Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve
I took toffees to the office and got in the way of a building surveyor. A Sikh with brown gunk in his moustache wished me a happy Christmas and asked for money for a charity. I was late and burpy from soup.
I saw a prawn cracker in the shape of a duck on the pavement. A grey condom with a knot in it. Coloured paperclips. Broken orange car indicator plastic. An empty pen ink cartridge. A small woman with thin, flat hair and big eyes and gold cog jewellery, walking, barely moving forward, staring at the ground, opening a packet of Silk Cut.
There’s always blood on the street outside the Pepper Pot pub.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Face ache
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Subfusc
I wondered why I am always peering into dark lakes half hoping to see a body.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Neophyte
Friday, November 04, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
Workbound
At the sharp corner of Deal Street and Hanbury, the bin men meet the street sweepers. Brooms and shovels clipped to the sides of their lorries pass within a whisker and I wonder if they are rivals.
A lad in a Royal Mail van shouts “’ello gorgeous!” out of his window and waves at me with a cheeky, fat grin. I know him from years ago so it doesn’t really count. I can’t remember his name.
There’s stencilled graffiti on the cream wall of the Bank of Islam “I love flat D”. The musical note or dream accommodation? I am staring at the billboard poster advertising the new iPod Nano trying to decide if the model was chosen for having a gigantic hand.
The lights inside the Post Office are on but the door’s locked, causing great consternation out front. A lopsided woman in pale blue, with telephone pole legs and a wheeled tartan shopping bag, is twittering incomprehensibly to an oval brickie wearing thin metal-framed glasses squashed to his forehead just above his eyebrows.
On Hooper Street, I hear someone sniff but can’t see another living soul.
The fire alarm is rattling at Magenta House. Hundreds of suits stand in clumps outside the building, smoking urgently and trying to work out if they are cold or not. The bells stop and a murmur of staff make their way back indoors with practised sullenness.
A short pink guy in bright stripes, draws hard on the last of his fag butt and gently throws it into the road with a long smooth movement of shoulder, never taking his eyes off the remnant of his smoke. He sighs deeply and turns around to climb, very slowly, the steps into his office.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Cusp by Robin Robertson
still there in the walk,
a woman’s poise in her slow
examination
of the brightly coloured globe, this
toy of the world.
Is there anything
More heartbreaking than hope?
Friday, September 02, 2005
Friday, July 29, 2005
Poem of the Week
One of the most begrudging avian take-offs
is the heron’s “fucking hell, alright, alright,
I’ll go to the garage for your cigarettes”
cranky departure, though once they’re up
their flight can be extravagant. I watched
one big spender climb the thermal staircase,
a calorific waterspout of frogs
and sticklebacks, the undercarriage down
and trailing. Seen from antiquity
you gain the Icarus things; seen from my childhood
that cursing man sets out for Superkings,
though the heron cares for neither as it struggles
into its wings then soars sunwards and throws
its huge overcoat across the earth.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Monday, July 11, 2005
London "post 7/7"
Friday, July 08, 2005
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Friday, June 24, 2005
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Trying not to anthropomorphise
In other animal news, Poodle caught a bird last night. His first. An ickle sparrow that was still twitching as “Murdering” Murphy rushed towards the garden door to the flat. I managed to shut it just in time but then spent a very uncomfortable hour as Poo toyed gleefully with his prey on the deck before disappearing with Tip. When they returned they were both licking their lips and paws and seemed a whole lot older and wilder than before.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
38
Stuff makes me happy.
