08:30 Lois and I roll out of bed and come down to have a quick breakfast before our daughter Sarah's weekly zoom call from Perth, Australia, where she lives with Francis and their 7-year-old twins Lily and Jessie.
Sarah has already sent me of a picture taken earlier today when they stopped in at the Burns Beach Café in Iluka, one of mine and Lois's favourite places in the Perth area, to have a hot chocolate and something to eat, and to get out of the rain.
(left to right) Jessie, Francis, and Lily earlier today at the Burns Beach Café
flashback to May 2016: me having a coffee at the Burns Beach Café - happy times!!!!
Summer is a-coming in over there - they say it was 100F / 38C there yesterday - my god!
09:30 The zoom call with Perth starts - the twins are so cute again - they want to show us lots of exhibits and examples of their art work as usual. They also got their faces painted earlier today at their Swimming Club's open day.
Lily showcases her face painting..
... Jessie too
(left to right) Lily, Sarah and Jessie...
...and a rare sight of Francis - right, on the sofa with one of the twins
Sarah and Francis haven't heard that England is going into full lockdown again later this week, but we assure them it won't affect our lifestyle one bit haha! Lois and I are so grateful that they are all in Western Australia, where the coronavirus isn't a concern, thank goodness.
Life returned to normal in WA a couple of months ago, and now even Victoria is reporting zero cases - Lois's cousin Sylvia lives in Melbourne, and she and Rod are very pleased to have a bit more freedom of movement at last, to put it mildly.
Sarah and Francis introduced a new routine for pocket money last week apparently - they each get $1 a day, presumably on the condition of good behaviour haha! Jessie shows us some of the money in her little money box. Australian money looks much like ours, as regards size and shape, and the Queen's head of course, but the denominations are changed of course, so our 50p coin is marked 50 cents over there, which is convenient.
Later in the day, Francis posts a picture up on Facebook that he took last weekend when the family went on a whale-watching cruise out of Hillary's Harbour, a place Lois and I know very well. Jessie says she was a bit disappointed that they didn't get to see the whale's face, but Francis assures her that the tail is the best bit!
Francis's picture of a whale, taken from the whale-watching cruise boat at about 200 yds distance
flashback to March 2010: we spend an evening at Hillary's Harbour : (left to right) Sarah, Lily, Jessie, Francis, Lois
20:00 We watch some TV, a documentary we recorded a couple of weeks back all about Princess Di's famous BBC TV interview with Martin Bashir, that took place 25 years ago.
Quite nostalgic for Lois and me to see this programme, although it seems like it's from another world nowadays, that's for sure!
Apparently an unpredictable chain of events led to Diana granting the interview.
Firstly there was an interview given by Charles, in which he admitted that he'd committed adultery with Camilla, but "only after his marriage had irretrievably broken down". This was actually the second version of the interview - in the original one he had kept quiet about his affair. But it was suggested to him that the interview, conducted by a sympathetic interviewer, would perhaps be the best place to get the story out into the public domain in a low-key manner, and so a re-recorded interview finally went out with the shock confession of adultery in place.
Charles's confession made Diana feel that she had to give her side of the story, but she might never have given the interview to Martin Bashir if Bashir hadn't engineered the forging of some bank statements that played on the rampant paranoia that both Diana and her brother Charles Spencer were displaying at the time. Bashir had some fake bank statements produced that made Charles Spencer think that he and his family were being targeted and spied on by mysterious agents or agencies.
All this made Diana determined to speak out on her own behalf to Bashir, although she subsequently "bitterly regretted" giving the interview. Although the BBC appeared initially to deny the existence of the forged bank statements, they appear to have gradually backtracked on this. Bashir apparently pulled a similar trick on an earlier interview he did for the BBC. He was "ill", it's said, and "not available for comment" and didn't take part in this documentary - and his career didn't really much go anywhere after a few years, for unknown reasons.
The implication of this documentary is that, to get his interview, Bashir played on the Princess's paranoia at a time when she was in a very vulnerable state and believing the silliest stories that she had heard about threats against her both from inside and outside the Royal Family.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!
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