Reading ‘The Runaways’, a book I read either at school, or during that time, about a boy run away from reform school and a cheetah escaped from Longleat Wildlife Park. About freedom. Maybe we did read it at school because it is set close by to where we grew up, on Salisbury plain. It’s very very 1960s England. Having unknowingly spent the night together in the same barn, the boy sees the cat trying to get out of the barn door below his hay loft bed:

For a moment or two he watched, his mouth open in amazement. Then – with a swift, panic reaction – he slammed the trap door and shot across the holding bolt. He dropped back to a sitting position on the hay, clapped a hand to his forehead, and said out loud, ‘Blimey O’Reilly!’

…

Watched ‘The Fighter’. Liked it a lot. Crazy family! Too many sisters! Crack! Punching! Amy Adams! London! Prison! Training! Marky Mark! Christian Bale being all thin and weird!

…

Good news on the YouTube account front. Regular readers will know my account was cancelled due to three strikes of copyright infringement, for posting short clips from films and TV. YouTube say you must file a counter notification to the copyright holder, meaning they have to take you to court to remove the footage. Yet each notification I filed was returned because of some error on the form submission, same with email submission. Then I read somewhere that if the copyright holder notifies YouTube directly, the video will be restored and the strike revoked. So I wrote to Mon Onlce Films and MPI Media Group (the third, Lionsgate, I couldn’t find a contact email for), explaining my situation. The next day, someone from MPI said he would reinstate the video for me. Yes! Not sure how long that will take. As soon as I get the account back, I’ll remove everything apart from the walking videos. And download those I don’t have locally. Phew! I have also switched to Vimeo, who I may stick with. Mainly my concern was losing my first 15 walking videos for ever.

…

Steps stepped: Oh, around 100 maybe.