The Latest Hiatus and other stories

 With the Britten biography and the very fine The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West finished with a few days to spare before any new books arrive, I reached the latest hiatus and a chance to visit my own library to take out a couple of books. Perhaps what I ought to do sometimes is take a poet off the shelves - Michael Donaghy, for instance- and have a day re-reading them but it doesn't seem to happen. If poetry is supposed to be my main interest, I don't seem to regard spending time with it as 'doing anything'. It seems to be a given thing that happens by osmosis and doing anything means doing anything else. 

What I came back downstairs with were William Trevor's stories, a great favourite from the 1980's, and Candide and it was the latter I started first. It won't take long. It has been lying around unre-consulted for over 40 years. I don't think I appreciated first time round quite how timelessly hilarious it is.

So, it rarely feels healthier than knowing there are seven books on order. One just wants them to start arriving, which should be by Thursday. The Thom Gunn letters due then; Julia Copus on Charlotte Mew in April; The Armitage Oxford Lectures in May; Violet Trefusis and some Hardy stories soon; a memoir centred on Monica Jones rather than Larkin and First Person Singular, new stories by Murakami due in early April.

Man should not expect to live by books alone, of course, and I'm not from the generation that cries 'mental health' at the drop of my hat but maybe it is time to meet more than one person, hope to see a live concert before too much longer, get on a train and find what everybody else seems to think is so wonderful about summer.

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Top marks toTony Blackburn this morning. Having played the Top 3 from 1963 (Summer Holiday, Please Please Me), he followed up with the glorious Baby Washington. I thought I was the only person that had heard of her but Tony knows, as did Dusty.

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Unfortunate news in a Cheltenham Update are that my selections Bachasson and Thyme Hill are non-runners and any value we might have been garnering from the Irish star taking on Shiskin is gone, too, because that's gone poorly, too. One takes no pleasure in nominating 1/2 shots and one doesn't really want the bet anymore but never mind.

It might have sometimes restricted winnings when I've stuck to 'the plan' but the plan is a sensible thing that prioritizes not losing overall. Scott Parker's being doing okay with a similar strategy at Fulham. I re-directed the small stake refunded from Bachasson (at 20/1) to today's racing, on a double on Hooper and Rainyday Woman. Hooper was gifted his race and Rainy Day Woman was heavily backed from 10/3 to 5/4. I really thought the plan was letting me down and I wanted more 'exposure' to this shrewd-seeming investment. Until she bombed out completely and finished tenth.

The plan is that I'm level for the year and all that comes back from Cheltenham is the amount I'm ahead. So that's fine. One can trust God's own country to provide that except I dare say it was The Ice Age that created the landscape. My plan works. The one he's been credited with never did. Ask Voltaire.