Stains
Frost in the fields as the train chugged through them.
In the Guardian: 'January is a miserable month and yet so many make it even more miserable by trying to give up some of life's great pleasures – such as alcohol. Three weeks in, how's it going?' Rock solid, thought I, sobbing. Noticed how I have replaced boozes with black coffee. This can't be right.
Did my usual walk through the graveyard at Hammersmith, and the familiar off-kilter graves pleasingly rimed with frost.
A long day. The pitch materials I was writing were about the very unpleasant pulmonary hypertension, and there was - even more than usual - far too much required in too tight a time. (There was, I thought privately, some last gasp material.) Simon the designer had yesterday worked half the night last night trying to design all the stuff we'd come up with. Feeling vaguely guilty, I stayed late rewriting lines over his shoulder on the three websites we'd designed. Rather warming to Simon, and liking his combination of Eeyore-ish fatalism and quiet flare.
As I left the office, the full moon in the cold over the river, and I spoke to an upset First Matie who has taken the tough decision to give Puffin to someone who can provide the high-maintenance pup with the constant attention it craves. Sometimes doing the right thing is hard.
Just missed the Brighton train at Victoria again. Discovered it is impossible to buy a book of poetry in or around the station. Tedious slow journey home brightened by a Great Lives podcast about Samuel Beckett, whose work I greatly admire. Doodling as I listened my pen suddenly gouted ink and gave me Dalmatian hands. Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness, as Sam would have said. What draws me to Beckett, a master of two languages, is his suspicion of words and a keen awareness of their limitations. Sometimes (when I am not personally holding forth of course) I think there is something vaguely repellent about the shtick of people like Stephen Fry or Will Self who rub your face in their "clever" use of words, almost like people who give you too much detail about their sex lives.
Once in Brighton, transgressed my diet and bought fish and chips as it was 10 o'clock and was far simpler. A bag of greasy evil it was too. Spoke to Lorraine who is sleeping in her childhood bed at her Mum and Dad's house as she is doing a her head teacher leadership course in Kent for a couple of days.
Gloried at bedtime in the knowledge that tomorrow is a journey-free day.
Frost in the fields as the train chugged through them.
In the Guardian: 'January is a miserable month and yet so many make it even more miserable by trying to give up some of life's great pleasures – such as alcohol. Three weeks in, how's it going?' Rock solid, thought I, sobbing. Noticed how I have replaced boozes with black coffee. This can't be right.
Did my usual walk through the graveyard at Hammersmith, and the familiar off-kilter graves pleasingly rimed with frost.
A long day. The pitch materials I was writing were about the very unpleasant pulmonary hypertension, and there was - even more than usual - far too much required in too tight a time. (There was, I thought privately, some last gasp material.) Simon the designer had yesterday worked half the night last night trying to design all the stuff we'd come up with. Feeling vaguely guilty, I stayed late rewriting lines over his shoulder on the three websites we'd designed. Rather warming to Simon, and liking his combination of Eeyore-ish fatalism and quiet flare.
As I left the office, the full moon in the cold over the river, and I spoke to an upset First Matie who has taken the tough decision to give Puffin to someone who can provide the high-maintenance pup with the constant attention it craves. Sometimes doing the right thing is hard.
Just missed the Brighton train at Victoria again. Discovered it is impossible to buy a book of poetry in or around the station. Tedious slow journey home brightened by a Great Lives podcast about Samuel Beckett, whose work I greatly admire. Doodling as I listened my pen suddenly gouted ink and gave me Dalmatian hands. Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness, as Sam would have said. What draws me to Beckett, a master of two languages, is his suspicion of words and a keen awareness of their limitations. Sometimes (when I am not personally holding forth of course) I think there is something vaguely repellent about the shtick of people like Stephen Fry or Will Self who rub your face in their "clever" use of words, almost like people who give you too much detail about their sex lives.
Once in Brighton, transgressed my diet and bought fish and chips as it was 10 o'clock and was far simpler. A bag of greasy evil it was too. Spoke to Lorraine who is sleeping in her childhood bed at her Mum and Dad's house as she is doing a her head teacher leadership course in Kent for a couple of days.
Gloried at bedtime in the knowledge that tomorrow is a journey-free day.
Comments
A pint of lager contains 250 calories. A mug of black coffee contains less than 5 calories. A pound of body weight is equal to 3,500 calories.
So replacing just two pints a day with coffee amounts to a saving of 1lb a week.
Cheers Mark. I'll be sticking to cups of Jo for the time being.