So when i was trying to grapple with some stupid decision from the stupid school referred to in the February 15,2017 posting I tried to get some perspective by questioning what my fantastic uncle would have done. Dave Dryburgh had, as I mentioned, such integrity and such a sense of fair play. He had also given me some advice about the head of the writing program who I refer to as J. The first paragraph refers to another matter. I was embezzled by a man called Carl. I will tell that story later. It will take some time to write. At the time of the writing of What Uncle Dave Would Do I was confident that the bank would do what they said they would do. They, Lloyd’s Bank, did not. Yet another example of the institutions in this country not doing their job, but more about that later.
WHAT WOULD UNCLE DAVE DO
At the moment that is my guiding light. What would Uncle Dave do. With the school thing and with the Carl thing. I have the ability to destroy Carl. His pretense of a career is to buy and sell real estate. If convicted of embezzlement he could not do so. I do need to let the process with the bank go on – perhaps – perhaps not. Pressing charges is rather delightful. He is really a fool. Fatal flaw that man, fatal flaw.
But school, what would he do about school. Uncle Dave thinks that J. did herself in, but she didn’t because the school did not do what they needed to do. I think my uncle would have gone onto the next game but it is so hard to tell. Because that is the thing with sports, there are rigid rules that must be adhered to. And they generally are. If what if the game is fixed? I still think my dearest uncle would walk away and go play at a game where the rules are adhered to. He would not scrap it out with foolish referees, he would just pick up his ball and play in a new arena and I know he would win that game. I need to follow in his footsteps.
I do have plans to write a book about my experiences in London. It will be entitled: 780 Days in London: The Institutions That Did Me In: The People That Saved Me. It will contain stories of the school, which I can name at that point, Lloyd’s Bank, Dolphin Square, Kenwood House, probably the story of my getting hit by the motorbike the second day I was here. September 13, 2014. I will also include the story of the embezzler. But then there will be the positive parts. I will write with joy and glee of the Rex Whistler restaurant at the Tate Britain, the Watt’s Gallery, the Almeida Theatre and some special exhibits. I will mix the bitter with the sweet. I will incorporate some of the stories from the blog. I am looking forward to it.
But onward. If you listen carefully there is a sort of PHEW being heard across London. It is because I have made travel plans to go back home. I made plane reservations leaving Heathrow and heading to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I will be traveling first class on my frequent flier miles, My seat is appropriately !-A. But, as usual, there is a strange twist to it all. It is not a nonstop flight. Where does it stop? San Francisco, that city by the bay where I resided for about forty-eight years. So born in Canada, go to San Francisco in 1967, come to London in 2014. Now I leave London, go to San Francisco and then go to Canada. I am sure I will be in quarantine at the airport and unable to see my many friends, even if they did come to see me in. Or off, not sure which one it is. I will get on a different plane and be reduced to mere business class for the flight from San Francisco to Vancouver. I will be brave and it is a short flight. My exceedingly wonderful friends David and Greg volunteered to drive me to Heathrow. Are they not darling or what? My reply to David’s email said simply: I Love You. When I get to Vancouver either cousin Gail or brother Dale will greet me. I sent them this email with the subject line being: :OK, Fight Over Me. “I obviously only need one person to come and pick me up at the airport. So you two can fight over me,,,or the opposite I guess. But damn, don’t both of you jump ship. To mix metaphors a bit. Alexis”
My cousin Gail is great, She reads my blogs every day, usually in the morning because they are posted by the time she gets up, what with the time difference and all. We are counting the sleeps until I arrive. She emailed me yesterday. 27 sleeps. So I cry at the drop of a hat because I will be missing my new London friends but I am going home, not only to Gail but my other cousins, and relatives and friends. I do laugh about going home. I have not lived in Canada for fifty years and I am going to be an itinerant, in the words of Dr. Woolfson. I am not planning to be a hobo on Via Rail, however. I must call them, there is an agent here in London so I will have to check it out. So off to make more plans. In the making of reservations I was dealing with those in the USA and Canada. Everyone was so helpful and thorough. Then I started to deal with UK people, terminating services. The contrast was so marked. I screamed at Virgin Media for about an hour. Screamed, If I knew I was saying here I just would have sucked it up. But I am going and I am sick and tired of being done in by British institutions with their total lack of systems. The public is constantly dealing with clerks with no training or authority who talk of procedures as if they were tablets of stone. Procedures are pure laziness, the British way of doing things the way that they were always done despite the fact that the world has changed, even turned upside down. Grrrrrrrr. I think tomorrow’s post will be about the fun times I have been having over the last three days. You need a break, and come to think of it, so do I.
