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No polish
My daughter Fiona and I went off to the park and had a painful time gathering nettles for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's nettle soup recipe. We wore gloves but Lancaster nettles are hard bastards. We came back with over a pound of them rather than the six ounces we required. The resulting soup was earthy and a bit bland. Plenty of it left over to labour through.
This afternoon Fiona, Jenny and I walked up Warton Crag, a beautiful striated limestone outcrop of old, unkempt woods teeming with flitting, plant and unseen life. At the top it was clear enough to see Blackpool Tower--which I know doesn't advertise the place very well.
Below us, Morecambe Bay was spread out in shades of flatness; you could see how close humans have dared or needed to live close to flooding and seawater, and the sands which layer the corpses of humans (and horses), some caught out by the treacherous unseen quicksand channels of the Keer and the Kent, the most dangerous of the Lake District streams which feed into it; some by the tide and staying in the pub too long before setting off; and latterly, people who had never seen the sea before being commanded by Chinese gangmasters to gather cockles.
We came back down into the village and its main pub, The George Washington. George Washington's grandfather, who emigrated to Virginia as a child, was born in Warton. Someone I didn't recognise introduced himself, knowing my name and saying that we used to work together at a restaurant. I pretended I had had the recollection which never came.
The landlord, who was wearing an enamel England flag on his lapel, chimed in univited into our conversation with "It's all a load of rubbish. Don't believe any of it. He emigrated to avoid all the Polish people coming over here." I went back to the children, ashamed that I'd laughed along with it.
I send an email about nettle stings to the French woman, and asked her out for a drink.
"[...]I'm not sure you're quite my 'type' not that I have one. I reckon we would have a right giggle but it wouldn't go further for me I'm afraid."
I assume this means "Based on your pictures, I don't fancy you."I like her honesty, but am a little disappointed that she wouldn't base that assessment on at least one face-to-face meeting.
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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
