Ho hum. I dimly recall, a while ago, writing something to the effect of sorely needing to update the blog more often. This intention clearly falls into a category labelled ”ideas somewhat removed from actual everyday reality”. Although it’s not been exactly hectic of late, I’ve still been moderately busy, or at least busy enough not to have felt like sitting down to see what comes out once I start typing. The days are taken by the dayjob, not irritatingly but time- and energy-consumingly enough to prevent any longer periods of sitting down and doing some thinking (often required to some extent before actual writing). And since I finally got around to acting upon my long-time resolution to get a drivers’ licence any year now, the evenings are engulfed by theory lessons on the knacks of steering a motorised vehicle, and a nervous-ish anticipation of actually getting behind the wheel of one (this will happen tomorrow, for the first time).

So apart from driving school textbooks I haven’t read anything much lately. I ordered a couple of books by Stephen Fry from Amazon.co.uk, as well as several other books too, to frown at me accusingly from the bookshelf, looking pointedly unread and forlorn. I will deal with these books in due time. I was forced to turn off Amazons’ ”e-mail notifications on special offers”-option to put an end to ex tempore purchases, but not before facing the fact that it would be impossible for me to carry on without Stephen Fry’s guide to writing proper verse, called "The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within". My inner poet has peered cautiously from behind the sturdy bars of its’ dank and unlit cell for years already, and occasionally I’ve thrown in a half-gnawed bone, or a loaf of stale bread, maybe a small cup of sour wine, thus keeping the poet from withering away completely. There wouldn’t be much point in keeping a dead poet locked up within. But now, at some point, after having carefully consulted the guide book first, I might serve the inner poet a proper meal for a change, and maybe even let it briefly glance at the sun.

Actually I already had An Idea For An Epic Poem, this morning while sitting at my Throne Of Poesy (i.e. toilet) at 6 o’clock, which has often proved to be an excellent time (and a place) for coming up with declamatory off-the-wall ideas. At 6 o’clock my corpus may already be partially animated but my thought patterns most definitely have not reached their normal dull functionality yet so fruitful are those precious and frail morning moments when it comes to unexpected springing up of ideas. Many a song title has descended upon me on similar moments in the past (like ”My Sweet Nothing” and ”Closely Guarded Distance”). This mornings’ idea was ludicrous enough to require further development, a twelve-song cycle involving months of the year and days of the week randomly combined (”February Monday”, ”October Sunday”, etc.) and the outcome of such combinations. February Monday differs greatly from, say, July Monday and the colours and emotions contained within should provide interesting contrasts and a lot of unintelligible poetic blather and general redundancy. If I ever get around to constructing it properly.

But now this here August Thursday is delicately starting to settle into slumber, waning and lessening into the inevitable August Friday and a lot I planned on saying remains unsaid. Like the adequate and elegant use of swearwords, and Finlands’ Second Greatest Poet of all time. Maybe next time, or the time after that.

Hmm. This didn't have much to do with the title of the post. Oh well.