Tuesday 4 November

I asked Mary what she wants for Christmas and birthday (her birthday comes within a few days of Christmas) and she immediately suggested a laptop. She has been saying for ages that it's time she learned to use the internet. She wants to email her friends and surf the web, and also to be able to use a modern word-processor. But with her various ailments she finds it uncomfortable to sit at a desk for long. So it's a very long time since she used a computer. Long ago, before she was ill, she was technical editor for an academic journal which was produced by very advanced technology (for the late 1980s), which involved mailing her copy-edited material to the printers on floppy disks. Now she feels the need to get up to date with communications technology again, and she thinks that a laptop should give her the means to do so.

I jumped at this suggestion. I think it will be great for her to do this. I have to admit that I can also see advantages for me in having a laptop around the house, that I can perhaps occasionally borrow. So I lost no time in ordering a simple, bottom-of-the-range, no frills laptop from Dell. They were having some kind of special offer which meant that I got a printer thrown in essentially for free. I have been spending the past few days coming to terms with Windows, and setting the machine up with the internet connections that Mary will need. After all these years of using exclusively Macintoshes, I'm finding it tiresome and frustrating having to learn Microsoft systems from scratch. But I can see that there are definite advantages in having a PC in the house. I have several CDs that won't run on the Macintosh, and now I can use them for the first time. I can also check how this site looks on a PC browser. I am currently redesigning the whole site (you'll see the results at the start of 2004, I hope), and it's surprising how hard it is to get it looking the same on all the different browsers and operating systems.

The laptop came with Internet Explorer 6 installed, but a lot of people still use IE 5, and I wanted to install that on the laptop. That's where I first came up against Microsoft's domineering ways. They no longer make IE 5 available for download, even though there must be thousands of web site developers who want to test sites on it. Eventually I found another site where I could download IE 5. But then when I tried to install it, all I could get was an error message saying that a later version was already on the machine and that the installation would not take place.

I know my way around the Macintosh well enough that I could probably cope with such a problem there. But with the PC I'm totally stymied and frustrated. It leaves me feeling stupid and incompetent. I'll have to get hold a PC expert to help me come to terms with the wretched machine.

Something tells me that I'm going to have to be rather careful to remember that this new gadget will be Mary's just a few weeks from now, and that I must let her have first call on it at all times.

Sunday 9 November

I have spent the past couple of days in Amsterdam. This was almost certainly the last time that I shall ever go abroad at someone else's expense. During the time that I was Secretary of the European Math Soc I visited most of the capital cities of Europe, and also some very attractive smaller places. In the past few years I have not had so many opportunities to travel, and this year there have only been three free trips, one to Switzerland and two to Amsterdam. No, that should have been four – I was forgetting the trip to Moscow, which on the whole I'm quite happy to forget about.

Amsterdam was looking at its best in the late autumn sun, with the pale blue sky and the remaining yellow leaves on the trees reflected in the canals. Before I went, I was expecting that I would want to take advantage of this last opportunity to be in the gay capital of Europe. On Friday I had a day full of meetings followed by a dinner which finished soon after 10 p.m. That should have left plenty of time to explore the night life. But to my surprise I found that I couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to go to the Blue Boy club, and instead I went straight back to the hotel for an early night. Perhaps that's just as well, because in future I'm going to have to get by without such distractions.

The flight home yesterday was not until the afternoon, leaving the morning free for sightseeing. My colleague, who is an art enthusiast, suggested that we should walk across town to see the Westerkerk (where Rembrandt is buried). The walk was very pleasant, but when we got there we found that the church is only open to visitors between April and September. However, it turns out that the Westerkerk is right next door to the Homomonument. I had previously seen this quietly impressive monument to all who have suffered for their homosexuality three years ago, when I was visiting Amsterdam with Mary. The three pink granite triangles looked just the same yesterday as they did then, with several bouquets of flowers on the triangle that juts out into the canal and a few visitors quietly contemplating the scene. I was glad to have had the opportunity to see it again.

Added later: I hope you like this Mac Eye For The Windows Guy as much as I do. (I came across it through my old friend Mickey).

