Lamest excuse for not exercising ever

If David Attenborough ever comes to visit us, he can use our bathroom door to film this example of the marvellous phenomenon of animal camouflage: a giant moth that found a hiding place in the gorgeous reddish-brown tones of my exercise shorts. (I don't wear them outside the house.) Just as well I slept in this morning anyway.

(Anyone know what species this is, BTW?)

Stressbusters

Having had long experience coping with depression and anxiety, I've developed a number of techniques to help myself reduce stress and ward off sadness. Unfortunately, having been in near-constant crisis mode over the last few months, I've fallen out of practice with most of them. This, of course, increased the stress, which made life even more hectic, which put me further out of practice. Recently, though, things have settled down enough for me to resume them, and since they're working pretty well for me, I thought I'd share them here.

(I should emphasise that everything I've written below is based solely on my personal experience, and is meant to help only in mild cases of stress or the blues. If you have depression or anxiety that is affecting your ability to function, or above all if you have any thoughts of harming yourself, see a doctor as soon as possible.)

For me, by far the best way to fight off encroaching melancholy is to get outside and experience nature. The ideal is a long ramble through woods or a nature reserve, but a (responsibly-run) zoo or a park will do. Chris has commented that he can actually see me relax as we walk through the gates of Kew Gardens or the London Wetland Centre. Of course, we can only take outings like that at the weekends, so during the week I try to get a daily dose of nature by visiting the "green space" near work on my lunch hour. I have a birdwatching/nature journal and try to write a few lines each day about the things I see. When I really can't get out at all, nature books and David Attenborough DVDs can also help.

Another excellent cure is vigorous exercise. I try to do this every day, but the only really convenient time is first thing in the morning, so it depends on my being able to drag myself out of bed. On those days when I do manage to get up at 5.30, I jump rope for about 15 minutes, and also do yoga as a warm-up and cool-down. This does help me start the day with a lot more good cheer and energy. Also, sometimes when anxiety threatens to grab hold of my heart and lungs, I find I can drive it out by exercising till I'm exhausted.

Reaching out to others is also a tremendous help. As I've been reminded over and over again, one of the best ways to forget my own troubles is to take an interest in other people. It's best to do this face to face, person to person, but if that isn't possible, doing charitable work or writing letters for Amnesty can also help -- really, anything that turns the focus outwards rather than inwards.

Meditation and prayer are two things I probably don't do as regularly as I should, but they bring a lot of peace when I do manage them. Although I do yoga postures as part of my regular exercise, I haven't yet made meditation and breathing exercises part of my daily routine. And while I instinctively feel that Quaker-style silent meditation is the form of prayer I'm most suited to, I'm not practised enough to keep my mind from wandering. This is something I need to work on.

Finally, if all the above fails, it's time to go to bed and read old Sherlock Holmes stories. Or to listen to Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime on headphones over and over until your brain goes numb. (Pearls Before Swine anthologies or the Kinks' Victoria may be substituted if the situation warrants.) One of the most valuable things you learn from living with melancholia is that it does pass eventually.

Close encounters of the sciurine kind

I was planning to sleep in for the bank holiday today, but was awakened quite early by a thumping sound from the bird feeder. I opened the curtains and once again found myself face to face with a squirrel -- a female, I think -- who was crouched on the window ledge. She seemed to be in rather poor condition, with dull yellowy-grey fur and a thin kinked tail, and she stared at me (or so it seemed) with a mixture of nervousness and pleading. She reached out a paw to touch the glass a few times -- I don't know whether she was trying to get to me to beg for food, as the tame squirrels sometimes do in London's parks, or if she was checking to make sure I couldn't get at her. Then, halting every few seconds to look at me, she climbed up to the feeder tray, took a pellet and popped it into her mouth, staring at me while she chewed it with that same mix of hope and fear. After that I didn't have the heart to drive her away.

BTW, it looks like the squirrels actually prefer the Fruity Nibbles; last time I put both kinds of food in the feeder, and now only the suet mix remains.

Things fall apart (but not in a poetic way)

Q: How many pottos does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They can see in the dark.

