I went to a place outside Stamford � the location for the meeting was on the Jurassic Way right on the edge of the scarp � in a village where all the buildings were built from local stone. Geologically this is continuous with Edge Hill and with the Wharf pub where I often stop on a Sunday nigh on the Oxford Canal . The edge of the Jurassic � facing older rocks. The meeting went OK � worth the trip. There was more forecasting fun too.

Andrew K mailed about modern poetry, Paul W about the verb �to be�.

I listened to Summer Lawns and thought it was sublime � to me it sounded as if it could have been written, played, arranged etc last week. Such confident handling of a set of linked profound themes. Turbulent Indigo is similar but the earlier album has more poise.

I have also been listening to some late John Coltrane. It can�t be that late because Eric Dolphy is with the 4tet � but the approach is way beyond the line that I am working on for MM which was created April 2 1958 � I suppose it might be recorded four years later. Anyway I feel quite a strong drive to improvise after this later more abstract style and the more I practise the more feasible it becomes.

Reading the Derek Bailey biog provides further incentive to let my aspirations rip although I can�t help wondering what on earth the point is in stepping out into the unknown in this way. I suppose if one studies lines from Parker and Coltrane and is resolved not just to follow some neo-classical pathway��� On which subject Stefan mentioned that the Marsalis Lincoln Centre Band is in Bham while I am away � high neo-classicism but I would still go if I was in town just to get the latest instalment.

I read about literary style and identity � an interesting typology of theories of character � is character given or made. If it is made is it made by internal or external conditions|? Is the subject something that is discovered or constructed in types of literature eg lyric poetry? Well obviously � think about Shakespeare�s Sonnets or Eliot�s whole poetic identity which pretends that the preconditions which made the former possible no longer hold and caresses the apparent loss

What kind of step is it from there to look at the construction of the Summer-Lawns identity � which looks at gender issues � anima risining � burning patriarchy � artistic integrity in the music business � the liberation of a Stepford wife � the emerging transitoriness of persona. Or the P J Harvey identity. Would it make sense to look at the Morrisey identity as a comment on the Drake identity?

If a double decker bus crashed right into us to die by your side the pleasure the privelige is mine. There is a light that never goes out. So Morrisey makes a reclusive maleness out of pretty unpromising material � if you have five seconds to spare, I�ll tell you the story of my life, 16 clumsy and shy I booked myself in at the Y � WCA. I said I like it here can I stay, Do you have a vacancy for a back scrubber like me? While Drake�s identity � with plenty promising material � corrodes from the inside � Morrisey in reverse.

All of this points up where Cindy Sherman is such an extraordinarily potent artist for modern times.

Fred�s bro was on R4 banging on about the latest discs.