1952 the heart was not your master

Just finished Muck, Craig Sherborne's memoir. Really brilliant, I've not read something so refreshing in a while. Sherborne is hilarious, his observations of human nature so subtle but perfectly communicated - his 'characters' are just so well-formed. I wonder if it is more difficult to recreate a real person (i.e. Sherborne's parents, and himself as a teenager) than to create a fictional one. Though I suppose that writing a person necessarily makes them fictional - they become figures in a book, letters on a page. I hadn't heard of the writer before but I'm tempted to delve a little deeper into his other works - in fact, I was sent this today if you care to have a look:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/28/dementia-care-craig-sherborne

He picks up on the details that you probably wouldn't even notice, down to the tiniest cheek-whisker. just wonderful. Also I daresay I found something Portrait of the Artist esque to the book. Read it, really.

I've just realised that I've gone into using capitals again - weird. I didn't even notice I was doing it until it was too late. Ha!

Today I had lunch in a cafe called - wait for it - 'Curved Angel' in Farringdon. It was actually very lovely, and I would like to recommend it - very cute, very reasonably priced, and the soups are delicious (I had lentil and spinach, and felt wonderful for it). The staff are a bit noisy but that's OK.

As usual, i am worrying about my health - going to the doctors on friday to put my mind at ease. it's a bit crazy, but i always fear for the worst when it comes to my health. it can be so draining sometimes, i wish i was a little more carefree. listening to bob marley does help alleviate the symptoms of hypochondria, i have found - though he did die of skin cancer. OH/

ok. other things. the shipping forecast, i have discovered, is the best and most pleasant way to fall asleep. the lulling voice of the announcer creates a dark swirling sleep-world sea that it is easy to float away on. in my mind when i close my eyes i can see the entire british isles from above (at night-time), and all of these gently advancing wind-current vectors ruffling the surface of the dark waters. very relaxing. i like having a visual imagination - i also occasionally have success in determining what happens in my dreams (that is the most fun thing). but at the same time it has its downsides - i suppose hypochondria, for instance. it all comes with being obsessively observant.

my current book (i have become a chain-reader, thanks to my trainbound commute every day that demands some form of reading material) is The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, the copy that I bought in New York's Westsider Bookshop (heart), with its garish cover and green page-edges and musty smell. I already like it - gosh, sorry about this schizo lowercase-uppercase mess - i'm a real sci-fi geek, i find it really escapist. i prefer things that take you out of this world and into another - i feel like i need that sometimes.

i miss the new york rats. and the tall buildings... oh. i wish london was tall. i love that feeling of insignificance but also of potential that you get in new york city. it's so exciting. i can't imagine that feeling ever exhausting.

having said that, i am rediscovering what's great about london and am not so desperate to leave any more. working in farringdon has opened my eyes to a whole new bit of the capital that i was not familiar with before - i love its industrial shapes but also the way in which a sort of human spirit has invaded its greyness and brought it to life somewhat in little corners of colour. a sprouting spirit that rebuilt it after the war and that has now translated to a new energy, an energy that pushes into these little nooks and grows things there. i don't know what i'm saying here, but that's sort of what i think about the place. its energy prevents it from being bleak, but it is gorgeously bleak all the same. (i have a thing for bleakness.)

on that note, - - - -