Okay, so Elizabethan Serenade was by Ronald Binge, not Eric Coates. I got my British Light Music composers in a twist. Mr Coates did the themes from ‘The Dambusters’ and ‘Desert Island Discs’. Mr Binge did ‘Elizabethan Serenade’ and ‘Sailing By’. Right, got that.
***
There’s a photo of me on Page 96 of the current Time Out, as one of the exhibits in Jamie McLeod’s exhibition on Modern Dandies. The pic’s also in my website Gallery, though Firefox does that washed-out thing to the colours which I don’t understand:
http://dickonedwards.co.uk/jamie-mcleod/
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Have just been trying to write about my birthday, only to go into a 2000 word rant / ramble about the nature of adult birthdays, the guilt trips, the obligations, the switch from paper cards to Facebook greetings, how I equate them with New Year’s Eve in that there’s no way I can’t feel anything but uneasy about them. I also have learned that if you DO want a gathering of friends around you, you HAVE to organise the gathering well in advance, and tell EVERYONE in EVERY possible way. A successful birthday is, like most types of success, just a question of hustling and PR.
I’ve found that the best thing for me to do is to stop moping about at home, go out to someone else’s social event (there’s always SOMETHING on), casually mention it’s my birthday, then find that the friends I’m with will kindly buy me a few drinks, or even take me for an impromptu meal round the corner.
‘So how are you?’
‘Well, today’s my birthday.’
‘Really! I didn’t know. So what are you doing for it?’
‘Well, this, now.’
‘Oh. Well, would you like a drink?’
But – oh – some people do birthdays better than others. I’ll stop that rant right here in the interests of positive thinking.
***
I’m just having an ARGH time of things lately. Forgive me. Writing’s not coming, or if it does, it’s all complaints and whining and cynicism and general self-pity. ARGH, and indeed, ARGH, frankly.
