under another sun

Time to start my blog again. Re-entering cyberspace... My ezine is probably dead in the water, as I have been unable to access my emails for months -- and have had no time to build web pages. Unfortunately real life took over. However since my last post I have separated from my wife, moved into a new flat and narrowly escaped redundancy. It has been a long hot summer, extremely upsetting and stressful -- although with a few great times unexpectedly found too. Posting this, two days before my 44th birthday is perhaps a sign that things are returning to normal. October the tenth finds me meeting my wife to sign some papers for the sale of our house. Always painful to see her. Our separation has been amicable and we have done nothing to hurt each other. But a big part of my life is with her, and what is excellent is that our separation has not made me feel in any way that our relationship has been in any way invalidated. It was time to move on, and that's that. This morning...

Last night went to see 70s prog-rock legends Yes at Hammersmith Apollo with a couple of pals from work. Naturally as we left the agency bar, we were greeted with a measure of derision from our esteemed colleagues. I confess that my heart sank somewhat when I saw the audience, who all seemed my age or older. Unlike me, however, they were predominantly dressed in YES teeshirts. The show started, the lights gleaming disturbingly from the bald pates around me, but I must say I felt a huge rush of affection for the "chaps" creaking onto the stage. Their music is unique. Uniquely bad most of my friends would say, but I have always admired the way they have followed a different agenda, and created a style that was uniquely their own. I went also because of nostalgia. I saw them first in about 1974 when I was fourteen. With Roger Dean's cover art, and my obsessive reading of Lord of the Rings it all contributed to rich world of fantasy and escapism. Jon Anderson has always...

Dog tired after a returning this afternoon from a family reunion in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Was brilliant to see everyone and to be back in my spiritual home which I miss all the time. As Victor Hugo had put in his dining room when exiled in Guernsey... Vitae exilium est . The Island Games are being held in Guernsey this week, so all our habitual haunts were booked up, so the family found ourselves staying at a boarding house run by a ghastly crew of Dickensian grotesques. The chief of these was a fantastically patronising woman who was an ex-school teacher. The pedagogic urge has not left her. She spent what seemed like five minutes explaining, with demonstrations, how to use the lock of the room. Me biting my lip savagely. But mainly there was good food to be eaten, and chat to be had, and walks along the cliffs with my brother and his wife (whose first visit this was). Unfortunately, my mother had hurt her back a few hours before Mrs Kenny and I arrived, and so wa...

Back today from Samos the greek island. Plenty of news which I will add in drips and drabs. Was pleased to learn this morning that I have had an SF story accepted by an online magazine in the States. Work busy but retaining my chilled Hellenic aspect. Will report later about Greek adventures later such as seeing dolphins dancing in the prow wave for the hell of it, or visiting Patmos, the seeing the cave where the text for the Book of Revelations was written down. Must away, but more later....

Thunder last night in London. I woke and found I appeared to have swallowed what felt like a cactus. Dragging myself around today feeling ratty with swollen glands and sore throat. Few meetings today, mostly slogging at the dratted erections again. I am writing various role-play scenarios of men visiting their doctor. Will this torment never end... Andy back after the birth of Delilah Grace, and looking cheery if somewhat tired. A day with little else to recommend it. Bah.

I'm sure I'm omitting all the fabulously interesting stuff, and leaving only the dregs - as I've been too busy to keep this going properly in the last few weeks. Among other things I have been slaving over this huge website on erectile dysfunction. However there is a holiday is in sight -- Mrs Kenny and me are off to Greece in about ten days time for two big weeks. Have joined a new swimming pool which is actually close to where I work. Have been slipping off at lunchtime or before work and it is helping me relax, although seems only marginally to be affecting the sumoesque nobility of my figure. This weekend it was my wedding anniversary. Mrs Kenny and I went out to our favourite restaurant, the Glasshouse in Kew Village this lunchtime and had a marvellous meal and bottle of wine. She got me some nice books and a teeshirt, I gave her some perfume that she'd smelled on Loretta last weekend and really liked. Saw a photo of me executing a perfect star jump during t...

Back from Anton and Anna's wedding, via a short spell in Brighton. Am finally relaxing a bit. Mrs Kenny and I travelled to Salisbury on Thursday. Infuriatingly, I realised on the train that I'd picked up an early draft of the wedding poem I'd written for the event. Fortunately I was able to get a copy of the final version from the registrar just before the wedding. Thursday night was spent in Philips House -- a huge house in its own grounds. Walked in the side entrance through and then through a bookcase door into a huge high ceilinged room with many big oil paintings of old worthies, a log fire and a view over rolling grounds fringed by trees and with the distant glitter of a small lake. Here's a photo of the house. Philips House Many happy reunions with Anton's family, and I enjoyed meeting Anna's parents for the first time. We rehearsed the ceremony for the marriage the next day. Which involved walking down flights of stairs to a landing where they...

