This blog has, until now, been only sporadically updated, with overheard conversations, travels, and the odd review. But from today, reenergised as I am by a visit to the unexotic East, I intend to write a daily update. In short, this will become a public diary, regardless of whether I have anything interesting to say. In fact: especially if I have nothing of interest to say. 

I will write whatever comes into my head, be it a simple account of daily events, treasties on the big issues of the day, or profound insights gleaned from my life of varied experiences and unexpected incidents. One recurring anxiety of mine is that life is just whooshing by, like one of Douglas Adams’ deadlines, without the time or perhaps the inclination to take stock.

Another is that I’m not writing enough. There are so many sentences in my head, and perhaps by allowing some of them to leak out, I can retain some equilibrium, like a quack self-prescribing a bit of light bleeding in order to rebalance the humours. 

And lo: at some future date, many years hence, I will gaze on this diary and rejoice at a life well lived and reasonably well recounted. Or weep boozy tears at the terrible waste of it all.

I do not expect this diary to be particularly well read. Not many are. Samuel Pepys’ own writings only achieved widespread fame because of the extraordinary times in which he lived. Plus of course he murdered all of his literate contemporaries. Today, with much of London rebuilt and far fewer suffering from plague, there are many more with the ability to write. Killing all of them would simply be too time consuming, before we even consider the moral implications. 

I find myself in Sainsbury’s, a shop, with no memory of deciding to come here. I will write more later.