don't confuse the narrator

serial poetry

Currently, my mind seems as empty of poetry as the teasel head is of flowers. But I am used to the emptiness, and the idea of “writer’s block” is not something that particularly bothers me.

Recently, a friend said she would sometimes take “as long as eleven hours” to write a poem. She is a skilled writer, with many small prizes and multiple publications to her credit, so this clearly works for her. But her writing seems to be more methodical than mine, and I gather that she works on each piece diligently until it is complete before starting the next one.

This is not at all the way I work.
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forbidden favourites

Although most people agree that autumn starts with the equinox, which doesn’t fall for another week, it seems that Christmas is already looming, with cards on sale in the shops, and gift catalogues dropping through the letterbox. I never sign up for printed catalogues, but they arrive unsolicited, and offer temptations in the form of all sorts of trinkets and knick-knacks I never knew I needed.

Of course, once you start to buy gifts, some sort of wrapping is required. The latest catalogue offered this interesting set of gift bags:

Gift bag description: "sprinklied with irredecent glitter"

It’s not a charity I had ever thought of supporting, but if I had more time, I might be tempted to offer my proof-reading skills at a reduced rate.
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unnatural creatures

I should visit my mother more often.

The first good reason for visiting her more often is that she is really quite elderly, having celebrated her 90th birthday earlier this year. The second, far more selfish reason, is that I always find ideas when I do visit. Not necessarily ideas for poems, and not necessarily useful ideas, but usually there are oddities and slantwise perspectives that amuse me.

Today I have been hearing a faint alarm sound every 30 seconds or so; I knew it wasn’t the foghorns on the estuary – not least because it has been a gloriously sunny day – and it didn’t seem to be a phone or an alarm clock. When I asked if she had any idea what it might be, my mother denied all knowledge. Eventually, though, we managed to work it out. It’s her new “solar mole repeller”.

My mother has had problems with moles in her garden for years now and we have tried all sorts of solutions.
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on target

I’m not at all sure that I like targeted ads and automatic sign-ups to mailing lists when you buy from a website; I may have nothing to hide, but I don’t like the idea of my emails being read and of organisations – public or private – keeping tabs on me.

Sometimes the ads and mail outs are so wildly off-course that they are funny, but on occasions it’s uncanny how well they seem to know you. An email in my inbox this morning makes me suspect that Big Brother is watching me personally:

amazon targeted mail ("as you've shown an interest in books...")

It’s absolutely true: I have “shown an interest in books.”

I don’t think that can possibly be true of a few million other people whose email addresses are on record with Amazon, can it?

on the fly

So, it’s Saturday morning and I haven’t much idea about what to post on the blog.

Hmm… Cue for a song? Another Saturday dawns and I ain’t got no blog post/ I got some photos, but I got no words/ How I wish I had something to write about/ I’m in an awful way… Maybe not.

Still, it’s true that I have some photos. This is what I found when I downloaded the last lot from my camera: