So I get back from Singapore, where one of the themes was the rivalry between India and China, to find an Indian steel company announcing British redundancies during a Chinese state visit, and blaming Chinese cheap steel imports. The question from the media, as always, was whether [insert name here] will mention human rights to the Chinese leader. Yes, [insert name here] will mention human rights. Cameron will do it, Corbyn will do it, and if I happen to run into the man, I'll mention them. Will that make a difference?
     If there's still a Great Game, we're a piece on the board, not a player. It seems at least reasonable to suppose that the Indian steel company would have considered the timing of its announcement - even if only to the extent of a last-minute "Hang on - do we want to do this now?" Odd, then, that the only story was the Chinese not-quite-commitment to build a power station in the West Country. Now we'll just have to wait for the Chinese counter-snub to India. And the British workers crunched between the two sides will have to look for work.
     Meanwhile, the future continues to slow down. Skynet became self-aware back in the nineties, and even Marty McFly turned up yesterday in his DeLorean. James Bond is back, yet again, and we're all excited about a Star Wars movie. What's new, and where's the next future?

Today, apparently, is National Poetry Day. This to record briefly Radio 4's invitation to "make like a poet". Not "write poetry" or "read poetry", but "make like a poet".
     My favourite poem is Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. But I often think of The Times Are Tidy by Sylvia Plath. And every now and then I open up U. A. Fanthorpe's Christmas Poems and read BC-AD.

Paddle-boarding. Slightly more do-able than surfing. Sunshine on water on Saturday afternoon, cold grey Sunday, last night the storm that takes away the leaves. Grey morning. Enough. Diary entry.

Another month. Fourth quarter of the year. Solstice not so long ago. Sun very red on the horizon, very big, seeming to rise slowly. Surprised myself, sitting in the window watching the leaves, by not noticing it until it was fully formed on the horizon. The leaves, flickering like the opposite of light on water, against a clear sky in a steady wind. The light having that steel-grey quality of imminent snow, although it's nowhere near that cold and likely to be another warm sunny day.
   Thinking about that conversation overheard the other day. Underlying assumption that we're all on the left now, and if only the country would see sense, Mr Corbyn would take over and bring us to a steady state in which all our problems had been solved. I don't know why I find politics so interesting at the moment. A study in human nature? The oddly symbiotic relationship between politicians and their interviewers, each trained to deal with the other?
   As for the real world, that's somewhere else entirely.