A rebel without a clue.

'Pint of John's, please' Alzheimer's Going to the New Inn, but not 'appy with it. 'e usually comes in as I go 'ome. Cast up from the Dead Time of Plenty. 'we're on BT2 tonight as Man You were on BT1 and is postponed due to COVID... See ya tomorrow, see ya Alf ... I ain't got contactless. I don't pay for anything with cash. I've been caller number one for ages. A voice mail saying you have to ring the doctors... Half an hour.' ... A pint and a half please ... Where have you been? You ahright ? ... Are you a doctor? No I am trying to get hold of them... Is COVID killing folks in other banal ways? Or am I more aware now of anally anxious proles? 'e's not 'ere so I'm off to fetch our lass'

A brittle novel given as a gift in 1980, perhaps read once, and destined for Oxfam? My first encounter with Doris Lessing - and I think it's a ghost story (The Memoirs of a Survivor)? Not the kind which sets out to frighten with All My Love, Paddy, XX written in heavy blue Biro. Trying to second guess the narrative structure, which alternates between 'worlds', in a darkened room, where Mistletoe and Wine and tinsel increase my melancholia towards Christmas. Is there anywhere in this vapid civilisation that doesn't cling to the emptiness of elaboration and the drill of a drift-mine dirge. December comes along once per year matching the lament marching in my heart and, as it beats in sorrow to the shallow mournful rhythm, I hope it fucks off soon!