Friday 14 November

Last week's visit to Amsterdam was my last foreign trip at someone else's expense, and next week's visit to London will probably be my last free trip anywhere. It's the annual general meeting of the math soc on Friday, and my term as a Trustee comes to an end. In a way, I'll be sorry to lose this connection. I have been on the Society's Council in one capacity or another for nearly 20 years, and have made many friends through it. But times are changing. I'm the last remaining relic of the old guard that used to run the Society. These days we have a professional staff, and the whole operation has become far more serious and business-like. It means that the Society is more efficiently run than in the old days, but it isn't nearly so much fun. So the time has definitely come for me to hand over to a younger generation.

After the meeting next Friday there will be a dinner at which I'll be one of the guests of honour. Mary will come to London for the dinner, and we're staying on for the weekend, to go to a show on Saturday evening.

However, it appears that I'm not the only person going to London next week. George W Bush is coming to Buckingham Palace to visit the Queen, and to indulge in a few photo opportunities with her, for use during next year's re-election campaign. Not everyone in Britain welcomes the prospect of seeing him here, and many people are dismayed at the way Tony Blair seems so comfortable in the company of extreme right-wing reactionaries such as Bush and Berlusconi. You would hope that a Labour Prime Minister would feel more at home with his fellow social democrats in France and Germany.

President Bush is unlikely to see much of the deep popular opposition to his visit. The whole area round the Palace will be sealed off, and demonstrators won't be allowed anywhere near. But there is to be a big march to Trafalgar Square next Thursday, where a large statue of Bush will be ceremonially toppled like that of Saddam Hussain in Baghdad.

The last time there was a large scale demo in London was in February, when nearly two million people marched to Hyde Park to protest against the impending invasion of Iraq. On that occasion, I had a meeting in London the previous day, and I was tempted to stay on overnight and join in the march. But Mary was away in Gran Canaria at the time, and we had a frail elderly cat that needed looking after. So I had to go home to feed Rosie.

This time, the big demo is the day before my meeting in London, and I have decided to go there a day early and join in the march. Mary isn't too happy about this. She is worried that the police will get heavy-handed and the demo will turn violent. I hope not, and I honestly don't think that will happen. But I think it's important that this event should have a really big turnout, and I want to do my little bit to contribute to the numbers. The colleague from the math soc who came with me to Amsterdam last week feels the same way. She is taking a day off work to go on the march, and the two of us will be marching together. I have never done anything like this before, and I'm looking forward to it.

Wednesday 19 November

[I'm posting this entry three days before the actual anniversary, because I'll be away in London until Sunday.]

Everyone who was alive at the time remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I vividly remember where I was. I was fighting in the final pool of the North of England Under 23 Foil Competition.

In a fencing tournament, competitors are divided into "pools", groups of six in which they fight each of the other five in the pool. The top three (or sometimes two) in the pool go forward into the next round. When I was at school, I was in the fencing team, and entered for several national schools championships. Two or three times I reached the semifinal round, but I never made it into the final pool of a major tournament.

The best season I had as a fencer was the year that I spent as a graduate student at Newcastle. I fought for the University team in all three weapons, foil, épée and sabre, and I had an 85% record of wins through the year. Our team coach was a woman called Bunty Weston. She was short and plump, but had very quick reflexes and was a good teacher. She suggested to me that I should enter for the North of England Under 23 Foil Competition, so I did.

I got through the early rounds without any difficulty, and reached the semifinal. In the semifinal pool I only lost one fight, and finished top equal in the pool, which meant that I qualified for the final pool of six.

The final of the competition took place on a Friday evening. In it, I had to fight the fencer who had beaten me in the semifinal pool, and also the winner of the other semifinal pool, who was strongly favoured to win. But the other three fights came first, and I won all of them. I was really psyched up for the difficult two fights that remained. I was watching a bout between two of the other finalists when Bunty came up to me. I thought she was going to offer me a bit of advice on how to handle the next fight, but what she said was, "Have you heard the news? President Kennedy's been shot, and they think that he's dead."

