I don't think anybody actually said the word but many had it on their lips that afternoon and it was definitely in the air when the rain started being English we were used to Michael Fish presenting the weather and saying such things as It's all change, I'm afraid on a bank holiday when you wanted to go for a walk or a ramble even 'round the corner to the shops but that Monday was different in other ways that were not so obvious the heather was more scented for instance whites and purples and reds were more vibrant as well and while I breathed the soul of self-forgetfulness and practised the art of self-effacement and yielded to hope and bewitchment yet I failed to scan or to rhyme lacking meter or repetition yet returning with the spirit of something vaguely poetic was it ecstasy I wonder was it still verse however blank or blue was it Nietzsche going back to shake hands with Hegel spurring the horse ...

I've always thought it was most unfair for Adam and Eve to be expelled from the Garden surely God set them up with the typical temptation of the serpent and the sweetness of apple flesh or pomegranate or whatever it was Eve shared with Adam if God were so perfect why couldn't he have passed that on to man and woman? but maybe that was the plan to give him choice and the power to do and get it right and make mistakes too to let him be proud and humble too to sin and to exceed common greed or lowly motives of fear and self-forgetfulness in feats of extraordinarly strength and speed grace enough for love and other circuses nevertheless we find ourselves flawed and fallen postlapsarian for crimes beyond the Flood and therefore having sinned before Noah we are ante antediluvian always making slips of the tongue lapsus and lapsuso backsliders every one