This is ....
a provisional page
pending the relaunch of
Peter Burton's website		 So far only the blog part is up:
entries for 2007
entries for 2008
2009-2010 entries are on this page
My non-blog stuff , which some might remember from a year and more back, is still around and will be remounted.  Meanwhile i've mounted just the blog part - see left.  2007-8 entries were mini-essays but 2009-10 onrd just off-the-cuff thoughts & reports so far.  Attention has been on new activities, mostly musical.  Practicing three instruments takes time ...
News of the day Friday the 30th of April 2010, 19:00 (BST):
Burst of entries (well, three ...) on Wednesday was welcome (to me).  More to follow after i'm finished with a big evening out tonight: last night of April and it's Bank Holiday weekend.
An address where i can be contacted:
sitepeterJUNK@JUNCwaking.fslife.co.uk 
 (remove JUNK andJUNC)
Wednesday the 28th of April 2010, 23:00 (BST):
For the first time this year, the late evening air holds almost a sultriness. 
This is the first summer evening of the year.
Indeed the first ever, it feels (and perhaps in Truth is).
The world holds its breath.
Wednesday the 28th of April 2010, 18:15 (BST):
It is that time beyond late afternoon yet before early evening, when the day - like the year - seems to tremble between two worlds.  Suddenly and briefly it is cool again, as a breeze shakes the large bush outside my window.  But that same air - the fading air of September's long descent - is bringing now the steady rise of Spring.  An April of rapid movement is moving into a May as yet unknown, which will give way to a Summer that cannot be conceived of.
Wednesday the 28th of April 2010, 18:00 (BST):
Damn, have i really put nothing here for so long? ... The answer is of course "yes".  But rather than the answer, what is of interest - as with all rhetorical questions - is what follows :: what follows as logical consequence of the answer, what follows in terms of temporal occurrence, and what follows as causal consequence of posing the question - or of something of which both it and the question's posing are effects.
Friday the 9th of April 2010, 19:00 (BST):
I've been silent a couple of weeks, including a memorable Easter weekend.  Probably staying in tonight, and so have a chance to catch up a bit.  Lots to say ... but evidently none of it has yet been said here; hmmm ... catching up is more and more urgently needed!
Friday March the 26th 2010, 18:30 GMT:
Surfacing after a week characterised as so often lately by the 'struggle' between self-indulgent and essentially bootless activities on the one hand, and on the other hand ... other ways of spending time and energy.  Like the year's season, at the moment the issue seems to be at a pivot point.
Friday March the 19th 2010, 15:15 GMT:
Friday afternoon again, and the chance and urge to take stock between the end of the 'week' and the onset of the onslaught which will be the weekend.  There have been several junctures where the tone and content of my life changed radically and unpredictably.  I feel that another one has been brewing for some time.  The last ten years have been characterised by socialising and hedonism; the pattern is perhaps finally coming close to having run its course.  Last night a behaviour shift in that direction could be observed, more marked than any hitherto.  I'll try and check in at intervals during the afternoon - meanwhile back to clearing up (visitors later).
Friday March the 12th 2010, 18:00 GMT:
Two points occurred to me yesterday, which i'll note quickly now and expand on later.  Firstly, in a text exchange with Ted, i saw that ars lunga vita brevis can be understood in two ways.  Secondly, just before turning in, i noticed resemblances between So long Frank Lloydedd Wright (Simon & Garfunkel) and Moonlight in Vermont: subtle motivic relationships, none conclusive but together striking.
Friday March the 12th 2010, 16:00 GMT:
Beginnings and endings, completions, achievements, recurrences ... the stuff of celebration.  And without celebration, what remains of life? - indeed are the two separable or even distinct?  Today my natural father, Ted Best, would have been one hundred years old.  Yes, he was already well advanced in life when i was born!  And scandalously older than my scandalously unmarried mother.  In fact he'd had a son by another woman (namely his wife) 14 years before: Ted Best junior.  Ted and i first met at our father's funeral, 20 years ago.  And yesterday brought a text sayig that Ted has now well and truly hit the net - rock on!
