Mon 28th March 2011

I seem to have lost another friend (that's two in as many weeks).

I was almightily displeased when at 5.00 yesterday Bridget cancelled, by text, a long-standing arrangement to take me out for some tapas for a late birthday present. She's done this a few times. Several confirming emails at weekly intervals, then a sudden cancellation, citing the no doubt genuine reason of work pressure. Now she wants to "rearrange" this one too, for some weeks hence.

Taking firm control of my lip, I wrote back saying "...I realise that my desk is a lot clearer than yours, but I also have to co-ordinate things with Kirsty and the girls and when I arrange a night out it means that she has to turn down offers too. We can't cultivate a friendship on this basis, because I have no reason to think (through reasons you can't help - I do understand that) that it won't have to be cancelled again."

She wrote back saying "Yes, sorry, I do understand everything you say. All the best, Bridget."

I was completely taken aback by the baldness of that response, and stared at it for some time, thinking that she'd put up more of a fight. It's a sudden end to three years of dinners and chats, someone I told everything to. Part of me now feels like a fool for trusting her with all that information, when what matters most to her is work.

It's all for the best. Perhaps we can just meet up spontaneously from time to time, although at the moment I feel so pissed off with her that I no desire to do that. Muttering to myself, I wandered into town to buy something to eat instead of the tapas, where I serendipitously bumped into Linda. We spent half an evening down the pub where I was able to get it all of my chest.

It was hectically busy and they made a mistake with the order and we got a free pint. I found the little button which controls the music in the room, so was able to blank some of the din in the pub. The barman came into the room to turn it back up. A couple of minutes later I turned it back down again.

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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

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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No tapas for you

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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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