If you don’t exercise it, it all goes to flab

[wemyss]

We all of us get - whether or not we take - advice. Some of us take it - sometimes. Few of us resist the temptation to give it. Some of it is not wholly useless. Much of it is. Not a little of it - and not, alas, infrequently that handed down, as from On High, by persons who’ve clambered up the greasy pole to the status of ‘Big Name Fans’ (ambition ought really to be made of sterner stuff) - is utter balls.

Coaching is not exercise. You may have Wisden off by heart, but if you don’t put in time in the nets, you’ll never be capped for even the village second XI.

Here, then, are some exercises. Candidates are to attempt all of the sodding things, if at all possible. There is no time limit. You may do so here or at your own journals, with a link.

1. Describe the most remarkable sky you’ve seen. (If you don’t keep note of remarkable skies, begin: observation, I’m afraid, really is one of the things you not only want to do, it is one of those things you must do, if you are ever to make a writer.)

1. Give us a paragraph or more prompted by the Edgware Road (even if only the name). Evoke, please.

1. Describe your daily, common soundscape, from rouse to turning in.

1. Describe a room of your house.

1. Describe this randomly chosen place and scene.

1. Describe breakfast.

Do let us know how you get on; and do say if you don’t wish to throw the result open to constructive criticism by the community, or if you shan’t, or haven’t time to, give the same to the others participating.