Tuesday 7th April

Well, what a splendid weekend that was.  Unbelievable.  The first time in years we have had lovely weather over a whole bank holiday weekend.  In fact, it was almost too lovely.  The English aren’t used to it, and almost feel they don’t deserve it.  After all we do rain and wind and cold well, but sunshine….ooh not so sure about that, guv.   Actually at times it was almost too hot, too sudden I would say.  We have been bounced straight out of Winter and headlong into almost Summer.  Spring has been condensed into about two weeks, and the plants are all confused.   The daffodils have only been out a couple of weeks and aren’t ready to fold up their petals yet, and the trees are full of blossom already.

But enough moaning; I like everyone else simply enjoyed it.  The simple pleasure of sitting in the sun, we have almost forgotten how to do it in this country.  Last summer it rained and rained with hardly a decent weekend after April.  And the rain and cold continued right through the winter.   But we have just had a couple of lovely weeks of sunshine culminating in a glorious bank holiday weekend.

And everywhere people were out in shorts and tee-shirts and smiling, and sitting in the park, or walking lazily along the river or having barbecues and drinking wine in the garden.  And everyone was happy.  What a change.  And it brought to mind that wonderful Small Faces song ‘Lazee Sunday Afternoon, ‘aint got no time ta worry – close my eyes and drift away.’

And yes it is work tomorrow (today), but as long as the sun is shining who cares, for two days we have had a Lazee Sunday Afternoon.

Monday 6th April

I am writing this early on Sunday evening and Ronnie is just leading in the final, but not by nearly enough to guarantee success.  Probably the most talented snooker player since the meteroic Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins.  But often, as indeed with Alex, talent is not enough; you need other things in your armory, self-belief, patience and temperament.

You sometimes also need your opponent to meltdown before you do.  And this is what makes the current match between Ronnie and Barry Hawkins so fascinating.  On paper there is no contest; Ronnie is by far the better player – Barry Hawkins although ranked fourteenth in the world was hardly expected to get this far, and to be fair to him, he has played some remarkably brilliant snooker.  As has Ronnie, who makes the game look so easy, almost as if he isn’t trying.  And a bit like watching the start of a Formula 1 race with Ronnie there is always the chance of a car-crash.  He has spectacularly imploded before, add to that the fact that he hasn’t played since he won this very event last year and his statement that he is only doing it for the not inconsiderable money, you do wonder just what will happen.

And of course, unlike almost any player anything can happen when Ronnie is playing in the World Championship final.

Sunday 5th April

As you know I had a day off on Tuesday in order to try and shake off my cold.  And I thought I had, or at least broken the back of it.  I felt quite a bit better on Wednesday morning, and on Thursday too.  I travelled down to Walton in the evening and I started feeling wretched.  As occasionally happens when my resistance is low I had an attack of the herpes virus.  Ever since childhood I have suffered, as did my mother before me, with cold sores.  Over the years I have learnt to recognize the signals, that itchy tingle, like tiny pinpricks on the delicate skin around your lips and nose.  This is accompanied by such a low feeling, as if you’ve been given a good kicking and really do not want to get up off the ground.

I am never sure if the low resistance and feeling sorry for oneself means the virus spies a chance and attacks you, or if it is all caused by the virus itself which is sitting there patiently year after year just watching and waiting to have its day in the sun, or actually on your face.

I try to never travel anywhere without Zovirax in my possession, and early application does often help.  But on Thursday, despite liberally daubing my upper lip and under my nose with the magic medicine the wretched cold-sores erupted and kept on itching and tingling all day on Friday and into Saturday too.  If you haven’t suffered with cold sores you will not know just how debilitating it can be.  Your whole well-being is affected, you feel tired and emotional and upset and weary and the worst thing is that you know that you will just have to go the course, and it will be a few days before they start to clear up and you feel better.  And I still have the runny nose and sore throat too.

Saturday 4th April

Of course I would not normally have read this book, or have been so careless as to have bought it.  It was a surprising Birthday present from my son, probably chosen by his wife.  But, it was surprisingly good in fact.  Not great literature at all, but quite passable and an enjoyable read.

I suspect that dear Dawn did write most of it, unlike many celebrity books out there, but I am certain too that the fingerprints of a good Literary Editor are all over it too.  It is just a bit too predictable and formulaic, and never actually veers from an established pattern.  A bit too polished too, too well-written almost and for that it lacks a degree of honesty too.

