A and E

We're back at the Whittington Hospital's A and E department. Nathan's ankle is still hurting, months after his Naked Boys injury, and at least 4 weeks since he was sent away by the triage nurse here and told there was nothing wrong with him. I suspect Nathan is going to get a bit hard line with them - demand an x-ray and threaten to sue them if they discover a problem.

Fortunately, it's not too busy in here. I've got myself a lovely hot chocolate from the vending machine and I feel all relaxed after going to the gym.

It was interesting this morning to watch Homes Under the Hammer for the first time in a while. That's the show where they film people buying houses at auctions and watch what they do with them. The last time I saw it, the recession was in full swing, but everything was rosy on the show because it’s shot a fair amount of time in advance. But it’s a very different beast these days. One poor woman couldn’t afford to do the restoration she was planning, and when the cameras went back to see how she'd got on, the house was up for sale again and she’d simply given up. The auctioneer at one point sold a flat in Walthamstowe for £110K and actually said “I can’t believe I’m selling it for this...”

I spent the day working on the Sanctus from my Requiem, worrying at every stage that I might have reconstituted someone else's composition, because it feels curiously familiar. I can't work out whether that's simply because I wrote the theme I'm using in a set of notes some years ago, which is plenty enough time for it to have entered my sub-conscious. I ended up going on You Tube in search of anything I could find with Sanctus in the title, sweating profusely at the thought that I might suddenly stumble upon something rather too familiar. Fortunately, I didn't, but I did come across Karl Jenkins' Requiem, specifically his Dies Irae, which is one of the most exciting pieces of writing I've heard in ages. It's proper funky! You have to listen to it. Because I'm so impressed by it, I've vowed to listen to nothing else by Jenkins until my Requiem is complete. I could lose heart, or end up being unduly influenced by his writing, which I suspect occupies a sound-scape not dissimilar to mine. When you do listen to it, watch out for the choir singing something which sounds rather marvellously like "big penis!"

350 years ago, Pepys' Uncle Robert was buried. The vicar talked about the dead man's honesty during the sermon and Pepys was impressed enough. Many people came, and it seems the wake was something of a shambles; Pepys using up the family's entire supply of wine.

Pepys and his father read the will whilst walking in the garden. The news was not great. There was no provision for Pepys in the will; at least not until his own father was dead, but as usual, our hero decided to look on the bright side, claiming to be pleased that Uncle Robert had properly looked after his nearest and dearest, even if Pepys himself weren't top of the list of beneficiaries.