The Writer's Art
19 August

As with most men in their middle years, I find that I often have to get up in the night and pad down the landing to the toilet to empty a distended bladder.

For the past couple of months or so, I've had that lovely sensation of performing this activity in the light. Just recently, I was up at 4:30am and it was dark. The mornings are definitely closing in once more.

Last year, round about this point in the year, I moved the time at which I rise from bed back half an hour to 6:30am. I will really only see the difference that that makes this year. Hopefully, I shouldn't be getting up in the full dark until October time.

At the other end of the day, the long twilight now begins at 8:30pm with some smudges of light still left in the sky at 10pm. The Rowan trees are laden with berries and there are already swirling piles of tumbling leaves. All of this tells me that it will soon be autumn and that the first geese will soon be overhead.

The major enterprise of the past few weeks has been dealing with the wall which was exposed when the outhouses were taken down. Ross and I have been chipping out the mortar so that we can do some re-pointing. He's even found a source of proper lime mortar off the InterWeb-thingy.

I've not listened to many Proms this year but I did find myself engrossed by Berlioz's Symphonie funèbre et triomphale. I was listening to it on the radio whilst I was ironing shirts at home; Roland was in the Albert Hall. Even given his proximity to the orchestra, he was unable to confirm my impression that, shortly before the end of the piece, someone was actually playing the kitchen sink. It is the most bonkers piece of music I have heard in a long, long time.

There's not been a lot of television worth watching this summer. One series that Ross and I have stuck with has been Desperate Romantics. This purports to be the tale of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Really, however, it's an excuse to show a lot of arty types going for sex, drugs and good, good times in a heritage setting. Despite having the presence of Tom Hollander as John Ruskin, there's not an awful lot of art history going on here.

In the photograph on the right, you find (from left to right) Samuel Barnett as John Millais, Sam Crane as Fred Walters (the chronicler of this particular tale), Aidan Turner as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Rafe Spall as William Holman Hunt. Samuel Barnett was in The History Boys a while back.

The script did allow for an awful lot of carnal activity. We are grateful to any producer who encourages Aidan Turner to strip for his art. Even so, I can't place the piece at more than reasonable.

Aidan Turner was also in the Being Human earlier this year. This quirky comedy about a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf all living in the same flat in Bristol was an instant crowd pleaser. We look forward to a second series which is promised for next year. The first series was very good and very inventive with one of the best written scripts I've heard in a good while.

Starring alongside Aidan Turner was Russell Tovey. Because of his werewolf transitions, young Russell also had to appear in several scenes in the buff. We are grateful to any producer who encourages Russell Tovey to strip for his art. Russell Tovey was also in The History Boys a while back.

You all saw what I did there, drawing all those strands together. That's what is called the writer's art, that is.