After yesterday’s continuous drizzle, today is sunny again. The forecast for tomorrow doesn’t look too hopeful but, looking at the Atlantic charts, I’m expecting them to revise that. The forecasters these days seem to relish in making us expect the worst; it may be that they all have shares in umbrella companies of course. Not that I’ve seen a British-made umbrella in years.
That’s made me remember an encounter with gay-bashers in a subway near Clapham Junction, years and years ago. I wasn’t in the mood for being bashed, so far as I recall, and I grabbed my stout British-made umbrella and chased them off, screaming the opening lines from Jabberwocky at the top of my voice.
It’s a good battle-cry, is Jabberwocky.
I’d sort of planned to go into Swansea for a birthday badge today. You know: ’70 today and up for anything‘. Perhaps I shall find one in Burnham-on-Sea tomorrow, something more along the lines of ‘Kiss me quick, I’m 70 today‘. Or perhaps not.
Anyway. The morning sun has hit the roofs of the houses opposite, raising steam-wraiths, wisping over the ridges and off into the blue sky. I’m planning to sit for a while now, and watch it until the show is over.
Ah. Must record my waking dream from this morning. It was an impression rather than a narrative, and I was back in the days of the Beats in Paris, all Gitanes and peanut butter. They might tell you that they lived on Gitanes, croissants and strong coffee but I’m here to tell you that, when they could, they smeared their croissants with good peanut butter, sent over in parcels from their Moms in America. And the Gitanes were an affectation mostly–they much preferred Marlboro when they could scrounge them.
20 Gitanes, please, and make it snappy
There was music in my head, too. Sidney Bechet making his saxophone sing. That really is a strange association, because the Beats were far more into modern bebop jazz than the good old stuff. But, then, there’s no accounting for dreams.
