Benefit Street, Brighton.

I was "chatting" to a Twitter-friend to-day who'd noticed I'm not posting much atm.(And @MrsSimpson, I believe, has followed my lead - though perhaps she's just busy with the Cholera Epidemic down there in Georgian Brighton?  ) Not given much to the terse, spare prose of the Greats I explained my current strategy to this woman whom I have never met, but whom I count as a friend. Not "Great" but at least terser and sparer, what it boiled down to was: I am not bullet-proof. Neither is anyone I love and admire. Statistically, the possibility of any of us being killed by bullets, however, is negligible in the face of You Know What.  I am thus engaged in a Cunning Plan and am fine. But of course, anxious to stress the significance of this, I had to include bits of background here and there, and to explain bits elsewhere - just to keep her up to speed. For instance: It’s a given that, even with the three week extension, I am not going to ...

None of the photos littering this blog have any relevance to content. They're just things it gives me pleasure to think about: a lotus in the heat of a Thai afternoon. Many, many wonderful people are using their twitter to send out words of cheer and support to others; posting Beautiful Thoughts; inspiring quotes, uplifting art, and solidarity. I'm rubbish at all that. While  Beautiful Thoughts & Art lose their capital letters at my hand they, and words of cheer and inspiration, are liable to be so idiosyncratic and (depending on where The Black Dog is at any given time) enigmatic, that people do not feel cheered at their receipt, but strangely chilled. There is also, of course the possibility that I have come straight from talking to *Mrs. Simpson and may respond in Georgian cant. (As, I have just realised, she's accompanied me here and forced me to say things like "at their receipt" and "accompanied me". It takes a bit of time for h...