under another sun

Appalling dreams full of violence, except I was the one doing all the atrocious stuff. Woke up shaken and feeling slightly disturbed for several hours into waking. Lots of archetypal stuff going on, battling with my shadow. Appalled by the unspeakable violence latent in my dreams. Off to London again. This morning the train trailing through a foggy landscape, and I listened again to the biography of Dickens which I am greatly enjoying. He appears to have been obnoxious to his wife when be decided to leave her, and guilty of incredible hypocrisy with his pathos laden depictions of children, while he coldly farmed his sons off to a second rate school in France only seeing them in the summer. Had expected only to work half a day today, but in fact worked a full day, slinking out for a gossip with First Matie as we bought sandwiches for lunch. This spell in Tavistock Square excellent for catching up with folks, not to mention the boon to...

Started listening to Claire Tomalin's biography of Dickens this morning. Covering his time in the blacking factory and playing Zombie Gunship as I listened. Found out the French Bloke plays it too. When I closed my eyes after playing it for half an hour or so I saw ant-like zombies with little target boxes on them. Slightly disturbing. Work fine. I had a good chat with one of the people in the office who has written a TV series, as yet unproduced. The amazingly long drawn out years of haggling and negotiating sound quite soul-destroying. Being a writer is a masochistic business for the majority of us. A copy shop reunion (CSR) this evening. First Matie and I bussed down to Waterloo and met Reuben in the Stage door. He was drinking a pint with some gusto after a hideous afternoon at work. This rapidly improving though, and we repaired off to one of those greasy spoon cafes that serves cheap and decent Thai grub in the evening. Green tea here (Reuben, with mock smugness: 'I...