splateaugateau by sonja berlin-jones

Comrades, I'm writing this in as much haste as when I made the music - I'm nipping off in a mo to Paddington to get the next train to Oxford. One of my two-remaining followers on Bandcamp has invited me over there - and yes, alas, you did read that right, my followership has slipped again, down to just two, and now that I think about it I seem to remember that one of them is me. So that's not good news. Never mind. I'm sure Abbess Hildegard Of Bingen was plagued with a similar level of disdain when she was churning out her ditties. History will make things right.

But yes I've been invited over to Oxford - specifically to the People's University For Peace - the encampment on one of the college lawns or somewhere. I'm not sure exactly what to expect. I've alerted my friend the Vice Chancelloress that I will be arriving in two hours and I am sure she will arrange a reception and taxi and whatever. I obviously can't live in a tent, so I'm hoping to get my old rooms at Merton for a few weeks - the current occupants are apparently two privileged white cis-males and it'll do them good to experience life as refugees.

My Bandcamp follower, Spirit, tells me that there'll be lectures and music and dancing and drumming and soup and lots of smiling and it will be a safe space free from unrepentant whites, men, Jews, straights, carnivores, colonialists, bigots, the old (they're all racist) ... all faiths will be equally tolerated (apart from Christianity) ... in other words, it will be a wonderfully accepting and loving place, peacefully policed by our modern police-force who will instantly arrest anyone guilty of "looking Jewish". My musical career might be going down the shitter, but at least society as a whole is getting better and more tolerant all the time, and, oh dear, hold on, I've forgotten about the train strike, so it'll be another sunny day here in my Camden townhouse organising the staff rota for this month.

the music and the painting were created in haste this morning while Marie was beating my kedgeree

nothing is distorted, nothing is wrong