It’s not going to let up, is it? Does it feel like there’s more news because I’m at home more? Probably not, but it does seem to be getting more momentous as the days go by.
Arguably, it’s always politics, all of the time, but as Matthew Paul rightly points out here, it’s almost impossible to ignore the sheer amount of politics going on. However, I’m aware he mentions me in his post and I don’t want this to be a circlejerk, so I’m going to move on. I don’t think there’s anything that I can add to the weight of discourse around current events beyond relief that there appears to be grown-ups on the way in in the US (for all the faults of Biden and Harris, they are at least stringing sentences together and not calling for mass insurrection) and positive news about the vaccines (for all the uselessness of our own government in organising the rollout).
In an attempt to distract myself, I’m going to focus, for now, on the small coincidences of oranges and a poem.
1. I was tidying our fridge earlier and removed two oranges to put them in our fruit bowl. Honestly, the fun never ends in our house.
2. As I did this I remembered that earlier this week I’d seen the poet Clare Best post a picture on Instagram of a few jars of marmalade that she had made. Not sure I can embed it, but it’s here
3. This had reminded me of her excellent poem in her recent collection
I’ve said plenty about this poem and the rest of Clare’s book here, so if you get rind* to it you can read it
4. I’d sort of forgotten about points one to three happening (all that fun will do that to you), but then it occurred to me again earlier when my wife came back from the shops and mentioned how empty the fruit and veg aisle was. We hoped it wasn’t the knock-on impact of Brexit or Covid, but it’s almost certainly a combination of the impact of both. And, in the words of Ben Elton**, “A liddle bit of politics there, ladies and gentlemen that brings us back round to where we came in***
I must also say a massive thank you to Jeremy Noel-Tod for sending me a copy of ‘Market Lunch: Poems of Norwich’ by Ron Nevett. See here for details, but the book is raising funds for an excellent charity, New Routes, which supports refugees, asylum seekers and isolated migrants, and promotes cross-cultural integration and community awareness in Norwich.
I’ve seen Jeremy posting Ron’s work as it’s been published in the Norwich Evening News, and it’s lovely to see them finally collected together. The market in Norwich is somewhere I spent a lot of time as a young man—especially the stall for bootleg live tapes. I still have the Wedding Present one from Norwich Waterfront where I can be heard shouting for My Favourite Dress. If only I’d known back then that they’d stopped playing it at that time.
However, I did sort of manage to balls up my promotion of it earlier in the week. The tweet below was meant to come across as me being self-deprecating and not having a go at Ron. Ooops, sorry Ron.
Time to stop, my laptop battery is on 2%, the charger is all the way upstairs and I have an urgent appointment with an orange.
*Sorry, not sorry as the young folks say
** I may be unshaven****, but I’m not wearing a spangly suit
*** After a fashion
****Unshaven is pushing it. I think I ended up looking like a Russian Submarine commander earlier today.
THE WEEK IN STATS
43.1k running – Carrying on with the Run Every Day in January thing. My foot is sore, so next week may see some shorter runs, but all miles are good miles…
0 day of 2 x 7-minute workouts, but the above means I don’t feel so bad
1 day Wilbur (our cat) spent the whole day sleeping on my desk while I worked
52 days of insults between my friend and I on Twitter. He started it.
0 x rejections: All good.
0 x acceptances
5 poems worked on: Berlin 2016, Giving Up on NYE, Out of Office, Railings, Spider That Bit Peter Parker. Getting back into the daily writing, slowly. As in slowly getting back into it, not writing slowly—although that too
0 poems finished:
0 Submissions:
0 Reviews written and submitted. 1 still to do though, so must crack on
10 day without cigarettes..Thumbs aloft!!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
Projective Techniques
The potential cat among the actual pigeons
Time is flying…But you are a pilot
The Blackpool Ruminations
The Small Coincidences of Oranges
READ/SEEN/HEAR/ETC
Read
Poetry Wales 56.2
Stand
J.O Morgan: The Martian’s Regress
Music
Pixies: Live From Brixton Academy 05.06.04 (I WAS THERE AND IT WAS A MAGICAL EVENING)
Efterklang & The Happy Hopeless Orchestra: Leaves – The Colour of Falling
J Mascis: Elastic Days, Tied To A Star
Matthew Halsall: Salute To The Sun
Paul McCartney: McCartney III
Four let: 871
Eels: Then Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett
Kevin Morby: Sundowner
REM: Fables of The Reconstruction, Green, Life’s Rich Pageant, Murmur, MTV Unplugged, New Adventures In HiFi, Out of Time, Up
El Vy: Return To The Moon
Lanterns On The Lake: Beings
Hiroshi Yoshimura: Green
Craig Finn : All These Perfect Crosses
Grant-Lee Phillips: Lightning, Show us Your Stuff
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit: Reunions
The Jayhawks: Back Roads And Abandoned Motels
Jenny Lewis: Acid Tongue, On The Line, The Voyageur
Julian Cope: An Audience With The Cope, Autogeddon, Black Sheep, Beautiful Love EP, Charlotte Anne & B Sides, Christ Vs Warhol, Citizen Cain’d, Dark Orgasm, Droolian, Drinking Songs, Due To Lack of Interest Tomorrow Has Been Cancelled, Fried, Intepreter, The Jehovahcaot Demos, Jehovahkill, John Balance Enters Valhalla
TV/Film
The Expanse S4 & 5 – various episodes
New Girl S2 E1-12
Spiral S8 E3&4
Fear The Walking Dead S5 E6
Zooms, etc
Nothing
Radio/Podcasts
Not even The Archers
Arrived
Market Lunch – Ron Nevett
Ordered
Zoe Brigley-Thompson: Aubade After A French Movie
Eaven Boland: The Historians
Wear The Fox Hat 
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