Sunday 23rd September
Is it just me, or are we all just a leetle bit over this blogging thing?
Nice then, to stumble across All in a Day's Work - reports from the front line by a black-cab driver - and be reminded that one of the joys of the blogverse is getting to see life from the other side of the window.
As in:
(I added some paragraph breaks; any doubts about London_Cabby's authenticity are quelled by the way his writing mimics the seemingly non-stop stream of conversation so many passengers have come to know and love.) (And no, I was not in Oxford Street on June 5th.)
He started rambling on about having been touched up by a rugged unshaven type without his permission in a bar close by. I knew I'd be blogging it so started goading him to tell me more about it.
He puked up once more in Ealing Broadway and soon after we reached his house.
Saturday 22nd September
Wapping, Spring 2007
Friday 21st September
Obituary Watch: Bryan Connon
As a writer, Connon was fascinated by the duality of public masks and private faces.
In both his biography of Nichols and in his somewhat less successful study of the Maugham dynasty, Connon took it upon himself to wipe away obfuscation of his subjects, pulling the so-carefully composed masks from their faces.
His eminently readable biographies exposed truths that Nichols, Willie Maugham and Maugham's disastrously alcoholic nephew Robin might not have cared to have acknowledged, but those truths were essential to his approach to biography.
Connon had a passion for theatre and cinema, and worked as actor and director in amateur productions of plays such as Emlyn Williams's Night Must Fall, a play which allowed him to combine his interests in theatre and crime-writing.
His short story "Dead and Gone" was a persuasive re-examination of a murder which had taken place in Eastbourne, the town where he lived during the last years of his life, sharing a home with his partner Andrew Harvey.
Increasing ill-health meant that Connon became almost entirely housebound, although his interests didn't diminish and he maintained friendships by means of the telephone.
His calls could be lengthy, but they were never dull and they will leave a gap in the lives of his many friends.
Thursday 20th September
Wapping, Winter 2007
Wednesday 19th September
And then, with one bound - or rather, perhaps, a series of inchoate lurches - his blog was up to date.
(But not for long I fear.)
Tuesday 18th September
Wapping, Winter 2007
Monday 17th September
Do me a favour?
Thank you.
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