under another sun

A Frasier Crane moment Had muesli and coffee with Mas, and did some work this morning, before heading into town. Met a guy called Steve in a freelancer's haven called One Alfred Place quite near Goodge Street. He was held up, and as I waited, I had a Frasier Crane moment enjoying the club-like atmosphere with nice sofas and so on, reading Prospect magazine and sipping tea. From there I went back to the Royal Free Hospital and met up with Mum and Mason. Mum's operation is tomorrow. Had a nice chat under the circumstances, and Mason took the opportunity to talk at some length to the Prison Officers about fingerprinting and the FBI. Mum and I talked quietly about captive audiences. Returned to Brighton tonight feeling somewhat emotionally drained. Will be back up after Mum has had her operation, and staying with Mas at the weekend. Nice to be home, and listening to Chelsea beat Liverpool to reach the European Cup final. Hmm. Must email Nev. Below a picture of Pinkie The Walking

Mum goes to Hospital Up this morning and had breakfast with Mum and Mase, and classic fm. One of their neighbours Mohena popped in to wish mum well, and Oktai came by with some books to read. Then I had then to push off to Hammersmith to see my glamorous accountant. Had a hour's conversation about if I should become a limited company or not. She gave me her advice in ear wilting detail. Then back home. Mum fortunately got the call from the hospital, and the three of us travelled off down to the Royal Free and checked in. The ward she is in looked clean and the nurses seemed cheerful and pleasant. She's on the ninth floor so there was a view over rainsoaked north London. Turns out that her operation is not until Thursday. Her room of the ward has three other people in it, including mum. Another woman who'd been admitted today, a younger and quite talkative woman, and a prisoner. When I walked in I wondered why one of the women had two prison guards visiting her, but it turns

An acorn of friendship Up to the smoke today as Mum is going to hospital tomorrow for her operation. Also had a lunchtime meeting in The Acorn of Swinton Street with Mike, who is the publisher of On Track amongst other things. I arrived early and took the opportunity to wander about the area a little, which I'd not been to for ages. Near The Acorn was The Water Rats theatre which, in another life, I performed one of my plays on a double bill, the other being by my old pal the late Timothy Gallagher. I'm fairly sure I'd not been inside it since then. Had a heroic lunch with Mike, starting at 1.00 and lasting till about 7 o'clock. Had a bream on a bed of complicated salad with two bottles of wine, and discussed our business, and generally shot the breeze. Found we had loads of interests in common, and I came away thinking that I'd made a new friend. Also I will be doing lots more interviews, and Mike mentioned some very interesting names, which will be great. Eventual

Adrian Turner's photography of the sea Went to see Adrian Turner's pictures which he was showing at the launch of his new website. The pictures were of seascapes and were genuinely fab. I wanted to take a photo of Adrian for this blog, but he refused. I was granted, however, a snap of his hand clad in a white glove to protect the huge glicee prints of his photos. Really interesting to talk to him about his photographs. He doesn't use digital cameras, and much of the film he is using is becoming hard to find. On show were many of his seascapes, and often he stands in the water wearing waders to get the feeling of being part of the sea. And he usually takes shots first thing in the morning, when the light is beautiful and the beaches are empty. I really envy Adrian's ability, his photos are brilliant - capturing all kinds of moods of the sea, sometimes mysterious and ghostly, and one or two with waves that look set like glass. You can see some of his work for yourself at

The road goes on forever Up early to set off for a wonderful day's walking with Anton. Got to West Hoathly , to begin again from our last stopping point, the Cat Inn. Today we headed broadly eastwards, walking most of the way across the OS map to a village called Groombridge, straddling the Kent border. We skirted the Weir Wood Reservoir and then had a hobbit's second lunch in the village of Forest Row, under a plaque which told of President Kennedy's visit on 1963. Our last two hours were a straightforward 8 miles along a disused railway line, which is now a cyclists' and walkers' highway through East Sussex. Beautiful spring day, although many of the tracks were bootsuckingly muddy, especially around the reservoir. We walked through woodland often carpeted with bluebells, and the edges of fields adorned with primroses. Lots of rabbits about, and we saw a herd of deer, which Anton thought were a pack of Alsatians at first, a fox streaking red through a lush field f

