The most-read post in the history of this little blog was this one. Written almost twenty years ago, it began with the words 

I regret that I have no religious faith.

To my surprise that regret has gone. Not because I have resigned myself, but because I am, once more, a Christian. Hence, this post is entitled “Credo 2”. 

When the late Mrs P. became a Roman Catholic, her church tried for a little while to make it a “twofer”. I had various contacts with priests and took a course in Catholicism at my local church. Not because I planned to join, but because I wanted to understand what the late Mrs P had done. This, after one of my daughters said she no longer knew what her mother would have thought about her life because: 

I knew mum well, but I don’t know Catholic mum at all.

I thought the course might help me tell my daughters what “Catholic Mum” would have thought at critical points in their lives. It was interesting and the other participants were lovely – an advertisement for their church by their personalities and behaviour –  but didn’t draw me in at all. I kept my initial promise not to evangelise for atheism, but to listen quietly. I only lost control of my tongue once, when the priest told us that God is so merciful that;

While we are certain there is a Hell, it is perfectly possible that it’s empty.

At which, I blurted out;

What?! Not even Stalin made it?!”

I won't be a fire and brimstone Christian. I sincerely hope that everyone makes it to Heaven, but one of the attractions of religious faith is surely the hope of justice? Stalin’s life was a complete success from his point of view. He died of natural causes without ever facing (thanks to his ferocious handling of potential enemies) even the fear of retribution. It's hard to imagine him rubbing shoulders in Heaven with the souls of his victims.

The other participants were nice Catholic ladies of a certain age. They empathised with my grief in widowerhood. I became a distraction, not because I was in any way disrupting the course, but because – once they got to know me – they spent a lot of time trying to bend their theology to get me into Heaven. When we parted, they promised to pray for me. Who knows? Perhaps their prayers were heard?

That said, I am not (yet) becoming a Catholic though the last contact I had with that church was – I think – the catalyst for what has now happened. Some 14 years ago, my Catholic friend the Navigator proposed a weekend outing to Oxford. The plan was to have a meal and a drink at the Eagle & Child pub there, where Tolkien and CS Lewis (who called it "The Bird and Baby") had read the manuscripts of the Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books to each other over pipes and pints. 

On the way there, he’d asked me to turn into the driveway of an old house on the river as there was someone he wanted me to meet. The someone was Father Andrew of Opus Dei. I sighed but went along with it. Father Andrew was – as has been every priest I’ve met in the wake of the late Mrs P’s conversion – intelligent, articulate and thoughtful. At the end of our conversation, I’d said essentially what I said in that long-ago blog post. I knew I owed the civilisation I lived in to Christianity. I could see how it was deteriorating as faith died. For myself I’d love to believe again as I had as a child, but I just couldn’t get past the idea of faith – of belief without evidence.

He said to stop trying. He said (paraphrasing from memory after a very long time);

Get in the water and paddle about. Don’t worry about evidence, just pray.

On the basis of Pascal’s Wager, I took that advice. For years I have been (and only my Catholic friend knew this) a “praying atheist”. I have found it a useful exercise. I don’t know what, if anything, my prayers meant to God. I do know that they changed me. 

You may say, gentle reader, that daily meditation might have done as much. That taking time out to focus on the truly important is good for mental health. You may think, and you might be right, that I have self-administered a form of therapy. Perhaps. I don’t know. I can only say that it didn’t feel that way. 

For ten years, I noticed no effect at all. In the past few years, I began to see that the nature of my prayer was changing. I had begun in full Stephen-Fry-meeting-God mode. He famously said once that, if he was wrong in his atheism, and eventually met God, he would have a lot of issues to raise with Him. My prayers consisted largely of an (on reflection) incredibly-arrogant critique of how God “If You Exist” was doing His job. 

Apart from the obvious points made by atheists about injustice, poverty, war, childhood cancers etc., I had very specific criticisms to offer. Why was I held to the test of faith, for example, when it seemed He was quite happy to call young Spanish and French virgins to sainthood by having the Virgin Mary appear to them in person? 

