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Chilly, with a widespread frost

  Thu 26th April 2012
To the local Organic Seaweed Gatherers' and Ethical Lentil Sifters' Social Club for a night of Slovenian poetry from Agata Tr no search engines oja, who is in the UK for a week with an Anglo-Slovenian Cultural Association.

We walked into the tiny room to see a dozen murmuring Slovenians. They are good starers. The teenage girl at the front, was especially relentless in her examination.

Finally the event got under way: Agata read in Slovenian first before the man from the Cultural Association read the translations. Afterwards, the Lancastrians acquitted themselves poorly. Our party--all except me published writers--sat rigidly, without asking any questions, so it was left to me (yet again--this happens all the time) to enquire about the poetry scene in Slovenia, the difficulties of the many dialects in the country, and her itinery.

The room descended into silence again. I pointedly looked at the man sitting next to me, a man who has won a fairly important poetry prize, and tilted my head. "Look, could you pretend, for one minute, that you're not Northern, and actually ask her something?" With chatty grace she finally dragged a few words out of him, even if it was partly a misapprehension that Slovenian is a form of Serbo-Croat.

We swapped email addresses and she extended a picturesque invite to "the land between the [incomprehensible word with lots of zeds in it] and the [incomprehensible word with lots of zeds in it] Rivers", and I went home, pissed off with my fellow countrymen and women, who had just done their bit to hammer home to a foreign guest the stereotype of the taciturn, over-reserved English.

It's something especially distilled in Lancashire: even after thirty years here, I'm still sometimes taken aback with how frosty people are here when you initiate conversation. You can tell that this area was more or less cut off from the rest of the world for hundreds of years, and that the local historical claims to renown are first, executing witches, then later, clogging down the street, a mass clicking of rickets-bowed legs as we waddled off to get strangled in looms.


I am invited to the offices of Really Late, the organisation with which I have applied to do some voluntary work on reception. An amiable woman with the large head common to those who do too much running showed me round. A poster advised about "Keeping Sex Sexy." Everything went well until she said they'd have to check my criminal record. I'm not sure what's still on there.

I perked up when she said that everyone goes out for a bit of a social every few weeks, since in this kind of organisation, men are in the minority. I'm back there on Tuesday and someone will show me the ropes, although this could all end abruptly if the misunderstanding that arose after I attempted to give one of my A-level students succour comes to light.

19 comments

Comment from: isabelle [Visitor]

I know the english are stereotyped for being taciturn and uptight but in my experience folk are more forth coming and friendly oop north than they are down south.

( succour to an A level student? ….sounds intriguing )

Thu 26th April 2012 @ 13:19
Comment from: [Member]

your description of Lancashirians made me snort loudly with laughter! A bit embarrassing as i’m having breakfast alone in an airport… Brilliant.

Thu 26th April 2012 @ 13:22
Comment from: nick [Visitor]

Slovenia? Isn’t that just south of Croydon? One great plus of moving from London to Belfast is exchanging the glacial “We haven’t been introduced” standoffishness of strangers for lively egalitarian banter so forthcoming that I’m liable to not notice the bus has sailed past and have to wait another 15 minutes.

Btw, this comment box is just as complicated as the one in your link. How exactly is my URL format invalid? I’ve been using it for years.

Thu 26th April 2012 @ 16:51
Comment from: Kolley Kibber [Visitor]

People are friendly as hell where I live, provided you look as though you might be famous.

Thu 26th April 2012 @ 16:54

Just a cotton-pickin’ minute. Over the last year or so I’ve read a lot of stuff on this blog, mostly amusing or thought provoking, often a little bit silly and I suspect, not always aligned with reality as the rest of the world knows it.
But.
Slovenian f*cking Poetry???(excuse the 3 question marks, I got a bit over-excited)

I’m not an expert in poetry, far from it, I often run away as fast as I can whenever somebody breaks into iambic pentameter, and I’d rather have to sit through 20 hours of Professional f*cking Learning rather than 5 minutes of somebody reading their own poetry, especially if it is in a foreign language.
That’s the bit I really don’t understand. Listening to spoken words with some sort of rhythm makes a little sense, but when the meaning is removed by an incomprehension of the language used, then it’s just a waste of time. And then the translation?
Translated poetry just doesn’t work.

Please don’t think that I would object to anyone going to such a reading if it really existed, everyone has an intrinsic right to make as big a fool of themselves as they want to, as long as it doesn’t harm others, but as I said I doubt (and sincerely hope) it’s just a pretty little fragment of your oft-deranged imagination.

It would be interesting to see what the (That Man’s my Uncle) organisation finds out from the Criminal Records Bureau, let us know, especially about the A- Level student. I agree with isabelle, intriguing.

Thu 26th April 2012 @ 19:26
Comment from: furtheron [Visitor]

Now I’m no-one to comment since I know sod all about any poetry but is Slovenian poetry like the Vogon poetry in the Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy at all?