My mostkin, my everythingness. Mum, TC, Minnie, Madge, Tip Little and Poodle Murphy. The fish. Tom Waits. The garden. Ben. Aary. Jack. My camera. Our new hall floor. Chalk pastels. Wearing black. Chinese with Jobi. Ray Winstone. White wine. Kodo drummers. Gemma. Kandinsky. Barbeques in Paddocks Lane. Galway. Jesse’s leopard. Mint jelly. Withnail and I. Short Cuts. The Cote d’Azur. Mark Brown. Jolie Holland. Tucson Zoo. Scars. Honeysuckle. Silver. Stained glass. Climbing Croagh Patrick. Fairy lights. Yellow. Geek Love. Art shops. Chillies. The Raindog Nation. Couscous. Ted. Dad’s mulled wine. Chagall. Jeff Buckley. Drinking Merlot in the kitchen with Ian and Dom. Solveig. Chanel sunglasses. Brick Lane. Velvet. Where the Wild Things Are. The Guardian. Thunder. Steve Buscemi. Picasso. Pinstripe. Poppy fields. The Sihn Lee. The Chimp. John’s Yorkshire Pudding Game. Walking Holly. Rocket. Our Tom Waits’ wall. Coffee. Shopping with Kitty. Bone Machine. Roath. Clean bedding. Hot chocolate. Cary Grant. Berlin. Louis de Bernieres. John Lurie. Hettie’s chicken. Flying. Gin and grapefruit juice. Phil’s mercury dustbin. The Morgan Arms. Hog & Andy. Dilbert. Manhattan. Mull. Rain. Whalerider. The Times Literary Supplement. Beer and postcards. Shaved heads. Portraits. La Wally. Walking the Malvern Hills. Tattoos. Dandelions. Football. Irish pubs. Tarka Dall. Spitalfields Market. Meeting Anders and Peter in the Tiergarten. Orange roses. Springsteen. Eddie Izzard. The Mediterranean. Tulips. Asparagus. Deadwood. Bats. Water. Birthday parties. Loving. Being loved. Laughing. Living.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Lunacy
It turns out that the radio had not been maliciously tampered with. The dial had not been accidentally nudged. My beloved husband had not, of course, sabotaged my early morning listening. Moreover, he was not actually directly responsible for the 24 hour strike by 11,000 BBC journalists and technicians which resulted in the radical changes to programming and thus my numpty confusion.
I apologised when I realised what a feckless imbecile I had been but still it was not a good way to start the week.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Baishakhi Mela
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Tentless encampments
So, it has been a bit of a strange week.
Today, I overheard a scruffy man with too many teeth say to a woman dressed all in black velvet, “How was I to know it would be full of hair?”
Yesterday, in our decidedly urban garden, a smatter of leaves landed on my head. I looked up and was somewhat surprised by the undercarriage of a rusty grey squirrel.
On Sunday, instead of asking if I needed any help, the assistant manager in a shoe shop vacuumed around my feet. Her colleague tried, unsuccessfully, to find the other half of the sandals I wanted to buy. He called Hoover Girl over to the storage shelves to help search and she told him he was “a useless twat”.
On Saturday, I dreamt about hedgehogs and rain tanks and rooms without walls.
On Friday, I received a text message from
On Thursday, I asked a group of job candidates to do a presentation about themselves, which included naming their favourite film. One lad had chosen the movie Seven and illustrated this on a flip chart by drawing a (crap) picture of a severed head in a box. I won’t be inviting him back for a second interview.
On Wednesday, I received a cheque from the solicitors dealing with my uncle’s estate. I thought I’d be thrilled to get this unexpected boost to my finances but I just felt sadder than ever. I have heard people claim this before - and never really fully understood it - but I can honestly say I would give back all the money in a heartbeat to spend just one more day with him.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Niece and nephews
There’s masses of pink blossom in drifts all over the tarmac outside our building. Ben, aged 5, inspects the area and says, “It’s nice around here. Like a wedding.”
Aaryanna, aged 2, stands in the doorway with her little muddy coat on, hood up. She has a woollen scarecrow doll under her arm and is ready to leave. She watches her brothers walk away, to go home to a different town, to their different Mum and starts to cry, “I miss my boys.”
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Downtown
Tonight the sandstone steeple of the nursery looks starched against the pale blue sky above Shadwell. A flat up and down ironing board of a man with a tonsure and tassels of coarse brown hair combed forward to his eyes and ears stands outside the old Mercury building, hands on hips, surveying the drug rehab centre opposite.
This is where the Battle of Cable Street was fought in 1936, when the good people of
Two silver cyclists, all angry helmet and Lycra, bump over a discarded shoe sole. A madman bobs his head by the Doner kebab sign and tries to direct the traffic. Plastic carrier bags are stuck to the pavement by patches of rain, reminding us that this is April, not
And here now canvassers for the ‘Respect’ party tell the Muslim electorate not to vote for local Member of Parliament Oona King, a black woman, because she is Jewish.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Ducks in a row
My head is being pounded and disturbed by the weird and the woeful. A man in
My heart is on a big wheel soaring up above the lights of the fair until I go over the rise again and sink slowly down into the dark of the greasy, clanging machinery.
