Another Cruel Blow

'Life is unfair, son, get used to it', was not infrequently told to me, by my father, in my boyhood and as if to remind me of that undeniable fact whatever force governs the affairs of the human race has contrived to place this idyllically situated, highly desirable property (Thrum Mill, on the banks of the River Coquet, Northumberland) on the market for a mere £225,000.00. I long to return to Northumberland and would sell my soul, were there a Devil, to live in such a place but having at the moment not much more than twenty five pounds to my name, and no income, I can only console myself, as I used often to do forty and more years ago, with the thought that one cannot miss what one has never had.

It's ironic that the idyllic is invariably the preserve of those with few if any ideals and little, if any, aesthetic sense, such is the overarching power of money in a spiv economy dominated by the ruthlessly self-obsessed.