For the past few days it's felt like everything we've touched has broken. First the fluorescent light in the bathroom burned out. That wasn't such a big deal, though it was the first time either of us had to change a fluorescent tube -- since they have to be changed so rarely, I assumed it would be a big operation, but it was actually easier than changing a conventional bulb. We even got the tube for free thanks to one of our employer's policies. When the company got taken over a few years ago, the new owners decreed that only a certain brand of light bulbs would be used in our buildings. So there are lots of leftover bulbs from other companies just sitting around waiting for someone to take them.

Then, more worryingly, one of the burners on the stove suddenly stopped working. It's not just that it won't light -- when we turn the knob, gas doesn't flow to that burner at all. I don't know what could have caused it, unless some dirt got into the jets while I was cleaning the stovetop. Chris thinks that if it is just dirt it might sort itself out eventually; if not, we'll have to tell the landlord. I'm not looking forward to that prospect because I know the cooker was brand-new when we moved in, and I don't think the landlord will be happy to hear that it's broken already. I'm especially sensitive because one of the accusations our old landlords made against us was that we'd broken the cooker in our old flat (even though, so far as we know, we didn't).

Then this morning, I was doing my exercises in the living room when one of the stereo speakers fell off its stand. I like to think this was a result of its not having been centred on the stand correctly, rather than of my causing a small earthquake with my skipping rope. The speaker itself is fine, but one of Chris's old coin banks was sitting on top of it and got broken, though not beyond repair.

Then I went to make breakfast. I've mentioned before that we went without a toaster for a while after our old one broke, mainly because they don't seem to last very long and you can't get them repaired. Then Chris's mum kindly gave us an old one she had sitting around. Well, guess what -- this morning that stopped working, too. Cleaning it out and changing the fuse in the plug didn't help, so it looks like the remaining option is to get a new one. This time I think we'll have to bite the bullet and do it. Although buying "disposable" appliances seems wasteful, it turns out making toast under the grill is even more wasteful.

So today, after we see the Ramayana exhibition at the British Library, we're off to buy a new toaster and some glue. At some point we also need to figure out what to do with the old fluorescent tube and toaster. The council won't accept them in domestic recycling bins and wants people to take them to the "Waste, Reuse and Recycling Centre" (i.e., dump), but you can't really go there without a car. A lot of people end up keeping broken gadgets around the house like souvenirs or just throwing them out in the non-recyclable rubbish with a slightly guilty feeling.

I know all the things that have happened are minor and (with the possible exception of the gas burner) very easily sorted out. But having them happen all at once, combined with everything else that's gone wrong this year, makes me wonder if there's a cloud of bad luck hanging over us.

Feeding more than birds

I think I may have discovered why the food in our new bird feeder disappeared so fast. Yesterday morning I opened the curtains to see a fat squirrel sitting in the tray. He wasn't easily fazed, either -- I had to start opening the window before he jumped off. Squirrels are notorious for helping themselves to bird food; you can get squirrel guards to fit on some kinds of feeders, but not on the one we've got. To tell the truth, I don't mind the critters all that much -- even though we only have invasive grey squirrels around here and not Britain's native (and endangered) red variety. But I'd rather have songbirds outside my window.

The squirrel I saw yesterday was eating the high-energy suet mix -- I'm trying the fruity nibbles now in the hope that squirrels will find them less tasty.

Bird food and vegetarianism

Yesterday we got our new bird feeder from the RSPB. It's quite cool -- it sticks to the outside of our bedroom window with suction cups, so we can use it even though we don't have a garden, and with luck we'll get to see the birds close up. So far I haven't caught any birds in the act of eating, but a lot of the food has definitely vanished since last night. We have two types of food for the feeder: High-Energy Sprinkles and Fruity Nibbles, the latter of which sounds like something I might be tempted to eat myself. One reason I don't is that both these foods contain suet and are thus the only non-vegetarian foodstuffs in our household.

This sort of thing presents a dilemma for many vegetarians who have pets or feed wildlife. There are some people who feed their dogs or cats on a vegetarian or even vegan diet; they claim their pets thrive, but I've never heard of such diets being recommended by veterinarians, and even the Vegetarian Society has reservations when it comes to cats.

