Tales From The Crypt - Friday 3rd September 2021

It's been a hectic week with lots of things to organise and get done at work and in life, so I've been a bit quieter than usual. Today, alas, will be no exception!

One thing I did want to record is the poem I've been reading this week.  It's by an English poet I've shamefacedly never heard of before, Charlotte Mew, who is apparently a noteworthy poet but not very well known, which seems in part to be because she's a woman. The poem below, 'Not For That City', is intriguing.  The words and rhythm seem to have some kind of magic about them: I'm not entirely sure I've grasped the meaning of it all.  The meaning seems just slightly out of reach when I read it, but I find it both arresting and mesmerising, so much so that I've ordered a book of her poems - I want to learn more!

Not for that city of the level sun,
     Its golden streets and glittering gates ablaze—
     The shadeless, sleepless city of white days,
White nights, or nights and days that are as one—
We weary, when all is said , all thought, all done.
     We strain our eyes beyond this dusk to see
     What, from the threshold of eternity
We shall step into. No, I think we shun
The splendour of that everlasting glare,
   The clamour of that never-ending song.
   And if for anything we greatly long,
It is for some remote and quiet stair
     Which winds to silence and a space for sleep
     Too sound for waking and for dreams too deep.

Son #3 is off to his gf's school ball/leaving do in Banbury, son #1 is still away with his gf, which leaves only son #2 and I for dinner tonight.  The originally planned dinner won't work for two, so we order a takeaway before I head off for my third and final walk of the day. I've ordered fish and chips and he's ordered a chicken kebab.

Walk now over so I've poured a glass of wine to help me clear up in the kitchen ready for our dinners to arrive.  Dinner is delivered much sooner than expected, which is great, and comes as a surprise.  I made the mistake of ordering a large fish, not realising I'd be getting Moby Dick (yes, I know a whale's not a fish!) or at least Moby Dick's... If I order fish and chips  from there again I'll get a normal sized fish.

Son #2 chooses the entertainment, which is a Netflix series called something like 'How To Be a Tyrant', which is a documentary series about Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Colonel Gaddafi, Kim Jong Il et al. Amazingly it manages to be irritating on so many levels that I wonder if it would be possible to make a more annoying TV programme, but of course, I'm sure it is, I just can't think of one.  Even some of the talking heads' accents are bloody irritating and as for the narrator and the script he's reading...

After clearing up I decide it's time to head for bed.

Måneskin, Iggy Pop / 'I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE' / 'I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE (Single)'



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