under another sun

Apart from a few emails and a chat with Rod, Ken's son, to discuss his wellbeing, and Ros in France, I did not visit Ken or Janet today. I was feeling run down with a closed up throat, and Lorraine has been worse. However, we did go for a short drive off to Trading Boundaries, driving through the countryside beginning to go tawny. We nosed about there for a while, looking at the interesting furniture, much of it imported from India. I of course particularly nosed at the beautiful Roger Dean prints. They are lovely things, and of course Dean had colonised my visual imagination since I was a boy. We sat outside having a coffee and sharing a cheese scone while a Jazz band inside slurred through standards like So What , and Take 5 and My Favourite Things . Both of us somewhat below par. I feel drained and without a creative bone in my body. However, one of the weirdest things about today was that my brain was taken over by Pat. I found myself lapping up the scores in the Ryder C...

Lorraine and I off to Trading Boundaries today, and bought some really colourful cushions and a gorgeous patchwork quilt for the big bedroom. They suddenly brought the room alive. Always like it there, and ghosting about upstairs seeing all the Roger Dean prints. After this Lorraine and I went for a walk around Lake Wood near Uckfield. However it was incredibly muddy, but we had our boots on and squelched around enjoyably enough for a while. Good to get some fresh air. There is a small lake there with is very atmospheric, bordered by small caves and unusual rocks. Home, and then Lorraine started working on her bits and pieces for school, and I did some work on poems, and other bits and pieces, including speaking to Mum and arranging to come and meet her and Mas on Wednesday. Also girding loins for working in London next week. Lorraine made an amazing turkey pie, which we ate while watching Cylons in the evening. Below a detail of a pen drawing of the Tales Tom Topographic Ocean...

Lorraine and I having a happy holiday mooching about day today. My chest infection marginally better too. Drove off, in a gorgeous afternoon, to Trading Boundaries this afternoon to buy the curtains that Lorraine had had her eye on for some time. We managed to buy the last two sets, and they fit perfectly in our front room, and are a treat to the eye. We also had  coffee there, and I looked longingly again at the Roger Dean prints. Then to a couple of garden centres where Lorraine and I mooched happily among the flowers, and also talked a good deal about the water feature we hope to have in the back garden one day, and looked at pots for waterlilies and smelled many roses. Home, and a spot of gardening, picking more of the tomatoes that are growing well, and looking for the beans and plums that the snails are particularly liking, then the aforementioned curtain hanging, and I cooked a lively vegetable chilli.  Sitting in the living room, thanks to the curtains, I began to ...

A highly relaxed day today. A good deal of gardening, bearing foxes in mind. Off this evening to Trading Boundaries to see Steve Howe, guitar legend and member of Yes. He was introduced by Roger Dean too so I got a twofer on massive boyhood heroes. We had opted for a dine and concert option, and had some pleasant enough food on a table with six others. Two folks came took their places next to us, and the people on the far side said they could recommend the bass. The man next to me said he did not eat bass, and as a matter of fact he was a member of the bass anglers bass preservation society. We naturally warmed to these, the man a little older than me was a complete music obsessive, and his partner along because this was the least worst of the options he had offered her of gigs to go to. Lorraine in female solidarity with her quite quickly, although L found herself quite liking Steve Howe and said it was perfect Sunday evening enjoyment. Service efficient and friendly too. All a fa...

The best night's sleep of the year so far. Here and there this morning. Down to The Old Church Hall, to pick up a bundle of post, that despite postal redirection is still being delivered to the wrong address by the incompetent Royal Mail. A bit galling. Also around the corner to pick up framed pictures, the nostalgic Tales from Topographic Oceans Roger Dean poster, and two photos by Adrian that we'd finally had framed for our new house. Then home, and then out again, this time on foot, to stroll across the park, then up to Seven Dials where we popped into Anton's house to give Klaudia her present, as she was 11 yesterday. I gave her a Golden Ticket to a mystery theatrical night out with her Godfather so I can say no more here. Klaudia getting ready to go off to a James Bond party, and emerged after Lorraine put her hair up looking very sophisticated.  Got to hang out with Oskar while Klaudia was getting ready, sitting with him as he whizzed through one of his computer ...

Very tired today. Calliope thoughtfully woke me up at six. We drove off to Haywards Heath to Lorriane's pal Jo's house which she is about to rent to us for the hopefully short period in between moving out of The Old Church Hall and moving into our new home. A nice enough little place, in a leafy little ex council estate. We are calling it our cats and skeletons move, i.e. just taking the cats and skeleton belongings. Home via Trading Boundaries, to see an exhibition of Roger Dean 's work. Dean was a hero in my teenage years, not just because of the fact he did the Yes album covers, but also his book Views made me think about design and architecture in a whole new way. But the exhibition was slapdash, and did the work no justice, like some kind of disorganised Brighton Open house. Good to see some of the prints, and so on however. But disappointing overall. As we drove off saw Dean himself from a distance hugging people. He'll always be a hero to me. Home and both L...

Backstreet Picasso Brain in a fog first thing, but this soon dispelled. Had talked to Toby about Equador and other things the night before, and had a curiously bad night and woke up having had a vivid dream about doing parkour down over a series of tiered gardens, and ending up talking to Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, about transport. I told him that transport should be free in our capital. Anyway, a very good day. Zoomed through my list of must-dos. Solved I hope the Gracenote problem (the similar track names confused them), completed the agreement to sell CDs online and via iTunes, dropped posters off at the Sussex Beacon shops, posted sample CDs, talked to Cem who may be able to swing some coverage in the Brighton Argus, sent more invites, talked to Matt, went to the bank, lurked briefly by the sea in the cold in one or two fine motes of snow and agreed to do some copywriting on Thursday. Cooked a turkey curry and forked it down happily with Lorraine, who has a bad throat and...

Avatar Finally saw this today with Lorraine. It is utterly breathtaking. It has moments of more intensely realised alien beauty than I have ever seen. It is even more thoroughly influenced by Roger Dean than I'd thought. The islands floating in the sky, the huge arches, the dragons in the forest, and their vivid colouring and spatter patterns are all straightforward lifts from Dean, as are some of the vehicles and animals. Roger Dean has been trying to get a movie underway based on his floating island concepts, and I can't imagine what is going through his head. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it must be utterly galling to have been so robbed of your concepts without acknowledgement. But there is so much more added into this Dean template to bring it life, the movie can be forgiven. It is a spellbinding world. The story is predictable, straightforward and heavy handed, but because of its fabulous context this is easy to overlook. It is a must see movie. First...

Dragon's Dream Ate my own bodyweight today: a large breakfast in a local pub, then back home for a big Thanksgiving feed cooked by Mase. Tanya and Robert mum and Mason's pals came around too, and we had a fun afternoon despite Tanya talking about boiling frogs in socks in the Philippines. Socks? Yes hessian socks. Then Lorraine started talking about the uses of leeches and maggots in medicine, which put me right off my turkey for several seconds. Lorraine and I went home, and we were greeted ecstatically by Calliope, who had clearly given me up for dead after staying away last night. And after Lorraine left, the kitten superglued herself to me for the rest of the evening. Over the kitten's head read Dragon's Dream , the new book by Roger Dean . He famously did the Yes covers I poured over as a teenager, but he has also had fascinating approaches to interior design, and architecture which are still way ahead of their time. In the seventies Dean had a book called Views , ...