Mornings Are Long
Nov. 13th, 2023 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo I was never an early riser- not if I could help it anyway- but these days I'm up and doing by six thirty as a matter of course. I cope with the length of the morning by having a second breakfast. Today I had a croissant at seven and a hot cross bun at nine....
But then I go to bed early too- and that's largely because I no longer watch television.
I did catch a bit of TV when we were staying over at Jenny and Ian's. Pakistan were playing England in Kolkata. I used to follow high-end cricket but not any more- though I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps it's down to the pandemic which- whatever else it may have been- was a great breaker of habits. I was happy to see Root and Stokes and Bairstow are still going strong. Stokes with his cropped head and big square beard seems to be modelling himself on the cast of Vikings- or maybe it's the other way round. Kolkota is smoggy. Once in a while they showed us a scenic view out across the river with its suspension bridge and I found myself singing, "The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine..."
(I know about Vikings- in spite of not having a TV- because YouTube keeps sending me clips. Those guys know what a sucker I am for anything mediaeval.)
It was interesting to see how many Indian spectators had their cheeks daubed with the cross of Saint George. They love the former colonial rulers more than they love the Muslim overlords who preceded them. I wrote an article once about the cultural give and take between England and India and my research kept throwing up interesting facts like- for instance- that Gandhi got his education in peaceableness and social justice from the Edwardian socialists of Toynbee Hall in London's East End. It was a love affair, and like too many love affairs, frequently abusive...
I remember lots of bits of dreams but nothing like a storyline to string them on. One fragment had me taking a flight in a Spitfire. I was sitting alongside the pilot (who may have been my father or may have been my son) and we were taking off from a narrow uphill chalk footpath, like those we have on the Downs, with traffic coming in the opposite direction- and I was wondering how we were managing not to get our righthand wing chewed up...
But then I go to bed early too- and that's largely because I no longer watch television.
I did catch a bit of TV when we were staying over at Jenny and Ian's. Pakistan were playing England in Kolkata. I used to follow high-end cricket but not any more- though I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps it's down to the pandemic which- whatever else it may have been- was a great breaker of habits. I was happy to see Root and Stokes and Bairstow are still going strong. Stokes with his cropped head and big square beard seems to be modelling himself on the cast of Vikings- or maybe it's the other way round. Kolkota is smoggy. Once in a while they showed us a scenic view out across the river with its suspension bridge and I found myself singing, "The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine..."
(I know about Vikings- in spite of not having a TV- because YouTube keeps sending me clips. Those guys know what a sucker I am for anything mediaeval.)
It was interesting to see how many Indian spectators had their cheeks daubed with the cross of Saint George. They love the former colonial rulers more than they love the Muslim overlords who preceded them. I wrote an article once about the cultural give and take between England and India and my research kept throwing up interesting facts like- for instance- that Gandhi got his education in peaceableness and social justice from the Edwardian socialists of Toynbee Hall in London's East End. It was a love affair, and like too many love affairs, frequently abusive...
I remember lots of bits of dreams but nothing like a storyline to string them on. One fragment had me taking a flight in a Spitfire. I was sitting alongside the pilot (who may have been my father or may have been my son) and we were taking off from a narrow uphill chalk footpath, like those we have on the Downs, with traffic coming in the opposite direction- and I was wondering how we were managing not to get our righthand wing chewed up...
