Thursday 1^st February, 2018 0030

I should be sitting here with hardly any hair but I am not. Nothing to do with my indolence this time, I got up late morning, went to the kitchen to boil a kettle, felt the temeperature and saw the amount of ice inside the windows and took fright!

To hell with that, it can wait until afterwards when all I will do is go out on shopping expeditions. I still might buy a hat though, even though I am not keen on wearing them.

Steph made it to her airport hotel, still worried about not having printed off her ticket. She downloaded it to her phone which should be ok and if not there must be somewhere in the airport that can print it. Then I had an idea – she had it on a USB stick so she could ask hotel reception to do it.

Apparently not. I am sure they have computers and printers for producing guest bills so either she wasn't forceful enough (first rule is to offer to pay) but it was never done. I find that most odd because in Beijng on the school trip when I was given ten minutes to write a speech, in a hotel that had opened two day before and were still fitting-out, we managed to get my speech printed at approaching midnight. I don't know, maybe it is having been here for so long or the fact I am an irascible old sod who makes waves but if it can be done, they usually do it for me here.

I have said goodnight to Joan after she replied to my text saying I will be scared to turn my phone on in the morning in case I see “sorry” again. She tells me she worries about travelling alone. I can understand that as a young woman but China is possibly one of the safest places on earth if you avoid the obvious places and even then, for me it is no more dangerous than a Saturday night in a Glasgow pub, less so in fact.

She had heard a story about a girl on a train who smelt some perfume a woman was showing her (seen anything similar on Facebook and checked it out for veracity?), felt woozy and had to leave and go to another carriage with a friend. Another was someone who was taken off the train by a man, despite her struggles other passengers thought it was an argument between a couple and did nothing.

Entire rot, I know the Chinese don't like to get involved but someone screaming help me I don't know this man would at least have had the guard's attention. Can I blame her for believing piffle? When in the last 24 hours I have seen allegedly intelligent people on Facebook believing a tale of the first restaurant to sell human meat opening in Tokyo and a New York hot dog vendor arrested for supplying hot dogs actually made from dogs. It seems with many people they should be prevented from having internet access until a commonsense assessment is made. Ditto in China young people spread Chinese whispers and those I come into contact with are stunned when I display sang froid.

I wonder what would happen if I subtly told porkies in this blog? I wouldn't, never have done barring a possible slight mis-recollection when posting some time after events. Gullibility Increase and Sheep Mentality does make me despair for mankind's future though.

Earlier (last night now) I had a call from a friend asking for advice. No clues as to who it was but she has gotten herself into a bit of an emotional pickle. I have no intention of divulging the problem or the advice given but why I post is this:

I was the only person in the world she could speak to who she trusted to keep it to myself. I am doing so even whilst mentioning it.

If I ever actually get that book out, the above is a major theme in it. She is certainly not the first and I doubt she will be the last. They see us as far more liberal than their peers or elders and in my case I sincerely hope, sage.

I hope I dispensed sound advice (well I know I did) and that she will sleep soundly tonight. It is though touching to be reached out to in times of emotional trauma. Some time back I questioned what the hell was the point of actually existing, something a friend replied to at length. Well tonight was a salutory lesson as to why. Us oldies are here to make all the mistakes the young ones do, be approachable enough for them to come to you and ask – and absolutely imperative, give the right answers!