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I receive thirty pounds anonymously
The invasion of Ukraine preys on my mind far more than covid ever did. If only someone could assassinate him, then his support would collapse. At work, there are two Polish women. "Of course I am worried," one of them says, in response to a well-meant but stupid enquiry. "That's why I like coming to work. No news, just concentrate on work."
Down the pub afterwards I am trying to ignore the man at the next table who looks like Jamiroquai who has a knack of following me around in two of my haunts, Castle Park and the budget pub. He's at the next table scribbling away, in between flicking between chat screens and a Wikipedia article about The Evangelical Church in Germany. He does a performance of tics, scratching his hair vigorously and conversing with some computer-based entity. I think it's a strategy to get my attention. He's possibly looking for parity with the nurses I got chatting to at the bar.
A late twenties (?) woman is repeatedly moving her hand down her hip as she stands next to me. I open with "are you trying to find your pocket?" "No, I'm just looking for something....oh, it's OK. I thought I'd lost some money."
"Do you know what," I said. "The other day, I got a letter with a North Wales postmark and I opened it and someone had sent me thirty pounds anonymously. I don't know anyone in Wales. I don't think I know a single Welsh person."
"I'm from North Wales."
"Are you? Well it was wrapped in a letter from Santander."
"I bank with Santander."
"Really?" and I made this woo sound and waved my hands about, hoping to evoke the supernatural. "Do you make a habit of sending money to anonymous strangers?"
"I haven't got it to send."
Her friend came over, and I related the story of my mystery donor to her too. "Anyway, what's the excuse, you all out on a Monday?"
"We're nurses, we all work at Fatspanner Hospital."
"Oh I used to work there. I was a cleaner."
"So what do you do now? Are you retired?"
That's a question I'd never been asked before. But they bought me a pint so they're let off.
My middle daughter returned last night to the stage in Lancaster she first trod when she was eight, this time as a professional actress, as Celia in As You Like It. Trina emails and says she is going with Kirsty and my youngest to see it on Saturday. I'm jealous. I start trying to work out a way up there and back for less than the hundred quid or so that it'd cost on the train, but got tired with all the palaver of split tickets and dodging parts of the journey where you gamble on the conductor not coming round.
2 comments
Yep, I’m far more affected by the Ukraine invasion than by Covid.
Hope you get to see your daughter.
Sx
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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
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
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
5:4Bristol New Music
Desiring Progress Collection of links only
NewMusicBox
The Rambler
Resonance FM
Sequenza 21
Sound and Music
Talking Musicology defunct, but retained
Yeah, me and Mel are going up to London to see her in May. Really wish I could be there tomorrow night in Lancaster though, with all the family except the eldest (who’s in transit between Bilbao and Dublin), and with Trina also going, whom I’d have liked to see. But just not possible with the cost of the fares.