After a decade of this narcissistic nonsense, I began to pray thankfully. My life, by comparison with most humans alive today - and still more with most humans who have ever lived - is what the woke call “privileged”. I was given gifts of skill and intellect that allowed me a rewarding and entertaining career. I have seen more of the world than all the members of my family in history combined. I had a loving upbringing to begin with, I had my health (despite taking no care of myself). I have been loved by fine people, I have splendid friends and above all I have my daughters.

In short, I had many reasons to be thankful and no-one to thank. I found myself - while still not believing in His existence - thanking God. Again, you may just say I’d self-therapised myself out of depression and was seeing the bright side of life. Again, I’d just say you might be right but that’s not how it felt to me. 

A few short weeks ago, to my entire surprise, I began to pray as usual and found that by the time I said “Amen” something in me had changed. What my Catholic friend called “The God-shaped hole in my life” was filled and a huge burden lifted from my shoulders. Please don’t get me wrong, I have heard no voice from Heaven. Nothing has been “said” to me in words. I simply feel different and better. 

This world is no closer to how I’d like it to be but somehow it’s a relief to feel that Someone somewhere has a plan I just can't grasp. I no longer have to feel responsible for everything that’s wrong.

I have been breaking the news slowly to the people I care about. I still haven’t told my daughters and must give some thought to that. 

My most atheist friend, after his initial shock, made the thoughtfully kind point that – if I don’t join a specific church – I will miss out on the benefit of fellowship, which in my lonely widowerhood might be a great advantage. I shall take my time over that. The Catholics began this process and I am grateful. There is much about their church that is appealing, but – unlike my late wife – I am still more Armani than Versace. The gilded glamour of Catholicism and its graven images is all a bit off-putting. As, more importantly, is the interposition of the priesthood between God and people.

I have been given only feelings. I've received no words of advice. I know nothing that suggests God has any positive feelings about any one Christian church over another. It would feel very odd to visit all the Christian churches around me, comparison shopping, as if I were putting my soul out to tender.

It’s just too soon, I think. It’s taken almost fifteen years for the seed planted in Oxford to take root. It may take a while longer to see precisely which tree is growing. I can only say for now that I am happy to be of the same faith as my ancestors; the faith that made our civilisation what it is. The faith that spoke to – and in their books through – Tolkien and CS Lewis.

I don't know where I go from here, to be honest. But a turmoil in me that I have lived with for decades has stilled. I am no longer afraid and for that I am thankful. If you are that way inclined, gentle reader, please pray for guidance for me. If my news has disappointed you, I am sorry and will pray for you.

I have spent some time on the website of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) over the years. The purpose of MEMRI is:

Exploring the Middle East and South Asia through their media, MEMRI bridges the language gap between the West and the Middle East and South Asia, providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, Dari, Turkish, Russian, and Chinese media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends to the governments of the U.S. and its allies, and to their counterterrorism officials, law enforcement agencies, militaries, and other authorities. 

This is not some crazy partisan propaganda outfit. Past US Presidents have served on its board of advisors. Its current board of directors includes a former US Attorney-General. It serves an important function (or could, if more people would use it) in helping us understand the thinking both of people in the Middle East and people from the region who now live among us.

Their content is depressing. You can see children being indoctrinated. You can see how issues in the region are portrayed in their everyday media. If someone grows up in these countries, constantly exposed to hatred – even in classrooms – they're in for a shock if they move to the West. If, that is, they make any attempt to expose themselves to local culture. If they don't then it's you and I who are in for the shock. Here's a mild sample. 

Having watched a few hours of MEMRI content over the years, I should not have been surprised when Muslim neighbours – the Mohammeds and Ahmeds who routinely deliver me and my goods or serve me in their shops in West London – took to the streets to celebrate the October 7 pogrom in Israel. Half a mile from where I live, they danced for joy and called for the destruction of Israel. This, before the Jewish state had responded in any way – making a nonsense of the line taken by most Palestinian apologists that they don't support Hamas's actions (to the extent they don't actually deny them) but are merely protesting the alleged ferocity of Israel's response.

