Lucy is writing an essay about drill music.
Drill music, for those of you who do not listen to intellectuals agonising about street culture on Radio Four, is a sort of loud rap music which is said to encourage people to take drugs and behave badly.
Goodness, how musicians do come up with new themes.
The police do not approve of it for the above reasons and think that it should be made illegal.
When I say ‘the police’, I am not exactly sure which police I am referring to. Certainly Lucy, whose innermost soul is beginning to carry a warrant card and wear a stab vest, does not give a hoot. I imagine it is some elderly police, sitting in an armchair with some knitting and pearl earrings.
This afternoon Lucy had to read a long and badly-written scholarly article on the subject, with endless sentences stretching out for half a page, and a panopoly of excessively cerebral vocabulary.
There is no point in using a short tidy word when half a dozen incomprehensible long ones will do the job just as well.
The writer whittered on about his extensive immersion in the drill culture, during which he did not meet a single singer of, or listener to, drill music. He explained, with all the authority of somebody who knows lots of long words, that drill music is linked to violence, presumably for everybody except him, since his year-and-a-half immersion did not end in any criminal charges.
I am disheartened by some of the people who are allowed to have opinions in our society. This chap says, with utter conviction, that he has a far better understanding of street culture than any policeman ever will, although it would appear that he had not actually done anything other than watch black people singing songs on YouTube for the last year.
Lucy and I decided that it was twaddle, and she has gone off to write an essay which says so.
We listened to some drill music by way of research, and agreed that whilst it was a moderately unpleasant noise, there did not seem any reason to make it illegal. Indeed, compared to some of the raucous offerings produced by the Sex Pistols and other similarly inclined punk rock bands during my youth, it seemed like a positive lullaby.
I have not been indulging in second-hand academic pursuits all day. In fact it was merely a sideline whilst getting dinner ready. Actually I have spent much of the day cutting logs up at the farm.
Mark went off to work, taking half of the Peppers with him, and the children stayed in bed. I went for an amble around the park with the dogs, and the other half of the Peppers. I told her all about the lady from the Daily Telegraph, and she laughed very hard at the idea of the Queen reading about all of our doings.
We all think that this is a splendid idea. Dear The Queen, if you are not reading this, please do not tell us. We will all be very disappointed.
After that I had a hasty tidy up and went off to the farm. Roger Poopy had buzzed off with Pepper, because they were going to go for a walk to the lake, and his father came with me.
He positioned himself next to the log heap and was on guard whilst I split up logs, protecting me from inquisitive sheep. There were a lot of these, and they congregated next to the taxi in order to sniff at him with great interest, possibly to find out if he might be nice to eat.
He knows that he is not allowed to be horrible to sheep, but it was a difficult time, and my log-splitting was punctuated by low, rumbling growls, as he tried to bury himself in the grass so that they would stop noticing him.
It was, in fact, the exact inverse of the usual usage of the phrase ‘sheep worrying’.
I split logs and stacked the pieces in the back of the taxi. It is a long time since I have done this regularly, not since I was married, unsurprisingly, and I am beginning to think that perhaps it might be good for me.
I was hot and breathless after half an hour, and could practically feeling the syrup sponges dissolving off my bottom. I am pleased to say that after a little while my arms and shoulders remembered the skill, and I found that I could bring the log-splitter down exactly on the crack in the log where I wanted it to be. This is more difficult than it sounds, and it is the sort of small challenge with which one enlivens otherwise very dull occupations like log splitting.
Elspeth came to talk to me halfway through, and we had a stroll around the field in the rain. She thinks that she might borrow it as a campsite for stag parties in the summer.
Eventually I had filled the car, and tottered home to unload it.
It was ace to have an evening together. I cut Mark’s hair and replaced some of the syrup sponge.
Have a picture of Roger Poopy, who knows that he is not supposed to be on chairs.
