Ah yes. The unmistakeable sound of a postman pushing mail through the letterbox. In a way it's a comforting sound, knowing that there's an outside world that wants to communicate with me. Experience has taught me to be more circumspect. Since my last employer decided that I owned the wrong car I must have received something in the order of several hundred rejection letters. Who knows? Maybe there's more waiting downstairs?

In a way there was. The police have sent me the usual summation letter following a report of crime, in this case the disappearance of my unloved Eunos Cabriolet. They're sorry I'm a victim of crime. Yes, I sort of noticed that. Investigations have concluded without result as no further lines of enquiry have come to light.

After telling me to investigate the theft myself you'd think they'd have the good manners to wait until I compiled my dossier. Perhaps I'm being unfair. I realise that police resources are limited and that my car was no longer a high value necessity of life. It's just that every time something like this happens I'm left feeling as if stable doors are being closed after the horse has gone. Worse still, the nagging idea that a deal was struck behind my back is impossible to shake off.

So for now the mystery goes unsolved. Will sensionalist articles appear in newspapers and magazines? Will famous presenters reconstruct their theories in television documentaries? Perhaps authors will write books on the subject, or mount expeditions into south american rainforests in the belief they have a map with an X on it. Give it thirty years or so and Hollywood might make a blockbuster movie Raiders of the Lost Eunos. I hope they don't. I'm english. That makes my character the villain by default.

More Letters

More letters mean more bills. Worse still I heard on the news last night that energy prices are going up again. Commentators are talking about people having to choose between heating and eating this winter. Now I have my new Microwave of Mass Destruction I can do both.

Meanwhile, Back At The Hospital...

Time for my appointment and subject myself to some strange gizmo. Sadly I wasn't greased up by a pretty young nurse as I hoped, but the tests weren't so bad. The speakers played tinny gurgling noises which apparently are the sounds the body makes. Of course you can't normally hear them because the missus or the kids won't shut up, and that's if you drag yourself away from sport and soap operas on television. You might also need a military surplus submarine detection kit.

"It's a sort of sonar." The operator mentioned when I enquired whether these noises were natural. "Like on submarines."

You're not planning on using any depth charges are you?

And Finally...

The Richard Jeffries Museum was open! Ye gods! After more than forty years of life in this area I finally happened to pass by on an open day. For those who don't know, Richard Jeffries was a local 19th century journalist who also wrote books about the area around Coate Water. The museum is the cottage he grew up in as a child.

You know, I can't help thinking that film and television don't get it right visually. I know there's bound to be a change in patina after 130 years, but looking at leather cases, blackened flintlocks, and period clothes laid out or hung in view, there's a quality to them that makes dramatic reconstructions look like fancy dress.