under another sun

Phoned by Janet to say Ken's operation had been brought forward to this afternoon. So I didn't see him. Spoke to Mum who had an excellent time walking eating and laughing with Romy in Paris. So great that they got the chance to meet as the Romster was on a business trip there. The world turns. A walk this afternoon in the still-wintery sun. I can feel the Spring coming both in the world, and in my life and it is a lovely feeling. Walked to the walled garden, a woman breastfeeding a little baby in the sun, and the sun gathering in corners of soil immanent with life. In the evening, as Lorraine was out, made a small sinister, home movie called Janus . Probably due to watching the highly disturbing Inland Empire again. Below a still from Janus. Click through to watch it on You Tube .

Couldn't help noticing Mercury has just stopped going retrograde and is now progressing. Pure coincidence, of course, that I received the months overdue letter from the tax office notifying me of a repayment. A cheeky grand and very welcome - and not just because I won't have to keep asking my accountant to chase the effing thing every two weeks. I slunk back to the gym, and managed half an hour's creaky trundling on the cross trainer. While I have a long way to go to get back to anything like fit, it made me cheerful (and tired). Met Claudius in the changing room and had a chat with him about poetry to the bemusement of the narcissists and sweaty jocks about us. Talked to Janet, and will visit Ken tomorrow as he is bored before his op on Thursday. The excerpt of the business book I have sent to several friends already has had some very useful and thought provoking feedback. In this hiatus, reworking and expanding Defenders of Guernsey   and removing one or two glar...

Greengage jam and the darkness at the centre of everything Spending money today. Booked plane tickets to Guernsey, booked into La Barbarie - a process that for some reason required four phone calls - and went into town to buy the splendid stripey armchair I'd seen yesterday. Now, when I have guests, everyone doesn't have to sit in a row like monkeys avoiding evil. Spoke to Mum who is off to Budapest to get her broken tooth sorted out. Mase is also going to have his gnashers sorted too while they're there - those Budapest dentists are certainly Hungary for business and are cheap and excellent by all accounts. Also wandered through the food festival again but confined myself to buying two jars of jam: one of greengage and the other of plum. Watched some interviews with David Lynch in the afternoon. I find the way he thinks really inspiring. Despite the fact that he constantly wriggles the fingers of his right hand in the air when talking, which is very distracting. Later, I ...

A squeak in the blogosphere Fairly uneventful day. Bumped into Reuben this morning, and we had a good gossip standing all the way from Brighton to Victoria. A beautiful morning. And in between working, I was thinking about poetry, wrestling with the eternal problem of how to make my poems, which are so disparate, fit together in a coherent collection. Took a new pitch brief this morning, and struggling to get my head around that with The Gnome. Popped out at lunchtime for a half an hour's stroll, and the park was dotted with people sitting in the sun. Arriving home, I spoke to Anton who had been for his chest x-rays, and was now looking after the babies single handed. Discovered in the evening that yesterday's mention of Inland Empire got picked up by the Guardian online. Cyberfame at last! IM chat with Sarah at the end of the day. And then lost track of time writing, and didn't get to bed till late.

Inland Empire Pleasant Sunday. Something of a lie in. Then chatting with Sarah who introduced me to the delights of Hawaii's own Don Ho amongst other things. And looked at Hawaii recipes for pork "butt". Apparently standard US nomenclature. I learn lots of odd things from Sarah. Spoke to Mum who is finalising her website. I will have a link here as soon as it is up and running. Pottered about for a bit in the afternoon, with an eye to the Chelsea v Spurs FA cup match on TV, with the noble Chelsea recovering from a poor start to force a replay with the upstarts. Also applied for some ISBN numbers. Took myself off to see Inland Empire the new David Lynch film, at the Duke of York's Picturehouse in Brighton. Excellent venue, grand and slightly shabby. They seemed to have pumped all the oxygen from the cinema however, which made me almost nod off at one point. The film however was stunning, gruelling and mystifying all at the same time. It features Laura Dern as an ac...