Morning Musings

I'm just about to start recording, this time with different guitar which is easier to play than the Green Goddess, and has less of a fret buzz problem when I'm playing arpeggios, which is what I'm recording at the moment. I'm still having to play the song in sections, but that's so normal I don't know why I'm even documenting it.

The street outside is waking up: lorries are growling, motorbikes snarling and cars whisking past forcing grimy air through the cracks in the window and door. I have made a very strong cup of coffee so I may be racing the click track when I start recording. It's funny because lockdown and the luxury of time have affected the length of songs I've written. A lot of them are more than four minutes long, though they seemed short at the time. I'm in the process of editing them to a more reasonable and listenable length, ditching unnecessary lyrics, allowing the music to complete the meaning, and not overdecorating the music.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about the odious Nigel and his taxi service comments. How wonderful that the RNLI has seen such an increase in donations! I had been wondering how empathisers could take down psychopaths (the very notion simply doesn't work, does it?): maybe some sort of extreme rebalancing could do the trick. How could that work with Bezos and Musk, though? How could people undo the aggressive incursions into space by billionaires who have simply lost the plot?

And watching the morning news, there's the Japanese authorities 'clearing out' homeless people from areas around the Olympic venues. This is exactly what the UK did. Our homeless people (yes, they are ours) were evacuated to Brighton for the duration, to the end of Offsprog One's street, as it happens; that's how I know about it. So let not have any British moralising about the cruel Japanese authorities. Maybe it might occur to someone one day that the huge expense of the Olympics and the glorification of the human body should extend to people we don't make films about and give medals to, as well as to those we do. Did we rehouse the homeless people in London in the Olympic village? That might have been the kind thing to do, mightn't it? And in that regenerated area, there might even have been jobs for them, too. It takes a lot of strength and perseverance to survive on the streets, a lot of endurance. Olympian skills, in fact. Hmmm.

I'm still working. The schedules we have for marking re-sit student work increasingly encroach on time we should be spending on research and relaxing in the summer, which means that the stress of one year carries on to the next. I don't think stressed teachers and lecturers can do their jobs properly.Where adrenaline helps bankers (or supposedly does), people who work in education need patience and thinking time to work out new ways to keep students interested in the things they need to learn to thrive in their respective professions after they have graduated. I have so much to say about my life as a University lecturer, and I'm looking forward to being free to say them when the time comes.

I know we're not in the medical profession. I honestly don't know how they cope with the constant government carping and insincerity. My experience of breaking my elbow led to a renewed admiration for the collaborative and seamless way that A&E works. At one point, a surgeon between cases took a blood sample from me because nobody else had time. They volunteered to do it without a thought for it being below their pay grade. I could feel the pressure, but all the way through I was treated with kindness, gentleness and respect: back to empathy again. I have a million times more admiration for our NHS staff than I do for the ridiculous antics of middle aged and elderly white men and their metal space penises.

That's enough for today.