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Listening to Leon Redbone- old time tunes sung in a manner so laid back it's on the verge of dreamland.

Listening to Alan Watts: My words not his, but the same idea. We fall for the promise of jam tomorrow and miss all the fun to be had today. Our politicians promise growth. The British Chancellor has just been doing it. And where has all the promised growth of the past taken us exactly? Are we happier in ourselves? Once again she revives the scheme for a third runway at Heathrow. More growth- growth for the sake of growth, tarmacing over the fields where we might otherwise be wandering hand in hand, smelling the flowers.

The sun showed up yesterday so I walked to the Meeting House, taking the route along promenade.

And at the Meeting House we were talking about how the British have a greater reservoir of sexual slang to draw on than Americans do. This wasn't cultural supremacism (well, not really) and it was an American leading the discussion. I'm not sure everybody was happy about hearing words like "fuck" and "cocksucker" spoken within the hallowed precincts. But why not? Why not?

So, on Monday we went to Horsham and had lunch at Wagamama and yesterday we went to Bexhill and had lunch at Rustico and today we plan to walk down to the seafront here and have lunch at the Beach Deck. I used to entertain the fantasy that when we moved to the seaside we'd eat out every day and it would be fun- but the reality is it's a bit of a chore. One has to plan, one has to travel, one watches one's money drain away- and, actually, one gets a bit tired of restaurant food which is samey- wherever you go- and often indigestible. How many restaurants take vegetables seriously and offer inventive vegan and or vegetarian dishes? Wagamama does but all their branches are quie a long way off....

We're doing all this eating out because of Damian and Louis are occupying the kitchen. Today they're installing new worktops and when they've done that (oh, and put down new flooring) we can revert to eating in. Ailz says she plans to go the shop on Saturday and buy in lots and lots of veg.....

The builders are back in the kitchen so we're going out to lunch again. Yesterday we traveled for an hour in a north-westerly direction to wind up in the market town of Horsham which is pretty in parts. I just skimmed through its entry on Wikipedia and it seems nothing of more than local interest ever happened there. What a blessed spot!

The prettiest of the pretty parts is a wide road called The Causeway which slopes downhill to the River Arun with the Museum at the top and the parish church at the bottom. There are nice old houses.

The parish church was uglified on the outside by a Victorian architect called Teulon but the inside is nice enough. The squat tower with a tall spire is typical of this part of West Sussex. There are two tombs with effigies- and I love an effigy. The older of the two is of Sir Thomas de Braose (d.1395) and the other is of Elizabeth Delves (d.1654) by Edward Marshall, whose work turns up all over Kent and Sussex.

I dreamed our neighbours had recruited me to play one of three young Pakistani brothers in a show they were putting on. I was unsure how appropriate it would be for me to brown-up and put on a black wig but no-one else seemed to be bothered. "And you do know I'm seventy" I said....

Yesterday I was sitting out in the sun reading Fiona Macleod; this morning the wind is getting up again- and it's a cold wind.

"Pretty pink sky" I say to Ailz."

"Stormy sky" she answers.

"But pretty," I insist

All the same her forecast agrees with the Met Office. Another bout of stormy weather is on its way.....

Fiona Macleod?

Oh yeah; a propos of Storm Eowyn we were talking about names invented by famous writers that have caught on and become current. Fiona was one of them. Nobody was called Fiona before 19th century writer William Sharp came up with it up as a suitably Celtic pen-name under which to issue his woozy, neo-pagan poems and fictions. Sharp was Scottish, a protege of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and an initiate of the Golden Dawn (but wasn't everybody?) He went to considerable lengths to establish Fiona Macleod as a real, independent personality- getting his sister copy out his/Fiona's letters to his/her admirers so that the handwriting would appear feminine. When people got too pressing in their desire to meet the famous authoress Fiona would go off on cruises in her wealthy husband's yacht. All this seems a bit obsessive- and therefore comic, but Sharp was a very good writer.

I've had Fiona's The Washer of the Ford in my collection for ages. It's a collection of short pieces, characterised as 'legendary moralities"- and I haven't read them all, but I mean to now. Yesterday I read "The Three of Marvels of Hy"- about the interplay of Pagan and Christian values in the life of St Collum- and it sent shivers down my spine.