Thu 26th April 2012 @ 20:41
Comment from: Homer [Visitor]

I get a bit fed up of you continually slagging off Looby’s cultural choices, Twisted Scottish Bastard. It’s RUDE.

Thu 26th April 2012 @ 21:32

Homer: I know this is looby’s blog, and I don’t normally use this form to reply to other comments, but I think it may be needful in this case.

I’m not trying to be RUDE about or to looby, but when someone publishes their personal views/hobbies/world view on a blog, then it open to comment from all others. On my own blog, my choice of literature (Science Fiction/ Military Science) is frequently slagged of. It doesn’t bother me, everyone is entitled to their own opinion on these matters. I know what I like.

But while I may respect other’s rights to believe in what they may, but that doesn’t mean I have to respect the object of their views.

Similarly if someone professes a belief in an invisible supernatural entity, then I respect their right to do so, even though I personally think they’re completely daft.

I’m just having a fairly gentle dig at looby, and so far he hasn’t complained. If anyone ever thinks I’m flaming them or deliberately insulting them, then I apologise.
It’s just a bit of fun, as are most blogs.

Fri 27th April 2012 @ 00:52
Comment from: Homer [Visitor]

He did complain, a few weeks back, and you just keep doing it. Relentlessly. Almost every time he mentions something he’s done.

It is tiresome, and while I’m perfectly sure he would say something himself if he was that bothered, Looby and I go back along way and I suppose this is a case of “Oi you, leave my mate alone!” You’re a teacher too, you’ll recognise the battle-cry.

Fri 27th April 2012 @ 08:34
Comment from: [Member]

Hearing a woman speak about the things that matter to her in a literate, articulate way, in her own language, is a beautiful thing to take part in, and it’s entirely your loss TSB if you can’t appreciate that. Your huge generalisation that “translated poetry doesn’t work” is a very big statement which you are singularly unqualified to make.

The incident with the sixth former is now sufficiently remote to be passed over in silence. I’m still friends with her now.

Isabelle: Generally I’d agree with that yes. It’s just that when I came to Lancaster I wondered, after five years, how I would ever make friends. Maybe it was me.

DF: Thanks! Hope you enjoyed the flight, and what’s at the other end!

Nick: sorry about that - I don’t want to dissuade anyone from posting. If it happens again let me know (blog@[the site’s name] and I’ll try to help.

Belfast sounds a bit like Glasgow. One little difference I always notice: in Lancaster, people will leave you sitting alone at a table for four. In Glasgow, they just assume those seats are for the taking. Nice to see you here.

KK: Oooh… so accurate! You understand Lancaster’s sister city well.

Furtheron: the alliterative Lancastrian woman replied last night, asking exactly the same question. (I’ve no idea what Vogon poetry is).

Homer: Thanks. As I wrote it I thought “Someone’s not going to like this".

Fri 27th April 2012 @ 09:01

I might be wrong. I don’t think so.
BUT.
If I’ve insulted/annoyed/pissed off anyone, then I really and sincerely apologise.

That was not my intent.
I do not take anythng too seriously.

Life is far too important to be taken seriously.

If you can’t have fun, then something may be wrong.

And I know that looby has fun in spades, especially since he’s managed to get rid of Stefan.

You all realise that we’ve only got looby’s word that he moved to a different flat?

For all we know Stefan could be a pile of ashes at the bottom of the central heating furnace.

At least he’ll be nice and warm there. (Stefan that is, not looby)

Fri 27th April 2012 @ 09:56
Comment from: Kaiser Wilhelm [Visitor]

TSB: Blog comments are meant for expressing fawning acquiescence. How dare you voice independent opinions?!

Fri 27th April 2012 @ 13:56
Comment from: [Member]

Not here they’re not Kaiser. Be nice. As everyone above is.

Fri 27th April 2012 @ 15:48
Comment from: Otto von Bismark [Visitor]

Ignore the Kaiser, nobody likes him.

Fri 27th April 2012 @ 16:36
Comment from: Homer [Visitor]

Kaiser: don’t worry, they all rushed over to TSB’s blog to give him virtual fellatio.

I stand by everything I said, and I still believe that regularly visiting a blog just so you can go off on one about how you disagree with everything they like is the ultimate in bad manners. So there.

Fri 27th April 2012 @ 20:06
Comment from: [Member]

Let us draw this thread to a close now, lest it starts generating more heat than light.

Sat 28th April 2012 @ 08:49

OK

Sun 29th April 2012 @ 11:10

The flip side of this is going to an author event in New York City. Every utterance from the audience (and there are plenty) is a not-so-veiled bit of self-promotion that has nothing whatsoever to do with the author or his/her work. It’s almost as insufferable as a quiet, reserved group.

Mon 30th April 2012 @ 12:45
Comment from: [Member]

Yes. Same thing can happen in academic seminars.

Tue 1st May 2012 @ 10:24


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


M / 59 / 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.


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