Wednesday March the 3rd 2010, 09:00 GMT:
This spring month begins with a trip to Brighton in the company of two friends.  Despite being so close, i'd managed to live as long as i have without ever going to this rather famous city.  More significantly, had it not been for some plain speaking last month, between myself and one of my two companions, the trip would have taken place under a wintry pall rather than with the feeling of springing back to life.  I am aware now of the many dead leaves of withered relationships, left behind over the years through my shrinking away from plain speaking.  And to be plain here, it has been a matter of lacking the balls.  And the cost has been high.
Friday February the 26th 2010, 18:00 GMT:
As the latest stage of the long process of getting 'back', i am now back with uninterrupted net access.  It had been spotty all month, and deteriorating - to the point where it stopped altogether shortly after the previous entry.  But an engineer has now renewed the line.  And it feels a time of renewal generally.  I've been clearing some stuff out.  Spring is in the air.  This afternoon, for the first time this year, the sun reached an angle to shine in here through a west window prior to its descent.  A small but unmistakeable sign.
Tuesday February the 23rd 2010, noon GMT:
This was my fifth trip to India so far, and the shortest of the five.  I've been feeling tired, not helped by some injudiciously long nights since getting back.  So, there's been another gap in service here.  Anyway, next, as part of getting my site back up, i am making available my blog entries for 2007 and for 2008.
Wednesday February the 17th 2010, 18:45 pm GMT:
This is to announce that i am back and (kind of) back in action after my trip to India.  Though short it was a noteworthy, pleasant and valuable trip. 
Tuesday February the 2nd 2010, 20:00 pm GMT:
A friend of mine visiting here a couple of hours ago was telling us how he was taken to a police station, and subjected to various kinds of grief, for having ... a hockey stick in his car.  Shome washte of reshourshes here shurely?
Tuesday February the 2nd 2010, 13:55 pm GMT:
To visa agent's office yesterday - just about in time to be ready for Thursday's flight.  It's not often that i'm out in the daytime.  And it was a stunning day of sudden sun.  The right setting for a turnround - to stop repeating certain counterproductive actions.  There have been signs lately that such a turnround is due.  And i've just noticed that today is Groundhog Day.
Sunday January the 31st 2010, 22:55 pm GMT:
End of the first month of a new decade.  And to an extent it's been a month of struggles:
 That might not be a complete list :-) 
Provisionally i'll let it serve as the "summary" i referred to in the previous entry.
And now, in the sudden quiet of this night, there is a calm - as the minutes tick away into the start of a new month. 
Entries here might become more frequent now.
Sunday January the 31st 2010, 18:00 pm GMT:
The last day of another month, and not an unsignificant one for me.  I'll aim at posting a summary.  Meanwhile just one item: i'm flying to India on Thursday, coming back here the following Thursday; i'll be staying with Uma, and Matthew will be with us.  I was going to fly today, but ****ed up the visa thang! 
  Site: for some time there's been just this mini-blog here, and before that nothing for a year, but in due course i'll putting back up the whole site i had as well.
Sunday December the 21st , 12:30 pm :
For some days the world here has lain quietened with cold, ice under foot, and even a covering of snow.  This is a time of turning points: the solstice (today), my 'half-birthday' (the 17th), the ambiguous stasis that is Christmas, and then New Year - which even for the most resigned must offer at least the hint of hope of a new start.  Lying quiet beneath this sudden cold, it as if the world contemplates a turn beyond mere calendar dates.  Certainly my world.  Lately i have been exhausted, due to too many (and long) sessions ... ok, i mean going on benders.  There's a feeling of hitting bottom, just as in these days now the darkness and brevity of day hit their extremes - and pass them.
Monday December the 14th , 17:00 pm :
And into the maelstrom of pre-Christmas emotions, the Duke of Edinburgh (an acknowledged master of the art) delivers his latest in a long stream of 'gaffes':
The Queen (addressing a young man blinded by IRA bomb): How much sight do you have left?
Prince Philip: Not a lot, judging by the tie he's wearing.
