Lockdown Diary - Monday 1st March 2021

Weekend's gone in a flash and tomorrow I'm back to work.  It wouldn't be so grim if the three days off actually included time spent on something remotely uplifting instead of all this deathless making do (but not mending). Fuck's sake.

Here I am again then. Is there a relationship between effort and achievement or even desire and result? There are those that would have you believe that, but I can categorically refute it.  I have all the proof and evidence to show that there is no link between those pairs. I seem to have made it my mission to disprove those relationships. In the process I will succeed in wearing myself down, crushing myself to the darkest densest black hole, which would be an achievement, of sorts.

I pick myself up and do another day again in the face of total disinterest. 

Sorted out flowers for my father-in-law.  Card in hand (not bird, sadly)

How have a I frittered away the hours of my life today in the pursuit of futility?  Written a review of 'Where The Crawdads Sing' ahead of book club tonight. Selected two recipes, with son #2's help, for dinners later this week. Ordered a new frying pan, out of which I shall leap into the fire. Started listening to 'Freak Zone'. Meditated (you'll go blind). Ordered something else which will go unrecognised and will be another notch on the futility stake (drive it home with a hammer). Read some of the previous issue of Idler magazine, as I now have the latest issue to read as well. Written some other shit in my journal (all the stuff that's not fit to print). Wasted some time on FaceAche (the very definition of futility).  Offered my writing services to one of the carers. Had a phone call with my older sister. Words, words, words - not so sure the pen is mightier, in fact maybe I've proved it isn't, so the sword it is then. Mick's metaphors - buy three get fourth free (or should that be fifth, forthwith or without?) Yep, you are correct, there ain't no sanity clause.

The last carer call of the day is over: it's too early to make dinner and too early for book club, so I'm going to listen to music for a bit.  After a foray into 'Dots and Loops' plus a bit of 'Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night', it's time to Zoom in to book club.

Book club was fun tonight, even though there were only seven of us, which is pretty low.  Some didn't attend because they hadn't finished the book, and given you can't really discuss the book without discussing the ending, it would be a real spoiler.  The get together finished after a little over two hours - lots of people having to get up for work and shizz.

After it finished I went and saw the boys, tidied up and retired. Got to get up for work tomorrow.

The obvious choice would be Stereolab, but as their new album of rarities, single-only releases etc etc, 'Electrically Possessed (Switched on Volume 4)' has just been released (though not physically yet) I'll want to choose a track from that.  Instead, I'll swerve left and choose a song I'd never imagine I would select here. It's such a well-worn song which I've heard so many times I would never choose to listen to it. Not that it's a bad song. Far from it. Just heard it far too many times. This is a cover of The Moody Blues hit, 'Nights in White Satin', by A.A. Williams (who I'm sure I've played before) from a forthcoming album called 'Songs from Isolation'. I like this stripped down sound as it brings a power to the words that gets lost in the swathes of mellotron/keyboards etc of the original.  (She's also done an excellent cover of The Cure's 'Lovesong', amongst others)

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