The pointless blip, with some pointed observations

Observation 1: weightlessness when climbing: the moment when one pushes off and upward with the foot, and reaches out with the hand, and the resulting lift gives momentary weightlessness before the body starts to respond to gravity again. In that moment of weightlessness the impossible is possible.

This is what I remembered when I was climbing the plastic wall tonight (all of us said how we'd nearly bottled out, because it was such a dreich, cold night), and the thought was like a shot of something pleasant in the arm. Just knowing that, I can take more risks, dare to swing further and reach higher, Sadly, the instructor Mike who taught me in the one lesson I ever had, has moved to North Wales, though he is now living closer to his climbing dream.

And what we've actually got here is the Pointless blip of the supremely pointless quiz programme, which goes out at 5.15 and which I still watch when I have the chance. My new Olympus camera battery has arrived, but was charging. The old one had about five shots in it. The spare (el cheapo) is equally dire. So I only snapped what I could, and this is the best, believe it or not (no lines on the TV).

When we came out of the Warehouse in Gloucester, we walked into a pea-souper freezing fog. A young man was standing in the doorway smoking, and it looked for a moment as if he was single-handedly responsible for the yellow mist.

Observation 2: This is odd, because, with all the WWI anniversary stuff going on at the moment, the line that has been ringing in my brain recently is "strike up a Lucifer to light your fag" from the once-popular wartime song, "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag"

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag
and smile, smile, smile
Strike up a Lucifer to light your fag
and smile, boys, that's the style!
What's the use of worrying
it never was worthwhile
So, pack up your troubles in your old kit bag
and smile, smile, smile!

Thus singing, they advanced gamely 'over the top"....

Observation 3: My climbing mate and old university friend has a daughter of 13, who is having to make her GCSE choices. I was appalled to hear that by the time she takes her GCSE English in 2 years' time, the system will have gone backwards to pre-1987 standards, with 100% weighting on one exam result taken on one day, and no literature course materials being allowed into the exam room, even for the purpose of supplying quotations to support evidence. Dear Mr Gove.....