Does it last?

The traditional murk of May has driven me to the Body Shop.

One comes home to Wales from Gran Canaria full of optimism from the glut of vitamin D coursing round the bodily system from the excess of Spanish sunshine. One hopes that the supply of that essential ingredient for happiness will at least be partially availability in ones home country. Fond hope!

The early season tan won by selfless snoozing in unrelenting fine weather begins, visibly, to fade! Ohime! (As I think I once read in Monteverdi’s score for Orpheo as that unfortunate could not resist temptation and looked around.) What is to be done?

The only ethical cosmetic alternative was to throw myself on the mercy of the ruthlessly cosmeticised harridans of The Body Shop. There my whimpish bleatings about the diminution of the intensity of the tan were met with the instant offering of the Balm of Gideon, or to be more precise, Coconut Butter. This unguent was only offered after a sternly mascara eyed votress of the temple looked at me narrowly and asked if my tan was real! I didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or a foul insult! Was it, to her eyes, a tan of such profound depth that it could only have come from a bottle? In which case the hours spent risking skin cancer did seem to have been well spent!

I now waft my way around smelling faintly as if I had had one too many holiday cocktails utilizing a liqueur that I would shun to have in my drinks cabinet! The things one is prepared to do in the name of personal vanity!

Talking of vanity: now that I have had (in theory) one of the fastest CRB checks (11 days!) in the history of the world, why has no agency called me to work? Are they as shocked as I am? The story of my CRB check is rather like the argument of whether light is composed of waves or particles. It all depends on how you look at it.

I signed the application form on the 12th of March; it got on the CRB system (according to the CRB) on the 1st of May; my agency in Newport had been checking the progress of my CRB at various points before the 1st of May. Two assertions: mutually exclusive. Take your pick. I have my own prejudices.

And how!

I once again entered the realm of Specious Justification (last used for the purchase of the telephone internet gadget) to allow the splurging of money I can ill spare on a new set of telephones. I blame the near monopoly purchasing power of Tesco. Though thinking about it, that can’t be right, monopoly power usually means the increase in prices rather than making certain items juicily attractive. The set of four phones bought seems incredible value and I’m sure that the low price means that someone somewhere is being ruthlessly exploited. Though, of course, one hopes not. And one generally decides not to think too closely about it. Except for the nagging guilt which plays around the borders of one’s moral consciousness.

As if.