The story or plot is good, a woman who is in a coma and having her life dissected by what her various family and friends say to her while she is comatose.  Just once do we find out what Sylvia might have been thinking and in a way that is a mistake, it would have been better to have left her a complete enigma.   It is funny and from Dawn you might expect that, also a bit sad which you might have expected too, and there is a good understanding of people and the motives that drive them, so I liked that element of shared human experience.

It went off a bit into daftness occasionally but then it is a novel so one shouldn’t expect the straightforward.  I did get a bot bored in the middle, but it came good towards the end.

All in all, worth reading and I’d give it a six.

Friday 3rd April

Of course I do not know the result of yesterday’s elections yet, but almost certainly UKIP will make big advances.  Whether they will gain that many seats and what that will really mean to local democracy I am not sure.  It is largely a protest vote, and of course, we have seen this before – The SDP, The Greens a few years ago, and the Lib-Dems recently.   But this is different; this appears to be a groundswell coming from the right, and rather than the Left being divided it is now the turn of the Tories.

And UKIP have not actually sprung from nowhere; they are exceedingly well funded and one must ask the question why.   Many on the Tory party are worried by Cameron and his fairly Centrist policies, the recent spate of Thatcher worship showed just how rabid the Right are.  Cameron realised that after three election defeats people just didn’t like the Tories, especially with fairly right-wing leaders like Haig, IDS and Howard, and he took the view that taking over the mantle of the middle ground from Blair would rehabilitate the Tory party.  And to a degree he was right.   But of course in doing that he has angered the Right who want unadulterated Thatcherism again.  And here is the rub.

I am fairly certain that some of those millionaires supporting UKIP are doing it in order to make the Tory party a real Tory party again, by scaring it into reverting to type and lurching to the Right.   To some degree they have already succeeded in that they have got Cameron to agree to an in-out referendum, but only after the election, which of course it is quite likely that Cameron will lose anyway.  There is now pressure to get a commitment to a vote before the next election.  Quite a lot of Tory MPs are clamouring for it already, maybe in fear of UKIP, but maybe also as a result of what the backers of UKIP want all along.

If the Tories do significantly move to the right, especially over Europe, we could well see the media and some of the financial support for UKIP suddenly subside.  I wonder where the ‘protest’ vote will go then?

Thursday 2nd May

One of the writers I used to be impressed by in the early seventies was John Berger.  Among other interesting works was a collaboration with a photographer detailing a country doctor’s life.  One thing which John Berger said has stayed with me, and that is that there is a certain point at which one admits that one is ill and seeks help.  At that point the person becomes a patient and puts themselves into the hands of the healer.   It may be embarrassment or pain or the comments of loved ones that tips the balance and persuades you that you are in fact ill.

On Tuesday, despite my protestations that if ‘I did not do my work, I had to do my work’, I decided or was persuaded to have a day off work.  This is such a rare occurence for me that I cannot remember the last time, a few years ago I think.   I was feeling pretty awful and what at first was a concession to just do a half day and come home early soon became a full-blown day off.  Yes, I will still have to do the work, but I will go to the place I missed on the next two consecutive evenings and pick up as much data as I can and finish it on Friday, my day off.

So, that was the point at which I succumbed to my illness, even agreeing to take myself back to bed where I fitfully slept most of the morning.  And rising at midday I mooched around in a dressing gown and sporadically watched some snooker or fell asleep on the sofa.  I was desperately tired at ten that evening, despite having slept for most of the day and took myself off to my pit as soon as decency allowed.

This morning, although not that much better, my symptoms having settled down to a degree that is just about tolerable I am back at work.  I am not sure what good having the day off actually achieved, but the moment I stopped insisting I was okay, and actually succumbed to my sickness I entered another phase where I became officially ‘poorly’, and now if anyone asks I am recovering and feeling a bit better, thank-you.

Wednesday 1st May

And what an apt subject on Mayday, a traditional celebration of working people and their rights.  Of course when Voltaire wrote that there were really only two classes, those who worked and those who were rich enough not to work.  There wasn’t much in between.  So, in effect there were the few rich and everyone else who was poor.

