liadnan

Lots of points for the title source. I am unshaven, but no pockets alas, still, I have just returned from a port through which those currants would certainly have passed. Typical that when bookculling in a hurry at Gatwick I couldn't consider ditching that.

Am back in the Bar Ock, one of the long list of Liadnan's Favourite Bars Around That Bit Of The World He Has Visited after an eventful day. Among its benefits are ridiculously large measures and one of the best music collections in the known world (oddly enough, one of the few competitors of which I know is a bar in Monemvasia).

I'm not quite as foolish as I suggested in my last post: there have been three serious accidents on that path in the last fifteen years (which is about as far back as the collective memory of the regular visitors goes, probably as far back as tourism on this island goes) and I was actually waiting around for company on the walk over rather than doing it alone.

What I also didn't mention is that as I wrote a dose of the meltemi was coming in. Those winds are just one of the things that come with the Greek islands, so it didn't seem worth mentioning. However... this was a strong one. And when putting up my tent I had discovered (unusually, and carelessly, not having had it out since I packed it up a year to the day ago on pretty much the same spot) that one of the poles was slightly damaged...

OK for most times, but not last night. Yes, at 2.30AM last night, in pitch darkness, drunk and also nevermind, I stumbled to where my tent should be and discovered it had come down. These are not ideal conditions for putting up a tent (or any sufficient approximation to putting one up).

Never mind. Today I went and did something I have meant to do for years, discovered the secret (and totally deserted) beach in the north of the island (it's lack of use may have something to do with the fact buses go nowhere near there, and once you have convinced a taxi driver to take you up to the end of the road, you then have half an hours walk on a goat track before you actually get there); also went to the nearby Cycladic sites, not that there's much to see, and generally pottered about.

Writing one minute short of the end of the fag-end of August (so far as BST+2 is concerned), while drunk in the bar on Syros that serves as my home from home whenever I'm here. Shortly.. well, for certain values of shortly, I shall stagger in pitch darkness over a steep hill and down an extremely dangerous path on the other side in pitch darkness to my tent on a tiny beach. Life is good and the sun is very definitely shining. The only dark spot on the horizon is that due to being Done at Gatwick for (only slightly but they're tough under the new regime: I'm not sure I quite understand why) overweight handluggage and having to leave some behind I am undoubtedly going to run out of books. Ho hum.

There's a thing. Thought I'd check my email while I was in town for the morning buying some bits and pieces, and have discovered forwarded work emails in my inbox. Am debating whether to deal with them now, or leave them until next week... Ought to be a higher rate for working from the Cyclades I think.

Actually, that isn't remotely true. I own one Now album*, 12 or 13 I think (it isn't in London, all I remember about it is that it has Hey Hey Matthew on it and is a cassette). Coffee spoons, or at least coffee measures, have actually been a far more important marker.

Nevertheless, the regular phenomenon of noticing a new Now album in the supermarket and thinking "Now 569! What the fuck happened to my life?" is depressingly familiar. It doesn't help that right at the moment I have had it up to the putative top of the London Bridge Shard of Glass (to be the tallest building in Europe if and when completed, and a more appropriate metaphor than might at first appear) with my life and want to be here instead.

No, not right now, obvs. Even Mediterranean beaches aren't particularly pleasant in late November, particularly not at 9PM. Still, I'm sure you take the point.

Perhaps Duke Humphrey's Library would be a more appropriate home from home for the time of year. Or not, as the case may be. A friend of mine was once nearly killed by a lump of wood falling from the roof in there, incidentally. There he was, looking at Anglo-Saxon charters when a bloody great chunk of beam crashed into the desk beside him. On closer examination it transpired that the efforts several years before, at great expense, to preserve the roof from death watch beetle (or whatever) had been, err, rubbish and the place had to close down for a year.

I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, unless it's a work-avoidance measure. That would seem plausible, yes.

*ETA: I'm not sure if this requires explanation for non-UK readers. Now That's What I Call Music is a semi-annual# compilation of the "best" of the British charts.

#Semi-annual? Well, biannual isn't right, that means every two years, no? Half yearly, anyway.

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A Momentary Lapse of Judgment

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