Monday, October 6th
I know I should not be bored, and I have always prided myself on the liveliness and constant vivacity of my mind. How can a genius be bored? A mind like mine should never be bored! But on occasion of late I have been, and today I am. It is, I think, a bout of creeping ennui, whereas my usual mode is a devil-may-care laziness. I do not know what has brought it on. I wonder if there are pills that could fix it.
It has nothing, nothing at all, to do with the fact that I believe today would be my mater’s birthday, or the birthday of she whom it is alleged (with no apparent documentary or scientific proof) was my mater. The story of her strange disappearance after addressing a Young Wive’s meeting at the local Methodist Hall has never been fully explained, and remains an open but cold case with the County Constabulary, as it is also with the local phenomenological society, even after all these years. Pater would never really engage on the topic when he was asked about it, simply saying that she was a pleasant woman and was sorely missed, which does not explain why he kept no photographs of her in the house, or any similar memorabilia.
I am thinking about increasing my daily alcohol intake. That is the kind of mood I am in.
Tuesday, October 7th
I have this morning seen myself referred to in a literary journal as “the landed poet”. I take this to refer to the fact that I have substantial private means and live in a big house on a decent chunk of land – about 200 acres, as it happens. Whether to be thus described is a complement, an insult, or intended to be merely factual, I have no idea. It is such a vague phrase that some people (the stupid kind) might think it means I have just arrived at Heathrow from a trip abroad, and wonder why it should be mentioned at all. The remark was made during a paragraph that mentioned my 1999 book, The Little Housemaid & Other Minor Characters, as “influential” but the writer seemed to suggest that it was not an especially good or useful influence. I do not care, because they probably have mental issues. I have a headache this morning.
I have probably mentioned elsewhere that I do not look at many literary journals these days. They are usually quite boring, but when I do I often notice a proliferation of items called “prose poems”. However, I have to say there is usually nothing at all poetic about these paragraphs of very straightforward prose. Surely something with the word “poem” in the label should have something vaguely poetic about it. This is probably not worth a diary entry. Did I mention that I have a headache?
Cook went into town today and came home smiling because she had purchased what she described as an excellent new chopping board for the kitchen. My interest was not high, I have to say, until she said it was made of black glass. I was keen to see it, for I like black glass, even though I know that a glass chopping board is not a patch on a wooden one. Why she has bought it, heaven knows. Imagine her dismay when she took it out of its packaging and found it was broken! A wooden one would not have been broken! Anyway, she has been in a bad mood ever since (so that made two of us) because she cannot go back to town until Thursday (I am not sure why), and she is not optimistic about the shop being willing to replace it, even though it obviously broke on her journey home. I have no idea why she is worried – it is not her money she is spending, it’s mine!
Thursday, October 9th
Received (thanks to Mr. Postman) a new slim volume of thin poetry by a chap I have known and seen intermittently for some 40 years. He is of the Irish persuasion (I do not know if North or South, but they are all more or less the same) and he has had in the past something of a reputation as a ladies’ man. I have liked his poetry most of the time, but this latest offering strikes me as boring in extremis. It’s very slight, and much too tediously and wimpishly personal. Why on earth should I care if “a heaven exists within the eyes of sweet Helena”, or that “when she bakes a cake one’s taste buds know there is a God”? Perhaps I should drop him a line to tell him that Hallmark cards are on the lookout for writers, though I think even they would ask him to sort out the meter (of which there is none discernible).
Saturday, October 11th
Not for the first time this week I stayed in my pyjamas all day. Trying to be un-bored, I knocked out a quick poem:
One leaves at the end
Romantic & ticks boxes
Harsh treatment
Suffering to depression
Think the right place to be is
Leeds, oddly
Most biting at heart
Around mid-May fresh air
Blue without you
Feeling unbalanced
It did not really work, and I would not publish it. In fact, it is already in the bin. I was still bored after I did it, and it is not a real poem, and it is very miserable. It was all taken from the clues in the FT crossword. A gentleman-poet taking the Financial Times??!!! You may wonder, but I take it for Cook, who likes to keep an eye on her share prices, and I enjoy the crossword.
I watched “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid” this afternoon. It is a good film, more or less, and I have watched it about 200 times before. (I exaggerate a little.) I am not in the habit of watching films in the afternoon, but I was bored, and could not settle to any book, which is my usual way of passing the post meridian hours between lunch and afternoon tea. I made the excuse to myself that it was my way of paying tribute to the passing of Robert Redford. A little late, I admit, but better late than never (which, now I come to think of it, is not the best choice of words in the circumstances, but that is language for you . . .).
If Saturday is the last day of the week, which by my reckoning it is, then today is the end of a pretty dull week, which begs the question, Why on earth bother to write it down?
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James Henderson
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