First i thought that the Duke had read words on the tie: an affiliation or something indicating degree of blindness; he would in that case have been thoughtless in answering for the chap.  Then i realised it was a comment on taste in ties - and blokish humour replaced my first assumed insensitivity.   Of course there followed shocked silence by onlookers and hand-wringing by commentators - after all, making fun of a blind person: the very idea!  But do we need to be such eggshell-treaders?  The world would be a hell without 'gaffes' by the Duke and others.  So, rather than a liability, isn't the Duke rather (avert your ears Dame Judi) a true national treasure?  Or better put, a healthy asset to humanity?
  It's worth reading the lad's own view of the incident (you'll find it here, along with earlier corkers by PP).  One thing that strikes me is the maturity of the 23 year-old's words - i myself had nothing like such maturity at that age, and might struggle to claim it even now.  Perhaps the exchange quoted can be seen as between two national treasures.
  (Incidentally, it also occurs to me that the Duke's jest is almost uncannily in the style of lines my father used to come out with.)
Monday December the 14th , 16:15pm :
Start of a new week, and 11 days from Christmas day.  Am i alone in noticing an atmosphere of stress, irritation and tiredness?
Friday December the 11th , 20:45pm : 
Tonight (rather unusually) i shall be going
to Stunners - there is to be a memorial
club night in honour of Max, who will
be remembered always with great fondness
by many of us in East London and beyond.
He was taken ill suddenly last December
shortly after his birthday; he spent a week
in hospital, unconscious, and died on the
afternoon of  Tuesday the 23rd, his right hand
in mine. My friend John Harborne has prepared
a website to remember Max, and will be
the DJ for this night. 		Max, probably in Stunners Max
Hermanns

1949
-
2008

Friday December the 11th , 16:00pm : 
I was discussing my unwellness with the person who delivered the Chinese whisper back to me.  She expressed her antipathy to allopathy (as opposed to homeopathy).  Later in the conversation, the topic having shifted, she described an incident at a club, in which two people had been doing something "just in order to get at" her.  Well this seemed unlikely to me.  Rather than express my scepticism though, i voiced agreement in an exaggerated fashion (amping up the volume and choice of words) - until at last she became aware i was being ironic.  
  With ironic exaggeration used to counter a pathogenic meme, you could say the approach was 'homeopathic'.  In physical medicine, homeopathy uses agents which would add to the unwanted condition were they not in minute quantities; in this psychological medicine, a 'homeopathic' approach by contrast amplifies the unwanted meme inactive by amplifying it.  Though not quite analogous, the fable of the wind and sun also comes to mind.
Wednesday December the 9rd , 19:30pm : 
An incident yesterday showed that Chinese whispering is alive and well even if i'm not.  On Friday i'd told someone two things: (1) excessive consumption in a Dutch coffee shop had left me concerned for a while (half an hour?) that i might become a care case, (2) since returning from Amsterdam i'd felt unwell and had a cough.  The version fed back to me by someone who'd been to a party and 'heard the news': <<apparently while in Amsterdam you were hospitalised with a chest infection>>.
Wednesday December the 9rd , 17:00pm : 
Yes the updates so far have been all about my not being well, with nothing about the site. I've kept the health bulletins to a minimum, though - not wanting to invite comparisons with Spike Milligan's tombstone: "I told you I was not well."  <<Yeah .. we heard, understood and believed you - silence indicated satisfaction, you miserable sod :-)>>  Sorry about the harsh words - Spike M was unable to break the spell of self-absorption that so often accompanies depression.  I guess i've been the same, hence the undeserved outburst at poor Spike.
Wednesday December the 9rd , 12:45pm : 
Woke up this morning ... feeling a bit better - with the rather exhausted but almost pleasant feeling that goes along with an illness having passed the crisis.  Whatever it is, it's stuck around a bit.
Sunday December the 6rd , 17:15pm : 
Progress held back - not feeling well all week, i.e. since return from Amsterdam: caught some bug? (coughing like a good'un) and knee playing up, both doubtless exacerbated by a couple of late nights when i temporarily 'felt better'.
Thursday December the 3rd , 10:45am : 
My website has been inactive for a year.  I'm relaunching it over the next few days.  This page will record progress.