Monday is all about the dog. After extensive shoulder surgery he has been in a blue plaster cast for the last two weeks. Today it is finally coming off. Since the operation he has learnt what they call “tripoding”. This is an extraordinarily fast spider-like movement on three legs (think Antony Sher playing Richard III on crutches), as he scuttles around faster than he should. He doesn’t appear to be in acute pain but he seems humiliated.
We have fallen a long way since his Tatler summer shoot. Once the cast is off, and the whippety limbs are liberated, Johnny the vet and I contemplate a collar cone but the dog’s look is withering. He has been shamed enough. Johnny suggests using one of my sons’ T-shirts to cover the stitches. So on Monday he is Pikachu from Pokémon. On Tuesday he sports Game of Thrones merch. By Wednesday he appears to be advocating for Refugee Concern. The whippet has become highly politicised in his old age.
My introduction to Alan Johnson on Newsnight — who is in his old constituency of Hull West and Hessle — involves a bit of televisual gymnastics. I must turn to the screen but then conduct the interview “down the barrel” to camera — so a stray shot doesn’t accidentally catch another guest. I am concentrating so hard on my angles that the words come second. Before I realise, I have told the audience we are going to speak to Alan Johnson “who joins us down the line from Hell”. There is an accidental emphasis on the last word which makes it sound quite exciting. It’s only when I catch Alan grinning that I realise what I’ve said and simultaneously understand recovery from a slip that bad is almost impossible. I count my lucky stars he wasn’t in Kent.
A trip to the US embassy to renew my (I) Visa. “The story begins after the election is done,” says my contact there. We should all be prepared for this one to stretch into January or beyond. If no resolution is found by Inauguration Day, technically, Nancy Pelosi is in charge of the country. It is a big thought for an early morning.
Recovery from calling Hull Hell is almost impossible. At least he wasn’t in Kent
I’ve been wild swimming each day this week. A reminder to myself of what we lost this summer. And what could be snatched away again as we head into winter. Swimming with swans is both therapeutic and an easy way to feel utterly graceless. Luckily a friend’s dyspraxic spaniel accompanies us up and down the lake so we are no longer the most awkward fish.
I am used to recording my BBC podcast Americast from odd places at odd times (a treehouse in Morocco, my son’s bunk bed) so my co-presenter Jon Sopel is not surprised when he receives a text from me at 1am on Saturday demanding an emergency episode about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It is somehow inconceivable that the death of one woman has opened up a hundred new reverberations for the election itself. But before we get into the politics we must pay homage to her. “She was a cheerleader,” one of the commentators says. I assume this is a description of her pioneering work for young women. But no, besides being an icon of liberal America, justice, a feminist and advocate she actually was a cheerleader at Brooklyn High School. Who needs metaphor when you can actually twirl a baton?
