under another sun

Budapest - scrap of a diary I found in April 2011 Another enjoyable day today. Went to the fine art museum in Victory Square by metro -- the MI. Very fast journey. Just went with Mum as Mason went to the US embassy to investigate things to do with his website. Lots of interesting art there, but only managed to see a small amount in an hour and a half. Bruegel (older and younger) particularly top. Some Goya too. Ghastly queue to get in with no apparent organisation for half an hour. Also strange Stasi like way the attendants shadow you as you look at the paintings. I took my Berghaus off at one point and slung it over my shoulder. I was told firmly that I had to carry it under my arm. Back to the Kommedia for a bite to eat and some coffee. Mason had been to a tea shop to talk about business and come back with a bag of exotic teas they'd given him. Mason then went back to the hotel to talk to the embassy guy on the phone and Mum and I took the metro to the Buda side of the river. Got...

Budapest - scrap of a diary I found in April 2011 Much better mood this morning. The consequence of a decent night's sleep and no hangovers. Felt dreadful yesterday morning. I managed an hour's sleep between writing my last entry and getting up. Things didn't start too promisingly. Had breakfast (a nice one) and forgot to call Mum and Mase to say I was doing so. Then we went to the Opera House around the corner and brought some tickets for Thursday night. Then there was a big anxious chat about what to do next. Mason had spent nearly an hour plotting things. I decided to split off from them and meet them for a boat trip at two. Feeling anxious, horrid and tired I began a two hour exploration of Budapest on foot (on the Pest side of the river) mostly in unrepentant rain. It was fine though, and by the time I had walked for a couple of hours I was much better spiritually, emotionally and physically. Nice city. I remember thinking at one point that you can tell something about...

Budapest - scrap of a diary I found in April 2011 Drank too much yesterday. Started off with three gin and tonics in the airport after I'd met Mum and Mason. And continued after that. Mind you the flight wasn't great towards the end so I was happy to have been anethsetised. I arrived in Heathrow early - too early - and Mum and Mase were late and arrived looking flustered. Budapest is raining and grey so far, but we had a niceish meal in a slightly touristy restaurant called Nostalgia. I left Mum and Mas and went for a walk at night - feeling slightly drunk. I came back to the hotel bar and bought some cigarettes, smoked one and retired. Have been feeling horribly heartbroken again today. Probably just drunken maudlin. I feel old, sad and unhealthy right now in the middle of the night in a strange town.

Deer Path - scrap of a diary I found in April 2011 Really tired now. Went for a walk after a fairly nasty breakfast with Mel and Chloe along Navy Pier. Icy wind and quite good views of the city. Returned and Mel and I took a cab out to Deer Path. Getting on well with Mel. Arrived - finally - at Deer Path Inn, which styles itself as English in "Historic Hotels of America" strategically left in the room it says it is modelled after a mid-15th Century Manor House in Chiddinghurst Kent, England. Each of the Inns guest rooms purports to be named after a National Trust of England site. Mine is called Ormesby -- two big rooms with armchairs and two big tellys. Curious absence of soul however. Then work. Went to Abbott with Mel and Kristina and prepared for tomorrow's presentation. Client pleased I think. My campaign is going mental. Back to Deer Path at 4:30ish. Mel went to her room and I decided to go for a walk. Loads of churches, huge houses and virtually nobody to be seen. I...

Chicago - scrap of a diary I found in April 2011 One of those longer than ever days yesterday. Spent the first half pottering about in a considerable amount of fear. I tidied up. I went around the corner and bought myself ten fags smoked two nervously in the back garden. A couple of phone calls to Mum and Mas, and Bob and packed and set off. Once I had set off I felt better, although entirely still like a condemned man. On the plane reading a book about luck that Mike lent me. I was actually fabulously lucky on this journey. I only realised after the event that I had been upgraded. My seat number was 1A First Class. So the flight was even more restful than business class. I had been able to go to the Red Carpet lounge in Heathrow and drink free gin and tonics and smoke some nervous gaspers. The flight had its turbulent moments but with judicious gin and tonics I kept the horror well at bay. I was able to get quite flat in my seat and had my legs up in front of me all the way. It w...

Back from a weekend spent with my old school pal Paddy in a village called Medbourne in Leicestershire. Had several drinks in Medbourne's solitary pub on Saturday and walked home under the stars -- objects not seen in London -- in the fresh air. The village was largely built of the local yellow stone due to the iron in it, or so Paddy said. Sunday morning, with some degree of hangover, we went for a long walk into the country. This initially gave me a spinny head and then made me feel oxygenated and strangely alive. We then played bass and guitar in his kitchen before going to his next door neighbour's for Sunday lunch. Also saw Lost in Translation on Friday. Tokyo was the star, although Bill Murray ran it a close second.

Enjoyable night last night. Went to a private view at the Tom Halford Gallery to see Peter Stowell's exhibition -- a survivor's art Part One '...Before...'. He is actually my mother's half brother, and I'd not seen him for 20 years. I also met his brother Alex and his wife Pivey, plus two cousins I'd never met called Nina and Sarah, who I liked a lot. Complicated families.... Peter's art was interesting. Really good titles to his paintings. I particularly enjoyed "Playful ghosts of my former girlfriends" as a title, or "Visions of myself and Glenys escaping from the Green Gate pub and finding places of safety". And there were series of odd mechanical looking drawings. One particularly I liked was of a called "Pen and Ink mystery". Which had labels like a scientific diagram but they were written in an invented language. The idea of labelling is supposed to make things clearer -- and I enjoyed the fact these labels only a...

Time to start this again in ernest. Happy to see Christmas and the New Year go by. Now I feel that I am starting afresh. Found out on the first day back at work that we'd won a pitch, so had something to celebrate straight off. And yesterday Maddog called to say that he'd just become a father to Amelia -- 10lbs 4oz. Hopefully will be wetting the baby's head with him in the next day or so. Meanwhile will go down to the seaside to stay with Anton and Anna this weekend, who is about to become a father shortly too -- the baby's code name is Loki (norse god of mischief) to whom I will be a godfather. Looking forward to waddling about in a Brandoesque way shortly.

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...