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Archives for: "March 2021"

Five and seven

Thu 25th March 2021

Last weekend, Mel suggested her coming over and staying for two nights. "We could relax a bit more." I smilingly acceded to the suggestion for as long as she could see my face, then let it unmask into worry in the kitchen. Is it now that the little… more »

7 comments »

I could have done that

Thu 18th March 2021

I left work at The Big House last night, and walked along quiet residential streets to get my bus, strongly conscious of my privilege in worrying far less than the women I saw (and quietly tried to avoid), who were engaged in the same blameless activity… more »

9 comments »

Is that a normal man?

Mon 1st March 2021

Ah-ha! Finally worked out how to get the internet on the rather complicated router-clock-intercom-VoIP phone contraption in my new flat. I moved in on Wednesday. The removal man was called Mr Stent, so I was worried he'd have a heart attack as he… more »

13 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 2021"

Five and seven

I could have done that

Is that a normal man?

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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