Another group -- which I tend to side with -- argues that it's wrong to force animals to eat a diet not naturally intended for them. We humans are unique in that we can live healthily with or without meat and are capable of recognising the ethical implications of our diet. But when caring for other species, we owe it to them to feed them the diet that evolution has suited them for. Even the folks at the Monkey Sanctuary, who are almost all vegetarian or vegan and are among the most passionate animal supporters I know, buy and prepare chicken for the monkeys in their care.

Still, I am aware that buying suet bird food requires an animal to be killed, and that does bother me. Yet I'm also aware of how important it is to feed birds, now that their natural food is becoming scarcer due to urbanisation and modern agricultural practices. I suppose if we hadn't thrown the natural world off balance, we wouldn't have to make this kind of choice.

"Defiance" and ducks

The Prom we went to on Friday was all Janáček. Two pieces -- the Sinfonietta and the Glagolitic Mass -- I was very familiar with. I think the Sinfonietta may have suffered from being a bit too familiar: I didn't find anything in the performance to make me appreciate it afresh, although I can't say whether that was the performers' fault or my own. The Glagolitic Mass was a reconstruction of Janáček's original version (I think the main difference between this and the version you usually hear is that there are more instrumental movements) and was very enjoyable although I had some trouble hearing the soloists.

The other composition on the programme was new to me: a capriccio for piano and wind instruments, nicknamed "Defiance." This piece has an interesting history. It was composed for the Czech pianist Ottakar Hollman, who had lost his right arm in the Great War, and so it uses only the left hand. We always sit in the gods at the Royal Albert Hall and don't have a very good view of the stage. It doesn't usually matter, but this was one occasion when I would have liked to have had a good view of the pianist -- I mean, to watch how he played such a rich and complex piece with just one hand (though I suppose Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is handsome enough in an ultra-Gallic sort of way). Fortunately, I have a second chance to see it on the BBC iPlayer.

Yesterday we had a relaxing day walking around the London Wetland Centre. Things go a bit quiet for birders in August, with the breeding season over and the autumn migration not yet in full swing. But we enjoyed just standing and watching familiar friends like gadwalls, coots and mallards (the males of the latter looking a bit grumpy in eclipse). The centre was also rich with wildflowers, and water lilies bloomed amid the duckweed in the ponds:


Looking closer, I saw a young moorhen swimming along the green surface and picking up tasty plants:



By now most of the spring's ducklings have matured into a definite duck shape, although they still follow their mothers in obedient lines. We found a couple of duckling families, however, who must have been late arrivals in the season. There was one set of mallard ducklings:



and two of tufted ducks:



As you can see from the ripples on the left of that last photo, the tufted ducklings are already able to make leaping dives like their parents, despite still being little morsels of fluff.

Thank you

I've been very touched by the supportive calls and e-mails I've had since my last post. It makes me feel a lot better to know that someone else cares.

I was also very pleasantly surprised by the reaction I got from work -- when my boss heard I'd taken the day off with stress, he phoned to ask what was wrong, and when I explained the situation he told me to bring in all the paperwork related to our old flat and he'd use his legal knowledge and contacts to help us out. We went through it today, and he said the letter I'd written refuting the landlords' claims was very good, and now we should insist on the matter going to the tenancy deposit scheme's adjudicators as soon as possible. The Wood Mouse, who's had his own experience with landlords from hell, also gave excellent advice. Today I sent another e-mail off to the letting agents with some more supporting evidence from our side, and said that if there was any delay in referring the matter to the TDS, they should let us know and we would go ahead and instruct solicitors to seek damages from the landlords for their negligence throughout our tenancy and for the emotional distress they've caused us. Now we just have to wait.

At some point I need to tackle the housework and other tasks that got neglected while I was out of commission. First, though, we're going to the Proms. And Chris has announced that tomorrow we're going to the London Wetland Centre to watch the ducks. I'm glad he suggested it -- getting out into nature is the best way I know to reduce stress, and I haven't been able to do much of it lately.

Thank you all once again!

I hate being proved right

In a way I don't even want to write about this, but I feel like I should keep a complete record. Our former landlords have fulfilled my predictions and refused to give our deposit back. The list of "damage" they claim we caused to the property is partly stuff that happened some time ago due to their negligence (like the leaking bath pipes that flooded the downstairs shop), and partly stuff that they just seem to have made up (they claim that the cooker is broken "beyond repair," despite the fact that we were using it daily right up till the day we moved).

