John Williams and Julian Bream. Hokusai. A day in the Life.

T.S. Eliot. Bach and Britten’s Requiem. Mozart Piano Concerti – especially 20.

The things I return to. Crutches when I feel weak, tired. Or low. Or all three.

And Bessie Bighead. Bessie always reminds me of the precarious balances. Happy and sad. Alive and not.

Alone until she dies, Bessie Bighead, hired help, born in the workhouse, smelling of the cowshed, snores bass and gruff on a couch of straw in a loft in Salt Lake Farm and picks a posy of daisies in Sunday Meadow to put on the grave of Gomer Owen who kissed her once by the pig-sty when she wasn’t looking and never kissed her again although she was looking all the time.

Dylan Thomas,
Under Milk Wood

A Commander, imagine a Queen or a King, turns up before a huge battle. Think along the lines of Elizabeth I or Wallace in Braveheart.

The troops need a rousing speech. They are ready for battle but they are anxious.

Imagine, now, if Jeremy Corbyn had written and delivered it in the style of his rousing European campaigning at Brexit referendum time:

“Troops – as you know – I am really not in favour of this battle. I have no quarrel with the enemy. Indeed I do not trust many of our allies in this battle. However, I recognise that you lot are keen to fight for your beliefs. That being the case I am prepared to support you. Best of luck. Hurrah.”

“You did get that, didn’t you? I said Hurrah”

Then to his Lords and Lieutenants: “Ok – job done. Where next?”