now look what she's gone and bought ... she keeps wasting her money in charity shops when she should be saving every penny for my presents

a thaw sets in

Setting forth on my Saturday errands, I see movement at the bus station and I run seventy yards and leap on to the bus, thrusting the closing doors back with both arms held straight in front of me.

It seems evident that even whilst the snow lay all about, the grass has continued to grow beneath it.  The snow thaws quickly in the sunlight and a thin mist forms so that you only see the tops of the trees across the common. 

The dog loses sight of me when she stops to converse with a small terrier whilst I continue to circumnavigate the bandstand on Clapham Common.  She runs up the ramp and then catches sight of me just as she steps on to a steep bank … and then slides down the icy slope on her bum with legs akimbo … and an expression on her face which suggests that one half of her brain may be shouting “WTF?” whilst the other half already cries for “Help!”

three beautiful things ... well, moments, really

Driving out of London towards Gatwick every morning involves a gentle but tedious ascent to the gap in the North Downs at Hooley, where the Brighton road at last turns into a motorway, and then swoops down to the left to face the morning sky.  This morning is as deeply cold as any I can remember, minus nine degrees, and in a crystalline sky the brilliant  planet Venus dazzles low in the south east.  But even lower than Venus, directly beneath it and almost couched on the horizon, is an apparently enormous yellow crescent moon.  In the next hour, the distant planet slowly ascends a little way from left to right, whilst our sharp crescent moon turns silver, gradually lagging further behind, until both are obscured in a freezing fog.

In that same fog, towards the late morning, I glance away from the snowy road through a tall hedge towards a descending vista of ancient oak trees, still bronze and leafy but snow laden so that each twisted bough declares its own long fading history until that vista of ancient sunlit trees fades into a seeming eternity of frozen mist.

Back in London and slumping homewards on the bus in mid-afternoon, I listen to an African woman with a mobile phone conversing in a language I’ve never heard, but I cannot fail to enjoy the universal syntax of her husky laughter.  Glancing up occasionally through the dispersing clumps of fog into the pale blue yonder, there are glimpses of shining aircraft on their inch-perfect glide path into Heathrow, brilliantly under-lit by the sinking sun like herald angels.

three beautiful things ... also

at dawn, a big airliner lands during heavy snow and hurtles unchecked along the runway at gatwick for some distance ... until the pilot turns on the reverse thrust and whips up an enveloping cocoon of whirling snow

despite a previous week or more of deep frost and then snow, finding bags of miraculously clean and flawless charlotte potatoes in the supermarket

at dusk, emerging with those potatoes onto a street along which the snow is blowing almost horizontally in an icy wind, but in which the ambience is "tropicalised" by that marvellously ecstatic smoke that comes from roasting coffee

just messin' around

stop press: local dog wins due diligence award after discovering secret lair of clapham common meta-wabbit

questions, questions, questions!

what can you call the band of colour in the sky that's half-way between the turquoise and the orange?

it seems sort of almost greeny sometimes but mostly its a silver-grey.

Hmmmph !

if God loved philosophers (s)he'd have put clearly written labels on every thing.

red

stuck on page seventeen ...

... what insomniacs do.

my lips are sealed

a fabulous new cheese under development at a top secret research establishment somewhere in the south of england

never ...

... eat anything that's bigger than your head

might be the shortest train journey in the south of england ...

... unless you include this one ...

balcombe viaduct from the west

a handful of beautiful things

in the space of twenty minutes ... a kestrel hovering in a sunbeam, an old-fashioned bi-plane making a high circle beneath some raggle-taggle clouds above some raggle-taggle oak woods, and then a red helicopter following the line of the hills between reigate and dorking, followed minutes later by a yellow one

letters from two dear friends laying side by side beneath our letterbox

the loved one steps in from a long day at work, delves in to her bag, then flourishes aloft a brand-new re-print of posy simmonds' subtle masterpiece, "tamara drewe", winner of the grand prix 2009 de la critique bande dessinee

mirada del mendigo

the boy done good ... again !

http://esmola.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/do-courel-o-bierzo/

a burning issue ... trumble's reputation tied to the stake

i really am enjoying angus trumble's new book, "the finger"

BUT

having rejoiced when discovering therein lay a chapter on gloves, my hopes of finally finding a cogent exegesis of david des granges' enigmatic 1636-ish group portrait of "the saltonstall family" were disappointed

http://thenewemotionalblackmailershandbook.blogspot.com/search?q=saltonstall

botheration !

now i'll have to beg admission to the national art library and do my own bleedin' research

THREE MORE BEAUTIFUL THINGS

Driving through the woods in the early fog which is rhythmically striped and punctuated by veering sunbeams as the road winds around the hills, and is frequently perfumed with different kinds of wood smoke from domestic stoves and from invisible bonfires smouldering in gardens and coppices.

