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Lethality
I go to Really Late, where I work as a volunteer receptionist, trying hard to remember to say neither the name of the organisation nor my name when I answer the phone, and wondering why all the counsellors are female, 50something, and with short grey hair. It's like a Quaker meeting. Apart from 70s Pop Magazine Pin-Up Woman, with her tempting tightly jean-seamed arse switching as she walks away from me.
We have to check a folder for messages and there's one for me about my forthcoming course on Domestic Violence. It starts by apologising that although they'll provide lunch, they can't fund my travel to Leeds. "Not a problem at all," I said out loud to myself.
I like Leeds. My aborted but fascinating (for me) PhD, drunken afternoons in The Angel with Kim, staying at her house, her slapping me hard on the arm when I tried to kiss her on platform 14, then becoming a close friend; the admiration coloured with sexual attraction, that I had for my supervisor, never being able to say that it was him I was working for, not the university, or a career, or--least of all--to make "an original contribution to research". I don't think I've ever had an original idea about anything, least of all my dissertation topic. I liked the literature review, but I lost interest when I was expected to say something of my own.
The second page of my invite to Leeds is sobering. It says that counselling is not recommended in twelve instances, the first of which is where there is a possibility of "lethality". My respect for the organisation slipped a little there. Why can't they say "when there's a chance someone's going to murder someone?
"I'm glad we're both pissheads," said Trina, and then told me of some semi-clandestine work she used to do in Liverpool directing Irish girls who wanted abortions to abortion clinics. What a sad job. Abortion should be legal, free, and rare.
I like being with Trina because I don't have to think.
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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
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63 mago
Another Angry Voice
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Clutter From The Gutter
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Exile on Pain Street
Fat Man On A Keyboard
gairnet provides: press of blll
George Szirtes ditto
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Laudator Temporis Acti
Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder
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Quillette
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