Skip to content

Crisis In Charlton: Losing My Grip

Tuesday 29th June, unexpectedly much cooler, grey skies.

Making heroic efforts to organise myself, remember to charge phone before setting out for the South Bank this afternoon; still working on my H.G Wells talk for "From Kent To Cosmopolis", which has sucked me in, as essays tend to do; thinking about writing, horrified by how little time I've had for the core activity (ie writing fiction) any time in the last 18months. Or more. Failing to work out how to use Facebook for the benefit of the Oxfam event on 8th July. (This is the downside of having as little as possible to do with social networking. I don't mind if I cease to exist in the C21 sense of extended-personhood, but when I need to use the network for a good cause, it'd be an idea if I knew how. . .) And then a phone call from Charlton, Gabriel's, on the point of leaving for an extensive (well, Switzerland and Germany, I think) Brighton Youth Orchestra tour as piano soloist suddenly engulfed in a housing crisis, changing the plans for this evening: oh, and his clothes are all wet, as he left them out to dry last night and it rained, what to do?

Do not stuff them in a bin bag, says I. Drape them around your room.

My copies of The Time Machine and Dhalgren (Gollancz Masterworks) have arrived. The Time Machine's a solid little hardback volume, and the shades of gold livery suits it. Something a bit odd about Dhalgren, all the italics have come up in Bold, it looks stranger because the normal font is quite thin and spidery.

Last night, in the clear twilight about 9.30: swifts swarming up high, must have been fifteen or twenty of them, and later, what an amazing moon rising above Race Hill, just barely past the full, glowing pale apricot, the mares and brightest craters wonderfully clear through binoculars.

Think I'll go and check on Fred, my latest froglet, again. Called Fred because it is so tiny, arms and legs like thread. Timid too, how can I dump it in the big bad pool.

Sussex University Alumni News: someone wants respondents for a psychology survey. "In most ways my life is close to my ideal" Agree strongly. . . Disagree strongly.

My life is bounded by a walnut shell, and I am queen of infinite space. Except that I have bad dreams, and they are really bad.

Deep Horizon,
Blood for Oil in Afghanistan,
Starvation and desperation mounting in the wake of climate change;
already, and we've barely started,
The death of the living world, the casualty list growing longer and more grievous
Fresh Faced Public schoolboys governing to keep The Markets happy. . .
My family's gothic novel; but that's minor except it eats my time.

(just a random sample)

So how should I answer?


Trackbacks

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as Linear | Threaded

No comments

Add Comment

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA 1CAPTCHA 2CAPTCHA 3CAPTCHA 4CAPTCHA 5


Form options

Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.