Waiting for that Friday feeling Slightly fraught today and not feeling very Fridayish, lining up meetings for next week, and struggling with my Skelly story. Also recieved a rejection for my pamphlet project, although an extremly kind and nice one. Spoke to Mum too, who I will stay with next week before she goes to hospital. Also saw Anton briefly, as he dropped a book about norse mythology round (as I have been thinking lately about Yggdrasil ) just as I was leaving the house. We walked into town, chatting and I went off for a pleasant swim. We'll catch up properly tomorrow. In the evening, I walked up to see Lorraine who cooked a healthy supper. Drank beer, which - though bad when it comes to belt tightening - was big and clever and finally made me feel like Friday had arrived. Ended the evening losing badly at Uno with Lorraine, Beth and Mark.

The rain rains in its own time All day banging my head against a brick wall when it came to making any serious progress. Ended up folding all my jumpers, and clearing out my linen cupboard and other non-essential stuff. Thankfully, I got my mojo back in the evening and wrote till late. There's a bit in the I Ching along the lines of the clouds are all here, but the rain rains in its own time . Writing has been so easy for me, that I must remember this.

Langoustine with Lorraine A quiet day. Working better on the Skelly stuff today. Had some good ideas, and made some decent progress. Have been sticking to diet very well, but tonight I made an exception and took Lorraine off to Riddle & Finns to celebrate her birthday. It being an Oyster and Champagne restaurant it was rude not to have oysters and champagne. I’m not actually a big fan of oysters. I am troubled with the idea that they are still alive, but I tried two of them. One was served with Japanese stylings – a touch of ginger, spring onion, soya sauce, and wasabi, and the other nicely seasoned with little bacon grits and pickled cucumber. Lorraine, who grew up big and strong by eating seafood, sucked down four of them with only a squeeze of lemon. I don't think they taste of much really. But Lorraine said they were really good. The champagne helps take the edge off the horror of sliding the oysters down. For my main course I had a fish pie, while Lorraine had a biology le

Dem bones Getting back into the skelly groove today. Reading through the 40k words or so that I have of my Skelton Yawngrave story. Very happy with what I've got so far. Head like mush today however and thoughts moving sluggishly. Unable to cope with googlies such as a door to door salesman talking to me about phone tariffs. I gawped at him and said I wasn't interested. He said, when he left, that he wasn't interested either. Out and about though, popped into the Booth Museum to look at the moth display and all the stuffed birds. I could almost write an epic poem about that place. I also dropped a card through Lorraine's letterbox as today was her birthday. And a glorious day it was too. The evening given over to watching football, and Chelsea's exceedingly lucky draw with Liverpool. In the last minute of extra time a hapless Liverpool defender John Arne Riise (may his name live in legend) managed a potent header into his own net. A place in the European Cup Final i

Belt tightening Starting a diet. I am close to my all time worst weight, and self disgust has now at last kicked in. I know what to eat to keep a lid on my weight, but lately I have been snacking and comfort eating. And last week I went out for three or four meals in the evening, and drank quite a bit of beer too. So it's being sensible for a bit now till I drop a few kilos. Brain like absolute mush today, making it hard to think straight or focus. One of my usual bouts of non-specific underpar wussinesses. Worked quietly on the French business and kept out of trouble. Went out to buy a cabbage, and ate some of it in the evening. Curried, with a few other veggies and a small amount of brown rice. Sigh.

The strange case of... Me going to a musical Saw Jekyll and Hyde the musical today. I consider musicals, by and large, to be the yodelling of Satan, and so avoid them at all costs. I put aside such prejudices to see Lorraine's daughter Beth, in the last night of a production locally at the Barn in Southwick. The musical itself trampled on the Stevenson original, and focused instead on two women not in the original: one that Jekyll is engaged to, and one a prostitute that he befriends and later interferes with (in the guise of Hyde). The song lyrics fairly banal at times and at least two songs were so generic that they could be plucked from this and put into an entirely different one without anyone being able to tell. However the mostly teenage cast was fine and young Beth, although not given much to do in this production, has a genuine stage presence. So I put aside my curmudgeonly ways and quite enjoyed it, although at one nadir I accidentally groaned aloud. I thought they should

