A telephone call from my mother this morning informed me that my great grandmother was not, in fact, called Bojs, which was somewhat incomprehensible name scrawled on my grandfather’s birth certificate, but Igoe.
Apparently she was from a bloodline who founded a gang which became known as the Fighting Igoes. She was not in the gang, but some uncle or cousin or brother was their leader, and is still remembered even today.
I was impressed and rather enchanted at such a distinguished heritage, and looked them up on the Internet, only to discover, rather to my surprise, that they were not merely Irish roughnecks. In fact the Fighting Igoes were a gang of secret police officers, engaged in counter IRA manoeuvres, and who sound to have been quite remarkably mad and brave. They were never infiltrated by the IRA but were involved in several extremely dodgy incidents of horrid violence, the details of which have clearly become muddied in the hundred years which have passed since.
I was very pleased, how very interesting to have such a lunatic ancestry, perhaps there is something in genetics after all.
I am sorry to report that this discovery was possibly the most interesting moment of the day. Other than that it has been moderately uneventful, noticeable only for the continuation of yesterday’s headache and also the ongoing progress of the Advent calendars.
These are getting closer, however. The one to Canada was finally collected today, three are ready to go in the post tomorrow, and the final three need only the numbers to be painted on them.
I have reached the stage of wishing wholeheartedly that I had started them in June.
Next year I really will.
I have not gone to work this evening. Yesterday’s efforts resulted in such a small reward that it did not even seem worth the time involved emptying out my cashbox, and tonight I decided that I might be more gainfully employed with the calendars. Hence I am writing to you from a desk which is liberally littered with painty rags, tubes of paint, sticky paintbrushes and paint daubings. It has been a busy day.
I have listened to the whole of Piers Morgan’s newly-published tirade about wokeness on Audible whilst I have been painting. I am not exactly sure that it was worth the expenditure of an Audible credit, it is all very well listening to somebody ranting energetically about matters with which one wholeheartedly agrees, but it is not terribly informative, nor does it encourage a considered, in-depth understanding of other people’s points of view.
I have tried to understand the woke point of view. I read, with a determined attempt at an open mind, a persuasively written article about why men should be allowed to participate in women’s sports if they really really want to be girls. The article said that it was limiting women to encourage them to believe that they could not compete equally with men, and that the only reason they couldn’t run as fast or punch as hard was because they lacked self-belief. It concluded, optimistically, that sooner or later the introduction of blokes into their competitions would lead them to try harder.
I decided that this was the most terrific twaddle and have carried on sharing an opinion with Piers Morgan.
My most favourite quote about Piers Morgan came from Stephen Fry, who said: What is the definition of Countryside? – the murder of Piers Morgan.
Still, it was an unchallenging listen, involving the necessity for no concentration whatsoever. I will have to find something else tomorrow.
I have got an old schoolfriend coming to visit tomorrow, so I hope the headache has dissolved by then. It would be terrible to have a headache before I even start on the hangover.
I am going to tidy up the worst of the clutter, and I am going to go to bed.
Enough is enough for one day.
