Good news of Cocker spaniel thefts

I was watching the local BBC News when there was a piece about dog napping. It seems that there is an organised gang stealing gun dogs, particular cocker spaniels, from their unsuspecting owners.  If you are a regular reader,  you will know that the Nice Lady Decorator is the unfortunate owner of an even more unfortunate cocker spaniel called Banjo.

The bit that caught my interest was a warning to pet owners to vary their routines as some are being watched so that the thieves can see where you live. My suggestion that we set a rigid and regular agenda to ensure the best chance of his theft, which should be enough to deter the thieves from thieving ever again, was met with a withering look. In case the thieves are readers of this column here is a picture of your new target.

Dog nappers delight

Today I must venture up to London for a series of meetings with the great and good of rock and roll. Nowadays my function in the music industry, which has sustained me for most if the last 40 years, is more sporadic than those heady days when I lived and breathed it, and the chasing of hit singles, but I like to keep my hand in, not least because I have become one of the music industry establishment that I so despised when I started out. I shall be putting that erstwhile establishment, the PPL, The Public Performance Licence people, to the sword for hanging on to royalties they owe me due to their continuing to operate an antiquated IT system.

Thereafter I shall be caught once again in a web if my own making. Old pal and soon to be Currencies Direct client, John Otway has a plan that involves Otway the Movie and the Cannes Film Festival. As I have connections in the south of France, I saw the trapdoor of involvement in this scheme early enough to a avoid it, but as always, I am drawn like a moth to the flame of the next Otway brainstorm.  I have said that I am no longer on the spot in Valbonne, at least not until well after May when the Film Festival is staged, but he and I both know I am on the spot, right on the spot as I have been so often in the past.  Anyway, we are meeting for a beer to discuss tactics.

The weather has remained resolutely grey but I am now pleased by that. Having booked a break in Tenerife whilst in the slough of desperation with the greyness of the weather, I need it to remain unpleasantly damp and grey in order to justify the expense. We leave next Thursday but I admit to being concerned about the 0.02% chance of rain on the 5th day of 7.

I had reason last evening to talk on the phone to my guardian in France, one Peachy Butterfield. He tells me that he was on the Naked Politicians lovely boat, the D5 on New Years Day and went for a swim in the Mediterranean.   I mentioned to him that I considered doing just the same here but the prospect of dying a horrible death of hypothermia had put me off. That and I don’t swim.

Now to the new book the Valbonne Monologues which I had hoped to lunch later this month. Regular readers will know that technology and I do not always see eye to eye. It seems that the decision to include pictures in this book has run into problems. I am not quite certain about the extent of the problem or why the number of pixies is important, but that is what it sounded like. Thus the launch will now take place sometime in March, once the pixie problem has been solved with an exorcism or something.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News