July 3rd (Thursday)

Mugabe seems to have got it all his own way in Zimbabwe. The west grumbles, the Africans can do no more than express concern, and he can go home and carry on his reign of murder and torture untroubled by them all. It now seems the only hope for the country is to wait for the bastard to die. It's not just murder and torture though. The economy is a basket case, but no one can even afford a basket, a packet of fags going for $5billion today and probably double that tomorrow.
The scowling Scot gets his comeuppance at Wimbledon, blown out of site by the Spaniard Nadal. Apparently the final will be between Nadal and Federer, who has won for the last five years. It is reckoned though that Nadal can really give him a run for his money this year, and for the first time in years I think I might try and get to see the final.
A reply is received from Leicester. It's positive. A bit scary, but quite exciting too.
Something horrible has happened in London. In fact horrible things keep happening in London. Young people keep getting stabbed and shot to death. For a long while I just wondered if this was press hysteria, but as the list gets longer and the tales of tragedy accumulate, even my slow brain begins to wonder what's happening. Earlier in the week a young actor was killed in a knife attack, todays' news is yet more horrendous.
Police were called to a fire in New Cross. They found two bodies inside. Some time later it was discovered that the victims had been savagely attacked, one stabbed over 200 times. It turns out they were two french students on an exchange visit, doing no more than playing computer games when an intruder broke in. Having lived in their country for so long in my youth, and having so rarely worried for my safety, it's truly horrifying. Something is going wrong, and it requires some constructive and imaginative action. What we get is the hang em, flog em and stick em in the army response. That'll put an end to violence then.