get that violent, but the Mak...

Dear Juliet More precisely, I have not forgotten, abandoned or discarded you. You're worth a lot. I'll be along later with a full article, and I lit a candle for Tony in the lady chapel today. Love, James