Lockdown Diary - Friday 17th July 2020

Friday comes around again, my second since the operation last week. I'm still in recovery mode, so I haven't jumped out of a plane, abseiled down a cliff, kicked a Lion in the nuts or taken 4 tabs of acid. Got to be on better than my best behaviour and certainly not at my daredevil worst.

Given I haven't been able to do the normal things I do day-to-day (hang on to those nuts Leo), what in the name of all that exists on Earth and in Heaven have I been doing?

Reading, obviously: 'The Code of the Woosters'; 'Ulysses'; 'Hawkwind: Days of the Underground'; and Uncut magazine (about John Martyn making the album 'Inside Out').

Music, naturally: latest albums from Johanna Warren, Nadine Shah and Magick Brother & Mystic Sister (a band, not the Gong / Daevid Allen song with a similar name).  Chuck in a bit more of 'A Psychedelic Sensibility' on Bandcamp for good measure.

Late morning my elder sister rang and we had a catch up, mainly about how my recovery was going after the 'blip' earlier in the week.

I also planned to have a call with a friend in Berlin and that ended up being in the afternoon. During the course of a 90-minute call we discussed a range of topics from my recovery to how easy travel to and from the UK and Germany will be, post virus, taking in a whole host of other topics on the way.  I think we're close to establishing that a 60-minute call is too short and 90-minutes, generally, is enough. After 90 minutes of chatting we both usually have things to go away and think about.

After Thursday's Idler 'Drink with' I've a desire to investigate further William Blake's thoughts on the four different states of imaginative experience, which also relate to our experience of time (Ulro, Generation, Beulah and Eternity, as he named them), starting with a video from Mark Vernon (see here). 

In the early evening I had a Zoom call with a great bunch of friends distributed across parts of the UK and a couple of locations in France. We've done this several times now and it has always been fun - tonight was no exception - I only only wonder why none of us thought of it sooner.  Tonight's catch-up was all the more poignant as FB reminded me that 12 months ago today, most of us were together in the South of France staying at one of the group's homes. Good memories.

Today's music choice is 'Kitchen Sink', the title track from Nadine Shah's latest album.

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