There’s a little blue and yellow striped school tie with grubby neck elastic lying on its back in the gutter next to a broken plastic fork on
Leaving work, full of muddle and grief, I heard birdsong on the staircase and I don’t know how when there are no windows and the concrete and bricks of the office are flanked by more concrete and bricks of more offices and roads thick with diesel and commuter commotion. But there it was. Tweeting and warbling. Filling out all the crushed space in my chest with primal joy and colouring the empty magnolia walls with paradise.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Friday, April 08, 2005
Airports
No one really wanted to be arriving back in the UK at that time of on a Saturday night. We ached to be home on the sofa with a glass of wine and a bunch of happy memories. But as Tom Waits so rightly says, “if it’s worth the going, it’s worth the ride” so I dug deep to find the patience to enjoy the final leg of the journey.
I was panicking a little bit about the retrieval of our bags. We had suffered a small delay by being in a long non-EU passport queue for immigration control, on account of Matt being a Johnny foreigner and all that. I snuck him through with me though (oh the irony of demanding priority attention for the man in the wheelchair, who was actually the only passenger able to queue whilst sitting down… I didn’t notice us getting any dirty looks but I bet there were some) and rushed to Carousel 2 which was heaving and grinding its way around its own bends endlessly. I waited for a while, staring at nothing, shifting from foot to foot, rather grubby, increasingly eager to get to bed.
There was a tannoy announcement to say that the luggage from the Malaga flight would now be coming out on Carousel 2 as well. Passengers from genteel Nice convulsed and shrank as the lumpen masses swarmed towards the conveyer belt.
A woman standing near me, who had – by definition – just returned from a foreign holiday (in the French fucking Riviera no less), who was obviously well-dressed, who was with friends and/or family, who was well-spoken (and presumably educated to a reasonable level), who looked healthy, who was clearly not starving or being bombed or tortured, this woman actually had the nerve to say out loud, “This must be what hell is like”.
I have said many, many such stupid tasteless offensive things in my middle class life but that did not stop me from despising her with every fibre of my hypocritical sleepy being.
I befriended the beleaguered father next to me. We had spotted him in the French departure lounge and joked about him being tranqued to obliviland in order to deal with the stresses and strains of having five rambunctious children. He and his wife appeared to be very indulgent parents putting up with all kinds of shenanigans from their brood. In person he was more pleasant than I had expected, although I did cringe inside when he encouraged one of his daughters – who looked about ten – to try to work out the speed at which the belt was moving so that she could calculate the distance it would travel in one rotation. It was nearly midnight, for fuck’s sake! As the time dragged on, it became clear to me that this poor guy was hanging on by a thread. Completely worn out, struggling to keep his wriggly family in one place, worried about leaving bags behind, concerned that his children were tired, as desperate to get home as the rest of us and all the while he was determined not to get grumpy. So, my heart went out to him when his little girl looked up at his wan, puffy face and said, “Daddy, what’s a world war?”
Thursday, April 07, 2005
A dedication
Jez is quite handsome and always dresses immaculately.
Jez tries to be cool and show off about carrying condoms but he muddles up his slang and calls them ‘jimmies’ instead of ‘johnnies’.
Jez once got whiplash when someone flicked a raisin at his forehead.
Jez recently explained away the strange fridge odour by telling the entire office that it was down to his ‘salami deodorant’.
Jez needs constant attention.
Jez can eat six inch long cream cakes in one mouthful.
Jez had an Uncle Pod and an Auntie Vim.
Jez sent me the only text I got on the day of my godfather’s funeral, saying that he hoped things would go as well as could be expected.
Jez shakes constantly. He blames the caffeine but is quietly terrified that he has Parkinson’s.
Jez doesn’t get drunk, he gets ‘sloshed’. He uses words like ‘twerp’ and reads first edition romantic literature in the noble savage tradition.
Jez fancies Sandra Bullock and listens to Boney M.
Jez went out with Dorothy a couple of times. On their first date, she announced in the pub that she didn’t want to drink her pint because she thought the bar staff were trying to poison her. Instead of dismissing her as being totally doolally, he offered to swap drinks and let her have his pint, which touched her beyond words.
Jez has mental health support needs that I am not qualified to work with. I think he may have Asperger’s Syndrome.
Jez’s Mum died when he was little. He makes jokes about it but misses her terribly everyday. His computer passwords are always variants of her name.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Nice
Planning the trip with our dear friend Jobi, we all agreed on some basic requirements:
Being able to have a drink outside without freezing
Being able to roll around without having to resort to cabs or public transport
Being somewhere photogenic
And Nice delivered all that and more by the shedload. What a gorgeous, surprising place it is. Full of art and energy and all the best things about France.
Some of my photos are here in the Cote d’Azur gallery.