Flickr and fish soup Sluggish today. Sent off the French stuff this morning, and under Mex's influence tried to get to grips with Twitter and starting to upload some photos onto Flickr , including quite a few of my Japanese ones. At lunchtime I met Paul who was in Brighton doing some business with a Dentist, and he was wearing his pinstripe suit and looking slightly gangsterish. We shot the breeze over a couple of beers in the Battle of Trafalgar, where he helpfully outlined some of the principles of direct marketing, before I made my excuses and got back to work. Emergency goldfish advice for Reuben, who called this afternoon as his were going through a crisis. Especially one of them whose sole is now in heaven. I kept fish for many years so know the basics pretty well, despite my last episode of fishkeeping ending badly. Returning home to find a weird penetrating smell in the house, which I traced at last to the aquarium. The thermostat (from a very reputable dealer) had malfunct

Herons and cyberstars Up to the smoke today. Went to see Mum and Mase to hang out chatting and eating tuna sandwiches and apple strudel mit ice cream. Discussing such things as their next door neighbour who is painting a dead tree in their garden brown. He has concrete dogs which he waters too. Each to his own. Mum and I then discussed the children's book project we're working on. Using her artistic skills she is going to make me rich and famous beyond my wildest imaginings. Heh-heh. Mum and I went off then on the bus and had a bit of a ramble across several fields near Elstree in the sun and cold wind, while Mase did some ghastly things to do with tax. Mum is going to have her operation on the 30th and we were planning various strategies. I will hang out with Mase off and on while she is in hospital, and maybe afterwards when Mum is recovering at home. We saw a nice heron at one point very close. At first Mum thought it was a sculpture of a heron (one of the many scattered acr

Meeting Mark in the Cricketers Working on French stuff this morning, and all going well. Still enjoying the work, even putting together the PowerPoint presentation. Also painted my door again, scraping off bubbly bits and putting a new coat on inside too. If I had waited passively for long ages for door atoms to spontaneously assemble in the outer darkness and coat themselves with paint, before plunging unharmed through the layers of our atmosphere to land miraculously in my yard, painting this bloody door could not have taken longer. In the afternoon fairly chilled. General tidying and so on. Amazing how you can tidy up for hours and yet your house looks a smidge messier than it did before you started. In the evening off to the Cricketers to have a couple of beers with Mark and then slope off for a spot of chop sticking in a nice Chinese restaurant. Great to see him - and as usual he seems to be working very hard. Heard all about the family, and his daughter Melissa who is going to d

Gauling and galling Working today on a job to do with France, which made a change. Much of the day in my study enjoyably scribbling concepts, and intermittently leaning out of my window in a roll necked sweater to smoke a Gauloise and think about the reality of nothingness within existentialism. In short a pretty fine day. Also put another coat of paint on my front door in the early morning sun before I got down to my work. Returned to look at it a couple of hours later and it had about two dozen bubbles, each about a centimetre-round, standing proud from the paint. Sigh. This door is galling. At about four Lorraine called by. She is on a school holiday at the moment, and we wandered down to the sea, and sat on a groyne with the sun at our backs, and waves gradually encroaching under our feet - and all was well. After a busy half an hour doing this in which my decision to go freelance yet again seemed powerfully big and clever, we sat outside listening to a singer play lots of soul cla

Son of Rambow Getting my own house in order today. Alf the nice plumber fixed my boiler which was seriously doomed, and needed a large chunky bit replaced, and replaced the jammed valve on my study/spare bedroom radiator. Meanwhile I was painting and sanding the front door again for the 17th time, receiving a supermarket delivery, and generally restoring order to my house which I'd been treating like a hotel for the last few weeks. In the evening Lorraine and I went off to see Son of Rambow , which is a little gem of a film. Two great central performances by children who were not stage school brats (the director went out of his way to get proper kids). Two boys start making a film together loosely based on the first Rambo film, which is the first film one of them had ever seen being a member of the Plymouth Brethren and forbidden to watch TV or movies, or have a record player and so on. A gentle sentimental and heartwarming romp with some funny moments. Lorraine and I both liked i

A trickle of tranquility A lazy Sunday. Spent some time sitting in Lorraine's back garden, which has a water feature. Drifted off peacefully into a meditative state with some sun on my face, my eyes closed, and listening to the music of the trickling water. Profoundly nice. Meanwhile Lorraine's cats roamed and raced about as Lorraine picked at the bushes in her garden. One of them, namely Brian, is very pretty indeed.

