I can’t wear shoes so I am wearing Birkenstocks with no socks all day and all night. I am taking the antibiotics and there is a miniature war  in the swelling of my foot.    It’s
a gorgeous day today. The journalist and I go to eat breakfast in Hackney and
have a lazy day kicking back to the sun rays.

Reluctantly at  7.45pm  I get on my bike and cycle down the canal through Angel then Kings cross and to  Marleybone and the BBC  London studios  to Dotun Adebayo’s Sunday evening programme.   Shirley Thompson is in reception.   By 8.30pm we are on
Dotun’s phone in show to discuss Obama and the forthcoming 100 days debate.

You can hear the entire programme here.     Jonzi D comes in for an interview to
discuss his show at Sadlers Wells,  Breakin Convention.  Shirley Thompson was there to discuss Obama but also her  symphony  written to celebrate Obama’s one hundred days
and performed by the BBC Philarmonic at The Purcell Rooms on Thursday this week.

In researching the programme I came across some enlightening articles. The most outstanding for wit and downright zeitgeist poignance was by Naomi Klein in The Nation where she forms new words with reference to  Hope and Obamafans. Here’s the first.

‘Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in something that felt good at the time but wasn’t really all that healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It’s the political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample
sentence: “When I listened to Obama’s economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of layoffs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I’ve got a serious hopeover.”‘

I paraphrased the above at the top of the interview.  But after an hour I took a secret moment to view the table of interviewees that Dotun Adebayo had curated:    Shirley Thompson,  composer and conductor of  the highest calibre,  Jonzi D one of the worlds finest exponents of hip hop theatre and myself,   black and unconventional and beautiful.   At 10.30pm I am back on my cycle arriving home at about 11.30pm. I’m asleep at the turn of midnight in  a blacker deeper kind of night.