Thank you, Sharon and JAG, for rescuing me from the Adobe Pop-Up Virus – although, as I said, it's hard to see how things could be worse than they are now. What is McAfee doing to earn its fee? Why doesn't Malwarebytes work any more?

I had a less than entirely satisfactory Sunday afternoon. I started with trying to order from a Christmas-related site. Everybody else must have been doing the same thing – I kept getting their (rather entertaining) “Oops! Something went wrong!” page. I'll try this morning.

Then I turned my attention to emails from the Mellon Centre in London. Someone in British Columbia had written to the director about a picture he has which he thinks might be an oil sketch for a major picture by My Husband's Artist. He asked (by name) that the director refer the question to my husband. The director replied that my husband “is not in good health, and might not be able to assist you”.

Maybe just his way of trying to escape a nuisance, but it irritated us.

Then he had his secretary forward the correspondence to us. It arrived as one of those Chinese puzzles of messages within messages. I had to extract the relevant bits and print them out in a form my husband could comprehend. As I have said, he never really mastered computers.

Having done that, I found that I couldn't persuade Old Slowcoach – the computer which is still attached to the printer – to print the attached images. I could probably have managed if I had been willing to sit there all night. So I wrote to the secretary and asked her to print them and send by post. I assured her that my husband is sound of mind and eye, and always answers such queries. 98% of them are rubbish – but that leaves two.

It's one thing off my conscience, I guess, but not nearly as much as I had hoped to get done that afternoon.

Knitting

There was more in the Sunday Times yesterday – everything came in under £1000, you'll be glad to hear. Again, big and formless. I haven't, myself, seen any inside-out ones this year, but I know what you mean (comments yesterday). Lisa, I like your friend's hypothesis that the factory sewed them up wrong and Gap was making a virtue of it. Although I would agree, Knitlass, that there are too many for that to be the case.

It would be the ultimate illustration of EZ's thesis that there's no mistake in knitting which can't be turned into a Feature – except a split stitch.

Speaking of which, it was almost with joy that I found one (a split stitch) in Archie's sweater the other day. What to do? Ladder back and correct it! This wasn't lace, and it wasn't garter stitch. The correction was easy, and perfect. I have never mastered laddering in garter stitch, although I own one of those two-headed crochet hooks which are meant to make it simple.

All went well here last night, despite the darkness and my frustrating afternoon and the lack of our soap opera. I am now about ¼ of the way along towards the final corner, the Messy Corner, in my edging of the Unst Bridal Shawl. The Messy Corner is still out of sight over the horizon, but I can see real progress in the distance I have made from the preceding one.

I meant to say something about P.D. James, but I've run out of time. Tomorrow, I hope.

Pearl Harbor happened on a Sunday – I thought I remembered that, and I've looked it up; it's true. It must have fallen on a Sunday often since, but yesterday seemed sharper than usual. So why was the Japanese ambassador with Roosevelt? Why didn't they take the day off? FDR, at least.