Yippee! Friday! Yippee. A lovely day arriving like a spiritual spring. Able to listen to my iPod again as they fixed the problem. Lorraine has put me in touch with a good plumber, and my heating will hopefully be sorted out on Monday. Best of all, by a long chalk, is that Mum's test results have come through and are good. Work itself quite good fun, enjoyed being filmed on my opinions about creative work for charities and got positive feedback from my stint, so again left on a good footing. Felt like doing snoopy style skips leaving Hammersmith. Went straight from work with Ed, and scooted down to Strand on the Green to the Crown and Anchor where Eva and Matty had arranged a surprise 40th birthday party for Craig. Ed being Craig's old art director. An excellent sunny evening, with the sun sparkling on the river outside. Then lots beers and catching up with folks I'd not seen for a while, and meeting some nice new people. Left with First Matie and we decided on a cheeky ABF

Blowing a gasket A different kind of boring today. To be precise, a workman drilling and grinding into my wall at a completely unreasonable 6:25am. Stormed out in my dressing gown, which flapped nastily, to roar at him. On returning to my house he began drilling again. Moved quickly into furious mode, and, returning, left him in no doubt that he was in personal danger. Things quietened down, and at least it was an early start to the day. Onto the packed train and sat opposite a man who coughed on me all the way to Victoria, had fantasies of stoppering his mouth with a 15thC mace, or a fetishist's rubber bung, or a cactus, or a live ferret etc. Walking through the graveyard I decided to reboot the day. And did so successfully. An enjoyable day in the agency, and working hard. Surprisingly they asked to film me talking about a charity for a mood video - a long shot of me and Ed talking over concepts today, and an interview tomorrow. Managed too, to have a chat with the right person i

Argh Will this week never end? I almost never feel bored, but I am bored rigid. For me boredom is such a rare emotion, it is almost a novelty, but not quite. That would make it almost interesting. God I'm bored. I'm Waiting for Godot bored. Nothing to be done other than slump under a tree and watch its three leaves fall off - the week yawns open like a chasm. I have no motivation to do anything other than go to work and sit at home typing about how bored I am. Next week will be an oasis of non-boredom, a glittering edifice of interest. But today a soul numbing ennui fest. Argh.

Bah Hanging about for hours waiting to be given work at the agency, chasing payments (not pavements), being paid the wrong amount, more computer glitches, one which seems to have doomed my iPod, all snowballed into a general peeve today. It is funny how a series of random events can combine to make you feel got at. Feel like I am holding my breath until I can start life again next week. On the plus side Chelsea got through to the semi finals of the European Cup. And Sophie called while she was cooking some Welsh Rarebit, which had made her think of me, and eating it in Brighton's fine tea shop The Mock Turtle. It's nice to be associated with something, even if it is only a cheese-based toast snack. Sophie sounds hard at work, but made time for a Buddhist retreat over two weekends recently. She was wearing a dress that one of the attendees had spontaneously given her, after Sophie had complimented her on it. Give you the dress off their backs those Buddhists. Nice chats with Mum

A Moanday A real Moanday. Got to work and discovered that I'd been blocked from the IT system. All kinds of hurdles to go through to get reinstated: which took an unbelievable 4 hours. This not helped by the PC I was using malfunctioning. A frustrating and annoying day. Home late. Can't wait for next week when I'll be working from home again. Yay!

