A frustrating Comart Review Meeting in a smoky room with a cold coming on as Thatcher is still stubbornly refusing to treat with the GCHQ unions and Middle East tension rises with Iran/Iraq threatening each other over oil tankers in the Gulf.

A slow start as I read a number of reports in bed this morning. Eventually to rise for breakfast and after a quick wash and shave just in time to the office to finish preparation for today’s Comart Review Meeting. A more modest stock pool addition agreed with Ian Nickson for development (that would surely have been as large as I would have allowed) and also a sharply cut back budget of development expenditure agreed. The meeting itself was a great frustration. My organisation succeeded in getting the overhead projector lost and then smashed and finally broke both replacement bulbs. All this after I had prepared slides to make the meeting flow efficiently. Nevertheless the meeting was a good one with the principal missions and strategies understood for the CCL budget plans to proceed.

A day also for my cold to develop and become increasingly uncomfortable in the smoky atmosphere of three chain smokers. A few hours to clear the accumulated work from my desk and then home with my outstanding work. Little progress on it tonight as I watched Dallas and then the television news. Thatcher is still stubbornly refusing to treat with the GCHQ unions and Middle East tension rises with Israel reconnoitring Southern Lebanon and Iran/Iraq threatening each other over oil tankers in the Gulf. A milder day today with the barometer having fallen and the builders complete the outside brickwork and prepare to come inside tomorrow to work on the fireplace. 6 eggs from the ducks and, apart from my cold, the family is fine.