Tue 28th September 2010

The Hungarians were badly ripped off at the weekend to the tune of 1700 pounds. It's an internet based fraud centred around flats to let, which aren't. It works by someone (the Hungarians) responding to an ad about a beautiful and very cheap flat to rent. If they want to rent it, they have to prove that they have the money by arranging a money transfer to a friend through Moneygram, then sending him a copy of the receipt.

Bela did this, and with the reference number and the other details on the receipt, the fraudster collected 1700 pounds from Bela's account. A blasé and uninterested Moneygram are reluctant to get involved despite the fact that it's at least the fault of their lax security measure. We've been down the police station, making statements, Csilla getting tearful, a foreign country. Last night we had a coal fire and some good cider and talked about misunderstanding foreigners and coming unstuck when you're pretending that you know more than you do of a language.

I told them that they can stay here, I would like them to, until Christmas, or beyond, if necessary. I like seeing their food and jackets and jumpers and shampoo strewn about the place; someone else's life. I like how they've put their toothbrushes in the little metal cup with mine rather than laying them demurely on the side of the sink. I like how we have pig's tongue and cheese and bread for breakfast. I like that they take it for granted that one drinks in the evening.

I emailed Seriouscrush and her boyf (who own this house) saying I'd moved two Hungarians in for three months, and that Csilla's boyfriend would be moving in in a fortnight too. Hoped that was OK, perhaps we could all go for a drink some time. It was, and we will.

Just looking up now from the ktichen table at which I'm typing this, the room is littered with their stuff - cigarettes, vitamin C tablets, mobile adaptors, glasses, a handbag.

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

M / 61 / 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

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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.
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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.
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In which the Hungarians lose 1700 pounds

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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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