under another sun

Generally irritable and out of sorts. Thinking too much about Brexit. Industry leaders have already warned of sharp cutbacks in advertising and marketing budgets – i.e. where I make most of my money.  The news full today of Tony Blair and the Chilcot report. I do feel a tiny bit sorry for Blair, having eagerly become the US’s best pal after 9/11, he got stuck on the rollercoster unable to get off.   But I did march against the war along with millions of others and this made not a jot of difference. Preparing at short notice to give a poetry reading tomorrow, as Siegfried had to pull out due to illness. Looking at all my poems and disliking them heartily, which happens from time to time. It’s preferable that this doesn’t hit you the day before a reading in the poetry café however. At least I can more easily spot the faults in my more recent work, which is constructive.   One of my new poems, called A Man From Atlantis however is something I will stand by. Some wo...

Up to London sans coat for the first time this year. Armed with a large multicloured golfing umbrella, whose only function was to make me look a little ridiculous.  Feeling tense this morning, and listened to a meditation tape on the train, which helped. Also read on the BBC website that researchers are saying that beetroot juice significantly lowers blood pressure. Slipped out at lunchtime with Kate, to score some.  Turns out that beetroot is one of the things that Peter Kennys like best, and so could become a regular drink. Exotically coloured wee here I come! Working hard all day, and reading The End of the Party on the way home. It is quite a tense read, the levels of frustration, treachery and duplicity during Blair's Government seems incredible in Andrew Rawnsley's account. I am pleased I never went into politics. Home to a Lorraine, and a healthy stir fry crammed with vegetables. Brian the cat was looking perkier today, after his bout with a Tasmanian Devil yesterd...

A ghost of Christmas past A sluggish start. Kitchen full of the stale smell of the half-uneaten chips I had bought in the middle of the night. More of the same today. Cancelled night out with Katie. Went out to lunch with Trace and some other friends for more dissecting of recent agency events. Trace a bit cheerier than she was. All this put in perspective though, when I heard about a colleague Mike Ferg who, with huge great good humour, positivity and resilience, has been going through chemotherapy for the last year or so. He just had a great holiday and has come back to discover cancer yet again. Just heartbreaking for him. Wonderful to be heading home early tonight. Listening to the last bits of my Plato audiobook and trying to keep my eyes open on the train. Home to sip mineral water, and drink tea before an early night. A difficult week - with little or no time to reflect on my own much more cheerful news. I feel very lucky and even more determined to make the most of my opportunt...

Lost at sea Happiness that I'd got through the week tempered with the return of a peeving sore throat. Work not too bad, however, and gripped with a consumptive's desire to work on poems. This I did after I left work early. UK's news media full of Tony Blair's battle to hold on to his discredited Premiership. The spectacle of the two most powerful politicians in the country (Blair and the Chancellor Gordon Brown) locked in a struggle for power is unedifying. Also the bizarre story of Matthew Harvey a Guernseyman (and from his surname possibly a distant relative via my Grandmother) was also in the news today. He was supposed to have been lost at sea for three days sparking a major search involving hundreds of people. Turns out during the three days of the search he caught a ferry to the UK for a couple of days, then returned to Guernsey and apparently slipped back into the sea. He was fished out of the water near Fermain Bay by some people in a yacht, while claiming to ...