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Archives for: "June 2022"

Good Pharma

Thu 30th June 2022

One advantage of pulling a trolley backwards down a train is having a vantage point from which one can angle into women's frontages, and to see what everyone's doing on their computers and phones; so I slowed down as I passed a Fellow of the Royal… more »

12 comments »

Car Park Art

Sat 18th June 2022

The company I now work for is a bit of a shambles in the way that they start new recruits. Emails go unanswered, and I had to wrestle from them my schedule for the first week. As I was trying to unload my trolley from the train yesterday (making a hash… more »

5 comments »

Nothing to see here

Tue 7th June 2022

My brother, knowing I am soon to be working in the only country that'll have me -- Wales -- sends me a touchingly unnecessary present of a Teach Yourself Welsh paperback from 1960. By Lesson 21, I should be able to say in Welsh "I was not playing piano… more »

4 comments »

I flip my last burger today

Wed 1st June 2022

My last day at work today before I return to my natural habit, the railway. Some of the more advanced culinary techniques demanded in the role are beyond me. The other day it took me seven eggs to crack one without breaking the yolk. My slovenly bosses… 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: "June 2022"

Good Pharma

Car Park Art

Nothing to see here

I flip my last burger today

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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