Really? one month already?

Last Sunday was Burns Night, as significant around the world to expat Scots as St Patricks night to exiled Irish, and we had a great session at Emily's dining on (veggie) haggis with neaps and tatties, whisky for the spirited and Rioja for the less so, and many poems.
My contribution was Elvis McGonagall's spine-tingling Operation Undying Conflict ~ though of course it sounds better from a shouty Scotsman (this link is from the Stop The War rally in London 2011, where I first heard it). Marian, the oldest and most authentic Scot in our party, gave the authentic recital for the slashing of the haggis: "Great chieftain o the puddin'-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place... His knife see rustic Labour dight, An cut you up wi ready slight."

Moving seamlessly from words to visual art ~ easy online, as everything's either words or pictures ~ Trowbridge Town Hall has a wax installation upstairs in the waiting room until 27th February. The artwork is called The Waiting Room, because as the artist's note explains the object and the room are integral to each other.  I went with David and while we were pondering this mutual integrity a lady came in and said 'I thought they said there was some art in here?' and went away. The silent room has become a place of transition, the notes explain. Eventually it will cease to exist. Which is of course true for everything. Except maybe cockroaches, and plastic.

Back in Frome there's always music. Superb sessions here are like prophylactics at a festival: well-advertised and free to both the committed and the merely curious. The regular Roots Session at the Grain Bar on Wednesday featured the extraordinary Blues virtuosity of Eddie Martin, and the newly introduced Sunday afternoon music slot at the Archangel featured the luscious retro-style of Bonne Nouvelle.  Live music too at the Silk Mill, on the Day to Make a Difference for the Calais refugees in the Jungle ~  collection of requested winter-wear and donations, with stalls, soup, cakes, and songs from the Wochynskis.

Writerly things are bubbling too, of course, but I think I'll leave you with a magical dialogue chanced upon on a facebook page (thanks Morgan.) It's a contemporised view of Norse mythology and explains the origin of sentient life on earth.
Odin gestures to As and Embla.
Odin:     I have made Mankind.
Frigga:  You fucked a couple of perfectly good trees is what you did. Look at it, it's got anxiety.

Happy February, y'all.