I had a wonderful career overseas but in retirement there's a price to pay. I have only three good friends in London and two of them are older than me. Most of the people I could socialise with in my retirement live in Warsaw, Prague or Moscow. My London friends and acquaintances are not woke (one is a Catholic who is hoping Pope Francis will be replaced by an actual Christian) but their thinking is informed by the relentless statist propaganda of Britain's mainstream media. They automatically hear the word "unregulated" as a criticism, for example. As if only activities supervised by state employees could ever be good. They would all agree that regulators sometimes go "too far," but also think that I go too far in supporting Montesquieu's view that:

When it is not necessary to make a law it is necessary NOT to make a law

They consider me an extremist for holding views that were perfectly ordinary throughout the rise of Western Civilisation. The ideas, in my view, that caused that rise. They would all instinctively chuckle at Ghandi's famous reply to a journalist who asked him what he thought of Western Civilsation, which was:

I think it would be a good idea.

They're not as extreme as many of my contemporaries in London. Not that I selected them for their views. I can be friends with any decent human. I don't need them to be free from error. But I often pick up on things that remind me they've been exposed to two decades more of indoctrination on multiculturalism than I was when I was working as a proud Englishman among proud Poles, Russians and Chinese.

The Ancient Greeks said you can never step in the same river twice. While I was away for twenty years, blithely praising the superiority of Western thought to the survivors of Soviet socialism, Britain was changing behind my back. The greatest culture shock I ever received was not moving to Poland, Russia or even China. It was moving back home when I was done.

Only one of my friends is so far gone as to have imbibed the narrative of the intifada and support the notion that Israel, in seeking to liberate its hostages and defeat the terrorists who were attacking it constantly even before October 7, is committing "genocide". I try to avoid the topic. She has many virtues and I love her as a friend, but she won't let it drop. I have tried to explain that I operate on NATO's "no first strike" policy. If she doesn't read my blog, she's never going to hear me bang on, unprovoked, about the justice of Israel's cause. Unless, that is,  she bangs on herself about the rectitude of terrorists.

Yet she insists on sending me snippets of kefiyah-wearers justifying evil. Her late husband moved in London Labour circles and all her friends are very much of the Left. Among themselves they don't speak of Right and Left these days, of course. They speak of Left and Wrong. They don't review the actual rate of civilian casualties in urban warfare in Gaza - though the Israel Defence Force (IDF) is performing better than the Allies in WW2. They just assume uncritically that the brown people are right and the nasty (ideologically-white, if not all actually so) Jews are wrong. They don't need to say any of this out loud, you understand. It's just the political water in which they swim. 

The British Left seems to have worked its way back to where it was before Hitler (we all thought finally) discredited anti-semitism. Stalin would have ended WW2 – as he started it – on Hitler's side – had Hitler not favoured (as Socialists often do) schism over solidarity. If you spend some time in the stacks at a university library (as I once did) and read the English newspapers of the 1930's, you'll find that Hitler's views on the Jews did not cause as much alarm as you might think. He was a worry, with his talk of a master race and lebensraum, but the "blame the Jews" stuff was seen as superfluous seasoning in his rhetorical soup. Rather like my London friends today on regulation, the intellectuals of the time took the view he sometimes went "a bit too far".

If I had spent my whole life here, instead of abroad, I would firstly be more acclimatised to this horror and would secondly have a deep enough pool of friends to throw this one back. I  am reluctant, however, to lose 33% of my close friends at once. Nor, at the age of 68 – and with the cautious pace at which we English make friends – am I ever going to make any more.

I sometimes wonder if my exciting overseas career, unalloyed joy at the time, was a mistake. My father, a man firmly rooted in the place our family seems to have lived since prehistory, made very different choices and was always puzzled by mine. At his funeral, a normally-dead church that can't afford a vicar came to life by being filled with everyone he'd ever known still capable of walking (or being wheeled) up its path. His choices made a lot of sense to me at that moment. I could understand his marvelous statement to the family at his bedside, hours before he died, that he was "the happiest man alive". He was rooted in family and community. He had friends "for fetching out" as they say up North.

