22.01
After the earlier entry today I picked up a wicker shopping basket & hotsy-trotted out to the main drag in town. Even if we didn't live on it, it wouldn't be difficult to find: there are only two streets here - Front Street and Back Lane. It takes cunning, wit, imagination & perseverance to get lost here. My Mother would have achieved this effortlessly, particularly if Sister Patricia was navigating. But even on her own Edie would have found Toller Porcorum or Whitchurch Canonicorum en route to Wimborne. One of Mother's better efforts (with her sister Evie in the passenger seat) was to drive out of Blandford Forum towards Bath, and re-enter Blandford an hour later. They had been wondering where Bath had gone. This was by no means one of Mother's more difficult accomplishments - opening the M4 motorway to public traffic a week before scheduled (also with Evie) is noteworthy in this respect. "We were wondering why there was so little traffic," Mum said to me.
Back to this morning: once on our equivalent of Oxford Street, London, or Fifth Avenue between 50th. & 62nd., I headed downhill to our village bakery for some of their own Christmas puddings & 2 small round tasty loaves of the granary persuasion. Next, to the village store for bananas, Feta cheese made in Sydling St. Nicholas (a nearby village), fresh lettuces, milk, a large bakery-made Christmas pudding & 3 large round granary loaves. I patronise both establishments, but if you hit the bakery after 09.30 the tastiest items will already have been snaffled by those in the know.
Walking back up the main drag the short distance to our home, I experienced the simple joy which accompanies being in the right place & seeing it. The view is almost unchanged from how it would have appeared to a rock guitarist 100 years ago, had he been trolling up the same street, whipcords snapping at a moderate pace, and carrying local produce. The same view appeared in "Emma" with Gwyneth Paltrow, who stayed in the village's Very Posh English Country House Hotel with Brad Pitt, in the days of their entwinement. Gwyneth tripped coming out of the village store, a sad event captured on camera by an assembled horde of locals (or so the story goes).
Jerry & Daphne, heroes of the village store, have also had an old well overflow but it damaged carpets & furniture.
This evening, returning from World Central, I popped over to the inn. Customarily I buy Martin, Wonder Barman To Stars & Locals Alike, a diet pint for consumption at 22.00, when he is able to begin letting go of his day. But this evening he is struck low with Devil Bug. Our new inn manager says he must be better for tomorrow evening. Tell that to the Bug, then, says I.
Would I swap this simplicity, rusticity, domesticity & fresh air for the life of a jet-setting Venal Spiky Nasty-Person that is horrible to innocent fans, who only want to capture his performance on camera & various forms of recording devices because they have the right and didn't know not to anyway - and anyway have the right because they have parted with their hard-earned pay & regardless of that it's rock & roll so why should Fripp ask for anything like consensuality? Watch this space as the answer unfolds.
An afternoon's seasonal shopping with some success and then to World Central. The future is continuing to unfold. On Monday our new Accounts Department begins with a new DGM employee, Maggie. This is a significant development.
Accompaniment to this late entry is Cliff Richard - Volume One of "The Whole Story". Cliff & The Shadows accompanied my early teenage years, as it would have anyone of my age, whether they played in groups or not. For me, it mainly recalls friendships with Wimborne & local friends - the Wyatt sisters, Woosey & Warbara; Martin Small, bass player of The Black Shads & who buried both my Parents; Gordon Haskell, whose hard feelings towards me in no way diminishes the affection I hold for him; and other members of our first two bands - Tino Licinio, Stan Lawford & Reg Matthews. Gord achieved his early life ambition of being Cliff's bass player.
23.15
An e-flurry. Cliff continues to warble gently. I find myself transported to a different decade and 40 miles east of here. Any Golden Age is 40 years before where we are now. In this Golden Age life was gentle, innocent, we knew where we stood & enjoyed certainties in our relationships with people & the world. Well, 40 years ago my life was far from Golden, but it was more innocent. And I bet the EMI standard deal for Cliff was a stinker.
"Distrust anyone who wants to teach you something."
