New Broom

Jul 2, 2025 | Uncategorized

I’ve made a couple of changes in my life, minor in themselves but significant personally. The reasons for this will be the subject of a later post but the changes are,

• • I’ve taken my news apps (BBC and Guardian) and almost all social media apps off the front screen of my phone and put them out of sight and out of mind. If I really want to I can look at them on my laptop or dip in if anything happens. I do read The Edinburgh Minute every weekday morning, though, keeping it local. I also read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From an American and other substacks on various themes including technology news on my laptop over breakfast.
  • First thing in the morning, instead of checking my phone for overnight messages or doing the daily quiz with friends on a chatgroup, I read at least one poem, pretty much at random. So far I’ve dipped into WB Yeats, Alice Oswald, Gillian Clarke and Douglas Dunn; that list will expand.
  • As of yesterday, I’ve resolved to write a poem per day, even if all that comes out is a doggerel couplet. The first two efforts are in the immediately preceding post. I follow the dictum of the great Tom Paxton who wrote (perhaps still writes) a song per day on the basis that even if 300+ of them were stinkers, he would end the year with some worth keeping and recording. One or two may appear here if I like them enough, though not the doggerel couplets.