Icarus @ 59 # 90

"I really do think that the crowning glory of **** is that we've always managed to disappoint in the big occasions. When the chips were down, we never came through." Wouldn't it be great if we could fill the **** in on this and attribute it to everyone who ever let us down, politicians, bosses, friends and lovers. It is actually attributed to Jonny Rotten of The Sex Pistols and it shows the kind of paradoxical honesty of the punk movement (which Rotten couldn't really claim to represent). I haven't been to Edinburgh recently because travelling is a problem right now. Maybe today I will get some kind of green light on that, we'll see. I walk with optimism. And yesterday I was thinking about Australia, goodness knows if I will ever be able to travel there again. But its hard to think about that wonderful land without also thinking about the cracks, they have a horrendous immigration policy which our own UKIP people admire (hmm) but they also have that past and the need to juggle the two is something the liberal Australians spend a lot of time fighting. Its not my fight, of course, but I can observe and lend solidarity and remember Archie Roach singing from from little things, big things grow - optimism:

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Icarus skywriting # 21

A new novel - maybe

And the cycle begins again as I settle down to write a new book, picture right - a tale from a Mallorcan villa, and suspect it will take me the whole of this year to write. But that is good, we all need something to keep us out of mischief. But isn't it funny that when you begin to write, the character you are trying to create talks back at you and decides he or she wants be someone else. That happened to me on the morning this picture was taken. My central character started to write himself, with his own voice and ideas because he began to do things in a 'magic realist' way that I hadn't even planned. Like his way with language - which I will not reveal yet because its still too precious - and I am not even sure I own it yet, its still his! But I have made a start and the good thing with all good starts is the ideas are beginning to tumble after each other - and plot and story ideas are even forming as I write this post. But while I was there I wrote a couple of new songs on the mandolin (easier to travel with than a guitar) and that was a lot of fun. All in all a great trip, good food, wine, sun and sunshine - just the tonic - oh and I swam 700 lengths of the pool over 10 days (I was counting and I swam each of them underwater too - good for the lungs) which has left me feeling fitter than ever. I'm on a roll, goodness, is that optimism I see on the horizon, I thought he was dead, perhaps he was just snoozing. But how did these guys get so old - and yet see how well they have aged along with the song, Love Has No Pride, and I'd give anything, to see you again...