Wed 8th September 2010

Fairly spontaneous pissed-up night with eight or nine people loosely associated with academe who are full of misgivings about our possible or actual roles in it. An intelligent and droll young woman from Slovenia sat at the table with the body language of an inscouciant Italian, her left elbow planted on the table and her hand swivelling round to accompany her words. I quizzed her about Slovene's complicated case and number system (it has singular, double and plural), effortlessly coming across as Older Linguistics Bore. Some of us got talking more interestingly about the way that academe dilutes friendships through the pressure of having to chase short-term contracts all the time.

Me and Linda arrived first. She looked beautiful, in a dark green scoop-necked dress coming to just below her knees, black tights, flat black shoes. She asked me what I thought about her dress. I drew my breath in as I was invited to inspect her. She spent the evening veering between entertaining to desirable to someone who makes me think harder than I would do without her; and always, all the time, fearlessly funny, puncturing the slightest bubble of pomposity and pretension in her lovely Galway accent.

Restraint and understatement are admirable virtues, so on my way home I texted her. "You're gorgeous clever witty and pisstaking and I love how you dress. You are absolutely beautiful. I love having you as a friend Linda." Subtext (of which she is perfectly aware): "I wish you were my lover".

The dating site have cancelled my subscription, deleted my profile and refunded the money on to my credit card. To the end, they refused to say what word it was that triggered their sensitivities. But it means I've managed to acquire Woman From Thirsk for free.

1 comment

Comment from: Sarsparilla [Visitor]

Heh, I’m imagining now, somehow, that “Woman from Thirsk for Free” was *her* introductory paragraph.

Tue 14th September 2010 @ 21:08

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looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person

M / 60 / Bristol, "the most beautiful, interesting and distinguished city in England" -- John Betjeman [1961, source eludes me].

"Looby is a left-wing intellectual who is obsessed with a) women's clothes and b) tits." -- Joy of Bex.

WLTM literate woman, 40-65. Must have nice tits, a PhD, and an mdma factory in the shed, although the first on its own will do in the short term.

There are plenty of bastards who drink moderately. Of course, I don't consider them to be people. They are not our comrades.
Sergei Korovin, quoted in Pavel Krusanov, The Blue Book of the Alcoholic

I am here to change my life. I am here to force myself to change my life.
Chinese man I met during Freshers Week at Lancaster University, 2008

The more democratised art becomes, the more we recognise in it our own mediocrity.
James Meek

Tell me, why is it that even when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a beautiful evening, or a conversation in agreeable company, it all seems no more than a hint of some infinite felicity existing apart somewhere, rather than actual happiness – such, I mean, as we ourselves can really possess?
Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

I hate the iPod; I hate the idea that music is such a personal thing that you can just stick some earplugs in your ears and have an experience with music. Music is a social phenomenon.
Jeremy Wagner

La vie poetique has its pleasures, and readings--ideally a long way from home--are one of them. I can pretend to be George Szirtes.
George Szirtes

Using words well is a social virtue. Use 'fortuitous' once more to mean 'fortunate' and you move an English word another step towards the dustbin. If your mistake took hold, no-one who valued clarity would be able to use the word again.
John Whale

One good thing about being a Marxist is that you don't have to pretend to like work.
Terry Eagleton, What Is A Novel?, Lancaster University, 1 Feb 2010

The working man is a fucking loser.
Mick, The Golden Lion, Lancaster, 21 Mar 2011

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looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person

Rummage in my drawers

The Comfort of Strangers

"Just sit still and listen" - woman to teenage girl at Elliott Carter weekend, London 2006

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