Savvan cants

Midnight, and the students in the street are yelling their heads off as a prelude for going out to drink themselves into desexualised miniskirts and tonguing Facebooked selfies. There's no youth cultures any more. It's us middleaged people who are the subculturists now. I wish I could move out of this area. Loud students, burka'd Muslims, a thin sellotape of politeness our flimsy bond. I'd like to live near Kirsty, where we feed each other's cats and children.

Tomorrow I'm off to a posh hotel in Glasgow with Donna. We've agreed on a No Sex rule, which doesn't mean "no sex"; it just means no rodding. I welcome this, for constraints in sex make you more inventive.

Another advantage of the Rule is that I won't have to cope again with the unpleasant surprise she gave me the other night. We'd been out dancing, both a bit pissed, I was e-ing and speeding and amorous... we got back to mine and cosied down into the futon and started snogging. She's an exciting and violent kisser who forces my mouth gapingly wide open. I find it exciting both because of the pure physical sensation and because the power relation that her way of kissing forces on me is ambiguous. I'm looking forward to more of the same tomorrow. But the other night, during a stroky wandering of my fingers, I made an unwelcome discovery: she'd shaved her cunt.

I withdrew my hand slowly. It put me right off. Why would you deprive yourself of that lovely silky, wet, glistening, slidey sensation that cunt hair affords, as you or your lover strokes and kisses and licks your cunt? I'd never, in my life, been to bed with a woman who shaves her cunt. She gets paid loads of money and is Southern, which I'm sure has something to do with it. I love the black, slippery hairs of a woman's cunt. It's part of what makes her cunt her cunt.

This afternoon we had a bit of a do upstairs at the Borough for a friend of mine who died last week. He was a member of the Communist Party and a good drinker (which is how I met him). The tables in the pub were covered with old Lancaster University magazines from the early 70s and various literary magazines in which he'd been published, but most touchingly, letters from old pupils from when he was an English teacher.

It was a good afternoon but I left wanting air. I don't want all these readings and tributes and cheese and crackers when I go. I dodged out of it for an hour and went down Wetherspoons to read a bit more of The Sea, The Sea. It's my book club choice for this month and I don't think anyone will like it.

"Norrr... not for a bit. He's brok his fucking wrist. He were trying to jump over a fence, cos then he wouldn't have to go round, and he fell, and he put his wrist out -- down -- an he's fucking brok it."