After that, my concentration went completely to pieces. I lost both the last two fights, and ended up in third place in the tournament. Of course, I might have lost those fights anyway. I knew that they were both going to be tough. But I never forgave Bunty for the crass way that she spoiled my chances of success that day. All she had to do was to wait for another half hour before telling me the terrible news, but she just couldn't stop herself from blurting it out.

Forty years later, in a world that has got used to assassinations and terror attacks, it's hard to convey the desolating sense of shock that people felt at President Kennedy's death. A whole generation of young people were inspired by the idealism of his inaugural address ("Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"), with the seemingly crazy optimism of its promise to put a man on the moon within a decade. After the resolute and assured way in which he handled the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, it seemed that he could do no wrong, and that the world was going to become a better place under his leadership. And then he was suddenly snuffed out by a sniper's bullet.

A little while ago I was talking to a student who couldn't understand the admiration that people of my generation have for Kennedy. I tried to give him an idea of the freshness and excitement that Kennedy brought to politics, the optimistic belief that society could be improved and that people didn't need to conform to traditional conventions. (I think it was the atmosphere and style of the Kennedy presidency, rather than anything he actually did, that influenced people's thinking about social progress and eventually led to the feminist and gay liberation movements of the late 1960s and 1970s.) I told him what a refreshing change it was to see a political leader who was young and energetic and how, compared to his predecessor Eisenhower, ...

At this point the student interrupted me. "You mean to say that Eisenhower was the President before Kennedy?" he said, "I thought Eisenhower was a figure from ancient history." That really brought home to him the contrast between the Kennedy administration and the sort of politicians who came before it.

One year after Kennedy's death, I was living in Philadelphia. On the first anniversary of the assassination, the Philadelphia Inquirer (or it may have been the now defunct evening paper, the Philadelphia Bulletin) published a piece by Jackie Kennedy in which she repeated a quotation that had been sent to her in a letter of condolence:

"The hero comes when he is needed. When our belief gets pale and weak there comes a man out of that need who is bright and shining, and everyone around him reflects some of that glow, and stores some up against the day when he is gone."

[I wish I knew where that quote originated. The only reference I can find to it on the internet is that it was repeated two years ago by a columnist who applied it to the New York City Fire Department in an article about 9/11. But I have no idea what the original source is. If you know it, please .]

Forty years after his death, some of Jack Kennedy's glow still remains. The contrast with today's political leaders is too painful to bear thinking about.

Monday 24 November

Everything went pretty well in London. The Stop Bush demonstration on Thursday was a big success, with something like a quarter of a million people joining in the march. It was all very well behaved and good natured. Even the police lining the route were cheerful and friendly. There were banners supporting just about every left wing cause you could think of, from the Socialist Workers' Party to the Green Party Against Eco-Vandalism, along with dozens of others like the Free Nepal Movement and the Muslim Association of Britain. My favourite banner was one saying "We'd have welcomed President Gore." The march was led by a contingent of American Vietnam veterans.

When we arrived at Trafalgar Square, the square was full to overflowing with people and the speeches had already started. I was pleased that nearly every speaker made the point that this was an anti-Bush demonstration and in no way did that mean that it was anti-American. This point was entirely lost on our pea-brained Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who tried to make out that the demo was just an example of mindless anti-Americanism.

As a media event, the march was overshadowed by the bombings in Istanbul that day, so it probably didn't get the news coverage that it might have done. But it was still the largest demonstration ever to take place in Britain on a weekday, and it was certainly by far the biggest crowd of people that I have been part of.

I left before the speeches had finished, and made my way to Chariots gay sauna. I hadn't been there long when I got the feeling that someone had his eye on me and was following me around. He looked to be in his thirties, with thick black hair, slightly overweight and only marginally attractive. I was flattered that he seemed to be interested in me, but I wasn't sure that I wanted to encourage him. When he made eye contact and headed towards one of the private cabins, I headed off in the other direction. But a bit later, when I saw him in the hot tub, I changed my mind and slipped in alongside him. Sure enough, he was very affectionate, and also a very good kisser. After a while, he suggested that we should look for a private cabin. I agreed, but I still wasn't at all convinced that that was what I wanted, and I was quite relieved when it turned out that all the cabins were already occupied.

