The Big Debate

In the end I went down the Hole for Ben's leaving drinks. Ben actually left the good old Arvon Foundation about four months ago, but people ahve kids and you know how long it can be to synchronise diaries. Good night though. Usual pattern we convened in the pub, and as soon as the music got unbearably loud and shit we crossed the bridge to the White Swan.

The white Swan is the very definition of a sad old gits pub.

It's great.

You can always get a seat - no matter how many of you there are - and you can always get served. plus they sell Bombadier which I feel nostalgic about because it's a Charlie Wells beer from my hometown.

And we drank and talked about books and I staggered the mile home at 12.30 and had to sleep in the attic (there was a cross note...)

And today Clegg seems to have been declared the victor in the big debate. Odds on a Lib-Dem govt have gone from 300/1 to 14/1. Which seems to be a bookie crying out - in his anguish and his pain - 'we have no chuffin idea what is going to happen! None at all.' Exciting times in a low-key way (because, like the nasty little attention-seeker from UKIP says (and rightly) in this instance) - 'it's not about a change of government - it's about a change of management.'

And tonight I'm off to see a boxing match...

The Big TV Debate

And I won't be watching it. I don't have a TV. For the first time not having what my old dad used to call 'the google-box' is an inconvenience. I'll have to listen on the wireless, where no doubt I'll think G Brown is the winner. Gruff but honest and plain-speaking in a Badger from wind in the Willows kind of a way, while everyone else thinks he's a sweating grimacing weirdo and that the real winner is Smiley Nick or that Ordinary Middle-Class Etonian 'Dave'.

quiet daze

From Mytholmroyd to Sauce in Hebden to meet the fabulous Joyce Branagh who is directing my short play Ven Y Va for the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival. Some good questions, and some even better suggestions and some stuff to mull over for a redraft.

She asked me what was at the heart of it. And I guess it's about when you begin to give up on heat passion and dance in your life. In a more simple way the play is about a very English couple who take up Argentinian Tango as a way of having a shared hobby that will maybe put some fizz back in their life together... Only maybe their attitude to dancing just reveals how different are the things they each want from a relationship...

The on to catch up with Mark Illis. And he bought me a posh butty in Squeeze and we spoke at length about many things: About a film we're writing together, about how great the Kings Lynn Literary Festival is, about what good odds you can get on Labour being the largest party come May 7, about the horror that is other peoples' children, about Eurodisney (he likes it. I don't) and all civilised intelligent, good-humoured stuff that doesn't mean very much.

Now to make a chilli, do a bit of writing and then pick my youngest child from school. Arts Festival meeting tonight, then a beer in a pub. Easy days. Too rare.

everything i want

it occurs to me that I have everything i want, never mind everything i need...

last great book read : A lie about my father John Burnside

last great track i heard: Everybody's Got Something to hide except for me and my monkey The Beatles

last great thing i heard somebody say: the more you write, the less you die