Gay Nazi Sex Vicar in Schoolgirl Knickers Vice Disco Lawnmower Shock!
« Should I stay or should I goDownhill »

De bas en haut

  Mon 19th January 2015

Teaching Practice Friend got married on Saturday. A marriage always feels like losing someone, nothing to be happy about. During the service, hail showered like a bad piece of electro-acoustic music against the windows of an ordinary rural church, but cleared away for us to stand shivering on the village green for photographs for as short an interval as politeness could excuse, before we sloped off to the pub.

My friend has married into the minor landowning classes of Westmorland. We sat down with elderly dowager-looking women in grey, ruched hats, one of whom's cups runneth over like a pair of double chins in an over-optimistic dress. I caught some sour notes of complaint towards the waiting staff, pronounced with the hauteur of old money; and as they turned graciously away from feinting them, I saw the inward-breathing, get thee behind me, biting of lips, of the minimum waged staff, who showed better and quieter manners than any of the endowed ladies of The Lodge.

Luckily, me and Trina got sat next to the only other middleaged couple in the room; one of these couples who, from one fairly ordinary middle class job, have enough money to do up half a redundant primary school near Kirkby Lonsdale and to fund the woman's fannying about with what she called "worn art in felt". "What, Fuzzy Felt?" said Trina. I was glad of them though. They were our saviours.


Kirsty is down south raving, Chemical Brothers and Justin Robertson headlining, and she's booked today off for recovery. I got the girls off to school and popped back to mine to put the recycling out, such is my desire to make sure that my onion tops and beetroot peel don't end up mouldering indistinctly on a tip in Fleetwood.

On the mat was a letter with no stamp. The bailiff informs me that "I will re-attend at your premises on 23/1/15 and may REMOVE goods even in your absence. This will incur additional costs of £110.00 plus disbursements for which you may be liable ... FAILURE TO CONTACT ME WILL BE INTERPRETED AS WILFUL REFUSAL TO PAY."

I have sent them a letter. It's written in a long-practised tone, poised between politeness, a gentle indication that I am aware of the main points of bailiff law, and a hint of contrition. I wouldn't worry, except that Morgane is here now, and I'd rather her not open the door to a bailiff.

4 comments

A wedding makes you feel like you’re losing someone because you ARE. Marriage tends to be a fairly sweet deal for the bride and a lot of sacrifice for the groom. The ‘marriage trap’ metaphor has more than a little truth to it.

Your real estate issues are a constant worry for me. How will this all turn out?

Tue 20th January 2015 @ 12:13
Comment from: [Member]

Hey Exile – don’t you worry. I’ll do any worrying that needs to be done :) Everything will be OK. I am dealing with the matter, and the results will be reported here.

I just hope Teaching Practice Friend doesn’t drop me. Neither do I want her to start bringing her husband round too much, which would make it all polite. Our teaching practice was a long time ago and I hope those twenty-five years of friendship and phone calls aren’t going to come to a sudden, marital halt.

Tue 20th January 2015 @ 12:26
Comment from: Suzy Southwold [Visitor]

Exile on Pain Street - tish. Don’t tar every husband with the bitter brush.

Tue 20th January 2015 @ 18:20
Comment from: [Member]

Whether you lose the friend to marriage really depends on the friend involved, and her husband. Although not married, my current companion is quite comfortable acknowledging my older friends as ‘pre-existing conditions’, and would do nothing to stop me from spending time with them. Along the way? He’s made a few new friends…

And EoPS? Really? That’s a very traditional look at marriage… mine was nothing of the sort. My ex-husband had very few friends when we met, and i did nothing but encourage him to track down the ones he missed the most and re-connect…

Tue 20th January 2015 @ 22:44


Form is loading...

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.


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

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
Eryl Shields Ink
Exile on Pain Street
Fat Man On A Keyboard
gairnet provides: press of blll defunct, but retained for its quality
George Szirtes ditto
Infomaniac [NSFW]
The Joy of Bex
Laudator Temporis Acti
Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder
The Most Difficult Thing Ever
Quillette
Strange Flowers
Trailer Park Refugee
Wonky Words

"Just sit still and listen" - woman to teenage girl at Elliott Carter weekend, London 2006

5:4
Bristol New Music
Desiring Progress Collection of links only
NewMusicBox
The Rambler
Resonance FM
Sequenza 21
Sound and Music
Talking Musicology defunct, but retained


  XML Feeds

Open Source CMS
 

©2024 by looby. Don't steal anything or you'll have a 9st arts graduate to deal with.

Contact | Help | Blog templates by Asevo | Blog software