week the 48th (2024)

Oh yes, it’s nippy! There is a marked spot of the old nip to the air, wot?

We took dinner this week on board The Cheese Barge. A place of much merriment and cheese. The curried curds are marvelous, and the cheese boards are well accompanied with pickles and jams. Afterwards, exiting the Barge, we was cutting right across the canal’s walkway to the bench that lies opposite. A whiny-voiced cyclist of the newt-watching variety called out “watch where you’re going!” an inch from my ear. He had a mean turn in his tone that I didn’t like a bit, and so I told him “why don’t you watch where you’re going, mate?” He didn’t much approve of this, observing “f-f-f-uck you, you little fucking shit!!!” stuttering and huffing like he’d been hit in the belly with a brick. I should have liked to slap him into the water with a copy of The Highway Code.

The next day I found myself in Selfridge’s. It’s a difficult moment in adult life when one looks at a Christmas card in a department store and thinks to oneself “that speaks to me. i see myself in that.” On my exit I saw a beautiful blonde woman in a powerful suit raise her hand and seem to summon a black cab out of the thin air. Then she jumped right into the back as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Zaina and I were having dates for breakfast. She spoke up. “I think these dates are pipless”. Having just removed a pip myself I offered “oh, they’re not”. She was assertive, “mine is!” and then proceeded in no short order to bite right down on the pip with her front teeth. “I see,” she said, with a tone as though the pip had made a new argument worthy of consideration, but not one that was immediately convincing.

On Wednesday evening Christabel and me attended Anora at the cinema. A 3/5 97 minute movie that went on for two and a half hours for some reason. Christabel had asked the staff if we could drink two large cups of boiling hot milk, but they hadn’t the facilities. On Thursday it was a delightful dinner at borough market’s mallow with becky. becky told the staff it was our birthday, and they brought us a little card and some chocolate truffles to celebrate our gigasecond. My gigasecond was a few megaminutes ago, but as our natal recurrences are so near to one another’s, and what with the pandemic had preventing my giga s’ jubilee being marked by the appropriate corroberee we felt that it could be justified. I brought Lucky home the leftovers, and they were well recieved. They do impressive things with a vegetable over there.

The birthday is coming up next week. As is the Tuscan outing. I prepared for her a practical gift, but not one without sentiment. A new backpack that she wanted badly, stuffed up with Tuscan stuff and a compact disc of Christmas songs by her favoured performer. Related: I regret to report that a £35 bottle of wine really tastes like a £35 bottle of wine.

The time has come to drink a little bourbon and read for a few hours before making a little music. My father has kindly sent over the MRS-1608 MultiTrak recording i used to capture the music i made as a teenager. I’m going through its 105 projects to find if there is anything on there worth salvaging. Unfortunately at this period I was singing with some absurd accent. I’d always liked singers like Syd Barrett, Formby, Chas & Dave, those who sang in their own vernacular. It seems my tenderfooted homage was to copy the aesthetics of this (by aping their accent) rather than the essence of it, as i do now, singing in my own speaking voice. It’s the sort of thing that would be fascinating, perhaps even sweet, if it were to be early recordings of anyone else but quite agonizing to listen to when you are the one on the tape. So that shall be my day: pressing play and wincing.

I hope that your week is lovely, despite its mysteries and limitations. If all goes to plan, my next transmission should reach you from la provinca di Firenze. The glass is half empty when you’re drinking, half full when you’re pouring.