Locally
Some fun, some frights, some good news and some sad

• Fun at work: in the newsroom yesterday as the paper went to press we had an editorial from a man with one of those difficult (to Anglo-Americans) Italian surnames, Ciarrocchi (the Ci is a sh sound; cch a k: ‘Sherocky’ is close enough), and as we were waiting to get an e-mail with his picture the editor kept asking for the Crotchy photo. (Not even Croachy like Jim or Pat Croce.) AFAIK we’re still more or less a family-orientated paper so none of that or Page Three.
• Where were you when the lights went out? Got Ref’s severe weather a couple of days later, giving some respite from the heat (in the 90s F; about 35 in the new money), but I happened to be awake from the driving rain and lots of lightning around 2 in the morning when everything electric went deathly still. No harm done here though. The next night we got another storm: marvellous lightning spiderwebbing across the sky! The only trouble was briefly I had to be out in it.
• RC high school now an old-age home for the poor. Deo gratias. I’m often in the neighbourhood and hated to see what was obviously an ‘anchor’ property from a 1950s golden age go to waste. Glad to see that’s changed.
• My rector and father confessor of 12 years has prostate cancer. Jesu, mercy. Mary, pray.