Authors Electric

  For July, writing in what we call a heat wave here in the UK, I’ll take you around a nice cool nature walk. We going to the Nature Reserve very near to where I am busy writing, with the Venetian blind pulled down, almost obscuring the sun outside baking the garden in its midday heat. Entering the nature reserve, we turn to the left, and ducking under the low branches of several hazel trees, approach the pond. Today I am hoping to see that the swan pair, who sadly lost their eggs, probably due to unseasonal snowfall in late April, have not only returned but decided to stay.   White feathers float on the surface of the pond today, which might look alarming but is completely normal, indicating that it is the Swans’ seasonal moulting time. And there they both are, paddling around towards the back of the pond. As we emerge from the shade of the trees onto the flat, dry, muddy preening place, we hear the chirping sound of small ducks, and the call of a Moorhen. On the shore stands...

'Off my branch, young squirrel!' Just look at that pigeon's face! Depending on the place, the era, what’s fashionable, your face conforming to the ‘look’, whether revolution or conformism is in the ascendent, being the most popular person in your group takes work. Learning the latest lingo, and using it correctly. Wearing what’s on trend. Being seen where it matters. As a writer, you learn (or defy) the memes:   taking a (pretty) notebook everywhere, all-day pjs and writing in bed…Popularity, ironically, can and often does come to those who conform to the memes of the age and stage… and includes nascent ‘leadership skills…’ So, once ‘lockdown’ was achieved, memes shot around, people inevitably were picking them up. One popular stance was resentment: you were bored, you felt like a prisoner, you were buying jigsaws to do, or flour to play baking with the children (flour, for a while, disappeared). Whatever it was, nobody should welcome lockdown, and those who did were in d...