Once upon a time there would have simply been a tribe that existed and hunted or gathered roots and berries to eat.  Everyone was more or less equal, and what resources there were were shared out.  There was no concept of storing food for another time, when food ran out you went out and hunted or gathered some more and if times were good you ate well, if not…

It was only with the introduction of farming that the idea of a surplus arose.  And with that surplus came wealth and money and power and all the rest of it.  And inequalities emerged, or were developed as a tool, so that those who controlled the surplus made others work for them and lived off their efforts.  Capitalism was born, and has developed into a many-headed hydra that has one simple mantra; in order for the rich to remain rich there has to be an abundance of the poor, who have no choice but to work for them in order to have anything at all.  And it is all driven by greed and envy and a whole system of rewards and punishments hurtles the thing along relentlessly.  In a way we are all trapped, rich and poor alike, for to step outside of the machine is the perhaps greatest crime of all.   And despite the marketeers belief it is not human nature to be greedy, to steal, to use others labour to enrich oneself.  These are taught behaviours, they are not inherent human traits.

This world of rich and poor is not the only way, though how we disentangle ourselves from it all and get to a state of no greed, of selfless sharing, of people helping each other I am not sure.  Of one thing I am certain though.  The rich desperately need the poor, though I am not sure if the poor need the rich quite as badly.

Tuesday 30th April

How do you explain one’s moods; the brief ecstacy; the feeling that everything is quite fine really; no, I mean really.  The boredom, the slight anticipation, the descent into depression as you realise that nothing has changed, and worse still maybe, nothing will.

And at the back of one’s mind, what started off as a hint, a mere possibility, shadows into some sort of dead certainty – that it might all be chemistry, after all.  The brain’s moods are almost certainly determined by an imbalance in the complex chemistry rather than what we might consider events in the real world.

I am in the middle of a full-blown cold, streaming nose, ratcheting sore throat and a continual headache that craves Neurofen, but which my brain tells me ‘two a day is enough’ .  And so, everything looks bad.  The conversation with my son on the phone bothers me more than it should, the usual morning routine of jobs gets me down, the journey to work becomes unbearable, strap-hanging at my age and none of these youngsters will dream of giving up their seat for me.  Even, and dare I mention it, the writing of this blog becomes a chore (not really, dear reader, but the very fact that it has to be done is a pain), and work itself, like some Damoclean sword twisting and turning in the sunlight is constantly suspended above my poor sore head.   “Have the day off, if you feel so rotten.” Do I hear you call out.  Well, if only.  But as I have said many times before ‘If I don’t do my work, I have to do it,’ – and I may well feel worse tomorrow.

So plod on I do, and despite the cold I will do my best.  And the worst of it is that I know, that despite my feelings it probably all is just bloody chemistry   Why on earth isn’t Prozac freely available at special ‘Happy’ booths on every high street.

Monday 29th April

As usual the brief holiday (long weekend) has gone in a blur.  Almost before I got settled it was time to leave.  Nor helped by two solid days of painting of course, so I hardly had time to see the town.  And so tired, almost all the time, even waking up tired.  Is this a sign of ageing?  I could easily paint for hours a few years ago, but now I am shattered after a few hours.

The weather there was splendid when I arrived, but was overcast and chilly and rainy on Friday and Saturday.  Just as well I had painting to do, and had not planned on sunbathing.  And I return to this country and it too is cold and overcast and rainy.  But somehow it feels colder here.

So that is that for a few more weeks I am afraid.  Back to Blighty and work again.  And irony of ironies I have come down with a rotten cold.  As I stepped off the plane I felt that vicious snatch in the back of my throat, and my nose started running and my eyes watering and my head pounding.  Maybe I caught it on the way out; they say you catch germs very easily on planes, all that recycled air.  Anyway, feeling grotty I leave you for now….

Sunday 28th April

The wonderful Kris Kristofferson emerged like so many others in the early seventies.  He had had a variety of jobs including being a janitor in a Nashville recording studios where he met, among others, Bob Dylan.  He was a struggling songwriter and his manager had the idea that if he recorded an album of his own songs maybe someone would pick them up and Kris could earn some royalties at last.  And someone did, none other than Janis Joplin who recorded ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ and interest in the album was sparked.  Well, it turns out that it contained some cracking songs including maybe his greatest ‘Help me make it through the night.’  Also people started buying it because of Kris’s voice, which was a deep almost gruff baritone.  So he went back into the studio and recorded more songs and put a band together and the rest as they say is History.

He released a string of splendid albums, especially with Rita Coolidge, with whom he had a love affair they practically celebrated in song, at times almost kissing over the microphone.  Then he and Rita parted and the crap eighties years took over.  Almost without exception hardly any major artist from the sixties and seventies made great albums in the eighties, as synths and drum machines and disco and ‘production’ overtook great acoustics, simple melodies and simple songs.

Kris has had a bit of a renaissance of late but like so many others his first few albums were so wonderful that they are really all the Kris Kristofferson you will ever need..