Leamington Love/Hate / Mr Logic

Leamington Love/Hate

8.15am Overcast outside, hungover inside! Drank too much last night. My back is hurting with a vengeance.

This is what I wrote last night: Leamington Garret. 10.20pm by Big Ken, or the even more pleasing 22.22 of the computer clock. Joni Mitchell on the boogie-box, Brazil having beaten Croatia, me in shorts, drunk. All is well.

The sky above Leamers is still fairly light. God, I love/hate this place (love the place, hate its people - sometimes).
Moreover, my back is feeling better – and I am happy. Very happy! I loved the Brazil game which I saw down at TJ's bar, in Leamington. Boy, they will take some beating. Class turn!

I revised, quite successfully, my new poem for Oliver's Poetry which is OK and could be improved on before publication this Friday.

What else? Even though it is dark outside, it is not. I can see the light in the dark, and it is so wondrous. I am almost tripping on that light.

Mr Logic (Flashback to Sunday, 21 May 2006).

9.19am. Lewes Garret. Blustery, wettish and cold, a great deal of loud chirping emanating from the garden below, the roar of the A-road in the distance.

Had a bad night for reasons I cannot reveal. I slept so badly that I awoke at three-thirty, my back in agony, and had to get up to knock myself out with painkillers.

After that, I had a horrible nightmare featuring Mike Parker, my ex-boss at the Daily Star. And when I eventually re-awoke at nine-thirty, there was still trouble.

11.40am. Lewes Garret. It is freezing up here, very unpleasant outside; I can hardly see the South Downs through the rain.

I have received a most helpful email from Demon, reading just like something out of the Mr Logic strip in Viz magazine:

'Having read your email query, it appears indicative that you wish to acquire a free or cheap statistics package that you could use with your home page at Demon.

'Unfortunately, we at Demon are NOT in a position to advise you in this regard. Please accept our sincere apologies.'

Yeah, thanks dude!

Met an interesting guy in Eastbourne yesterday – an old bloke called George Musgrave (pictured who runs a 'museum' devoted to his work. This might sound rather egotistical but it was good.

George Musgrave had toy soldiers which he had designed – I remember buying them from Boswells in Oxford as a small boy – and a 40-minute, 16mm film he had made with a cast of 20 in 1949! Also, a birthday card from the father he had never known (killed at the Sommes) and a Penny Black stamp.

I was amused to see my first camera (a Kodak Instamatic) and a typewriter of the sort I had used on Fleet Street, displayed as exhibits! My life is already history, I thought (correctly). George Musgrave seemed a decent cove.

I took a photograph of him. He looks good for 90, I must say. And who can blame him for celebrating his life?