Vincent

I was struck right between the eyes by the sky when I came back from a concert tonight. It wasn't even especially dark, but every star in the galaxy was showing itself in spectacular fashion. I've seen on television places in the world where the stars are ultra clear, and I long to see them for myself. But tonight's display would be hard to beat. I had just read a description of the sky over the cities of China, the pollution making it impossible to see the sun. Heavy grey dullness hovers overhead obliterating any trace of blue. The air is thick and poisonous, a continual threat to health. How can they bear it, the people who have to live there? Is there anything more unnatural than being denied access to the sun's light? I bleed for them, truly I do. There is no pollution in Suffolk, or very little. Shrubs, plants and trees are covered in lichen, the very epitome of clear, clean air. Lucky we are.

I now have clean windows inside and out. True to my word, and wanting to benefit immediately from the window cleaner's efforts, I set to work all around the house. In the end it was easy, begging the question of why it took me so long. Water and some e-cloths, that's all it needed. We had a cleaner once who, before she started working for us, gave us a list of products to buy. This list made me very uneasy, and every week when she left the house the cocktail of chemicals she used stung my eyes for hours, made me cough and sneeze. You don't need any of them, apart from a dash of bleach when the loo gets a bit stained. Vinegar and soda crystals make short shrift of anything that hot water and elbow grease alone won't shift. My cupboards are chemical free.

I've always given Salman Rushdie a wide berth, but I've succumbed to his book called "Shame". His style is flowery and pompous, his reliance on multi-syllabic words the sort of thing a spell on a creative writing course would eradicate. But there's a charm, a freshness and a confidence about his writing that has me under its spell. I've always mildly regretted not having read Midnight's Children when everyone was talking about it, but I suspect it'll be next on my bedside table. Funny how your prejudices can turn out to be baseless.