William Sharp

Picture Diary 79

1. Dummy

2. Planet shall speak peace to planet

3. They have arrived

4. All these I have loved

5. All the world's a stage

The new president has come into office with a wish list as long as your arm. We watched him sitting at his desk signing paper after paper and going- "That's a big one" when the thing desired was particularly contentious.

Makes me think of a kid writing his letter to Santa Claus.

But it's one one thing to issue orders and another to get them obeyed.

There are thousands of people in the U.S. government, at every level- some like Polonius, hidden behind the arras- and all have wish lists of their own. Many of them are going to do everything in their power to ignore, obstruct or actively work aganst the president's orders.

I remember how Bush Jnr responded to the accusation that he was a tyrant. "I wish I was," he said, "It would make this job so much easier...."

Storm Eowyn is passing through. Winds of over 100mph have been recorded off the Galway coast. Here her force has been abated somewhat but she's still making quite a noise.....

And the name? I thought it had to be Welsh and probably pronounced Owen.

Wrong. It's from Tolkien- and pronounced A-yow-in. He made it up. No one was called Eowyn before the Publication of Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien is so madly popular that I expect there are quite a lot of Eowyns around these days.

Is this the first time a storm has been given a name invented by a modern writer?

I asked myself, a propos the final sentence of the previous post, whether Christopher Wren lived to see the completion of St Paul's cathedral. And the answer is, yes, indeed he did.

The building was consecrated in 1697 and the topping out ceremony- with the laying of the final stone- took place in 1708. Wren, meanwhile, carried on living until 1723 and was 90 when he died. This makes me happy, because, so far as I can ascertain, Wren was one of the good guys.

Which puts me in mind of my favourite Clerihew

The Clerihew is a verse form named after its inventor Edmund Clerihew Bentley. It consists of four lines of varying length, rhymed AABB and invariably deals with the biography of some famous person. The point and glory of the Clerihew is to be utterly inconseqential.

Clerihews don't have to be witty, only silly, but Bentley's tribute to Wren is both.....

It goes like this.

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, "I am going to dine with some men.
If anybody calls
Say I'm designing St. Paul's"

The picture (btw) is by the great G.K Chesterton, who was one of Bentley's school chums.

Damian (the builder) is off sick. He'd said the kitchen would be finished by this weekend but of course it won't. This is not a complaint, just a statement of where we're at.

The kitchen is usable. All the things that need to be working are working.

Was there ever a building project- humble or ambitious- that got itself completed on time?

What did I do on my birthday?

I went to Aldi.

"Lidl" says Ailz.

Same difference.....

And now I'm 74.

I keep reminding myself, "The USA is a foreign country, the USA is a foreign country...."

We've had two crows start coming to the garden. I imagine they're a pair. Sleek, black, beautiful....

One of them was eating a pigeon the other day- right under the bird feeder. It seems to have put the other pigeons off their breakfast. Feathers are scattered all over the lawn. Feathers with blood on them. "Steer clear of that feeder, bruv. Bad vibes!"

The gulls ignore the pigeons but resent the crows. One of them was chasing a crow around. Crows are big- big enough for a gull to see it as competition or even a danger- but not big enough to stand and fight.

Picture Diary 78

1. Janus

2. Here luv, have some chips

3 Words, words, words....

4. She turned away

5. Francis

I read that a cold front is coming our way from the United States. I think this an authentic weather forecast not poltical allegory, but since everything is connected I don't see why it can't be both.

Ailz read me a long list of things that the new president says he intends to do as soon as he gets his knees under the desk in the Oval Office. "Phew," I think, "He's going to be tired by this evening."

I have an image of him bursting through the doors with an angry face on and giving the status quo both barrels of his shotgun.

And talking about guns I can't believe I'm the only person who thinks the inauguration has been moved indoors not only because of the January weather but also to make it less likely that he stop a bullet himself.....

The care home to which- if all goes well- Wendy will be conducting Terry is on the outskirts of Pattaya. Pattaya, just a name to me- so I looked it up.