Now that we are back, I am trying to get organised to write a bit more regularly. Apologies for all the big gaps, if there is anyone out there still visiting Thunderglades.
Damn my whorish highly-paid day job with its constant and unreasonable demands.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Balls
It was bad enough having four mental cats trotting around after me all morning, demanding food, which they weren’t allowed in advance of the operation. Then there was the anxiety over the very questionable sturdiness of the cat basket; there were parking dramas and payment problems - the vet, who sounds like Morgan Freeman, wanted the money up front but all the cashpoints were busted up. I had to traipse the length of the Bethnal Green Road. By the time I got the fat wodge of cash and made it back to the surgery, Tip and Poodle were shaking like little black velvet sacks of terrifiedness. When the vet said, “You won’t forget to pick them up, will you?” I nearly burst into tears. Yeah, like I won’t be worrying about them every minute all day.
I do feel a bit bad for the kitten boys that when we first all got in the car to drive up to there, the Tom Waits song that just happened to be playing was “I Know I’ve Been Changed”. I wonder how long it will be before I can listen to that again without thinking of cat castration…
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Old Peculiar
A shadow fell over us and we looked up to see Jez, The Mighty R standing next to my desk, holding an open black folder and a pen.
“I’ve already started writing the ticket – it’s not my problem, love!”
Kitty and I stared at each other, confused and a little frightened. Just as I opened my mouth to ask what the fuck he was talking about, he continued (quite forcefully), “Just pay the fine and appeal later.”
Turns out he wanted to be a traffic warden for the day.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Brizzle
We went to the zoo, where they have blue frogs the size of a teaspoon scoop. There were lions but some chavette was banging on the glass.
Her mate squawked, “What yer fuckin' doin’, Kels?”.
“Oim just tryin’ get ‘im a look at me!” shrieked Kels, manoeuvring her kid’s pushchair violently.
I thought I would be disappointed that there weren’t more of the larger animals but there was a wonderful time to be had looking at all the little creatures in Twilight World, the Insect House, the Reptile House, the Aviary, the Aquarium …
We arrived excitedly at the otter enclosure – firm faunal favourites with us all – but the cute little beasties were nowhere to be seen. Just as we were about to walk away, one scampered out with something white in its mouth. A second otter emerged, also carrying some white booty, which turned out to be rat. Our group watched in horror as the otters proceeded to tear the rodents limb from limb. They started by biting off the feet and then chewed their heads until the skin came away. Next came the evisceration. The dark red insides of the rats opened up and organs slipped out over dirty wet white fur onto the rocks. As we ogled, dumfounded at the brutality of the natural world, a family with small children approached the enclosure and the adults joined us in looking aghast. The kids of course pressed their faces to the glass and stared blankly, confirming - without question - my assertion that all youngsters these days are utterly desensitised to death and gore (due to the bifurcate evils of TV and video games, obviously).
I had the idea that otters only ate fish but the keeper told us they will take down a seagull, if it happens to stray into their pen on the scavenge.
All in all though, it was a lovely outing with some hilarious moments:
Gem: “Oh, oh! Look at those torpedo speedo things!
John: “Gemma! They’re PENGUINS!!”
And there were pockets of magic… like walking through tunnels underwater whilst the seals swam upside down above us; like miniscule toads kissing each other a dozen times; like the leaf-cutter ants making fungus farms; like the beetles that shone like Moorish jewels; like the Picasso fish; like the Postman Butterfly which feeds sometimes on the salty tears of alligators; like just being with best friends in the thin February sunshine, on a freezing cold day, laughing.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
I'm blaming the planets
At lunchtime I fell down the stairs. It was my own fault - I was writing something in my Moleskine and stepped down onto the landing about three stairs higher than the landing actually was. My fall was broken partly by the side of my face, which is now throbbing like a bastard, and my bosoms. I smashed into the handrail, twisted my ankle and produced a delicate snot bubble in my left nostril all in one ungainly swoop. Luckily, I managed to stop myself from crying with the pain and humiliation by thinking how amusing it must have looked on the CCTV cameras. But, on arrival at the ground floor, it was really no surprise to find that our ludicrously crap security guard Keith had missed the whole thing because he was rearranging the contents of the charity snack tray on the reception desk. Feeling decidedly shaky, I went for a walk by the canal and along Wapping Lane. As I came through the gate of the graveyard, a spooky woman leaning against a gigantic window in Gun Wharf waved at me as if we were old friends. There was almost a pile-up outside the office as a bus (the slinky kind that Matt so dislikes) careered down the wrong side of the road trying to get into the right turn lane. The oncoming cars screeched to a tyre-smoking halt and cacophonised while the bus driver indicated his contempt for the pint-sized vehicles in his path by doing spastic octopus impressions and cursing silently, or so it seemed from where I was rooted to the spot, horrified that - for once - I empathised with a BMW driver.
