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Archives for: "March 2019"

Down and Out in Bristol and London

Sat 16th March 2019

The work in the cafe is demanding. Not sitting down once, hauling heavy yard-wide trays of crockery about and sweating over an industrial dishwasher. I don't want this to last long. It's too physically demanding at my advanced age -- although I'm not… more »

10 comments »

Communion

Wed 6th March 2019

I start in the cafe on Monday; these are the last days. Saturday night, and the pub is very busy. I quickly squat an empty table, much to the displeasure of one of the two men who come back to reclaim their post. I recognise that my main work, in what I… more »

7 comments »

Turning Japanese

Fri 1st March 2019

There's something I've not been telling you. I got the sack. After meeting Kirsty and our girls in Manchester on 8th January for her birthday, I stayed at hers and got the early train back to Bristol, where I was starting work at 4.30pm. I got back in… more »

4 comments »

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

M / 60 / 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

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Archives for: "March 2019"

Down and Out in Bristol and London

Communion

Turning Japanese

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

Rummage in my drawers

The Comfort of Strangers

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

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