I have breakfast every day at the East Hastings Angling Associations club house, where I am as I write this. Out the window I can see the East Hill lift which has not been working for a couple of years.

I have no idea why, I don’t really care about the reason but what this says to me is that if the owners, the council, can’t keep this very public symbol of Hastings going why should we credit them with any competency at all.

Why should we trust their judgement on a whole range of matters from the Jerwood to communal bins?

The answer is we should not.

East Hill Lift that the Local Council can’t be arsed to repair.

I also managed to get an invite to Tony’s (fellow marbles team member) 50th in May. Proving, in Hastings at least, lusting after another man’s wife is no barrier to social success, what a great place this is.

Tony, a few years ago, about to “glass” the photographer.

Yesterday I started out as just mild mannered Steve Hardy photographer and ended up as a member of a winning team at Winkle Island Marbles Championship. This is one of the few sports that seems to encourage substance abuse as my fellow team members all played with pints in hand. It was a hard fought championship displaying high levels of skill, er, okay, no skill at all and no one was really bothered who won but we did end up with a cup. Afterwards the celebrations commenced and I suspect you know what’s coming here, another slow crawl up the West Hill, unusually this time in broad daylight, most of which I don’t remember.

As an aside, participating is more fun than taking pictures but only I could see that as a revelation…

Team member Vic with the trophy

Today I cleaned, well a little bit, the flat. The reason for this, and yes, there has to be a reason, was the visit of the French division of the Webcam Fan Club: Jean-Marie Florin. Many months ago Jean-Marie e-mailed me to say he liked the webcam poking out my window as it reminded him of Hastings where he has been bringing students for many decades. I said he should drop in for a cup of tea next time he was over. I then forgot about the exchange. You can imagine the panic that set in here when he e-mailed to say he would be round at 3.15 on the 7^th April. It got so bad that Mr Hoover had to emerge from his cobwebbed hiding place.

He turned out to be a charming retired Deputy Headmaster who managed to hide his health fears when entering the flat very well.

As a hostage to fortune I invited him to come again next year and bring friends; the European dream starts to end here!

Jean-Marie at the hub of the Against the Dark empire.

My loathing of Jazz, though more drama queen than principle, is well known. A jazz concert seems to consist of solo, clap, solo, clap, ad nauseam. It has the visual consistency of seals being thrown fish for tricks. At the Jazz Hastings concerts held at the Hastings Angling Club this is only made bearable for me by the presence of Mrs Donaldson & the Former Future Mrs Hardy, both of which I adore and fear; the FFMH reminding me last night of the UK stalking laws…

Anyway, this time was different (though the seals were still there), the main artist, Gilad Atzmon was fun and made, for me, this formulaic form of music engaging and playful. The drummer was awesome, normally there is only one drummer; Keith Moon (in his Quadraphenia period). This guy has the same effect. The bassist redeemed the genre by sporting a Bruce Springsteen tee-shirt and the pianist tinkled away. Actually the pianist was probably great as well but pianos do nothing for me outside of classical music and Bat Out Of Hell!

So there we have it, the music was enjoyable, the women struck fear in my heart and reality was banished by cider; what a great evening.

Potential member of the E-Street Band.

Yesterday started at a funeral for an old school friend and ended with me having enjoyed a jazz concert. Both of these things I never hoped to see. In reality the day ended at around quarter to eleven with your hero, having thoroughly defeated sobriety, laying on his back on the West Hill photographing the moon through clouds; a clue here for all you photographers, a drunk taking 13^th second exposures requires the deepest of beer goggles to look even vaguely interesting.

Jocks funeral again brought home to roost some old chickens, as I think funerals often do. Its been dawning on me of late how badly I’ve treated people in my life; for me guilt has always just been a dictionary word and as an emotion up there with the best fairy tales. And with two more pieces of the jigsaw; a capacity to leave, anything, and never look back and a wonderful skill at justifying absolutely everything to myself, the creation of a glorious wake of casual cruelty was inevitable.

Up there with Ansel Adams I think you’ll agree!