6.00 am: As I woke, I heard the news that a fire of some proportion had swept through Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh Building. This had happened, to a lesser extent, four years earlier. Sometimes lightning does strike in the same place twice. There were no casualties, again. And that’s a great mercy. (This was not another Grenfell Tower.) I can’t imagine how the staff and students of the School of Art would feel if the Edward Davies Building suffered the same fate. Grand old art schools are a second home to those who study and teach in them. They’re only bricks and mortar (and extraordinary design, in the case of Mackintosh’s architecture), but they ennoble us and inspire great affection. Like every influence for good upon our lives, we grieve its passing. Let’s hope that this phoenix will rise once more.

9.00 am: I returned to the composition on racism (that’s now tentatively entitled ‘That One Day’) and began extracting words and phrases spoken by Scourby on the recording that corresponded with those that Martin Luther King Jr spoke in his ‘I have a dream’ speech. This would be a painfully slow process. Needs must, however:

After lunch, I went into town for my Saturday afternoon’s repose and to pick up supplies from one of the local supermarket. It rained en route. The cafes were filled with tourists sheltering from the downpour. With a decaf latte to hand (this was an experimental venture), I returned to my ‘Diary of Departures’. It’s has been my confidante of late.

3.00 pm: Back in the studio, I reviewed the source texts for my word search, and tried to rationalise the number of biblical books that I’d need to access. Monday’s studio work is now before me. These have not been sufficiently productive days. I’ve felt tired. The pace of construction and conceptualisation has been too slow; although, all the new compositions are moving in the right direction. I accept such times as inevitable and, sometimes, necessary. 5.20 pm: An end of things.