I'm beginning to realise that that sort of anonymous contact really isn't rewarding, and I no longer have much of a need for it.

I left Chariots and found a little Thai restaurant near the British Museum, where I had a very good supper before going back to the hotel for an early night. Friday was taken up with the Council meeting of the Math Soc, followed by the Annual General Meeting at which my time as an officer of the Society officially ended. Mary came to the Annual Dinner in the evening, at which the new President of the Society made a speech in which (among other things) she thanked me very nicely for all I have done for them. Several people asked me if I was sorry to be leaving. I told them that I had thoroughly enjoyed working for the Society, and still enjoy it, but that I also knew that I have done it for long enough and that I was sure I had chosen the right time to step down.

We stayed in London for the weekend. On Saturday we spent most of the day at the Gothic exhibition at the V&A. I'm ashamed to say that I have never previously been to the V&A, which claims to be the world's greatest museum of applied and decorative arts. I'm equally ashamed to say that I usually associate the word 'gothic' with lurid horror stories and haunted mansions, rather than with the art and architecture of the middle ages. Strictly speaking, it refers to the artistic style of any country other than Italy in the pre-renaissance period. The Italians thought of any art apart from their own as being crude and inferior, and called it gothic (Goth = barbarian). But the exhibition shows that mediaeval art and craftsmanship could be extremely advanced and skilled. It's amazing that artefacts like Lady Margaret Beaufort's crown were being produced in Britain nearly 600 years ago.

The Gothic exhibition is not quite as spectacular as the Aztec exhibition that we saw this time last year, but it's well worth a visit.

On Saturday evening we went to a show. I left it too late to get tickets for Mamma Mia, which is what Mary wanted to see. Given that it consists of a compilation of Abba songs, I wasn't exactly disappointed to find that there were no seats available for it. Instead, we went to see Thoroughly Modern Millie, which is okay if you like that sort of thing. Actually, it was very well done, and Maureen Lipman was hilarious in the part of Mrs Meers.

Sunday 30 November

We were expecting to spend this weekend visiting out daughter Liz. Having qualified as an osteopath she is living on a picturesque town on the Welsh borders, where she has some temporary locum jobs for the next few months before looking for a more permanent position. Mary and I were looking forward to seeing something of Shrewsbury, which is a place neither of us has ever visited. But a few days ago Liz phoned to say that she was feeling homesick, and that she would prefer to come back here for the weekend. She is not allowed to have pets in the house that she is renting, so we are looking after her cat Tiffin. The main reason Liz wanted to come home rather than for us to go to visit her was that she wanted to see Tiffin.

We were disappointed not to have the chance to go away for the weekend, but pleased to see Liz. She is finding her work very tiring, and just wanted to crash out for a couple of days. So we all had a very lazy weekend at home. Liz told us that she is thinking on terms of looking for a job here in Leeds. We're very pleased about this, because we never thought that either of our kids would want to settle down in this area. We have several neighbours who have grown up kids and grandchildren living not far away, and whenever she sees these families coming to have Sunday lunch with the grandparents Mary says wistfully how nice it would be if our kids lived closer to home.

Steve and Liz never liked Leeds, and we always assumed that they would end up living far away from us. But Liz has been thinking about her future, where her friends and family are living and where she is most likely to be happy, and she is coming to the conclusion that maybe home isn't such a bad place after all. She has been looking around and has noticed that there is a rather nice suburb not far from where we live, where there isn't yet an osteopathic practice, and she seems to be quite excited about the possibilities of setting up in practice there. We won't get our hopes up just yet, but it would be great if things work out that way.

Since we had been expecting to be in Shrewsbury this weekend, we hadn't made any plans to do anything here. Apart from taking Mary clothes shopping yesterday and grocery shopping today, I haven't left the house all weekend. In fact, the weather was so foul yesterday that nobody wanted to go out at all. Today it has been much better, but Mary and Liz were happy enough to sit at home chatting until late afternoon, when Liz had to set off back to Shrewsbury. That was okay by me, because there is a snooker tournament on TV. In fact, I'm going to log off right now to watch the final session, featuring the delectable Matthew Stevens.

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