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Morecambe 1 Newport County 0

  Mon 7th June 2021

The idea was to see Morecambe in their promotion play-off final against Newport County. I would meet the girls in London. Where and when exactly, I didn't know. But we've all got phones nowadays. My eldest had my ticket on hers.

On the bus to the station, I realised I'd left my normal phone, a reliable old Nokia with Snake on it, at my house. However, I had brought my other phone. It's the cheapest possible "smartphone" I could find when I was failing to teach Kazakh children anything. My head of department told me that everyone communicates by WhatsApp so I'd need one.

I rarely use it, so bought a SIM card for it at the station, but it wouldn't register, so on a sludgey train internet connection, I was forcing emails out to my eldest, each short text taking a disconnection and reconnection to send, trying to arrange a rendezvous.

In the meantime, friendly Newport County fans were as deprecating of their team as I was about Morecambe. We shared our drink and shook hands.

The day before, I had suggested to the girls that we meet in the Wetherspoons at St Pancras. In there, a barmaid came up to me, and said "Lubin?" "Well, looby. Why?" "Have you got three daughters going to Wembley this afternoon?" "Yes" "They'll meet you at Wembley Central."

"Thank you, thank you, that's very lovely of you!" I disconnected and reconnected again. "Barmaid's just told me where you are. Fab initiative Eldest! I'm just having some machos. I'll see you there!"

I followed it up. "Yes, I'm having some machos. They're called Rupert and Richard. I'll see you once I've finished with them."

Delighted at my eldest's initiative, I headed to Wembley Park instead. At a different station to where she said they'd be, I was frustrated and sad that I couldn't see them. At the portals of Wembley stadium, homely accents all around me, I turned away at three o'clock and walked back down the concrete avenue back to the Underground station. There was a crappy sports bar place showing the match, but the bouncer wouldn't let me in because "you have to register on the app." I pitched for sympathy, showing him my phone, aiming to stimulate a pleasure at indulging the incompetence of 50somethings, but he was unmoved.

On the train home I met Sexy Ex Boss and her husband on the train, which postponed my disconsolate feelings until I got home. They had a spare ticket to Bristol, which was a relief. I don't like risking my expired train pass on the trains of the company from which I was dismissed. I told them my tale of incompetence and disappointment. They got me my second free pint of the day.

In my flat, I found my phone, all innocent and grey, which had sat the drama out on the settee. It was showing a text from Mel saying that she supposed that I was celebrating somewhere.

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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

The Comfort of Strangers

23.1.16: Big clearout of the defunct and dormant and dull
16.1.19: Further pruning

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