I have made a temporary peace by getting my friend to agree not to raise the subject again until she's read a book from the other point of view. I chose this one and have sent her a copy. I give her credit for agreeing to that, though I fear she'll – with no sense of irony – dismiss it as extremist propaganda.

I do not understand how a kind and caring person can find herself on the side of evil. Yet, to watch the BBC or read the Guardian, you'd think (as she does) that every educated person in Britain is.  That brings me to another piece of my late father's wisdom. He once told me that – whatever medical advances may come – it's better that we all die because the world changes so fast that if we live too long, we won't fit in. 

This has been a good week. I went into my local hospital for a scan and had a follow up consultation with my pulmonologist. I did not have a pulmonary embolism. My lungs are healthy. A scan last November showed signs of a chest infection – some kind of mild pneumonia – which do not appear now. While all the cardiology/pulmonology kerfuffle was underway, my system recovered from the infection of its own accord. Good news.

I also visited the haematology team at the same hospital. The consultant sent me for blood tests and will follow up next month. This is mostly just to calculate the correct long-term dosage for my blood thinners. She is also curious about the superior mesenteric venous thrombosis I had in 2016

for no apparent cause and with no precipitating factors

That doesn't usually happen without cancer or surgical trauma so she wants to try to establish if, for example, I have a genetic predisposition to clot.

Such research may perhaps be useful to others but, as far as I am concerned, I had a problem and it's gone. It's time to return to a proper external male focus, rather than the horrid Woody Allen-like introspection I have inflicted upon you. Had I been guided by my own instincts rather than my friends' concern, I'd be in exactly the same position now but my private consultants wouldn't be updating their Porsches and my health insurance premiums would be lower.

I might also have spent more time writing about such horrors as the government planning to give taxpayers' money and a strategic air base to PRC-ally Mauritius or the vile Gerry Adams or its attempts to silence all discussion about criminal apparatchiks being accessories after the fact to rape. That would have been more interesting – to me and to you, gentle reader – than my internal workings. I can only apologise and strive to do better in future.

In other good news I've been arranging to meet Miss P. the Younger for dinner and a show. We're going to see Dr Strangelove at the Noel Coward Theatre. The ticket was my daughters' Christmas gift to me. Apparently Steve Coogan out-does Peter Sellers by playing four parts rather than three. Should be interesting and, I hope, fun. Finally, a week tomorrow I'll take my middle sister to meet my granddaughter.

Life's good. Let's get on with it. Thank you for your patience with my being a patient.

The cause of my two medical episodes remains undiagnosed. It wasn't my heart. My angiogram showed that, while not perfect, it's not bad for my age and doesn't account for my symptoms.

The working theory is now pulmonary embolism (clots in my lungs) but this has not been verified by scans. The DVT in my leg has been treated with blood thinners – probably dispersing them – and clots small enough to cause my symptoms without killing me are anyway difficult to see.

Further tests are scheduled next year, but as the treatment will be the same whatever the outcome, I am relaxed. I am a practical man and will only dwell on unresolved problems. The doctors simply want to verify their diagnosis and they're welcome as long as my insurer is happy to fund their research.

In even better news, my granddaughter arrived in the early hours of 18th December. She's perfect, a healthy size and beautiful. I guess I am smitten and would probably think that anyway, but I really don't think it's bias!

I now know - and like - her name. I've named a star after her, sent her a cuddly goat in reference to how I learned of her impending arrival and have sent her all the important books she'll need in infancy.

Together with my mother and sister, I plan to visit her for the first time next Saturday. So far I've only seen her on FaceTime and I can't wait to hold her in my arms. 

Miss P. the Younger called on me earlier this week and we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol together - a family tradition since my daughters were very young.

Yesterday, my sailor nephew and his girlfriend visited for the match at Craven Cottage and after that I had the pleasure of introducing them to Pouilly Fuissé, Margarita and Macallan as we watched Christmas movies together.  

Today, I am heading North with Speranza to spend Christmas with my mum in North Wales;  our first without my dad who died on Valentine's Day this year. Christmas Day will be hosted by my youngest sister at her home in the Welsh countryside.

