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Nottingham
Me, my new business partner and his girlfriend, are down the pub to discuss the details. I'm dreading this. How will I afford it? -- isn't paying for anything, neither is --. How can I take money off the gorgeous sexy poor girls, who are my friends (the biggest compliment I can give anyone)?
I walk round Wilko, chemical scents advertised as natural, to while away the time till one o'clock. What am I getting myself involved in? His contact has been convicted for murder.
We went down the pub. I was conscious of my hands and what they might say, but it gradually eases. He rings his contact up and calls him a black bastard, a twat. It's all chatty and banterish. He passes the phone to my old classmate from Heysham. "Hello you black bastard," she says, with a broad smile on her face. We three get on laughingly, attracting the poorly secreted attention of the pub, who know we're up to something.New Business Partner can't really handle his drink. Switches like that after two bottles, but wants a third. She talks him out of it. I want to talk to her. She's into jazz-funk, like me, and mentions a Wilton Felder track, the citing of which makes me sit up. Not many women know who Wilton Felder is. They get into a bit of a domestic. I'm off to the loo to let it fizzle out.
When I come back he's gone. "Where's he gone?" I say. "He's just fucked off. He's got no keys," she says. "But he won't be able to get in," I say. We talk for a bit. "He takes it all out on me. In public, he's friends with everyone." I wonder whether he hits her.
We sat together and had the best ten minutes of the afternoon. She finished her wine and me my beer. "I'm going to get off now," she said, "because otherwise I'm going to end up sleeping with you."
We kissed with exactly coded decorum, on the cheek. "The thought has fleetingly crossed my mind," I said.
Me and new mate are off to Nottingham on Friday to meet a murderer. But I'm sure he's a very nice man really.
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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
Rummage in my drawers
The Comfort of Strangers
23.1.16: Big clearout of the defunct and dormant and dull
16.1.19: Further pruning
If your comment box looks like this, I'm afraid I sometimes can't be bothered with all that palarver just to leave a comment.
63 mago
Another Angry Voice
the asshat lounge
Clutter From The Gutter
Crinklybee Defunct
Exile on Pain Street
Fat Man On A Keyboard
gairnet provides: press of blll
George Szirtes ditto
Infomaniac [NSFW]
Laudator Temporis Acti
Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder
On The Rocks
The Most Difficult Thing Ever nothing since April
Quillette
Strange Flowers
Wonky Words
"Just sit still and listen" - woman to teenage girl at Elliott Carter weekend, London 2006
5:4Bristol New Music
Desiring Progress Collection of links only
NewMusicBox
Purposeful Listening (né The Rambler)
Resonance FM
Sequenza 21
Sound and Music
Talking Musicology defunct, but retained
