The heat is driving Britain crazy. Wandering around London last week, every square was packed as though host to some curious hippy festival. People sat nose to nose trying to find enough elbow room to open their pre-packed sandwiches. It's at times like this that I thank the Lord I moved to the country. As soon as I could I hot-footed it back home. One of the few benefits of having fractured four metatarsals is that I have been given a chauffeur- driven car for my convalescence. Like all luxuries, it takes minutes to get accustomed to. I now wonder how I got through life without having a man in a Merc permanently at my beck and call.
Mike, my driver is a very nice man from Swindon where, it appears, traffic manners are rather better than in the capital. I have had to rapidly introduce him to the London ways of never displaying weakness behind the wheel. Basic rules, such as never allowing a pedestrian priority, viewing traffic lights as optional and insulting all cyclists do not come naturally to Mike, and so I have coached him patiently from the back seat.
He picked me up at a quarter past midnight from somewhere in Soho only to be harassed by a traffic warden who kept telling him to move on. That a traffic warden should be working at that time of the morning was astonishing enough to me, but Mike was flabbergasted.
Traffic wardens aren't the only people seemingly working 24/7. Piers Morgan, the shy and retiring chat-show host and ex Britain's Got Talent judge, seems never to be off Twitter. Last week I seemed to have started some sort of Twitter war with his entire family. It started when I simply couldn't bear any more of reading Piers' relentless self-promotion on the addictive social network. It used to be quite entertaining, but has now just descended into almost pathological levels of narcissism that border on insanity. I therefore "unfollowed" and the immediate sense of peace and relief was so powerful that I tweeted the fact. This started the onslaught. First up was Piers himself who, in between interviewing Kardashians about their breasts, announced how un-bothered he was.
This was followed by a curious couple of aggressive tweets from someone whom I suspected of being his brother. I asked this Tweeter whether this was the case? He suddenly went curiously silent. Finally I was abused by somebody who turned out to be Piers's teenage son.
When I replied to Morgan junior (he had a go at me for being on a reality show – I politely reminded him that his father had so far been on two), Piers left an exclusive interview to wade in again and accuse me of being thin-skinned. As I write this, I am fully expecting a beaten-up old car to drive past the house with Piers Morgan's granny leaning out of the back window blasting away with a shooter.
I do marvel that Piers manages to find the time to be so un-bothered on Twitter as well as managing his stratospheric career, and all that.
Back home in the Cotswolds and I relax in our new French Quarter – we have turned part of the central courtyard into a dining area, as it's a fabulous suntrap. It happens to be just the other side of the gatehouse that leads on to the property. I've fixed a couple of barrels of hot tar up over the gates, just in case the Morgans attempt a sneak attack.
It's best to be prepared for anything. This heat is driving people crazy and you have no idea what they might do.
Comments