5 OCTOBER 1985, Page 34

Career Wise

I've got a job with Poetry Inc. just now: nothing special, nine-to-five. One day is much like the next. But the discipline is fairly strict, and one has to have something to show for the monthly cheque.

Each Tuesday there is a creative meeting. Ideas are bandied about: I usually get left with Nature, but my in-tray is full of memos from upstairs, about a falling-off in birdsong, autumn tints, and heartache in the dusk.

Randolph, who shares my room, does Philosophical Reflection and Classical Allusion. The usual rumours are rife: cut-backs, rationalisation, the rolling of heads. Randolph looks smug.

The bastard thinks: anyone