I made a slow to start today, with my headache and sore throat, to observe equally slow progress from the conservatory decorator and plumber but my Koi carp water tester fish started to eat pellets. Most of the day editing and laying out chapters of my book and then admiring, with the family, the terrific picture on our new television. The Clapham Junction train crash death toll is now estimated at 33 but evidence emerges of a prior known fault with the signalling system. Health Minister Edwina Currie is facing calls for her resignation over her egg comments at home, but PLO chairman Yasser Arafat is making progress with the UN and USA at the United Nations Assembly in Geneva.
I woke up feeling quite groggy again with a splitting headache due to my sore throat and cold and went down to a late breakfast after a struggle to get up and dressed. I was then disturbed by the arrival of the conservatory decorator who today sanded down the conservatory exterior and applied a coat of porous paint to it. The plumbers then came and took a whole day to connect the heating pipes to the boiler, and they still did not have the correct parts to complete the control system and will have to come back. My Koi carp ‘water testers’, the three pioneers, started to eat a few pellets today which is a good sign that they are very nervous of their new environment. I spent most of the day at my desk, editing the early chapters of my book and laying them out and typesetting them with room for the drawings and pictures that I will hope to include.
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I’ve been getting a good response from the consenters to which I had sent my forms but, as yet, not a single printer’s quotation is arrived back, even though I had three information course. The new television, especially, is quite a revelation and gives a terrific picture even on a poor aerial that we have. News tonight of the disasters in England and the USSR. Here, the death toll of the train crash has been reduced to 33 but already the causes put down to an obviously deficient signal and communication system whilst alterations are taking place. The government is under pressure on the timing and extent of improvements. In the Russian earthquake, time is running out for the trapped people as logistics and language barriers prevent the foreign technical aid from being of much direct use. Here, the UK government have reacted with venom to the Irish Republic’s decision not to allow the extradition of Father Patrick Ryan on IRA suspicion charges. The Attorney General said that he could not have got a fair trial under the weight of political comment and publicity in the United Kingdom. There were broad hints that Thatcher’s own comments had prejudice the issue. Another terrorist murder in Ulster today, due to reprisals for a builder working for the security forces. In the Commons, Mrs Edwina Currie has met cause from our own side to resign after sales of exit plunged by 70%. PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat, spoke to the United Nations Assembly especially arranged in Geneva due to its US entry ban. He called for peace and conciliation, but his words fell on stony ground with Israel who had previously absented themselves.