Not passing

Lorraine off to do Rhyme Time in the Library, I fiddled with a poem, but felt at a bit of an impasse. Part of me wants to have one of those university reading weeks as I have an ever mounting pile of books to be read, but there is always something else that seems must be done. However today I re-read Freud's essay on The Uncanny, as well as one called Screen Memories (a seemingly-banal memory from early childhood, that the brain then uses as the basis for repressed feelings from later life). This I found very interesting, and set some cogs whirring in my head. I don't agree with all he says of course, but he is an amazing writer.

Also I am arranging some interviews for the next season of the podcast. Trouble is reading begets more reading. Now I want to read The Sand Man by E.T.A. Hoffmann as Freud was glossing it. Also began reading Bluff by Danez Smith, a US poet, who I will interview. Made an absolute gaffe writing to the publisher's publicity, calling Danez him instead of they. Mortifying, at least it wasn't to their face.

In the afternoon I zoomed off to the gym, and then mowed the lawn, while Lorraine did some serious gardening. We made a huge salad with about 100 veggie ingredients plus a small bit of feta and some tuna.  Lovely stuff. Lorraine watching the olympics a bit, but then we listened to music, with Lorraine avidly reading a book called Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult. When Lorraine gets gripped by a book, it absolutely consumes her till she's finished it.

The absolute horror show of far right criminality and racist rioting that has gripped the UK in the last week or so was faced down by counter demonstrations on the streets tonight. Reportedly far-right thugs were coming to cause trouble outside a firm of lawyers in Brighton, who act on behalf of refugees. About a dozen or so turned up, but they were met with thousands, and were eventually taken away in police vans back to the station. I had thought about going to Brighton for that, but thank God there are more motivated people than me out there reclaiming the streets from fascists. The tone on a local facebook page in Seaford a bit different. There were seven thousand people voting for Reform in the Lewes constituency, which was comfortably won by the anyone-but-the-tories-Liberal Democrats, people like those idiots I met recently in the Saxon pub (obvs named after continental invaders from another century). 

Below just down from the station outside the BBC offices, you can see yellow police jackets, protecting a handful of fascists. Everyone else: the counter demonstration.