Thursday 4^th August – ‘Gingers Do Have Souls’ You Tube star Michael Kittrell has re-emerged after several months with another video that is expected to go viral, this time to come out as transgender. Now calling herself Claire she says this is the hardest video she’s ever made. We found this surprising. Accepting you’re a ginger can’t be topped!

    Selfridges has opened for Christmas! Their ‘Shine On’ winter wonderland takes up a large part of the fourth floor. With only 145 shopping days until Christmas it seems the obvious time to do this. They say that the launch is mainly due to the enormous demand from foreign tourists who like snap up festive souvenirs. Their first Easter Eggs will be available in November but check the sell by dates.

    Friday 5^th August - a Black Lives Matter campaign obstructed a key entry road to Heathrow this morning.  Protesters lay in the road and stretched a banner across to block it. The campaign has spread from the US following the shootings of black citizens. While being sympathetic, not our problem seems a reasonable response since the shootings didn’t happen here. Yet the protesters chose to cause chaos for people travelling to holidays during the busiest time of our year. Clearly other lives don’t matter to the protesters. We see it as a similar reaction to the rent a mob crowds that hit the streets given any hint of a reason. Any sympathy we might have for the campaign will disappear pdq if this sort of protest spreads. And irate travellers who get a couple of weeks holiday each year and find day one being ruined might decide to make a physical point. Who could blame them?

    Saturday 6^th August – the first team of refugee athletes received a standing ovation at the opening of the Olympics in Rio. The team of ten can be supplemented by any other runners that arrive on the beaches or in the backs of lorries.

    Offstead chairman David Hoare will probably avoid The Isle of Wight when planning his holidays. His comments about it containing ghettos and suffering inbreeding haven’t gone down well. As a consultant with Bain he must be used to making judgments based on analysis. We dread to think what will come out if he visits Norfolk!

     Asda have introduced new signs for their disabled toilets. They show men, women and wheelchairs with wording underneath that says ‘not every disability is visible’. It should avoid the occasional confrontation when someone comes out without any obvious disability. ‘I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours’ should become a thing of the past. Hopefully so anyway, since I’ve barely recovered from hearing a gentleman offer to reveal his colostomy bag.

   Sunday 7^th August – the weather forecast has encouraged me to take a few days off, hence the early post. But like General Douglas MacArthur said about the Philippines, ‘I shall return’.