Bedraggled bairns Anna had an early business meeting in London, so my Godchildren Oskar and Klaudia had breakfast here this morning. Anna looking both glamorous and businesslike, bringing a bag of cereals and some milk. The bairns raided the pirate box for chocolates dug out their toys, played my guitar, feed the fish, etc. After 40 minutes of this off into the teeth of the gale and rain to school. The children bedraggled when they arrived, and I was happy to get them back indoors. Klaudia not wanting to wear her hood, and skipping along happily in the rain. Oskar less happy with it as we struggled to get his hood on. Found myself pulling his ear by mistake at one point, but Oksar endured this stoically. Home and work on the Libretto, some French work, and some accountant and bill-paying based admin. Late in the afternoon finished The Double by Dostoevsky, which although interesting ends less well than it started: as if the double scenario has been established, and Dostoevsky wasn...
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Fireworks Breakfast with Mum and Mase: coffee and crumpets and various compulsory vitamin pills. Mum scorning her usual muesli. Then some chatting and resetting Spotify on Mum's computer and making her listen to smidge of screeching Schoenberg. Also showed her facebook. Then off for a steak and kidney pudding in the Man in the Moon in Stanmore, parking in the Sainsbury's car park, as Mum and Mase are at war with the jobsworth in the Lidl's car park. Mum sporting a butterfly ring she bought, and her enforced starvation over the last few weeks has resulted in the silver lining of her having lost weight. Avidly reading The Double by Dostoevsky on the train back to Brighton. It is definitely about someone having a nervous breakdown, and then there is the issue of whether the double is really there or not. In the evening met Matt briefly over a beer to talk excitedly about doubles, Schoenberg, etc. and how we could make ours distinctly different. A farewell outside the pub, a...
A telescope More unspeakable nightmares. No idea why any more. Spent the morning working, and then broke off to have an eye test. Nice man who spoke a mangled ophthalmologist's language. I've written extensive websites about eye health, but found him hard to follow. The upshot, as far as I could tell, was that my peepers are no better or worse than last time. This was something of a result as I didn't have to buy new ones. Spectacles I mean, not eyes, that would be grotesque. Met Randolph for an overdue and rather jocular coffee this afternoon. Good to talk to a fellow writer, and hear about the ordeal of getting his new play staged, makes all my projects sound like a walk in the park. We got to talking about the comedies of the election, and literary quarrels where he told me about Dostoevskyand Turgenev. This from the New York Review of Books: Dostoevsky quarreled with Turgenev because they resented his “foreign” leanings and habits. Meeting in Baden-Baden, Dostoevsky tol...