4 November 2012 - Dear Dairy # 4

Dear dairy,

one extra pint today, then none till Tuesday.

Key's under the plant pot.

Bob's on earlies. ;-)

***

6.06 am

So much for the sleep in.

Pouring rain again.

So much for Langport and The Levels.

Just been dreaming that I was at a poetry / music event doing some collaboration with a musician. Then agreed to go on to another event with the promoter. Turned out to be a church - congregation and all. The reading was part of the service. Oh well. It's a gig.

There were about nine of us. People I'd never met, in three groups waiting in pews off to the side. Some big brash hard-man from Manchester seemed to be the promoter / compare. He was busy on his mobile sorting out a dodgy van-load of gear while, at the same time, threatening and terrorising all around him.

I tried to ignore it all and find something appropriate to read in a church. Not as easy as I thought. I considered reading a piece by somebody else, but was persuaded by my friend to introduce my own stuff to a new audience. We had time to kill before going on. I continued rifling through my papers.

The gangster / promoter had suddenly become a distraction. He was using force of personality, threat and language not suitable for church to coerce someone on the other end of the call. Enter the vicar. He was a big, tall man in his thirties. Maybe just forty. Short dark hair and full black vestments of the Clergy. When he spoke, he was a New Zealander. Front Row, I would say at a guess.

He spoke quietly and reasonably to the wide-boy Manc, who immediately bristled and squared up. The vicar squared up more and, though he spoke gently, he was well into the Manc's personal space. With a final savage bark, the Manc promoter strode out.

Cut to a bus. It's getting dark and we are heading out of town. Some cocky bloke - maybe the hard-man promoter - had been mouthing off earlier about being able to fly a jet. We look out at the darkening sky and across it, at low level, comes a Tornado jet. I don't know how we knew it was him.

OK then. Grudging respect of some sort. Then he points the nose up and the tail slides under. I wait for the afterburner to ignite and power the aircraft into the sky, but nothing happens. Ooh, you don't want to do that. Suddenly the edge of dusk lights up orange. Shame about the Tornado.

Speaking of Air Force, when my dad was dying I spent hours at his bed-side, with the rest of our immediate family, waiting for him to tell us something profound - for him to give us an insight. During his brief rally, he was offered a bottle of Guinness. Beer and whisky were two of his few obvious pleasures. He had been a committed social drinker all his life and had gone to amazing lengths to find excuses to sneak a couple in.

His answer, when it came, was profoundly unexpected: "No. I don't want any booze. Biggest waste of money there is."

So much for profundity.