Self-Winding · A Sort of Progression

IT'S STRANGE IN HERE
On Sunday, just for a lark I tried an hour of noting down occasional thoughts as they ran through my head...

Raining, lie in a bit, listen to singing/Vouchsafe, good word, derivation French?/email Abbey, say how brilliant choir is, rich, bold sound/ What does Lisa Jardine teach?/ Frippery; people show glam' underwear through top clothes in times of plenty, not my drawers/ Can't sing along with Frank Sinatra, bends the lyric too much/ Compost mentis/ Anne Reid - must watch her doing Barbara Cartland; she got the part that old bats everywhere would kill for, she must dine out on it/ I hate being called Nanny Annie/parboil parsnips/roast whole pepper/ I muddle caracas, maracas/apostrophes in Arts & Kids Week?/Jenny Taylor, unfortunate name, 'call me Jennifer'/squirrels pee all the time/ooh the agony Ivy, Samson Agonistes, Milton so deathly boring/Mellor - living proof of 'never apologise' technique/as much animation as the late Mrs. Lot/ Heather Mills, knee trembler/roast potatoes make your hair stink/Estolan/ Christmas, cold lunch/ Funeral baked meats/Merlin/All the bears that ever there was will all be there for certain because/ bronze shoes/galumphing/Mummy, Daddy, Ma Pa, Mama/Ricky Gervais, quite nice under all the show-off sh--t/gravy jug/beeches green through orange to gold/webs.

It's probably unintelligible. Don't know that it proves much, maybe that I need to wear my glasses for writing and that I'm glad, on this evidence, that I don't follow the Robert Shields diary regime.

Robert Delaunay: Nude Woman Reading. 1915.

Radio. For top-drawer comedy writing, Ed Reardon's Week takes some beating. Ed undergoes anger-management training in this week's episode, but not before fulminating some fabulous rants. There's a recognizable librarian in there too, not that that's any inducement for you to listen, of course.

Movies. My quantum of interest has revived slightly, enough anyway to make a date with Bond on 31st October.
'...Quantum of Solace isn't as good as Casino Royale: the smart elegance of Craig's Bond debut has been toned down in favour of conventional action. But the man himself powers this movie; he carries the film: it's an indefinably difficult task for an actor. Craig measures up.' (Guardian)
Kermode, effervescing with scorn, doesn't rate it at all - 'it's a mess'.

I reckon Craig almost has enough cash for the Francis Bacon he so desires. Once you have bought yourself a ticket on the big money express, it carries you to ever more lucrative places. Good luck to him, he puts in the work.

I recently had to abandon a gory episode of the forensic(k) TV series 'Silent Witness' in which the victims' faces had been surgically removed by the murderer. We are truly reaching the drooling spectator level of gladiator or guillotine watching in our anxiety to see more and more disgusting detail. I'd have thought that, by now, we had reached the pits in the horror genre, but the impending Saw V 's plot, that marries slicing and scatology, plumbs new depths. There's even an on-line game (just say you are under 18 & you're in) that evidently lets you wade in the muck with a friend for a while. I didn't venture there. The nearest I want to get to a blood-stained individual may be illustrated by clicking on the photograph above.

Art. Banksy has an exhibition in New York concerned with the commercial exploitation of animals. I like him, he's brave and witty, unlike the cynical and humourless Hirst, and he's a fine draughtsman; his website has a good selection of indoor and outdoor 'graffiti', videos and drawings.

Night Owlet

Bedclothes flung aside,
I cross cold lino to the window where
A breeze flaps the blind,
Its wooden acorn silenced in my hand.

Pulled by their laughter,
Kneeling for a better view,
I watch my family and their friends,
Grown-ups, apart, enjoying adult things.

Under the laburnum and the beech,
They spend a summer evening carelessly.
Glasses with froth from vanished ale
Stand on the flags, Gran's sandwiches pass round.

Aunts sit on cushions by the feet
Of women that I do not know, telling stories.
Granfer, licking his pencil,
Does his football pools, his glasses perched.

As twilight comes, softly they sing
Old songs (to which I know the words),
I'll Gather Lilacs and Charmaine.
I long to be as free as they, be grown.

And so my fierce resolve begins,
"When I grow up I'll never go to bed,
No-one will make me sleep on summer nights
Or keep me from this magic time."

In that one memory lies the key
To all a lifetime's love of dusk,
A sharpening mind as stars appear,
A wish to know each minute of the night.

-----------------

While on this theme, I found the perfect song for the mature owl, I have been humming it now for several days, it sums up the condition rather well.

The perennial problem is to define daily priorities, not just about essentials like seeing the doc' or replacing a tyre, but just simple preferences. And having decided on an objective, stating it and sticking to it. All the self-help books tell you to be brutal and subjective. But I always get hurled about by interruptions. Take today, G went off to Norwich and I got up early to make breakfast for the mother of our tenant who is sleeping at our house for a few days.

I was washed, dressed and ready for a sharp exit after gently conversational coffee & eggs. In my mind this was the desired scenario - pick up dog and have a chat with the old 'un, drive to Foulden Common for an hour's walking, then to Oxborough Hall to buy the Christmas pot pourri wreath I fell in love with and resisted on Tuesday.

I'd go on to the Swaffham Saturday market, have a mooch round and call in at the nursery on my way home. I figured there would be some stunning autumn trees shots to be had, a stop at the local fish shop for a packet of hot chips and later, the purchase of a couple of trays of mauve violas and a wander through the bargain tunnel of half-dead shrubs waiting for rescue.

Like hell. First to come were A & J who rang ahead to ask for some windfall apples, this involved another pot of coffee and a walk round the garden. I was desperate to pee when the 'phone rang again and, with my pants round my knees, I agreed that H could come by to sell me some raffle tickets for "just 5 minutes because I'm going out". This metamorphosed into an hour of therapeutic listening.

I thought I'd better do the veg' for dinner as I'd be late back; as I dropped the last spud into the saucepan The Boy knocked the door. Seeing my face fall he said "OK, OK, I'll go away then." I'd never turn away my mate - of whom I see too little nowadays. So it was lime juice and lemonade this time. Before he left, E arrived with a copy of the Guardian and a Twix, watertight inducements to make me scan a couple of her photos.

By now the sun had vanished, I needed some soup and another phone call came in. At 2.45 I gave up, listened to the afternoon play and did some ironing. While I pressed, I reflected that I felt frustrated not because I desperately wanted to do any of the things I'd planned, but because I had laid down priorities and failed to meet them. I suppose I'm of the people who need people mindset: I love my friends and the accidents of their all coming to see me today were happy ones. The answer to the frustration is, either don't mentally structure days too much and so go with the flow, or get up at 5 a.m. and buzz off before the beggars can catch you.

Life intervened. Sorry.