As night falls, the loved one is filling the building with the sweet aroma of baking cookies whilst the Beach Boys Greatest Hits are playing.

Another twenty page letter to a wonderful friend is finally sealed up and addressed, ready to be posted after a whole week of hesitantly laboured paragraphs and too many lip-biting crossings out, and some unbelievably childish spelling corrections.

seven in the morning, chez micawber ... even now in a laboratory near you, teams of dedicated scientists are working on a twenty-first century cure for feminine snoring

has any one mentioned christmas yet ?

dear diary, went to work in the dark ... and came home in the dark ...

.... although you can never really call London dark

dashboard photographers club

pat and her highly trained guard dog at a cheese smokery somewhere in the south of england

i am too weak-willed to resist the temptation of offering you this gratuitous juxtaposition

... having just collected the book from battersea library and chuckled more than once on the journey home

drafting my own obituary ... "among the poet's earliest influences ... hearing these verses created a life-long allergy to work, even though he was only eight years old at the time"

Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spendin' cash
If you don't scrub that kitchen floor
You ain't gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Just finish cleanin' up your room
Let's see that dust fly with that broom
Get all that garbage out of sight
Or you don't go out Friday night
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

You just put on your coat and hat
And walk yourself to the laundromat
And when you finish doin' that
Bring in the dog and put out the cat
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Don't you give me no dirty looks
Your father's hip; he knows what cooks
Just tell your hoodlum friend outside
You ain't got time to take a ride
Yakety yak (don't talk back)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0hQ7SwL-I&feature=related

I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler 
About a workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar 
Every time I call my baby, and try to get a date 
My boss says, "No dice son, you gotta work late" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues 

Well my mom and pop told me, "Son you gotta make some money, 
If you want to use the car to go ridin' next Sunday" 
Well I didn't go to work, told the boss I was sick 
"Well you can't use the car 'cause you didn't work a lick" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues 

I'm gonna take two weeks, gonna have a fine vacation 
I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations 
Well I called my congressman and he said Quote: 
"I'd like to help you son but you're too young to vote" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeWC59FJqGc

l'apres midi des cherubins chez micawber

a simple amusement ...

before it started raining, very early this morning while it was still dark, i filled a cardboard box with dry leaves and took it on my round, offering it to gullible, troublesome, and abusive customers, as a free sample

the way people respond to the offer of a free sample tells you a lot about human nature

the first shook his head and said rarther grimly there was nothing about free samples on the print-out for the day

the second was straight in to the box with the enthusiasm of a child on christmas morning

only one asked what kind of weirdo would bother to stuff dry leaves in a box

ticehurst on the eleventh hour in the eleventh day of the eleventh month

now where did i put MY hula hoop ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aIV_X4GlY0

lovely "dance" video via metafilter

... and the loved one rescued this little gem and brought it home

you don't have to be mad ...

... but it may just possibly be helpful ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwWLnaME0CI

has any one mentioned christmas yet ?

rain rain rain !

the world is windswept and awash in ashdown park

i step down with a splash from the shiny red lorry in to a puddle on which floats a green and yellow armada of gingko leaves

and as i raise my eyes, so a rain-soaked family group of eight grey dripping does tiptoe by

what goes up usually comes down, civilizations rise and fall ... will our's be the first to have been dismantled by qualified accountants maintaining their professional standards?

3BT plus 2

on putney heath, one owl hoots and another screeches as i walk past the black wood to the bus stop at a quarter to four in the morning ... and then they do it again, twice

i pass a shop in haywards heath outside which is an umbrella stand containing about a dozen feather dusters and i try to visualize an allegorical painting involving twelve virgins and michelangelo's david ... if only beryl cook was still alive

near turner's hill, twelve cock pheasants gleam on a grassy knoll

the wide window in peter jones' rooftop restaurant is hung with thousands of tiny white lights, reflected and double-reflected in the double glazing as if it were snowing stars ... beyond them, the sun has set and across the grey rooftops beneath a strip of pink and purple sky is the outline of harrods' illuminated dome traced in vibrant smudges of incongruous golden light

a violinist and a pianist enter the gilded norfolk room wearing deep purple and position themselves so that i often see the pianist's face through the crook of the violinist's left arm during their brilliant recital ... the violinist plays with her eyes shut, the pianist laughs with her eyes at every musical joke

richard learoyd in ticehurst

you wouldn't necessarily have heard of ticehurst, its not famous

but i'm lucky enough to pass through sometimes on my way to or from a collection at traditional sussex cheeses

there's a posh second hand bookshop with a cafe but it isn't often possible to stop on these tiny streets in a big red truck

today i needed to post a letter so i stopped short of the village centre and walked up,

drank my coffee and wrote some extra pages in the bookshop then walked twenty yards to the village post office,

then thought, "why not stroll over to the corner and look up and down the street for signs of life ?

