Poisoned chalice

I’m not a particularly happy bunny today, if I’m honest. I went to White City first thing for a meeting about the symphonic project. I was quite excited because the idea had been for me to discuss my artistic vision, but instead the meeting rapidly shifted towards a discussion about British politics, which left me feeling that the idea we were proposing was almost dead in the water. There was a glimmer of hope in the form of another idea altogether, but we do appear to be back at square one; exactly where we were in about November last year. I always knew that the Olympics thing could prove to be something of a poisoned chalice, but had no idea quite how rocky things would get. How curiously the path towards happiness twists and turns...

I got home and sat down at the kitchen table to prepare a presentation for the meeting which still seems to be happening tomorrow. Unfortunately, after today’s news, I’m not sure I have anything constructive to talk about, so I went to the gym and ran around for a bit, cursing and stomping until I felt a little calmer. I’m hoping Emmerdale Farm will put me in a more cheerful place, but everyone's shouting at each other...

Still, it’s almost impossible to whinge about things with the terrible events in Japan blaring out on the television. I’m looking at people with absolutely nothing left in their lives; a family standing on a bridge because they’ve been told another Tsunami is on its way. A woman holding a tiny cardboard suitcase. There are television pictures of a little child screaming in terror as her village is washed away in a roar of brown water in the valley underneath her. It’s so horrifically sad. I also discovered via the oracle that is Facebook, that my mate Ash was in Tokyo when the earthquake happened. He’s subsequently found his way back to England, and seems quite chipper, but he must have been utterly terrified...

Thursday 14th March and Pepys went for a drink with John Creed, who told him the “long story” of his “amours” at Portsmouth with the daughter of one Mrs Boat. Pepys enjoyed the story greatly. He always enjoyed tales of love and lust. They went to the theatre together to see a play called King or No King, which sounds like a barrel of laughs, but Pepys reports that it was acted well. After the theatre, they went for a drink in the Temple, and Creed asked Pepys for his advice on matters romantic. Obviously the daughter of Mrs Boat was either not enough for him – or proving a trickier fish to catch than he’d first thought. Sadly, Pepys doesn't provide us with the intimate details...