Finally a chance to catch up. Very preoccupied with work in the last week, and had to go in yesterday too. Which makes this blog a bit tedious though... I can't really go into what is happening other than tales of trying clients and a deluge of work. Dull reading... Some respite was provided by going into Soho on Wednesday to work on a TV ad. It was an "adapt" -- overseeing the recording of a few voice overs and then off to another suite to add phone numbers and so on to the ad. You find yourself having earnest discussions about whether a telephone number should appear at 19 seconds or 20 seconds. This is my televisual legacy... A lost second of a telephone number on a tv ad. Fortunately "the client" who was with us, was actually really nice -- and we took her to wagamamas in Lexington street. Tried to be charming etc. but still cringing internally from my remembrance of talking to her one night and she asking me how old she was. I said 40 instantly. I guess...

Survived Anton's stag weekend. Friday night was good -- it just being Anton and I wandering around Brighton dropping randomly into bars and ingesting a Chinese meal in about fifteen minutes. Back to his place and we listened obsessively to reggae and earnestly talked nonsense till late. Woke up feeling decidedly ropey the next morning, with the sinking knowledge that half a dozen guys were going to want to go mad for it that very afternoon. Anton who was on the phone to Anna had to break off his conversation to hurl up his headache pills. After he and I had drunk lots of coffee, Young Nick and then the rest of the boys duly turned up and we set about drinking our way around Brighton all over again. I find these cat herding sessions quite difficult. Maybe it was because I'm the oldest of the group I appointed myself the sensible one and negotiated for us when the need arose. Fortunately we all made it home safely and I spent the night on a lilo waking up intermittently and ...

Intense four days at work. I discover I have a slightly different job, and am not sure if this is a good thing yet. Otherwise have been clandestinely writing the poem for the wedding -- but have negotiated a few extra days from fierce women in registry office. I am just about to leave for Brighton again to stay with Anton in preparation for his stag night out tomorrow. Liver and kidneys already squirming in anticipation.

Just back from Brighton, where we stayed with Anton and Anna in their new house in Brighton. Such a cool town, lively and artistic. Can't wait to move down there too when someone eventually buys our house in Kew. Neck glowing attractively as a consequence of lurking in the sun this bank holiday afternoon. Was with Mrs Kenny, Anton, Anna and Trotsky in Brighton. Trotsky is cat. She likes flies, loathes seagulls and enjoys car rides and comes when Anton whistles like an only slightly aloof dog. We spent a couple of hours this afternoon sitting in their back garden watching Trotsky scrabble about clumsily in a almond tree, and trying to decide whether they should go for the blanquette or champagne at their wedding. The decision process involved bottles of each and an inexplicable desire for pizza. Interspersed between hanging out by the seaside and going to bars and restaurants, we talked about the poem they've asked me to write for their wedding. I think I have a plan now...

Saw my Mum and Mason last night. Mum gave me two CDs full of painstakingly-assembled correspondence and photographs from her father's family -- who were living in India during the days of the Raj. This is a photograph of Mignonette who is my great-grandmother. As a boy I was always fascinated by the exoticism of this photograph -- what's below is a detail of the bigger photo which is of a group of people gathered on a veranda somewhere in northern India about to go to a fancy dress party. Looking forward to studying all the other pieces -- although Mum said there are some really depressing bits, especially the correspondence of Ella (my Grandfather's first wife) as she was dying of TB. Mignonette I was pleased to see Mason bearing up well after his mother's recent death. When someone dies in their late nineties after a full life the fact that there is no sense of the injustice can help. Otherwise we had a good time guzzling Mexican food and drinking Sol b...

A day in a daze. Ineffectually wandering about with a horrible cold still. Andy and I doing a tiny amend of some TV ad this afternoon and I found myself vacantly staring at the screen unable to form any opinion about voice overs and when telephone numbers should appear and so on. Fortunately Andy was more switched on than me today. Kate's birthday today so a bunch of us went for lunch in Riverside Studios where I noticed a minor soapstar and ate lasagne. On Sunday I saw a newsreader. It must be strange walking about with people half-thinking they know you all the time. Home and Mum called as I began to cook to say that Mase's mother Helen had died at 98. She was until very recently remarkably hale. Mase seems to be okay, although I didn't speak to him tonight. What a stretch of history she must have seen from about 1905 till now. Arranged to go down to see Anton so I can find out what needs to be said in the wedding poem.

No blogs lately due to Andy and me being in an unspeakable work frenzy, a very late night and a debilitating cold. I presented our hastily assembled work on Friday to a client who insists on having other agencies sitting around when you do so -- which ups the twitching somewhat. However, I managed to introduce a Heidegger quote into my opening remarks which made me feel big and clever anyway. Seemed to go well, and Steve, heavily pregnant Cait and I were quite cheery in the cab heading back, as opposed to the slightly funereal outward journey. Hung about in the agency feeling altogethery with everyone, especially after a few beers. Saturday I cycled off and bought some marvellous Cornish pasties for Mrs Kenny as a kind of elevenses, and then collected new reading specs. Felt sorry for a 12 year old girl who burst out of the testing room in tears as she had just been told she was short sighted. A diverse collection of four-eyed geeks clustered around her assuring her that specs...

