Wed 19th October 2022

My new rail pass continues to afford first class journeys. I wanted to go to Glasgow for a house music night at which a friend was DJing. "Go and sit in Coach J," the guard said.

Stepping over bodies as though working my way through an air raid shelter, I came to rest in the expensive saloon, with the ubiquitous American tourists unashamedly displaying a full sock, lugging suitcases the size of wardrobes, and people charging it to the firm. The usual return fare is £205, so Mel couldn't come, but I enjoyed being on a dancefloor by myself a long way from home, all the well-dressed women -- a serendipitous consequence of being into house music.

I came out at half past three onto the still lively streets of Glasgow, and went to a little Lebanese place with several other chatty, drunken and drugged people. I joined a long queue for a taxi, and a driver picked me up in front of everyone else. "You made eye contact," he said, as way of explanation.

At the unlit door of my airbnb however, I couldn't see the numbers on the key safe which I had to align correctly in order to get the key. Just as I was despairingly looking down at the thin little mat outside the tenement's door, trying to imagine it as a bed, I happened by complete chance to enter the correct combination out of the ten thousand possible.

A few days later, in Wethers, I bumped into a couple of former colleagues from my previous job on the railway, from which I was dismissed under an alcoholic cloud. Several months ago, Dave had promised me that he had never said a word to anyone about the reason for my sudden exit. As I was bringing our round out to our table, I caught the tail end of a sentence: "...it's OK, he's got a second chance." Part of me was irritated that he had spilt the beans, but there are no secrets on the railway.

In a public toilet, I impress another man. An elderly man looks across at me. "I wish I could piss like you. Look at that, pouring out. I have to imagine waterfalls, and then I only get a little bit out. I'll be back here in five minutes."

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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

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I provoke envy in a public toilet

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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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