Somehow I got back to the office in one piece, where I now sit with bruised boobs and an aching jawbone. Everyone has gone to a party. There’s just the humming of the printers, the occasional siren from the Highway and the heavy pressing quiet of a room suddenly empty.
Monday, February 21, 2005
The Day Today
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Pushing an elephant upstairs
Steve Wright’s Big Quiz, Radio 2
Wright: How many days are there in five weeks?
Contestant: Don’t know.
Wright: Give it a guess.
Contestant: Sixty.
BBC Radio Devon
Presenter: Name the artist born in 1776 in East Bergholt, Suffolk whose paintings include The Hay Wain and Chain Pier, Brighton?
Contestant: Van Gogh.
The Weakest Link, BBC2
Anne Robinson: Mount Everest is in the autonomous Chinese region of Tibet and which other country?
Contestant: Nicaragua.
And from MoreFM, Christchurch, New Zealand
Presenter: What’s another name for Cosa Nostra?
Contestant: Ummmm…. Amnesty International?
And while I am at it… here are some choice picks from Pseuds Corner:
“I have no quarrel with Einstein.” Simon Jenkins, The Times
“These South African wines embody the spirit of reconciliation.” Roger Scruton, New Statesman
“Sideways is beautifully written, terrifically acted; it is paced and constructed with such understated mastery that it is a sort of miracle…. Audiences at the screenings where I have been present may have heard something like a fusillade of gunshots from the auditorium; it was the sound of my heart breaking into a thousand pieces.” Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
Monday, February 14, 2005
Lapis Lazuli
And a tanned, tattooed Tony Blackburn, in bed with a man.
Our garden was full of cheeky rats.
My head pounds, ringed with sweat
Cracked with dehydration.
I thought that my house had a sand bottom,
But apparently it is easier to make room in my heart
For the things I fear
Than for something that doesn’t even yet
Have a name.
We are coming ever closer.
My hectic splashes
Running off the edges
Over a beautiful, bright background of you.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Decidedly under the weather
Friday, February 11, 2005
Who fucking cares?
Actually, the best laugh I have had out of this whole Charles and Camilla thing was listening to John Prescott on Radio 4 this morning. Ed Stourton asked him what he thought about the royal engagement and Prescott replied, “I think it’s a good thing – it means Charles will have less time for fox-hunting”.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
In the neighbourhood
A cruddy Tupperware box has been ditched with some old clothes on a chair by the bins. Inside is a half-eaten brown bread sandwich.
A group of middle-aged black women cackle infectiously and talk over each other on Underwood Road before heading in to work in the social services family centre.
An egg-sized growth protruding from the thin hair of a young man begs me to stare at it on the Commercial Road.
People have their hoods up, shoulders hunched into the wind, umbrellas out. The windows of the Codfather fish and chip shop have steamed up.
A lass checks her Hijab in the silver cracked windows of an old pub.
Two policemen patrol the streets on tall, beautiful chestnut mares. The men have luminous yellow jackets and flashing red lights on ankle bands. A gang of 15 or so Asian teenagers yell abuse and make noises to scare the horses. “TOSSERS”,“FUCKING CUNTS”, “WANKERS”. The police pretend to ignore them, muttering to each other to save face. Farther down the street someone opens their front door high up in the block of flats to shout “PIGS” before going back inside.
A sign in the barbershop window advertises the special price of £5.50 for something undisclosed. The 50 is written very, very small.
Outside the Post Office, a sleek Mercedes with blacked-out windows idles on double yellow lines.
A white-haired man coughs long and hard at the top of a tall ladder. His paint can wobbles.
A fat man leans against the park railings laughing into his mobile phone.
One of the local street drinkers hurries down Backchurch Lane. His straggly white beard is ginger-streaked with nicotine.
I walk past a short, stocky man who has worked on the markets in Whitechapel for 40 years, pushing carts and goods around for the stallholders. For as long as I can remember, he was always seen with his dog, a huge shaggy German shepherd. Now outside his council flat he wears a donkey jacket and a woolly hat. He is flustered and in a high pitched voice shouts at the ground where his pet used to be, “I keep not being able to find you! I don’t want to have to fucking worry about you”. He shakes and shuffles in tiny steps and is fighting back tears.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
A Happy Anniversary
I phoned my Mum from Heathrow (in one of those I-might-die-in-a-plane-crash-and-I-want-to-say-a-proper-Goodbye-and-I-love-you-just-in-case moments) and she was very outwardly calm, bless her. She asked me (casually), “So how well do you know this bloke you are going all the way to America to meet?” “Oh, we go back centuries”, I explained (casually), convinced that would reassure her.