I woke last night convinced there were burglars downstairs. Heart hammering I clutched my trusty crowbar went in search of them. Must have been one of my increasingly disturbed and paranoid dreams caused by too many easter eggs, though I had to search the house twice to feel certain. Otherwise very peaceful over the last few days. I've made a couple of bicycle rides and a swim but have felt very tired during them. Otherwise had a haircut, a nice meal with Mrs Kenny at the Glasshouse in Kew, and a family get together for Zara's birthday, and seeing Kate too for a chat and lunchtime pizza. Have finished a reworking of a short story in my quest for SF publication this year, and fiddling with a poem about glasshouses. A million things not done though, and I'm dreading going back to the agency tomorrow. There is a tsunami of work heading towards me. Have fallen badly behind on the website and will aim to have the new one done by May 1st. Listening to Bilal "1st ...

Glorious sun. Yesterday I woke up in the morning and realised I was right and I enjoyed pointing this out to people during the day. Enjoyed work today. Snuck off at lunchtime to have my eyes tested for new reading glasses (occupational hazard of scribes). After the tests and people jetting puffs of air at my eyeballs I carefully chose a pair. The salesman said they didn't suit me and forced me to choose another pair which -- admittedly -- didn't tightly grip the sides of my skull. Then a short nip down from King Street to the River where I liaised with Andy outside the Blue Anchor again for a swift half in the boiling sun. Back to work sheepishly rather late and we sat in an "inspiration" meeting in which Andy and I were right serveral times and ate chocolate biscuits. After work I joined several muckers who went back to the river. Had a top night out with the likes of Kate, Craig, Robbie and Matt. After working our way upstream like spawning salmon, we ended up u...

Unseasonably warm today and in the last 24 hours I have been glancing at Robert Lowell's poems again. Important never to throw books away. I bought a selected poems of his in 1983 when I was working in Casio warehouse hefting boxes for a living. Hated the poems then, but 20 years later I find I'm really enjoying them. One poem loosened my socks on the tube this morning. On surfing I discovered it was ""Rima LIII" by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870), a Sevillian post-Romantic writer whose lyric verse was published in book form as Rimas a year after his death". Apparently this is a Bad Thing. But Lowell's reinterpretation is knockout -- and if Yeats could do it with When you are old , don't see why the boy Lowell can't do this. It almost edges into cheesey but manages to pull it off... Will Not Come Back (Volveran) Dark swallows will doubtless come back killing the injudicious nightflies with a clack of the beak: but these that stop...

Seemed to dream all night about writing and designing brochure on, of all things, bicycles. I kept waking up during the night and realising I didn't have to do this, then fell asleep again, and took up the brochure where I'd left off. Intolerable! I woke up exhausted and as if I'd already done a day's work. Work (in the realm of wakefulness) only moderately trying. But, unreasonably, I feel that life has constricted to a pinprick; and I feel very restless and in need of a complete break. Saw a scuffle on the tube tonight on the way home with everyone packed together like rats. Half a dozen youths jostling about and someone taking offence. Thankfully didn't get involved. Heard a few days ago that my play Wrong had got a few laughs in Glasgow. But now, as is the way of drama, it is thin air again. Will turn my attention to revamping AnotherSun again this Easter. Feel a great hunger for reading now. I can't imagine anything nicer than feeling relaxed eno...

Felt optimistic and full of beans on Friday morning. Went out for lunch to celebrate Marcella's birthday in Browns in Barnes. Star spotted former England and Arsenal football star Tony Adams. Trailed back over Hammersmith Bridge and into a typical Friday afternoon agency panic. Then lurked about after work drinking. Home to Mrs Kenny and the usual Friday night curry. Today I've been unable to relax. Not been able to apply myself to any writing or sorting out the ezine. Eventually I gave up and had another enjoyable walk around Kew Gardens. It's an aborbing place and I always seem to see something new there. Because of the variety of planting and trees it reminds me of other places when I walk around. Felt a bit strange and on the edge of depression but have pulled back from the brink thanks to eyefuls of flowers and gardens and birds and waterfowl. Have re-read all the CS Lewis books lately. Which is probably why a part of Kew Gardens made me imagine Narnia. Quite ...

Argh. A duck did me in. Went out for supper with my pal Louise the other night, and found myself gorging on duck. Home uneventfully but then became v poor with some kind of food poisoning. A day of vileness, or should that be foulness, yesterday. I read CS Lewis children's book for comfort. Lurched back into work today to find Andy struggling with a cold -- so we were not the dynamic duo today. Bizarrely it snowed this morning. Mrs Kenny muttering about breaking her other leg as she left to bravely travel across London on her sticks. Visited Aimee's good blog again, which is called Reflections from a sandy country .