I made a list, of those things I could get done during the lockdown. Not much has been ticked off. I did the DIY, or some of it. I never got round to writing a book but I did find some old chapters I wrote years ago when someone told me that everyone has a book inside them, and I decided that I do have a book inside me – and it should stay there.
I was going to start learning Russian – if someone is thinking of shooting at you, I should know what to yell back so Russian seemed sensible, and easier than Chinese. I might get back to Greek again instead (in case I meet Aeschylus on the street one morning). I haven’t though.
The lockdown is ending, praise be, and that end-of-holiday feeling is creeping in. I know there are things I should have done. It is not a holiday though and I am working, but with gaps, and without the commuting time to take me back and forth.
That list sits beside my keyboard, glaring at me.
I meant to read more. In fact I seem to read less – no time on a train to open a book. I meant to write up a complex report, which is the sort of thing I do for fun, but there is always something more interesting to do.
One thing I could do to make more time is not to write long blog posts.
Ah well. Now, where was I? Reading, yes: Как легко, доктор, быть философом на бумаге и как это трудно на деле!
See also
- Out to the blue remembered hills
- You’ll never take me a-skive, copper
- Waiting for the storm
- Does anyone understand the rules?
- Waking as from sleep
Books
- The Borisaurus: The Dictionary of Boris Johnson by Simon Walters
- A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
- Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney
- The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray
- Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay (1841)
- 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, by Jordan B Peterson
- Woke: A Guide to Social Justice by Titania McGrath