i didn't immediately notice this shop, can't think why

there are two huge framed magnificent photographs on display by a man called richard learoyd

one is of a dead heron, the other is of a dead hare

don't ask ... i don't know

never mind the name of cary grant's tailor, bring me the name of his shoe maker

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/2006/08/cary-grant-north-by-northwest.html

Three more beautiful things

 Emerging from our brick tenement just after the sun has risen, I turn the corner in time to see the last pink clouds fading above the dense woodland called Putney Heath, and wish I’d been about just a few moments sooner to see the show ... but then, for the first time in my six years in London, a little bat flutters from the woods and zig-zags over my head, veering around the flats and disappearing high up beyond a big oak tree.  Sadly, my eyes are no longer keen enough to see whether his fangs are still dripping with the blood of a B-movie starlet.

The 170 bus to Victoria via Clapham Junction fills up with quiet people, some of whom are up far too early, but many, having worked a long night in the big neurological hospital, far too late.  In Wandsworth we are joined by a glamorous Jamaican woman, dressed with such urban sophistication as you might hope to see in Paris, who immediately begins to preach to us of Jesus’ love, laying special emphasis on the need to live well in the here and now, and to make others feel loved because, she says, “We won’t be coming Back !”  I’ve seen her a couple of times before on these local buses, always smart, always lovely, her energy flooding the space, even to the place where i cower in the back row.  Over the years, her phrasing and body language have become more “theatrically professional” and I wish there was a way to politely encourage her, whilst respectfully preserving my own timid scepticism.

I collect the dog from the old brick terrace.  We meander along amongst the parked cars, she stopping constantly to sniff every gate and lamp post, and searching the gutters for last night's chicken bones, and when we eventually turn the corner at the far end of the street on our way to the Common, we look west where a vast white rain cloud is rising quickly amidst trailing streaks of vapour and rain, supported on one side by half a rainbow, the whole spectacle imposing itself in fluent contrast to the dumb jagged dark rows of indigo slate roofs and burnt orange chimbley pots, like a beautiful preacher intimidating a crowd.

???

a slow start to the morning, i'd only completed my fourth drop when this happened ...

yackety yack ... watch this space

you go on to bed, dear ... i haven't quite finished my cosmogeny homework

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19598-kitchen-sink-experiment-simulates-exotic-white-holes.html

the loved one has gone shopping and has left this object unguarded ... what should i do ?

apropos de nuffinque ( part 1001a )

i'm hoping to finish the book before the fruit

oh no ! she's far too ladylike to bite their ankles ...

three beautiful things ... well, one and a half, actually

a frosty dawn of unusual clarity … the sky a kind of abstract expressionist playground for incandescent candy floss brush strokes and dabs, smears and wisps, and even a few curlicues … all across a flawless velvety infinity of hyper-intense ultramarine, toning down into turquoise towards the horizon … a few minutes later, driving quickly on a smooth winding road switchbacking through a deep wood where you still need headlights even whilst the first rays of the newly risen sun are lancing horizontally through the high canopies of beech and oak … then emerging to find all that was pink in the sky has turned to gold

Wandsworth bloody council have cut down the tree next to the bus stop on lavender hill … but have left the stump level and smooth and just wide enough and high enough for a certain posterior to sit whilst it's owner soaks up some afternoon sun after emerging from their excellent public library and settling down with Angus Trumble’s “A Brief History Of The Smile” … laughter and sunshine are excellent therapists

a Jehovah’s Witness stops to talk to me outside the post office whilst I am checking a hand-written letter for punctuation and coherence before posting it to a dear friend with whom i have corresponded some twenty five years … he talks briefly about communicating with God ( who has never communicated directly with me so far ) but I don’t let on that I was only just some moments ago writing about the strong possibility that when I get the job of giving Heaven a make-over then I’d probably want to replace the old straight and narrow turnstile with some drive-thru pearly gates

cor blimey ! i was just trawling my brother's website and found this forgotten picture of my mum ! thanks, dave !

a ten minutes walk on the southern edge of ashdown forest ... part of this driver's statutory rest period

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorse

caught red handed

doctor, doctor ... tell me honestly ( sigh, gulp, shudder ) ... is it ... writer's block ?