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The bailiff came round again. Unfortunately, his visit coincided with the time the postman sometimes arrives, so I opened the door. He stood there with a clipboard and a recording device and managed to get me to sign up for £25 a month, but I'll write to them saying I can only afford a tenner. I've just started a subscription to a wine club for £20 a month, and it ill befits a gentleman to spend more on his debts than he does on his wine.
There isn't much to say about my date in Manchester last night with Sally. We met up in a proper old boozer down a side street near the Town Hall, where we pushed the conversation stiffly forward for an hour, about cats and our jobs and her house renovation, until she said that she was very tired and that she'd better go. She stood up to leave and said "I'm not really getting any connection, so..." "No, me neither," I said. It sounds a bit blunt but it was amicable enough and it's best to be straightforward at the outset.
Glad to have an hour to myself, I settled down with another beautiful pint of Mancunian from Brightside Brewery in Bury, and an essay about Larkin in the LRB, relieved not to be talking about window frames and cat litter trays. I rang Kim to tell her about it, and emailed Donna, who replied "You're lovely -- there's someone out there for you. I'm sure." I also texted Trina, just to quash any hopes she might still have.
On the train back I got talking to two girls from Preston, one of whom was an actress returning from an audition for a part in a West End show. They'd already told her she hadn't got the part, so she'd done what any sensible English girl would do in that situation -- gone out on the lash with her mate.
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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
