There are now only two weeks to the Lancaster Music Festival which is happening again after years absence. So after not writing for almost a year I feel I should post something in this blog again. The past year of lockdown and semi lockdown and uncertainty has passed in the sleepy blur other waking dream. I did however spent three days in Germany to see Kit. I flew to Berlin with Liz after going through all the complicated procedures around, tests certificates, online forms to fill-in and all the rest. All made much more difficult by websites that were not easy to understand or did not work with certain browsers. But we got there and saw Kit and his new Finnish girlfriend. Emi. Much of the time was spent chatting to Kit and Emi though we did managed to visit a few art galleries. The where the inevitable squabbles between me and Liz but they passed ever quickly and are now forgotten. Or at least filed away and that compartment of the brain that stores records of minor incidents leave one feeling guilty.
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A week later we were into another lockdown. Christmas was a miserable time with everyone stuck in their own homes only chatting to friends and family over the Internet or the telephone. I designed a Zoom quiz for my birthday, where are the questionnaires got the points based on the cleverness and originality of the questions, there was also a creative section where they had to make costumes out of newspaper and write a short poem in praise of.... me of course. The poem was based on the Zulu praise poems, izibongo, and had to be very oblique yet flattering. I should also mention the popularity of Smiley Virus who has featured on badges, fridge magnets, cards and posters.
There was a brief lifting of restrictions in January and then a more infectious variant of the virus appeared followed by another lockdown. No I am waiting again I'm finding it hard as ever to do even the simplest thing. I have started on the music festival for 2021 and I'm working on another film based on the silent Expressionist movie From Morn til Midnight, and I'm still selling books on Amazon and magazines on eBay. Sales are few but what money they generate it's very welcome. And such has been my life for over a year now. Atticus has reopened and that has half wakened be from my torpor. For the last five months I have slept like the Sleeping Beauty. Bidasari in Malay. Only I am no beauty. What noun do we have for the opposite of a beauty? An ugly? No that does not do. A nugly would be useful and sounds appropriate but it does not exist. Whatever. Opening the shop and having to make space, set up a table outside with hand sanitiser, masks and wipes, improving contactless payment, marking a trail with yellow tape, printing instructions; all these helped to wake from sleep.
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October 2021
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- Egypt
- Mexico City
- Back in the Land of Dreams
- From the Dinosaur Hotel to the Temple of Literature
- Flying West to Mimpi
- Lost in the Sea of Sand
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- Back to Beirut and the old Bay Route
- Into the Basin
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- In the Republic of Mimpi
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