Ladies of Letters

Really Irene!

As if a person hasn't got more pressing things to do on a Monday morning – or any time, come to that – than to waste time idly flicking through TV programmes checking for supposed look-alikes. It smacks of a life without meaning, purpose, or direction. There again, having read the ‘cogitations’ in which you later indulged, I can only say stick to channel hopping.

I have, in fact, been alerted to program to which you allude by several people - who, I must say, were most complimentary. I’d have to disagree completely about the one called Vera being like me - I didn’t recognize myself in her at all. (And as for your assertatation that my kitchen lacks culinary hygiene and my costumes suffer from an excess of colour, I’ve never heard such a load of old Tom Cobbleys in my life). The one bearing your name, on the other hand, is the spitting image of you! Picky, pendantic, and dressed in just your shade of biscuit- where on earth did they find it! To say nothing of being a less than inspired cook,if that recipe for taramasalata was anything to go by.

How extraordinary! I shall be watching the next programme with great interest. It goes out on Tuesday evening at 10pm on ITV 3. Or so I believe.

Vera

PS: By the by, I have a mouthwatering - rather than eye-watering - recipe for Taramasalata , which I must send you some time.

Dear Vera,

A most astonishing coincidence just occurred. I happened to be channel-hopping while waiting for the Muse to descend, and I caught a few minutes of something called Ladies of Letters on ITV3. I say astonishing, Vee, because the main characters share our own nomenclatures, and whereas the one called Irene is nothing like me at all, you could be the very living template for the one called Vera - from the lack of culinary hygiene in the kitchen to the excess of colour in her couture, you are she to a T.

Sorry. Had to stop. The Muse has at last graced me with her oracular beneficence, and I must needs bow to her will.

Cogitations on World Peace

a poem

by Irene Spencer

Oh World Wide Web you are so large

Your net cast far and wide

For here I sit in Grossthorpe, while

I chat to the globe’s other side.

My words now reach the furthest flung

In corners hitherto hid -

I can be heard in Karachi, can talk to Apache

In fact, I already did.

So why, when we can all chat like this,

As friends at each other’s hearths,

Do we harbour division, allow politicians

To lead us down warpaths?

It is time we stood up and with one voice cried,

‘Enough, let there be no warmongering!’

As my sisters and brothers around the world know

It is for peace we now are hungering.

For so say I, and so say you,

Wanjiku at Yahoo dot com,

And so says Pradeep and Mai Lin and Wafu

And the Cobbley who’s best known as Tom.

My Very Dear Irene,
Notwithstanding your amputations on my technophiliac tendencies - I am delighted to welcome you to the Wide Web World of Internet Chatter. I'm so glad you’ve at long last decided to join the veteran web diarists, myself included, who've been ‘out’ for years - well months, anyway - delighting fans and random stalkers with my own "Blog" - or "Grog" in the case of my Christmas one, hahaha!
I often share not only precious philosophies with my scurfers, but also grumpy growls, top tips and recipes of the moment. "Stats" are crucial to the success of a "blog", so I'd be delighted to kick you off with a new culinary delight - there's nothing like getting an old hand onboard with a start-up - and of course my fans will follow me anywhere.
I'm busy chucking out all last year's rubbish at the moment - so will give this my full attention asap.
All the very best,
Vera

Recipe for New Year De-Intoxification.
Take a handful of oven-dried oatmeal (you can also use this to rub on the corns and callouses you may have accrued if you were busy being a 'dancing queen' over the festive season!)

Mix with lemon juice, carrot juice, ground ginseng (marvellous for the libido, swears my next door neighbour, 83).

Slap the mixture on that tired old skin and leave for 20 mins. Or dilute with water as an early morning drink, taken in the fresh air.

Always good to start the day with a complete evacuation.

Dear Vera,
I know you are techno-challenged, but I think it is time we ladies had our views aired to the wider world, hence I am starting a blog. (Do you know what one of those is, dear? No need to be frightened, it's just a kind of diary on the world wide web. But as it is visible to the public, let me just remind you here to watch your language and mind your p's and q's in your reply).
You might like to write a recipe, keen as you are about sharing your culinary excesses, whereas I am waiting on the Muse to enter me, so that I might write a poem for the enjoyment of the masses.
Hope you're as well as can be expected after your recent recurrence of asthma, by the way. They say it's a nervy disease, don't they? Have you ever considered mind over matter? Personally I am in the rudest of health, but then I always am.
With kindest regards,
Irene