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Be My Valentine

Friday 14th February, heavy rain, set to persist all day; to be followed/accompanied by gale force winds later. 14th February is not the ideal date for a birthday (close second for tough luck to Christmas or Jan 1st, in my culture). Try booking a restaurant table, and yet it has its charm. I like to see unremarkable, unromantic-looking people, men and women, young, adult, middle-aged, walking the streets (in the rain, of course); carefully carrying flowers. Usually simply wrapped in florist's paper, no show-off prefabricated bouquets. Lost in thought, earnestly studying the greeting card stacks, weighing up the options, intent on striking exactly the right note. Something pink? Hearts entwined? Roses, champagne corks popping? Nah, definitely not. Rabbit, owl, seagull, penguin fox or love-bird couples, gazing at each other tenderly, one of them looking up, the other looking down? Nothing that implies a male/female or dominant/submissive hierarchy, thanks. And these two hares, equitably arranged, head to tail on a field of grass, I'm sorry but they seem to be dead. Not what I was planning. . . It's more personal, more heartfelt than Christmas, and (oddly enough) nothing like such a marketing-driven obligation. If I wasn't shackled to this modern-world fest I'd probably ignore it, but since I am it's touching; I'm touched.

Inexhaustible Pleasures

Saturday last I went down to the corner shop while the coffee was brewing, in a rainstorm of course, to buy a morning paper. Massimo was in the back room playing Bach. On a normal-looking violin, not a strange baroque antique for a change. He's currently obsessed by Bach violin sonatas. Six hours a day, he says, eyes like stars. It's an obsession. It's because every note is necessary, every detail in the whole pattern could be no other way. Take Liszt, for instance (he knows I love Liszt), it's wonderful, it's very showy, but there are phrases, passages, of the music that could be different, and just as wonderful. Not Bach. It's not some flight of fancy, it's what must be. . .

I was only gone about half an hour; not bad.
Massimo'd? says Peter.
Yeah. From Bach to Epicurus. Not that Epicurus despised physical pleasures, he just couldn't stop there, how can anyone who really loves pleasure stop there?
The inexorable attraction of inexhaustible pleasure?
Pretty much. It was cool.

Wouldn't have my newspaper shop any other way.

The Floods

Sunday the rain stopped, the sky was blue, catkins and pussy willows blowing, we went to visit Ardingly reservoir, which was brimful but not birdfull (unless you count mallards and gulls). I thought it wouldn't be. Wind had not stopped. I really don't like the wind.

1 great spotted woodpecker
1 heron
2 coots
5 cormorants (two of them in first plumage)
1 great crested grebe
2 possible godwits flying
1 buzzard
2 green woodpeckers

Getting back was a bit of a goose-chase. A lesser known fact about these UK floods is that they are everywhere. Eg we're hardly suffering at all, no home-wrecker flooding to speak of in East Sussex (yet, and apart from Shoreham, of course), owing to work done some years ago, but the main route from Brighton to London has been in problems for weeks on the edge of town, and just about anywhere you go out of town there'll be secondary roads impassible, usually without warning.

& now I see Nigella Lawson's dad has waded in to the "debate": "denies floods are linked to climate change and says government should use them as a wake-up call to stop littering the countryside with wind turbines and solar panels" (The Sunday Telegraph). Britain needs to decrease the amount of renewable energy projects and have cheap reliable energy sources instead (unspecified). That wouldn't be our old pocket-liner friend fracked shale gas, your Nigellaship, by any chance?

I don't really care where Lord Lawson is coming from. I don't agree with him, no sane person would, but I don't care if he's insisting our global plague of extreme weather is God's judgement on celebrity tv show cooks with splendid alabaster bosoms, and a weakness for Class A stimulants. I don't care if he's claiming the Spiders From Mars did it. I'm just outraged at the way high-ranking Tories, some of them in the most inappropriate posts, have been allowed to let their deeply held financial inducements I'm sorry, I mean ideological beliefs, completely wreck all rational attempts to do something about it.

http://blog.abundancegeneration.com/2014/02/the-end-of-fracking-or-the-end-of-common-sense/

& for your entertainment (really):

http://frackingontrial.org/balcombe-protectors-trial-feb-11-13th-day-2/

& in case you didn't know:

Applications for Clarion 2014 are now open. It's a great immersive experience for new writers, with an impressive track record of successful graduates

And Lynne Jamneck/S T Joshi's Lovecraft Anthology project is go! I'm definitely going to get my tentacles out.

Smashwords

I'm proud to announce the new, improved epub Bold As Love has made it through the Smashwords meatgrinder and obtained Premium Catalogue status. At present in isolated splendour, it will have company if all goes well. NB If you'd like to own an epub Bold As Love you might be advised to acquire this one, even if you have the Kindle version. It's a much better deal, and prettier too. No freebies, I'm afraid, but on the other hand guaranteed free of DRM. The style guide was okay in the end. Once I'd got used to the dialect I found the process nit-picking, but satisfying.

The keynote image is the card I bought for my own valentine. it's called The Betrothal, linocut by Liz Toole.

Many thanks to my facebook friends for all their birthday greetings.

It's been a long day, people have brought cake, and (English) champagne-oid liquids. I'm going down the pub to relax now.



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