The political climate in Britain remains as dire as it's been in my lifetime. The sixth-formers are in charge and have no concept of their own incompetence or indeed any other relevant realities. The news from Germany is horrific and it's clear its people have been betrayed by their political class every bit as profoundly as we have. However, for once, I've been more focussed on personal joys. Even if the civilisation I love is doomed (and there is a risk that it is) key life events must be celebrated and enjoyed.

With that in mind, gentles all, I hope you are all able be with those who love you and to celebrate Christmas in the best possible spirit. Take a break from worrying about the vile specimens of humanity attracted to political and administrative office. Be properly present with your friends and family as they deserve.

I wish you all every joy and hope for the best for all of us in 2025. See you here next year.

Last Monday went better than I could reasonably have hoped. I went into hospital at 06.30 am to be prepped for theatre. The procedure was interesting and I remained conscious throughout under mild sedation. A probe was inserted into my right wrist and fed through into my heart. My consultant reported, while looking inside it, that my heart was fine with no more furring than might be expected in someone my age.

This was surprisingly good news for everyone except my health insurer, which might well be wondering about the money it spent both on the scan that suggested the procedure was necessary and on the very well-staffed (consultant, anaesthetist and half a dozen nurses) procedure itself.

I am not out of the woods as this leaves my symptoms to be otherwise explained. Given that I am already being treated for a clot – a DVT in my left leg – it's most likely that other clots are affecting my lungs. If I have experienced these symptoms all this time for that reason, without lethal effect, then I am a lucky man indeed. My consultant commissioned a CT scan on my lungs while I waited to be discharged and promised that my original cardiologist will get back to me with a plan. 

I am already on Apixaban (thinners) and that's likely to be the continuing treatment, I suppose. In terms of my mobility and general health I am no better than I was before these events, so it's a bit odd to be happier. The unexpected clean bill of health on my elderly heart has – together with my doctors' assurances that I will be fixed – cheered me up however. I have been making plans for trips to make when I am fit enough to wander about with my camera gear again.

I skipped the last home match at Craven Cottage for fear of repetition of the incident last October 19th. I have now been on thinners for ten days so I plan to go to the match against Wolves tomorrow to see if they've made any difference yet. Rather than use taxis as I did on October 19th, I'm going to take the usual couple of buses and see how I cope.

Fingers crossed.

Some, I hope premature, final thoughts - THE LAST DITCH.

At Craven Cottage for the Villa game, the very modest activity of walking from our taxi to the stadium left me flushed, breathless and near to collapse – to the alarm of my companions. I made it home safely and have booked an appointment with my GP this week. I shall ask for a referral to a cardiologist, as my symptoms suggest congested arteries. I hope some tests will clarify the problem so action can be taken to avert worse.

My reaction, when I thought I might be dying, was interesting. I felt serene and unafraid. The self-pity that has poisoned me of late vanished as a quick survey of my life led to the conclusion that – overall – it's been pretty great. I had a happy upbringing in a loving and supportive family. I was of a generation that could roam freely in childhood and learn to be free and self-reliant. I was blessed with useful gifts, enjoyed my schooldays and was the first in my family to go to university where I studied an interesting subject. I also developed useful dark skills, while getting some nasty stuff out of my system, as I dabbled in student politics. 

I have loved and been loved. I have two wonderful daughters of whom I am enormously proud. I had an entertaining professional career, which took me to interesting places and presented me with challenges well-suited to my skills. I had a fair degree of success, both in terms of being useful and of my own material gain. I made excellent friends. After the sad premature death of Mrs P the First, I retired early, engaged in new interests and made even more friends. I realised my childhood dream of owning a Ferrari and drove over 100,000 miles in her all over Europe and America. I had ten happy years with Mrs P the Second and, though it didn't end as I'd have hoped, we remain friends after the only fully-amicable divorce of which I've ever heard.

I never wanted fame and lack the obsessive personality to be super-rich. My grandad told me as a boy that "we're only here for a look around" and mine has been a good look. What more is there for mortal man to hope for?

