eliot by katharine eastman
It hardly needs me to tell you by now to stuff your ears with wet old newspaper and turn the volume up to the penthouse floor, yes I have churned out one of my lazy annoying things that people find easier to pretend they like than the nice ones that they really do like - and if that doesn't make sense then I really can't be at all bothered to try to make it make sense at all really at all.
Anyway after my very enjoyable but none-too-impressive walk to Pagham Harbour a few days ago I returned to Chichester today and this time went on an even shorter and not-remotely-impressive-at-all walk to Bosham. Long-time fans (humour me) will know that these are all places that my albums were all about a few years ago - back during Lockdown(s). Back then I had a girlfriend, back then we'd drive on over to Sussex. This time I have friends instead of girlfriends and trains instead of cars/vans. Swings and roundabouts, if I'm honest.
Today's walk just wasn't the fun that Tuesday's walk had been - everyone I met today was noticeably more wary and nervous and I'm glad I didn't need any help from anyone because I don't think anyone would've been brave enough to do the good thing. I wonder what it is - why it is that on one day "everyone" is relaxed, and on another day only 72 hours later "everyone" is suspicious and unhappy. I do listen a lot to the independent news radio stations - LBC, Times, Talk (about 35%, 20%, 45% respectively) so I should be up to speed with what info is being directed at the nation and, if, say Princess Kate (or is she Queen by now ?) has just died or if the England women's golfers have won the World Cup or whatever - these are the sorts of things that might change a nation's mood - but I'm never aware of any of that stuff.
Does anyone know what has happened lately that has sent everyone into depression ? - is it JD Vance in the Cotswolds ? is it the tripling in the price of that slimming drug ? Whatever - it was all water off an old fowl's back. I'd returned to Bosham today because in a charity shop a couple of days ago I'd bought volume one of TS Eliot's letters (1898-1922) and there are photos in it of Eliot in Bosham, also Eliot in Itchenor and West Wittering etc - all place I know well from my previous forays, but I'd not been aware of the Eliot connection, or indeed the fact that many of the Bloomsberries stayed with him in Bosham and also that Dylan Thomas lived in Bosham during WW2 to escape the London Blitz and just about the only bomb to fall on Sussex during the whole war fell in the field opposite the Thomas's cottage in Bosham and scared him so much that he returned to the safety of Fitzrovia.
If you are young you are probably wondering what the fuck is this crazy old cunt doing with life's last few days, wandering round the countryside on the hottest day of the year searching for forgotten old blokes who died decades ago, Fair point, and I don't have a good riposte, except that it gives me huge pleasure and I can't think of a thing I'd rather do of a day .... all right, of course I can, but lovers only seem to love me if I agree to marry them, and I'll save any proposalling for the care home. Perhaps I do have one riposte to anyone who thinks I'm a stupid mad old twat - and that's that on all my millions of train journeys I like-it-or-not am subjected to the chattering and laughter and dribblings and ravings and music and porn and films and phone-calls etc etc of my fellow passengers, almost all a lot younger than me, and despite the fact that people are generally much nicer and kinder than even I am willing to admit, their lives seem even emptier than this one.
recorded this evening (no not my fave thing ever), photo taken from a spot where TS Eliot stood when he was photographed once and that photo is in the book too