Snow and a dogfish Having been about its secret ministry, there was snow this morning. Woke up envisioning a cup of tea with beaded bubbles winking at the brim, and thinking of John Keats. Followed this with a lovely breakfast of smoked salmon, kippers and scrambled eggs. Then I spent some time playing with Paddy the small dog, with a tennis ball which it returned and then did a fair amount of growly stuff as you wrenched it from its mouth, and repeated x 50. Dogs and Peter Kennys have over the years reached an uneasy entente cordiale, but this was rather a nice dog. Amazingly it went for a swim too, after we'd taken a short walk past the local church and along a long hedge up a hill, then down cloying mud tracks towards the valley of the river Avon. Apparently it likes swimming so much it has to be dragged back inland before it drowns of exhaustion. There was one exciting bit when Paddy almost disappeared over the weir, but John reeled him in with the extensible lead. The sun was

The mouldering accumulations of the ages Off to a spectacularly bizarre place called Snowshill Manor with Sue and Lorraine. It was a Mervyn Peakish treasure trove of mad collections of objects (over 22,000 of them) from all over the world, and from many periods. It is a lovely house, parts of it dating back to 1500, in honey coloured Cotswold stone set into the side of a hill. It is surrounded by picturesque cottage gardens. The mad collector was Charles Padget Wade, who was also its last owner. He was an architect, who eventually ended up living in the house next door when he had stuffed the place with his own enormous collection. There were some of his paintings there too, which were quite good, and he was clearly an excellent writer too. There was a quote from his journals on the wall which described his passion for collecting, which culminated with: "with dim mysterious interiors, heaped high with the mouldering accumulations of the ages", which perfectly described the e

The getaway Tired by the end of the week, but feeling quite pleased with myself. One more week to go at my old agency. Picked up a copy of On Track, the freebie railway mag that had published some of my articles, and felt quite cheery looking at these. Spooner had tipped me off the day before, when I was out with Bob, by texting me a message that said "Your name is all over some ghastly promotional tat on my train. Are you a journo whore now? x". More about that on my daywork blog. Also had a really nice chat with one of my old bosses, who mentioned a job I might go after. Really nice to be thought of that way. Today, there was lots of work to be done, and I slogged all day - to ensure an early getaway. Back to Brighton, packed in 10 minutes and then was picked up by Lorraine to drive up to stay with her pals who live in a converted pub in a small village near Evesham in Worcestershire, quite near the Cotswolds. Arrived at 11:30 and were fed with stew, and given a large glass

An amp called Marsha Another day in the agency. Will be working next week too and then working from home on another project with my French client. Went for a nice walk at lunchtime with The Gnome heading up the river. He told me about a painting project he was thinking about - painting an extremely realistic picture of his guitar. We had a conversation about guitar names. My white semi acoustic Washburn is called Bianca. Mike's guitars have no names, but he has an amp called Marsha (on account of the 'll' having broken off). Off in the evening to see Mad Dog. Decided to explore Shepherds Market again which tonight was thronging and busy. We arranged to meet in a pub called the Shepherds Tavern. However Bob gave me some mystifying directions about where he was in it. After a futile search it turned out he was in an entirely different pub. We went to L'autre a friendly, if unlikely, Polish Mexican place with a French name. I had a Mexican starter, and a Polish main cours

Taking Hitomi for a ruby In the evening off to Park Lane to meet the lovely Hitomi who has been touring around Europe on business. She looked very businesslike when I met her, and I think her work is going well. After I left work, I went into Harrods to get her a little present. Not been in there for ages. It is a fantastic place. I want to go back just to look at everything properly. Then I walked around the Shepherds Market an area I didn't know. Then I sat in the lobby bar of the Intercontinental with a large gin and tonic (which went straight to my head) fiddling with some ideas, and scarfing the free nuts and crisps. Called First Matie when I was waiting to let her know I intended to steal one of her ideas. She was in Annie's when I called, and she told me that I owed her a beer. Hitomi came shortly after, and I decided to take her out to Shepherds Market. Trying to think of a typically English night out - so I took her for a curry (aka, in rhyming slang, a Ruby, short for

Small news A text this morning just as I was about to head into to work from Alice, who has had a baby this morning, saying "so much for maternity leave" as it had arrived three weeks early. It is a testimony to Al's mischevious personality that at least one person in the agency thought it was an April fool. Otherwise a busy day. Lots to do at the agency. In the evening trying to reverse what looks like the after effects of pigs having barged about the place. This interspersed with telephone chats with my Mum, First Matie and Lorraine. I also sent off my giftbook idea text to Matty's pal Silvia who is an editor in a good publishing house. Then early to bed.