If I am wrong about the non-existence of God, I reflected, my conscience is clear enough to face Him with optimism, given that forgiveness is said to be His defining characteristic. No life is free of error or regret, but I have little to be ashamed of, much to be proud of and I had a lot of fun. If it was the end of my story, I thought to myself as I sat, drained, in Fulham's Riverside Stand, it has been a good one.

I hope to hold onto this new-found serenity. It seems a little stupid now that it required such a moment to bring me to it. Fingers crossed, I can carry it forward for a few more interesting years. If not, please don't cry for me, gentle readers. Thank you for your attention and for the exchanges we've had in the comments. If this is goodbye, then please remember my old grandad's words and have a good look around!

Miss Paine the Elder and her life partner have chosen the name of my granddaughter - due to join us on December 9th - but will not share it with anyone until she is actually born. So for now she is codenamed "Boudicca" – Miss Paine the Younger's jocular suggestion when told they wanted a "traditional English name, not too commonly used." I have been thinking of her as Boudicca now for so long (and, trust me, I think about her a lot) that I may keep calling her that.

Regular readers will recall my unalloyed joy at the news of her impending arrival. She's not even born yet and she's making me a better man. For the first time in years, I'm thinking about the future. It will be her world now and I want it to be great. I also want to live long enough for her to remember me and am constantly planning ways to be as memorable and beloved a grandfather as my dad was to my girls.

That's the good news. The bad news is that our civilisation is still in jeopardy. Our enemies mass at the gates. Our leadership is execrable. It's so stupid it can't understand the importance of the freedoms that made the West. It lacks morals. Its public policy ideas would shame a sixth-form debating society - even one formed (as my admissions tutor – looking at the crap comprehensive I was "educated" in – rightly guessed) just to look good on an application to a law faculty. 

I had resigned myself to the fact that a great civilisation was coming to an end (as all must) and that it was my destiny to live in its final years. Statistically Boudicca is likely to live more than a century however, so my concerns now reach beyond that feared end. I'd always assumed my American-educated daughters could flee there if Britain and Europe fall into a new Dark Ages. Now I have to pay attention to trends in American politics that make it seem doubtful as a refuge.

Arguably the most optimistic thing I ever did – a decade and a half ago in Moscow – was to start this blog. I uttered the optimist's favourite cliché: that it was better to light a candle than curse the darkness and set out quietly to try to change minds. I remembered how one pamphlet – Tom Paine's "Common Sense" – had shaped a new world and took his as a pen-name in the hope of pamphleteering digitally to similar effect.

How many minds have I actually reached? A few thousand at best. A few hundred regulars. Remember how the internet was going to allow us all to escape the wicked grasp of press barons and those whose spittle they lick? Well it kind of happened – consider the reach of Guido Fawkes or Ian Dale these days, let alone Elon Musk on X – but it wasn't to be for most of us. My candle is still a candle and the ideas it was supposed to illuminate – Enlightenment notions that were uncontroversial for centuries – are more in the dark than ever.

I would love it if you, gentle readers, could help me back from the negative mindset to which, in such circumstances,  I have descended. I don't hope to recover the arrogance or optimism of my youth. I quite accept that the wisdom of age largely consists of realising how little you really know and how stupid you used to sound. There's nothing wrong with a bit of humility or perspective, for sure. I just need to recover some hope that, for the sake of my Boudicca and yours, good ideas can prevail.

The only hopeful straws I see in the current winds are Elon Musk, a friend's son's explanation to his dad of all the "bullshit you have to pretend to believe at school to get marks" and the fact that – last July – the utter collapse of the Conservative vote in Britain didn't increase the numbers voting Labour. In fact, in the only part of this realm with a Labour administration (my native Wales) their vote went down. Only in Scotland did Labour gain – from the laughably incompetent (and left-wing) SNP. 

Also, while critical thinking has been hounded out of the Establishment and the dreaming spires of academe by the clerisy of a new religion rivalling Scientology for weirdness and stupidity, it lives on among the laity. The ordinary people of the West lack leadership however. The more thoughtful among us live in fear that they may acquire some of a nefarious kind. The more the Leftist Establishment cries wolf about the "far right" the more likely a real wolf is to spy an opportunity. All non-leftists have now been called Nazis so often that it's lost the shock it should command. I hate to end on a negative note, but that seems almost as dangerous as the religious and ideological threats calling such demons forth.

