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Torrential rain, announcements...

Thursday 20th December. Dark morning turning to dark afternoon, torrential rain all through the night, still falling now. The Forever War? Nope. It isn't over, not yet, there's still one last battle to be fought, with those helpful people who have been providing the weaponry, and don't want the war to end, ever. There must be an aphorism for this, or a historical reference, but I can't quite turn the phrase. We're here because we're here. It's so army, and maybe next year.

Meanwhile, the archive for Melissa Appleton's Writtle Calling, the Pop-Up radio station in Essex marking a historic anniversary back in September, is now up. Follow the link and you can hear us all, including me (Sunday 16th September Part One) reading aloud from Band Of Gypsys. I love the way these broadcasts just begin, randomly, suddenly blossoming out of the ether, no explanation, no preamble.... Same effect at the time, of course. Anyway, it was fun.

And let me add to the chorus of those announcing Garry Kilworth has published his travel memoirs, which should make great reading, so hurry along and buy On My Way To Samarkand.

Watching: And so farewell, Sarah Lund. You will be missed. By the last episodes I was cheerfully ignoring the way the plot jolted and swayed, bits falling off in every direction, as we bounced over holes that could have buried a container truck, in the rush to the finish. And ticking off the reprises with delight. The Crucial Campaign Car! The Old Family Retainer, leaping into the prime suspect place. Did the butler do it again? I suppose I'd better not tell you. But I liked the Norwegian fijords much better than that stupd trip to Afghanistan in II. Cheaper, too.

& of course, the two vaccillating princes of Denmark (State and Commerce), faced with unbearable atrocity, were unable to decide, right to the line, whether to take the moral option, or the more attractive one. J***s C****t. Just like real life, eh?

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/12/19

Unbelievable. I have no words.

Late in the coming on Christmas day, yesteday, in the dark and the rain, the three of us went out Christmas tree buying, because Peter was struck with Tree Anxiety, and couldn't wait. Bought it from the Pop-up tree market in a semi-closed secondhand furniture emporium on the Lewes Road. Nordman or something, they call them. We prefer the gentler fir-green and the softer outline of the old model spruce, but were too late. The market was also selling secondhand books (why not?) and I picked up, for 80p, a little hardback anthology Another World Than This, published in 1945, Michael Joseph, a perfectly lovely piece of book; the collection compiled by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.

Lined coat, warm cap and easy felt slippers,
In the little tower, at the low window, sitting over the sunken
brazier.
Body at rest, heart at peace; no need to rise early.
I wonder if the courtiers at the Western Captial know of these
things; or not.


Po Chu-I (772-846) trs Arthur Waley