Fortunately, we have kept all the letters and e-mails we sent documenting the various problems we had during our tenancy and have sent them to the Tenancy Deposit Scheme as evidence for disputing their claim. We've also demanded they produce hard evidence for all the allegations they've made. (Even the letting agent, who theoretically acts for the landlords, doesn't seem convinced by their story.)

But I am sickened by this. We don't care about the money; we knew they'd try to keep it one way or another, and we were fully prepared to lose it if it meant having these sleazebags out of our life for good. But now they've made these accusations against us that could affect our reputation if we try to rent another flat, and so we feel we have to fight them. Also, they have made a vague reference in their e-mail to wanting "compensation" for damage beyond the amount of our security deposit. According to the people at Shelter (whom I've got to know fairly well lately), it would be quite unusual for them to sue us: the usual procedure is to take money for repairs from the deposit and claim any extra costs on their insurance. But they could try it. If they do, I think we will have to move to America whether we feel ready to or not. (NOTE TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY IN THE U.S.: This is NOT a reason to hope that they sue us. Trust me, the stress would not make it a happy homecoming!)

I meant "sickened" literally: I've felt nauseous since I got the e-mail last night and couldn't sleep. In fact, I've had to take the day off work today.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Black-headed gulls

In the afternoons a flock of black-headed gulls has been gathering on the "green space"* near my office. With the end of the breeding season, they've lost the dark-brown feathers that covered their heads, and now only have dark smudges like hinges behind their eyes. They seem to have lost some of their quarrelsome spirit too: they hardly make a sound and no longer stand in formation like a football team. Instead, they look slightly lost and comical as they wander in various directions grazing at the ground. Seen this way, they reveal a surprising charm -- and from a distance, in the sunlight, they could even be taken for white doves.

Several times recently I've seen a gull bend its head parallel to the earth and rush along the ground in a short swoop. The reason became clear today when it triumphantly seized some small creature from the grass.

* The council's official name for it.

Nostalgia as analgesia

My wish that last night would be a one-off didn't take long to be denied: The bass started pumping into our bedroom again at three o'clock this morning. Fortunately, yesterday Chris found a pair of earplugs for me (he was already asleep by the time the noise started this morning, and once he's fallen asleep he can sleep through anything), so I spent the rest of the night hearing nothing but my heart beating in my ears.

I woke up when the sun started pouring through the window -- at this time of year, still too early to get up on a Sunday -- and, as I often do, lay thinking of the past. I find that I tend to keep mainly the pleasant memories from any particular time of my life -- which, for some periods, involves a great deal of editing. When I was in middle and high school, I was bullied so badly that I became afraid to go beyond a certain "safe" zone around my home; but when I think of those days now, I tend to remember the few moments of enjoyment that I had in the midst of the torment. (In fact, my clearest memory is of a long teachers' strike when we didn't know from one day to the next whether there would be school. Every morning I would go to the bus stop, sit in the sunshine reading Ulysses for an hour or so, then go home when it was clear the bus wasn't turning up. That may have been the happiest period of my adolescence.) At university I went through a long depression and great uncertainty about my direction in life (you could say that I still haven't recovered from the latter), but I mainly remember the joy of discovery in my classes, in meeting new people, in finding new books, films and music. I suppose someday when I remember life in this flat, I will not think of being awakened at 3 am by the neighbours' stereo, but of the good times I've had and (God willing) will continue to have here with Chris.

In some ways this tendency is a blessing, but I do worry that it may lead me to make the wrong decisions -- to return "home" to a place that never really was home, or to put myself in a situation where I will get hurt again.

I think this sort of selective memory is widespread. It's what causes some people, for example, to keep going back to unsuitable partners: they remember the good times and don't recall the things that caused them to split up. And it's also what makes people long for past eras that, when viewed objectively, actually turn out to have been pretty horrible. On Shorpy recently, a commenter responded to an old photograph by lauding the "time of innocence" when it was taken, "a time of feeling safe and loved". The date of the photo? 1942.