So, gentles, if you have seen other straws in the wind that might give me hope, please let me know in the comments. 

Monsieur D., with whom I lunched in Antibes last Sunday, lives in Bandol near Toulon. Yesterday I left the home in Cannes of my Polish friends and drove here to stay with him. It was the shortest drive of the trip and passed uneventfully. Having parked Nira at our home for the next few days, we set off in his car with his chocolate Labrador (one of the friendliest and calmest dogs I've ever met) for a quick tour of the town, a walk on the beach and a coffee by the sea.

He's engaged in a big deal at the moment and spent a lot of time talking and texting. So I checked my email at the café and read a notification from the Family Court that had arrived while I was driving. My divorce from Mrs PII was final. I confess it was a sad moment. I took off my wedding ring and sent her a photo of it on the café table alongside my finger, marked by its absence. My caption said "Now we are exes" and she replied "and friends." I guess that's about as well as a divorce can go. Still, I was glad to be with a friend when the news came through. His presence (and my male pride) kept me stoic.

In between his afternoon business calls and over our evening bouillabaisse in a local restaurant where he's a regular, we talked about business, our industry and our lives. We discussed his own – far worse – experiences with two divorces. He has a court hearing today about custody in the aftermath of the latest one so it's still fresh – and bitter. He received a couple of calls and a stream of texts yesterday from his ex. It was a reminder that things could have been far worse for me.

More entertainingly, we discussed the relative merits of his current girlfriends, one of whom (bless his optimism) he thinks might be "the one". If that makes him sound naive, that's misleading. His approach was rational, practical and entirely devoid of romanticism. In my life, I have had such discussions about which car I might buy next, discussing their relative merits and how they might suit me, but never about women. I remember worrying endlessly before each of my marriages whether I could make my wives happy. I never asked what was in it for me. Like some dumb teenager in a pop song, I just fell thoughtlessly in love. Everything else (in truth, most important parts of my life) I trusted stupidly (or, let's be kind, romantically) to "fate."

My friend's ruthlessly evaluative French approach has still led him twice into trouble and strife so God knows what hell awaits if ever I trust my naive lack of judgement again! I wish him (and all my friends) well in the quest for a perfect relationship,  but I am setting myself the simpler task of learning to live happily alone. To know your limitations is, after all, the beginning of wisdom.

While he's in court today, I shall take the opportunity to catch up with neglected commitments elsewhere. I shall rest quietly in his home in preparation for another un-but-should-be accustomed walk with his dog later.

Percentage of days on tour involving a rescue is now down to 27%.

My political despair is too profound to blog on my once-usual subjects. The “deep state”in the UK has grown enormously under the “Conservatives” so they don’t now even serve as a brake on Britain’s crazed (and yet seemingly popular) lurch towards totalitarianism.

I carefully don’t say communism or socialism, because the idea of public ownership of the means of production remains unfashionable. The idea of state control of the use and application of capital, however, seems to have become the norm — for both major parties. Technically that’s not socialism but fascism, which is ironic as “fascist” is the preferred term of abuse for anyone who points it out. Hence my silence here. 

Despair has receded in my personal life, thank goodness. My divorce is a button press online away from final — and delayed only while Mrs P2 sorts out her work visa. It has disproved my lifelong theory that an amicable divorce is impossible. Both parties have conducted themselves admirably and, for myself, I must say the lady in question has even gone up in my estimation. I hope we will remain friends. My feelings for her are unchanged but — as a good classical liberal — I only want to be part of contractual relationships that are mutual, so have accepted my fate. 

I despaired personally not because of Wexit, but because the Misses Paine remained aloof. I’m happy to say that since Christmas a thaw has begun. Hope has resprung in your blogger’s breast and I have begun to turn outward again. I just wish Spring had come 40kg earlier!

As a step back toward my life as it was pre-lockdown and pre-Wexit, I’ve embarked on a continental road trip in Speranza. So The Last Ditch is back, but in travelogue mode.

Watch this space.