Not all tumours are that bad. In my case a new tumour has been deemed insignificant and unworthy of treatment. I wonder if it feels hurt and offended. After all, it was trying its hardest to scare the shit out of me, it failed by the way, and then some smart arse consultant deemed it the ‘Walter’ of tumours, a sissy wimp not even worth an aspirin. Hah! Took weeks and weeks to get the results but after the first two I decided that if it was urgent they would have got in touch and forgot about it. 6 weeks – Take That Tumour!

Hurrah !!! The hens are back, but are having to stay behind bars most of the time. They are lovely shiney, sparkly- new hens (feathers to die for darling) so we are hoping they manage to avoid inhabiting foxey loxeys larder for a bit. I admire the farmers stoicism. There is nothing he can do except cross his fingers that foxey is full up, turned vegetarian, on vacation or has been eaten by a hound.

Not impossible as we do very occasionally get the hunt hounds passing through, complete with folk in red coats. They are “not to be messed with” animals. Much bigger than you would expect and quite scary. Enormous bollocks too. Whereas the dogs …. During the course of the hunt they get scratched and bitten to bits giving them a slight misshapen Freddy Kruger look. The last one we came across, who had clearly got left behind or abandoned by the rest, was a bit of a muddy, bloody, wounded wreck – and he certainly did not want a stroke or to be adopted as a pet.

The chicken farmer has thee vintage tractors – all the same make but three different sizes, bit like daddy bear, mummy bear and baby bear. I guess he is Goldilocks. He lined them up outside the house ready for a tractor show this weekend. Bit of a let down to see them dragged onto a trailer to be transported to the show. Apparently old tractors, like old people choke on trendy, modern food – namely biofuels, it gums up their works with a nasty fungus. I had no idea that biofuels were so bio. I must say I am rather envious of his collection but the trouble with old vehicles is that you really need to know how to fix them so my aspirations to own a vintage land rover or even better a Chevrolet, will remain unfulfilled for ever.

I am doing some heavy prepping for teaching in October. I have a large teaching load, we all do, but my modules are very vocational, practice orientated  and largely free of theory, which suits me well. I have always been deeply suspicious of theory, it’s back to my tractor theme. What is more useful, a book on the history of tractors or knowing how to make one? More than that – what is more fun, more creative, more life affirming than making a tractor go and what is more turgid than committing its clunking, gurgling being to nothing but print and airy debate. So my job is to joyfully teach how to build and fix tractors and on the way how to reluctantly and sparsely park them in the broader post-post modernist barn amidst the post structuralist combine harvesters and hay balers. What a load of tosh. Actually when you meet a real theorist who really know their stuff they are pretty fascinating people, trouble is there are so many duff ones. Yours truly being the duffist.

On the advice of Athur’s lovely girlfriend, Lisa I have dumped the name “Marge” from my phone box. My Aunty and her bequest is still acknowledged and her photo is in the box but the notion of naming the box and providing a biography was one of those ideas that was really appealing when I thought of it but ultimately only meaningful to one person – me. (And I suppose Marge). To the visitors to the box it was just plain confusing – why ???? Because the voice they hear, after having read all about Marge, was mine and although I do have a slightly camp Australian twang I was clearly not the female Marge they we expecting. It probably began a stream of thought that settled somewhere around pantomime or tranvestisism or most likely Dame Edna. A non sequitur of significant unhelpfulness. Just another mystery to solve and confuse but not clever on my part. It’s so easy to retake opaque mysterious art – much harder is to create art that is transparent accessible and still magical. I think it takes craft.

I have real trouble when it comes to selecting from ideas. I like most of my ideas, in fact I hang on to them even when my guts are screaming ‘let go, let go’. It seems such a waste to chuck them away as you never know when you might run out. I teach my students that they must put their designs in front of users as they develop them, not at the end of the process when it is too late. I really must practise what I preach. Practice v practise??? Of course it’s dispiriting realising your treasured concept does not work, but you have to get used to it.

Oh by the way – Vince, our stray cat, now follows Mitch around like a disciple follows Jesus. He is still terrified of us, but seems to sleep inside the house when we have gone to bed. Mitch and Bobby just look troubled and confused.

BORING POLITICAL BIT – I think the media and Labour Party have got the Corbyn phenomena completely wrong. I was rung by the Labour Party to ask if I would vote for Owen Smith. The argument was that voting for Owen Smith might make the Labour Party electable whereas a vote for Corbyn would not. When I explained that despite being a member of the party I did not care about its electability, the response was a tiny bit huffy. But here is the thing. Why should a party member, such as me, who leans to the left, support a party that ceased leaning to the left after the demise of Michael Foot, and put in power a party that does not do the things a left leaning party should do. In other words we are being asked to support, a name, a habit, a history, a club, dare I say a religion, not a set of real left wing policies. I could not care less if the ‘labour Party’ fell under a number 25 bus. It has had its history, one it can be very proud of, but now the time has come to throw off the mantle of legacies and get on with being something that is truly left leaning in every respect, in terms of its vision and philosophy as well as policies and membership. If that means years in the political wilderness I am afraid there is no alternative. This is a tragedy for those that are in need of compassionate, fair, honest, government but it is a greater tragedy to maintain the status quo just because it is called ‘Labour.’

So Labour Party members don’t vote for the “Labour Party” vote for a compassionate ethos that looks after those that are least able to look after themselves. I rather hope the Momentum emerges as a new party under the leadership of JC and that old/new labour and all those professional politicians, who support politics and power at the expense of vision and change, get jobs in the Sports Direct workhouse they have been subliminally supporting.