Tuesday, October 1st
‘Tis the first of October, the first day of what I suspect might be the first of several miserable grey and chilly months in this God-forsaken country, and it’s still raining. Never mind your “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”: October is when I begin to batten down the metaphorical hatches.
As an antidote to reading John Bunyan I’ve started in on a crime stroke police procedural novel, the first in the Martin Beck series, which is Swedish and written by a husband and wife team whose names escape me because they’re Swedish and who can remember Swedish names other than other Swedes? My buddy Brett recommended it to me, and he said that once I’ve read this one I’ll be hooked and have to read the entire series, which is ten books. They seem to be the kind of thing one can read in a day or two if one has the time. I have the time.
Melissa telephoned. It was a weather warning, very late and so of no consequence, since it’d been tipping down all day and was tipping down as we spoke, and who cares what the weather’s like when it’s the evening and you’re tucked up cosily on the sofa with a Famous Grouse?
Wednesday, October 2nd
It’s been decidedly chilly lately, a definite seasonal change, and I’ve dug out my winter underthings to check what the moths have been up to. Fortunately I don’t mind a few holes here and there. Moths have to eat, just like the rest of us.
I had to go into town this morning for an influenza vaccination. The nurse said I would have a sore arm later. She wasn’t wrong . . .
In the afternoon Algernon Tenderloin dropped by with the latest update on his versifier career. I can’t remember the details because I wasn’t really listening, although I vaguely recall his saying something about his intention to hold a poetry soiree at his Nook in the near future. I’m going to claim to be ill. It’s of no consequence, though I realize he might by this time be starting to think I’m very unhealthy, since every time he proposes I go to something poetic I fall ill.
Melissa telephoned. She said she’d started to listen to the wireless a lot, and recommended I do the same: she says she’s become hooked on “The Archers”, and talked about it like it’s the latest new thing to hit the scene.
To bed. My arm hurts.
Thursday, October 3rd
The Martin Beck book was alright, though the translation left a little to be desired in places. It strikes me as strange how often an English person who gets the job of translating something into English can’t write decent English. I suppose it’s their knowledge of the other language that swings it for them. But notwithstanding that I shall try another.
Melissa telephoned. I was about to tuck into lunch, so I had to hurry her along. She’d just been to the dry cleaner with a winter coat and she said the cleaning is so expensive these days it would be cheaper to go the charity shop to find a replacement coat. Lunch was salmon, and very nice, as was the sun, which decided to come out just for a change.
I’ve received an invitation to contribute items of genius to a revived journal who have always championed my work, as if I need championing. Of course, I’ve duly obliged with a few gems, and await their gobbling them up with glee. I’m happy to make people happy even when I’m not especially happy myself. I’m tending to feeling a little low-to-middling at the moment, but it’s normal service, more or less, and so of little consequence.
Saturday, October 5th
Awoke with a crick in the neck this morning, and a vague recollection of a rather active dream life. It would be of no consequence, but instead of the crick going away it’s got worse, and it’s been quite uncomfortable. Cook suggested I go and have a massage, but I’ve never been very keen on massages, and once had a rather painful experience with a masseuse who I swear was a former heavyweight boxer. I shall never forget her. Her name was Freda. At least, that’s what she said. I shall live with the crick. It will go. They always do.
I started in on a reading of Herman Melville’s “Pierre” – God knows why, because I’ve tried to read it once before and gave up, so quite why I felt like giving it another go I really don’t know. Unsurprisingly, I haven’t made it to page 50, and I’ve given up again. To be fair, the introduction in my Penguin edition does say, at some length, that it’s a very flawed work, but I don’t think it goes as far as to say it’s unreadable. It says something about the prose style mocking the style of many novels of its time, but 40-odd pages of this kind of thing:
How wide, how strong these roots must spread! Sure, this pine-tree
takes powerful hold of this fair earth! Yon bright flower hath not so
deep a root. This tree hath outlived a century of that gay flower’s
generations, and will outlive a century of them yet to come. This is most
sad. Hark, now I hear the pyramidical and numberless, flame-like
complainings of this Eolian pine;—the wind breathes now upon it,—
the wind—that is God’s breath!
Well, no thank you. Frankly, the chap’s just sat down by a tree, and he “thinks” another page and a half of this stuff, and I’m not in the mood. “Pierre” ain’t no “Moby Dick”, that’s for sure. P. G. Wodehouse, here I come!
Melissa telephoned. She says she knows a chap who’s offering a great deal on draught excluder. She knows this old house is a bit draughty. But I have my own draught excluder dealer, and we have a private arrangement and he’s not let me down yet. Every Autumn we meet up, it’s cash in hand, out the back of his van, and we don’t use our real names. To me, he’s Jez. To him, I’m Mr. Eliot, and it’s best we leave it that way.
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James Henderson (Gentleman)
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