Dry Farming

A moment of self doubt yesterday. Actually, not just a moment. I've been feeling like this for weeks. Good to get it out into the open

It does get harder. I've been writing a blog for five years now and it's like the wells are running dry. Auden has a neat little poem about being in this situation. I used to have the book but I think I sold it or gave it away- so I'll paraphrase. When the water table sinks and the rain dances don't work any more you switch your strategy and practice "dry farming" (whatever that is). Late Auden isn't as compelling as early Auden, but it has a scratchy, self-deprecating quality I like. He wasn't as good a poet in old age as he was in his youth, but he was still something.

The harder it gets, the harder you have to try.

Electronomicals

Ailz put the shout out for an electrician on Freecycle- and Steve's wife recommended Steve. He's a middle-aged bloke with a beard- and we liked him so much we felt easy about leaving him in the cellar- still fiddling with fuses- while we went off to the Trafford Centre to meet Alice. He didn't understand our problem any more than any of the other electricians have done, but he worked round it - and now all the lights come on. For this- about an hour's work- he charged us £20- much less than I was expecting.

The step-lift has been fixed too- until the next time it breaks down.

Edward Woodward. RIP

Edward Woodward deserved better material. He played a couple of TV hard-nuts and that branded him- and made it difficult for him to be accepted in other roles. I never watched Callan, but I remember it going down well in the playground. The Equalizer - an infantile fantasy about a good man with a gun- went down well in the playground too.

His reputation will rest on two very good, small films- the Wicker Man (obviously) and Breaker Morant- in which he plays a soldier who is left to carry the can for a war crime that is condoned from on high. If the dice had fallen right he could have been a major film star.

There's one more film to come- A Congregation of Ghosts- in which he plays a spectral vicar. It sounds promising.