This whitewashing of the past, too, can be dangerous. It leads to people yearning for a return to the values of 1950s America, when families stayed together and black people couldn't sit at the front of the bus. Or it makes people think, "The Stasi can't have been so bad if all those Germans have Ostalgie."

Perhaps nostalgia should be treated like any other intoxicant: indulged in only in moderation, and not when it could affect your ability to steer.

Noise

In every flat Chris and I have lived in, we've had problems with noise. Our first flat was next door to some students who tormented us with loud parties, and sometimes forced us to go to Chris's parents' house to sleep, until they eventually moved out. In the flat we've just left, the entire block suffered for several months from the neighbours a few doors down from us, who blasted their stereo through the night. This went on until a group of landlords who owned property in the area -- though not ours, predictably enough -- got together and put pressure on the culprits' landlady to throw them out.

When we moved here I thought we might have better luck. The downstairs neighbours seemed nice enough -- a couple with two small children, and with hanging baskets of flowers outside their door. We had a nice chat with them shortly after moving in, and although we did notice that we could hear their television and their conversations from our bedroom, we didn't think they would be keeping unsociable hours.

Things were OK until last night. We got back late from an evening out and climbed into bed, exhausted from a long day, well after midnight. About fifteen minutes later, we were treated to a medley of the hits of Ne-Yo and Kid Rock, played loud enough for us to hear the lyrics. We didn't complain, partly because we want to stay on good terms with the neighbours, and partly because it was clear from the screamed, foul-mouthed argument we could hear between beats that they were very drunk. So we stayed in bed, trying not to listen and wishing that we'd bought earplugs when we had a chance.

Our experience apparently isn't rare in Britain, where stories about "antisocial behaviour" and "neighbours from hell" are constantly in the news. I believe this is partly due to overpopulation, which forces people to live in dense concentrations, and partly to the fact that many buildings have been quickly and cheaply carved into flats with little soundproofing. Another factor, in this as in many other social problems in Britain, is drink. According to a story I read in The Economist a few weeks ago, the British aren't the heaviest drinkers in the EU, but they are the worst at holding it: alcohol-related violence and vandalism is much more widespread here than in other European countries.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that, while most towns do have noise ordinances, it can be very hard to get them enforced. Unlike in many American cities, the police over here don't deal with noise violations. That's left to the environmental health department of the local council. In order to make a noise complaint, you have to get someone from the council to come and listen to the noise themselves so they can judge whether it breaks the law. Unfortunately, the hours when most councils have people available to do this are very limited. In Harrow the noise enforcement team works 9-5 on weekdays and for a few hours on Friday and Saturday night -- in other words, at the times when noise will cause the least amount of disturbance to most people. As we found when we lived next to the students, if your neighbours' stereo keeps you up till 4 am on a Tuesday, you're on your own.

Fortunately, things weren't that bad this time. The noise stopped after an hour or so, and we got some sleep. (And this morning we resisted the temptation to turn up our own stereo and help the neighbours nurse their hangover with the soothing sounds of Bulgarian folk music.) If this becomes a regular occurrence, or starts happening on weeknights, then I guess we will have to complain, but I'm hoping it was a one-off.

Still, I do find myself wondering: Are we the only people left who value peace and quiet? And will we ever be able to live as we want in our own home without our lives being disrupted by outsiders?

Playing the Games

One of the many things that bother me about my job is the fact that my employer is a major sponsor of the Beijing Olympics. To their credit, they have allowed employees to ask questions about this, though they always answer with the same soothing guff about "constructive engagement." At his recent quarterly presentation, the CEO even read out a question of mine on the topic. He drew on his own experiences growing up in South Africa: "If the world had just engaged with us then instead of shutting us out, I believe we would have seen change a lot faster." All around people nodded in grateful affirmation, relieved at not having to think about the issue any longer.

All this is rubbish, of course: a moment of research or reflection shows that this company, like all big companies, is interested in "engaging" mainly with its bottom line. That's how it got to be a big corporation in the first place. (And it may be worth mentioning that my boss is a white South African. This could be relevant in analysing his position.)

