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The last resort
It's nine o'clock in the evening and tomorrow I've got to go to work for the first time in eight months.
In order of preference, the jobs I wanted were 1) the trolley dolly job, up and down on the train between here and Leeds, 5-day weekends every other month, 30K and a rail pass; 2) cabin crew, jetting about with pissed-up guys and gals and performing the "the ridiculous cabaret" as Alan Hollinghurst put it, of the safety demonstration; and 3), as a last resort, housekeeper at the hospital. I got the last resort.
I told Mel about a time many years ago when I took my motorbike apart using a Haynes manual for guidance to try to find out why it wasn't starting. I unscrewed this and that, did what it said, put it together, and it started first time.
"So you did all that," said Mel, "but then instead of becoming a mechanic you got a degree in Philosophy, and now you're a hospital cleaner." It was funny; I didn't see it as a serious criticism.
Kim's been staying for the past five days. I won't mention yet again that she's one of the most physically desirable women I've ever met, but she wore the same blue dress that she wore when we met up in Newcastle last month, and which shows her off to such advantage.
We went round the Grade II listed 1970s Catholic cathedral, all concrete and airy, with a long arc of abstract panels along the walls, of what you think is stained glass but is actually resin (I'm not sure I know what resin is); after which we walked round Clifton, which I always forget how gorgeous it is architecturally until I see it through someone else's eyes. Not a place to live though, even if half a million dropped into my lap. They're not my people.
But mainly, we were down Wethers drinking, in which pleasantly timeless activity Mel joined us for a few times; and chatted. I made an effort with the food, including a spanokopita, the Greek filo pastry spinach and feta bake, which is very easy but looks like you've been slaving away in the kitchen for ages.
I'd better call it a night. I will be back here to moan about my wage-slavery, sexual frustration and borderline alcoholism soon.
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looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person
M / 61 / 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 Defunct
Exile on Pain Street (inactive)
Fat Man On A Keyboard
gairnet provides: press of blll
George Szirtes ditto
Infomaniac [NSFW]
Laudator Temporis Acti
Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder
On The Rocks (inactive)
The Most Difficult Thing Ever (inactive)
Quillette
Strange Flowers
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
Purposeful Listening (né The Rambler)
Resonance FM
Sequenza 21
Sound and Music
Talking Musicology defunct, but retained
