I’ve been reading Simon Gray’s Coda. It wouldn’t have been a book I would’ve chosen but it was one of the one’s my online Writing Lives tutor recommended. It’s marvellous. And all those things it says on the front – witty, moving and so on. It’s about his dying, which gives it a sharpness, a residue of melancholy but he must’ve known that he was also being funny. But the thing is is it’s effortlessness. That is it’s marvel. I will seek out other books of his, especially The Smoking Diaries. I think about possibly doing something similar with my drawing outings during which I see much and think about much and people do interrupt or comment on what I am doing. It might make an amusing study. Doing it officially isn’t allowed, but why not informally? I could have a go, couldn’t I?