In the runup to the games, our company intranet has been filled with nauseating drivel about "the Olympic Spirit" (ah, the spirit of Berlin 1936! The spirit of doping! The spirit of advertising deals!). Most recently, they introduced a site where staff can send encouraging messages to be displayed on a screen in the corporate building on the Olympic Green. When I saw that, I laughed, then tried to get on with my work, until finally I felt like I was about to burst. I went to the site and typed:

"In memory of the victims of Tiananmen Square and in solidarity with all political prisoners in China. Never forget."

Nothing happened, of course. They're not stupid; they had someone to censor the messages from the time they first thought of this. At most, my comments caused someone to roll their eyes as they hit Delete. And I keep on taking their paycheque.

I find myself remembering Shostakovich's (alleged) words about Western humanists, and I imagine someone asking me:

"Why did you go along with it? Who threatened your life?"

"No one, but I was afraid of being unemployed, and too timid to send out my CV ..."

Maybe I'm in no position to criticise my employers after all.

Testimony: Personal reflections

A couple of days ago I finished Dmitri Shostakovich's alleged memoir, Testimony, having read it a few pages at a time throughout our move and its aftermath. The controversy over this book's authenticity has been very well-publicised. I'm not expert enough to comment from a historical or biographical standpoint, so I'll just mention the impressions I got from the text itself. It seems to me that the main body of the book (credited to Shostakovich) was not written by the same person as the introduction (credited to Volkov) -- not unless that person were a gifted author of fiction, skilled at writing in many different voices.

It's true that in the introduction Volkov comes across as very pompous and rather too keen to emphasise his supposed importance, both in Shostakovich's life and in the musical world in general. But if such a person were to fabricate his idol's memoirs, I would expect the finished product to be full of "Solomon Moiseyevich this" and "Solomon Moiseyevich that," and this isn't the case.

So I don't get the feeling that this book is a straightforward forgery. Does that mean it's everything Volkov claims it to be? I have no idea. To avoid the rest of this post being full of "alleged"s and "supposedly"s, I'm going to write on the assumption that it actually is Shostakovich speaking in these pages. But I encourage readers to look into it themselves and make up their own minds.

Now that the idea of Shostakovich as secret dissident is widespread, I suppose the shock that Testimony caused thirty years ago has largely dissipated. I found myself focusing more on the minutiae of the book than on the central thesis that caused such controversy when it was published. I was interested to read details of life under Stalin that I had seen confirmed in recent histories by Anne Applebaum and Simon Sebag-Montefiore -- I wonder how well-known they were to Westerners in 1979? At the same time, I was intrigued by stories I hadn't heard before -- for example, of Dzhambul Dzhabayev, an illiterate Kazakh folksinger who was credited with composing pro-Stalin odes "translated" (actually written) by Russian poets.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Shostakovich mention his concern for animals at several points; perhaps an odd subject to mention in a book containing so much human suffering, but then again, perhaps not. I don't know whether cruelty to animals necessarily leads to cruelty to humans, as some claim, but I can't recall ever hearing of someone with great compassion for humans who didn't also have compassion for animals. And I was astonished to find the composer quoting a version of the Serenity Prayer ("Sometimes I love that prayer and sometimes I hate it. Life is ending for me and I have neither the strength or the wisdom.")

Perhaps the most difficult part for me to read was Shostakovich's criticism of Western intellectuals. The leftists who apologised for the murderous regime surely deserve his scathing comments:

I'm the one who gets asked "Why did you sign this and that?" But has anyone ever asked André Malraux why he glorified the construction of the White Sea Canal, where thousands upon thousands of people perished? No, no one has. Too bad. They should ask more often. After all, no one can keep these gentlemen from answering, nothing threatened their lives then and nothing threatens them now. ...

Once I was tormented by the question: why? why? Why were these people lying to the entire world? Why don't these famous humanists give a damn about us, our lives, honour and dignity? And then I suddenly calmed down. If they don't give a damn, then they don't. And to hell with them. Their cosy life as famous humanists is what they hold most dear. That means they can't be taken seriously. They become like children for me. Nasty children -- a hell of a difference, as Pushkin used to say. ...

Don't believe humanists, citizens, don't believe prophets, don't believe luminaries -- they'll fool you for a penny. Do your own work, don't hurt people, try to help them. Don't try to save humanity all at once, try saving one person first. It's a lot harder. To help one person without harming another is very difficult. It's unbelievably difficult. That's where the temptation to save all of humanity comes from. And then, inevitably, along the way, you discover that all humanity's happiness hinges on the destruction of a few hundred million people, that's all. A trifle.

