More departures from this mortal coil.
One of the great pragmatic philosophers of the late 20th Century and a great comic writer - a sort of Jonathan Swift of our times but without the bitterness - has left us.
And farewell also to Leonard Nimoy.
I took account of my own health by seeing Dr Hughes. Since the New Year, I have been eating a bowl of muesli at breakfast, a cooked meal at school for lunch, a meal cooked by Ross in the evening and probably a sandwich with a drink last thing and I have have lost about a stone in weight. While Dr Hughes accepts that the stress of my current situation is most likely to be the cause of the weight loss, he's going to organise a variety of tests over the course of the next month or so to establish that there is nothing physical as the root cause.
So, among other things, I'm expecting to have a camera inserted up my bum and another fed down my throat - though not on the same day and not without the support of drugs.
I don't think that it will count as one of the great pleasures of this year.
Leon may well, however. After last month's unexpected fourgy, I thought that I should like to meet up with him on a 1-2-1 basis.
I was hesitant about travelling all the way to Leeds for a couple of hours of sex no matter how good but he offered to book a room in a hotel in Manchester so we could meet up there. And, I thought, "Well, when you think about it, why not?"
Nice lad that he is, I should have remembered that keeping to arrangements and punctuality are not his greatest assets. Luckily, it wasn't cold as I sat waiting for updates about his progress. I think the meet started about two hours' late. I was a bit miffed so, after money had changed hands, I hoiked his jeans down, laid him over the end of the bed and fucked him. long and hard and fast. He responded by dipping his back to raise his ass towards me and pushed back and squeezed at the same time. I came quickly.
Once we'd cleaned up, we cuddled up on the bed for a while. I like talking with the lads I meet up with, finding out about why they escort, what they do and where they want to go in life.
Some do not wish to answer and that's fine. Some are very limited about what they will discuss and that's also fine. Leo was quite happy to tell me about the "dungeon" he had in his home and about the BDSM world he flirts with (Bondage and Discipline: Domination and Submission: Sadism and Masochism).
He also explained that he did a lot escorting work meeting up with heterosexual couples, often because the woman wanted to have sex with two men, sometimes because the man wanted to watch his partner have sex with another man, occasionally because the woman wanted to watch her partner have sex with a man. There were a few couples who wanted to try out all the possible permutations. Leo was sort of boastfully proud of being able to satisfy both as the meat in the sandwich fucking the woman to climax while wanking the man's cock with his arse. "You have to know what you're doing," he smiled "but it's a real buzz when you get it right."
Then I fucked him standing up in front of the mirror on the wardrobe door, tugging on his nipples and biting his earlobes while he wanked himself until he sprayed the mirror with his jizz.
There was still thirty minutes remaining of the two hours but I determined that I could catch a timely train home if I put a move on.
Some time back now, Ross said that he didn't want any physical contact between the two of us. I responded as supportively as I could, knowing that his experience of sexual abuse was affecting his whole perception of the world. I explained that I needed sex and requested that I be allowed to continue meeting escorts. I don't give him details of who I meet or what we do but, on occasions like this one where my transport arrangements have changed, I do keep him up to date with arrival times, etc.
Parts of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud have been laid waste by IS, Yes, this is a cultural desecration and so was the Taliban's destruction of the statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan in 2001. The faux outrage in some of the media is galling. They really couldn't give a toss about statues or ancient buildings under normal circumstances.
But what do people think happened during the Protestant revolutions of the 16th and 17th centuries in this country? Henry VIII's pillaging of the monasteries was used to fund his wars. Oliver Cromwell's iconoclasm finished the job off.
There is a story of a Chinese visitor to Ely cathedral looking at the bare walls and empty niches and commenting "So, you have experienced a Cultural Revolution too".
Ross and I watched The Inbetweeners 2. I can just about take the humour of embarrassment which the series uses on TV. This film veered wildly into the arena of full on scatology. I had to vacate my seat before I threw up. Ross was wildly amused by both the film and my reaction.
I missed a Sunday afternoon RLPO concert which I had a ticket for. Much as I would have loved to have heard Petrenko conducting Tchaikovsky's Symphony No4, I was behind with my marking and preparation. Got to keep those plates spinning. Serves me right for having a shag on the Friday and watching a film on the Saturday. Can't do it all.
I went on a writing course organised by the council. Such a lot of grammar. Do eight year olds really need to know about the passive tense? Do ten year olds really need to be able to flourish a subjunctive? Or is this all about creating boxes which can be ticked to show progress?