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Furniture on the Fylde
Last night at the University: a disappointing talk by Terry Eagleton, a scattergun run through Marx. I got the time and the venue wrong and it ended up all very rushed, with no time to chat with Seriouscrush.
Straight afterwards, it was the Readers' Party at the Literature Festival. We ignored the startling, overlit surroundings. Hardly anyone was drinking. We had been asked to gift wrap a book to take along. I took Colm Tóibin's Brooklyn, as something I won't miss much.
Then, from other tables scattered with books, we were invited to take "a treat, a challenge, and something you wouldn't touch with a bargepole". My treat was Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman; my challenge was something by some male Latin American author whose photograph had the comical seriousness that only South American men can pull off - hair in a bun, thin moustache, probably still living with his mum.We were asked to go round and talk about our choices. A youngish Brazilian woman was being interesting and witty about the level to which one should assume knowledge of other languages; then the deathly words "my husband".
I went to collect my books and they'd all been packed up and whisked away by a caretaker who was getting understandably impatient with us standing around chatting when he wanted to lock up. I wish we'd all swapped email addresses or something. It seemed a pity not to continue meeting. And of course, talking about books always attracts many more women than men.
If you were a woman trying to attract attention with your photo on a dating site, perhaps you might choose that one when you dusted off your little black dress to meet your friend in a swish bar in Manchester; or perhaps that friendly-looking one from that weekend away, your wind-tousled hair and Edinburgh in the background.
But not for Emma from Blackpool. She chooses to advertise herself to the menfolk of Lancashire with a picture of a wardrobe.
If anyone can can shed some light on what to me is the opaque reasoning of someone who puts a picture of a wardrobe on a dating site, I'd be glad to hear your comments. And there's something a bit strange about those curtains. What's she got in there?
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