But it hits closer to home when he speaks of Westerners who lauded the Seventh symphony "as though trying to say: Look how we like Shostakovich's symphonies, and you still want something more from us, a second front or something," or says that the Americans will believe whatever they need to believe in order to sleep at night.

The blurb from the Guardian describes this as "a terrifying and unhappy book." I didn't find that to be true throughout -- the narrator's cynicism and black humour create a certain distance from the horror, as indeed they're supposed to do -- but it certainly applies to the final pages, where the composer concludes: "There were no particularly happy moments in my life, no great joys. It was grey and dull and it makes me sad to think about it. ... I was remembering my friends, and all I saw was corpses, mountains of corpses. ... And I thought perhaps my experience in this regard could also be of some use to people younger than I. Perhaps they wouldn't have the horrible disillusionment that I had to face, and perhaps they would go through life better prepared, more hardened, than I was. And perhaps their lives would be free from the bitterness that has coloured my life grey."

I was depressed myself for some time after reading this. When confronted with such suffering, especially when there's nothing you can do to relieve it, it's hard to avoid sharing it. I found some comfort in thinking that Shostakovich was speaking at a moment when the pain was highly concentrated, after several days with Volkov's tape recorder, remembering murdered friends and his own oppression. I hope he had days when small things happened to relieve the greyness, when birds sang outside his window or his grandchildren came to visit or his beloved Zenit Leningrad won a match.

Whether the true narrator of this book is Shostakovich, Volkov or someone else, I'm glad I spent this time with him. And while reading Testimony is no substitute for listening to the music, I would certainly recommend it to anyone interested in the composer or in Soviet history.

The orange cat

I mentioned earlier that our new flat is almost directly across the street from the in-tray cat's office. (By the way, since writing the original post I've had occasion to speak to the humans in the office and can now report that the in-tray cat is, in fact, a girl. My apologies for any confusion.) But it turns out that our new home also gives me a chance to see more of another of my feline friends, who is somewhat unimaginatively referred to in our household as "the orange cat." I used to see him (??) from time to time on my way to or from work, but I have now discovered that he belongs, more or less, to a family just a few doors down from us, and now I meet him almost every day. In the afternoon he's usually enjoying a snooze when I pass by:



However, once he realises he's being watched, he normally presents himself to be admired and stroked.




Just in case he should escape your notice, he purrs loudly enough to be heard several feet away. If you pet him he rolls around in ecstasy, sometimes with hilarious results:



More disconcertingly, he occasionally gives your hand a playful nip. I once saw him pounce on a kid who was passing by chatting on a mobile phone, demanding that he stop talking into that funny device and pay attention to him instead (it worked). I've been late getting home before because I stopped to play with him, but I don't mind. It's a nice substitute for having a cat of my own.

Pineapple-mint grog

Last week one of Chris's co-workers kindly gave us an enormous bunch of mint from her garden. After making mint tea, tabbouleh and minted peas we still had loads left over, so I decided to use the rest to make a cooling drink. (The weather promptly turned cold and rainy after I'd made this decision, but never mind.) This is loosely -- very loosely -- based on a recipe in the old Culinary Arts Institute cookbook. I used our fresh mint in place of the peppermint extract in the original. Where the original recipe called for milk and cream, I used soya milk, which we had more of on hand -- this brings the fat content way down, and also makes the drink vegan. The rum was an afterthought, following an hour on the phone to BT sorting out our wireless connection.

1 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped
450 ml pineapple juice
100 ml rum
350 ml soya milk

Combine the mint and the pineapple juice and chill for about four hours. Strain and discard the mint. Combine the juice in a decanter with the rum and soya milk and chill well. Shake the decanter gently before serving. Makes four tall glasses.

This turned out to be tasty and rich, with just a mild kick to it (I am, as you see, still able to type). Sorry about the mishmash of American and European measurements; this is the way I cook most things, since I combine American and British cookbooks and utensils. If you don't have an American measuring cup, use a teacup instead. I think most American measuring jugs should have metric measurements as well as cup markings these days.