In Competition No. 2937 you were invited to submit extracts from the diaries of the famous that their writers did not wish the world to see.
Josh Ekroy impressed, lifting the lid on F.R. Leavis’s and C.P. Snow’s chummy trysts; Alan Millard wasn’t alone in outing God-botherer Richard Dawkins; and here’s a snippet from Sylvia Fairley’s Wordsworth:
Walked around Ullswater in pensive mood, unable to find a suitable rhyme for ‘hills’. My dear sister, as ever, solved my predicament … the muse inspired her, and she has completed the poem already.
It was an enjoyable entry: hats off all round. The winners take £25. The bonus fiver belongs to Basil Ransome-Davies.
Sunday: another away draw yesterday. We mustn’t suffer a slump in morale, though. I see it as a point gained, not two lost. Some of the lads think differently, as if they’d been reading Schopenhauer, but I say pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I did a spot of knitting to relax in the p.m. (after a truly wonderful quiche!), then read Pale Fire till dinner. I don’t know why, there’s something about metafiction that really grabs me. It’s almost as if there is nothing beyond the text.
Monday: a physio session to get me limber. Then I centred myself to do some reflecting on Jose’s dismissal. Was it karma or just a sequence of poor results? Or are those false alternatives? Do we delude ourselves that there is always a defining moment?
Tuesday: home to a bunch of fucking cloggers tonight. We’ll show them who can clog.
Basil Ransome-Davies/John Terry
I was frightened by a mouse today. A diary is a confessional and I am glad to confess this paura. It was not the thing you feel when the man next to you takes a bullet and his last sound is a word you cannot hear and you will never forget.
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