under another sun

Morning spent doing bits of admin, like securing a new interviewee for the podcast, and a little bit of writing. Lorraine doing story time in the Library, then taking fish and chips around to Pat and Maureen and hanging out with them for a bit. Then this evening she collected Ken from Lewes Station, who is here to spend a day with Pat and Maureen tomorrow. Early evening off to meet Anton in Brighton. Fascinated by a woman talking loudly from Bishopstone to Brighton about the care of dogs, including the benefits of feeding them cumin.   Brighton lively and the pubs full, it being a pay day Friday. Had a bite to eat in The Hampton, and then drifted down to the Brick looking out for the great parade of planets. Before ducking in for a glasses of their two thirds of a pint beers, and played some bones, where I continued my losing streak. Great to catch up despite having to devoted a few minutes to raging about Trump and the end of the postwar order.  Anton doing a little painting ...

Woke up the news that a twenty year old had tried to shoot Trump from afar, and had nicked his ear, Trump having moved his head slightly, and then killed a person in Trump's audience with another shot, before he himself was killed. Trump had the astonishing presence of mind to use the moment as political capital, and there is an amazing, election-winning photo of him blooded, and pumping his tiny fist with the inevitable Old Glory in shot. A historic photograph. The maga people taking this as proof that God wants Trump to lead America.  Then I went into the loft, and found a roll of carpet that matched our bedroom. We cut out the aromatic patch where Brian has repeatedly offended. We will buy a new carpet, but a strip of the same carpet will do for now. Brian has now been banished in perpetuity to the kitchen at night and only in other places supervised during the day, and never in the bedroom. This means Calliope has too.  Otherwise a watching sport day at Kenny Towers. Pat a...

Up before seven this morning. I wake early when Lorraine isn't here. A chat with Keith over my morning cuppa and then I did writing of mine own. Finding it hard to concentrate -- despite having some ideas. Gym at lunchtime - listening to Victor Klemperer's diaries. So reminiscent of the rise of Trump and populism -- the flagrant tearing up of the rules and everybody either enthusiastic or numb.   I miss certain equipment that was in my old gym. Few people go there, but I am finding the right machines are hard to get to, covered in teenage gym limpets. Took a longer route home, Seaford misty and cold. A small doze this afternoon, then more writing till getting on for eight. Made a fast curry and watched Star Trek. Bed a bit earlier today, reading a bit from CG Jung's book Memories, Dreams, Reflections about his meetings with Freud. They do sound (unintentionally) hilarious. Below still learning Seaford. Down a twitten today which forked.

These are dark times. The pandemic waxing like a baleful moon, and in the evening a Trumpist insurrection, storming the US Capitol and interrupting the ratification of Biden's presidency.  The gullible mob had been whipped up by the orange Satan a few hundred yards away -- his last gamble appears to be to stage an attempted coup, with a mob made up of white supremacists, Q-anon lunatics, and dunderheads who have drunk the cool aid. The mystery was why the security offered so little resistance. There was little or no gunplay,  no tear gas, nothing of the kind of deadly quasi-military response should the mob have been BLM supporters.     Meanwhile, in Kenny Towers, Lorraine off to work, trying to cope with the impossible demand that over half the school's children belong to essential workers therefore feel entitled to still send their kids in -- and then taking urgent covid related calls in the evening. She is doing magnificently, but is very tired. I hate that she is ...

Raging is doing me no good. The lockdown is too soon. Cases and the so called R number are beginning to climb again in Brighton and Sussex. Painful gains are being thrown away. Not sacking Cummings loses any shred of moral authority the Government may have had. Instructing the people to do one thing, when even the people setting those rules flout them endangers the population.  I fear for my countrymen, not to mention the people I love and care about. My own wife, for example compelled prematurely to welcome back children. Turns out that the little girl Beth looks after just went down with C-19 symptoms. Luckily Beth had not seen her for two weeks beforehand. We dodged a bullet. As for Trump and the US.... And breathe.... At least I can breathe unlike poor George Floyd who was murdered in cold blood by a policeman still kneeling on his neck minutes after he had died. At least Johnson, and the cohort of amoral Lilliputians he surrounds himself with, still have some way to go before...

A pleasant day, not having to write about homelessness nor anything else. Mainly allowed me to sit about and  cough and snuffle to my heart's content. Bussed to the Bath Arms have a bite to eat with Catherine, and we had a good chat on a wide variety of things, everything from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Donald Trump, and a bit of gossip thrown in. Catherine mentioned as an aside that her PhD thesis on Florence Marryat, that she has restructured as a book is now going to be published at the end of next year. I came home and flaked out a bit, and then when Lorraine was done with work and Beth was back from Eastbourne we went off to the Preston Park Tavern, which felt like a celebration of Lorraine being on the weekend. I wasn't drinking much, however.  Beth and Lorraine menacing each other's bottoms in the dark on the way home, despite it being no later than eight.