The End of Civilisation and other stories

The plague and the abominable leaving of the EU have been horrific enough but perhaps some of us will come out at the other end, the worse for them but somehow intact. Without wanting to be too flippant in making the comparison, though, this morning on Radio 3's Breakfast Show the presenter did a 'shout-out' for a listener. Ye Gods and Little Fishes, has it come to this. It's not the Gary Davies Show. 

I feel some kind of curmudgeonly letter coming on but maybe this is it. I wonder if there's some kind of motion could be passed about it the House of Lords. But, but, but, we must be careful. Any number of Conservatives would love to replace the BBC and R3 is the best thing it does, it's a bargain at however much it is and only needs a bit of liberal/left bias and so we had better not complain too loudly.

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46 years on since reading it last The First Circle is as much documentary as it is a novel but vividly and convincingly shows us life in Stalin's Soviet Union with its shambolic management, paranoia and the way Solzhenitsyn portrayed the resilient spirit in the face of such self-serving tyranny. It is what lies underneath all maniac leaders whose insecurity seems to be proportionate to their desperate measures. And either Solzhenitsyn, his translator or both are fine writers.

One can see the parallels, of course, with my recent subject, Walsingham except that the Elizabethan spy-master asnd defender of the realm was better at it. Unusually for me, my poem looks okay having not originally come easily and having had a third stanza added later when it just didn't look enough. I think I'm happy enough with it. I can't think of anywhere suitable I'd like to send it but I'll hang onto it rather than put it here immediately just in case. I think that makes 7 poems in a bit under three years since The Perfect Book, of which now four would be on the A list which means worthwhile enough for any further very slim volume. But I don't think I'll be troubling the ISBN people any time soon.

 

But, great to read George Szirtes on his methods here,

George Szirtes - The Death of Poets 

That is exactly how I do it. Without necessarily achieving quite the same results.

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I'm hoping the Virgin engineer is on his way so that I might see Uncle Vanya tomorrow night. Being without the telly isn't the greatest hardship but since I'm paying for it, I'd rather it was available. Watching every race on a 4-onch screen courtesy of Paddy Power dot com will do compared to the Extel commentaries we used to get relayed into betting offices in the 1980's. But it will long stay in the memory watching Mr. Glass come easily clear of the field in the last at Doncaster on Sunday, as foretold here in fact, to finally get me over the line into profit for 2020 having been further behind that one wanted to be in the summer. It was a long road back but the plan worked, Autumn is the best time to take money out of the bookmakers and, hallelujah, I'm not recording a minus for the year.