Pattaya- like Brighton, like Eastbourne- started out as a fishing village. Then US military personnel started going there for R & R during the era of the Vietnam War and one thing led to another and now it's a huge city with a beautiful botanical garden, an enormous golden Buddha -in fact two enormous golden Buddhas- one of them an 18 metre high statue and the other incised into the side of a rocky hill- and- what mostly draws the crowds- the most rambunctious red light district in the world. The Thai government says Walking Street is entirely respectable and if local women happen to fall in love with western tourists that's their own affair. Apparently you have to keep a close eye on the ladyboys because a lot of them would pick your pocket.....

Terry wants to go to Thailand. It's warmer there, it's cheaper, and the Care Home he stays in over there takes such very good care of one....

Last time he went they welcomed him- jet-lagged and not the least bit hungry- with an enormous Thai meal (just for him) and took pictures of him with the meal spread out in front of him and the ever-so-caring staff standing behind him.

Would it invade his privacy if I published one of those photos here?

Yes, it might, so I won't. I have a horror of invading people's privacy. Something to do with having once been a priest. It means your secrets are safe with me.

Anyway, Terry- who is in his mid 80s- doesn't feel up to going by himself. He needs an escort, a carer. "Wendy might do it" we said, so we asked her- and she rather jumped at the opportunity. Only conditions are that she gets to take Mary with her (Mary would have the mother of all tantrums if she were left behind-) and an understanding that all her expenses are paid for and she gets a bit of pocket money.

I think the plan for today is to get Wendy and Terry together so they can negotiate. They have met before but Terry won't remember....

I used to be shy. Not any more. But I'm still rather modest and retiring.

I've always thought showing off was not something a gentleman ever did.

But I have a friend who does rather like to display his knowledge and yesterday I encountered him on one of his chosen fields of expertise- the art of the Florentine Renaissance- and demonstrated, none to subtly, that I knew more than he did. Can you identify this painting? I asked- and he couldn't- so I told him what it was.

Bad dog!

I found myself watching Robin and Marian again last night.

Directed by Dick Lester, starring Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn and Robert Shaw. 1976.

And I found myself thinking, "If I'm happy to keep watching this over and over- as I seem to be- then perhaps it's my favourite movie. And perhaps it is.

I'm a bit of a cineaste, I know a fair bit about cinema history. But if I were to make a list of "great" movies and another of movies I can watch repeatedly they wouldn't be the same. There would be some cross over; The Wild Bunch for instance would be on both lists, so, I rather think, would be The Passion of Joan of Arc, but otherwise there are lots of movies I admire enormously but would hesitate to sit down with again. Both lists are changing all the time but here for the record is a list of ten movies that- at this present moment- if you suggested we watch them, I'd say, "Oh, go on then..."

1 Robin and Marian

2. Being There (Peter Sellers)

3. The Passion of Joan of Arc (the only silent on the list).

4. M Verdoux (Charlie Chaplin)

5 The Wild Bunch (Bloody Sam at his bloodiest)

6. Savage Messiah (an all but forgotten small film by Ken Russell)

7. Confidential Report (one of Orson Welles buggered up later movies, but so very Wellesian)

8. Barry Lyndon (I would once have said 2001, A Space Odyssey, but, like all SF movies it has been overtaken by events and Barry Lyndon, being set in the past, is secure)

9. Chimes at Midnight (Welles and Shakespeare- both at their peak)

10. Les Visiteurs du Soir. (So very, very French)

Do they have anything in common? Well, yeah, all but two could be loosely categorised as period pieces- and four of them are set in a version of the Middle Ages- which tells me something about myself, though I'm not entirely sure what....

Our good deed for yesterday was sorting out a mix-up over walking sticks. Terry had walked off with John's stick on Sunday, leaving his own behind, so we went to his care home, returned him his stick and collected John's- which we will return on Sunday....

Terry is forgetful- which is the kinder way of saying he has dementia. He picked up John's stick because he hadn't a clue what his looks like. There's nothing much wrong with his far memory (so far as one can judge) but you tell him things and he forgets them immediately and when you tell him again he immediately forgets again.

But he doesn't remember he hasn't remembered and so doesn't know there's anything wrong with his memory. It was the same with my mother. Her memory got eaten away until about the only person or thing she could identify was a toy rabbit she'd had as a child.

Flopsy

Flopsy Allen.

He was with her when she died.

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