WFH: DAY 4. 6.45 am: I awoke from a sleep-dream into a waking-dream (which lies at the boundary of arousal), in which I stood alone surrounded by a sombre, monochrome, featureless, and peopleless landscape, suffused with sweetness and calm. I regretted having to emerge, fully, into a bland and far less reassuring world. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: A…

WFH: DAY 3. 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: Profound busyness lands on my shoreline like a seventh wave: predictably and regularly in both its pattern and severity. One arrived this morning. ‘Onward!’ 9.00 am: There was a bucket of emails to slop out before I could turn to the weighty matters of the day. I keep in mind the…

Sky and the trees of his youthful time spent / Only smoke, only paper. No colour or scent (Gentle Giant, ‘Memories of Old Day’, The Missing Piece (1977)). WFH: DAY 2. In last night’s dream, I sat with an old friend at the back of a church. Two preachers, one after the other, declaimed in an exacting, a harsh, and…

WFH: DAY 1 (2nd series). Two Scottish dreams, last night. In the first, one of my sons, a friend whom I didn’t recognise, and I, left a place and travelled to another. On arriving, I realised that we must take a train to Edinburgh. However, at that time in the evening, it would get there too late and with no…

I want today to be straightforward. Friday, January 8. 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: Emailology: Long-dead artists are so tech-savvy these days. Who needs spiritualist mediums in the age of social media? Perseverance, patience, longsuffering, forbearance, hope, and practical charity: these were the call of the moment. 10.00 am: I returned to the grant proposal with energy and resolve.…

The manner in which a person deals with a difficult circumstance is the measure of them. The question we must all ask ourselves is: ‘Will I overcome this trial, or will this trial overcome me?’ 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: At a global, national, and local level, there was so much to process, mentally, on waking. It’s often said…

Wednesday, January 6. The busyness burgeons. The trick is to write down immediately, everything that passes between my ears. I can’t rely on myself to remember; things have become too complex and mutable. Meanwhile: Clarity would be good … right now! 9.00 am: I bombed over to the School to deliver a parcel of devices that required servicing and a…

We were in uncharted territory now, making up history as we went along (James Cameron, Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)). 8.15 am: A communion. The changes around and about are dizzying. Thus, maintaining some sense of continuity is essential. Within that continuity there needs to be variety. And within that variety there needs to be creativity. 9.00 am: An email…

Saturday, January 2. Sunday, January 3. Monday, January 4. 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: Into gear. I’m not an advocate of a phased return to work. Jumping-in at the deep end has always been my policy. And, ‘my!’, the waters were very deep. The priority this morning was email notifications about the forthcoming assessments and the return to teaching.…

Late yesterday evening, I’d began reading an MA thesis by Peter T. Ford, entitled ‘The Compositional Style of Keith Emerson in Tarkus (1971)’. It’s a piece of music that I know very well, and which has accompanied me through life since my mid-teens. Clement Greenberg read music criticism avidly. He appreciated its approach to dealing entirely formally and analytically with…