Lockdown Diary - Thursday 25th March 2021

Got up at 6, showered and dressed, easily managing to be ready for the carer when she arrived at about quarter to seven, followed five or so minutes later by the cleaner. No flies on me, mate!

As usual, or rather as usual when I'm working, I asked the cleaner to do my office after the carer had gone.  It has to wait for the carer to finish attending to my wife as her bedroom is just outside my office around the corner.  They'd get in each other's way if their activities weren't suitably segregated.

Once my office is done I return to begin work, but not before I've finished off a card/letter I'm sending to a friend.  A brief time-slice for me to post the letter, then back to work for the rest of the day, usual interruptions aside.  Today has one added interruption: one of the district nurses is due to come to empty/refill my wife's PEG balloon, this has the added excitement that I don't know when it will happen. Thrills, spills and chills!

All change: Carers have been and gone again; cleaner has just finished and left; district nurse has just arrived and is here to change the PEG balloon water.

Back to work: lots of calls one after the other: fun, fun fun.

Idler drinks tonight is with Youth, bassist for Killing Joke, producer of tons of records, co-founder of new arts magazine MÜ, and occasional member of the Orb and other collaborations.

Youth was speaking from his home / studio in Spain, very chilled 😉, and was a really relaxed and easy speaker, like chatting with a mate. He talked about all sorts of things from across his career, including working with Paul McCartney, Killing Joke, house music, David Gilmour, The Orb, the Balearic sound, KLF, the South London Arts Lab, and current projects - including a forthcoming one with Allen Ginsberg reading his poem 'Iron Horse' across a musical backdrop by Youth and guest starring Siobhan Fahey on backing vocals - he ended up playing a section of this unreleased work to us. He was having such a good time he spoke for almost 2 hours (instead of the scheduled 50 minutes or so), it was going so well but I had to leave before the end to go and make dinner, so who knows when it finished! Not only that but I picked up an album recommendation for a band I've never heard of - 'Family of God' - which is out of print and not on Spotify, but which I found on Discogs and ordered immediately. I was already a fan of Youth just because of the diversity of the things he does - from the catharsis of Killing Joke to the chillout of The Orb and all points in-between - but after tonight I'm an even bigger fan, he's a great guy. Youth has been the best distraction therapy so far this week. Youth got to choose the song they played out with (or rather they tried to play out with, since it didn't end afterwards!), which was 'Bittersweet Symphony' by The Verve. Apparently much of the sound of the song was Youth's idea, and Richard Ashcroft didn't like it, at least to begin with, though in the end Youth got his way, but we never got to find out if Richard came around to liking it or not, but based on Youth's earlier comments, we have to assume so. 

Sadly, but understandably, the Idler drinks is taking an Easter break, so this was the last chat until later in April. It has been a great season of chats - I really don't know which I've enjoyed the most, they've been so diverse. Lockdown life would have been all the poorer without it, that's for sure.

Dinner, 'Narcos: Mexico', sleep [“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”]

Killing Joke / 'Chop Chop' / 'Revelations'

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