In retrospect, I can hardly believe that I flew 6,000 miles to take a vacation in the desert with a strange man that I had met on the internet, but at the time it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
I befriended a British actor during the flight, a warm, fascinating man called Tom Lockyer. He was rather charmed by my story of falling in love with Matt and before we each drifted off towards Passport Control in Los Angeles, he gave me a hug and wished me all the best. Back in London a few weeks later, I tracked Tom down through Spotlight and wrote to tell him that it had been a delight to talk with him and that everything had gone perfectly with Matt. He emailed me straight away and said that he had actually been in the arrivals area when I came through the gate. He had seen that very first moment when Matt spotted me, grinned and rolled towards me with a single red rose on his lap. Tom wrote: “I'm so happy and feel very privileged to have been there to witness such an amazingly romantic meeting. I wanted to cheer, but didn't!”
Of course, I only had eyes for my baby and hadn’t noticed Tom so it was a bit weird to find out afterwards that we had been observed but it made the surreal more real as well.
The holiday was magical in a million ways, 11 blissful days in Palm Springs, until I had to come home. I have no idea how I managed to make it down the walkway to the plane, knowing that it would be at least another two years until I could see my man again. And some days I still find it hard to believe that he is really here in London, in our flat, just a short walk or a phone call away and that he is the last thing I see before I sleep and the first thing I see in the morning and I can cuddle my beloved all night, every night.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Sunday, February 06, 2005
History is just one fucking thing after another
Bennett wrote up a very entertaining diary of his year in the Times Literary Supplement in January. Here are a couple of entries…
April 22nd
An absurd direction from the ENO management requesting all employees at the Coliseum to cease from calling each ‘darling’ and indeed from touching one another at all or using other terms of endearment.
News of this is gleefully received at the National Theatre where copies of the directive are given to everybody arriving at the stage door and announcements over the tannoy take on a husky intimacy. ‘Sweethearts. Could we have two of those delightful electricians to the stage of the Cottesloe. Hurry, hurry, hurry. A bientot.’
October 11th
Stephen Page (Faber) and Andrew Franklin (Profile Books) come round to take delivery of the manuscript of Untold Stories, a collection of diaries and other memoirs which they are about to publish jointly next September. It’s in a big box file with some of the stuff in manuscript and the rest as printed in the London Review of Books. Opening the box Andrew remarks that it’s a long time since he’s seen one of these, manuscripts nowadays generally coming in the form of a floppy disc. For my part I hope they don’t notice the smear of jam on the box, the odd grease spot and even the faint odour of milk, a consequence of the manuscript being put regularly in the fridge for safekeeping whenever we go away. I used to keep my manuscripts in boxes on the floor of the kitchen but about twenty years or so ago I had a burst boiler which flooded the kitchen and ruined half of them. I told Miss Shepherd, then living in her van, of this disaster. 'Oh dear,' she said mustering what she could in the way of fellow-feeling. 'What a waste of water.'
Monday, January 31, 2005
Stinky Face
"You're gay!" shouted one to the other, as they tussled in a violent heap on the sofa. "Yeah, well you're a lesbian!" retorted Nephew #2. When pressed to explain himself, he informed us that a lesbian is "someone who loves someone else".
It was a great weekend. We went bowling and ate chocolate cake and listened to Max Boyce records and drew monsters and laughed a lot.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Charlie Romeo Alpha Papa
So I was intrigued when someone wrote into the Notes & Queries section in the Guardian in December and asked about the words we use to spell out names over the phone. The original questioner mentioned T for Tom, A for Apple and D for Dog (old RAF usage, I believe) and wondered if there is an official alphabet.
One reply came from a smartarse called Robert Bassett, London, SW12.
“If someone asks for the spelling of my name in this fashion, I always use the following system: R for Robert, O for obert, B for bert, E for ert, R for rt, T for t.”
(I don’t actually believe that he goes through this whole process because “rt” would be very hard to pronounce. But then maybe he is very good at rolling his rs.)
It was the second reply that tickled me though. From David Clarke, Morden, Surrey:
“What about those conversations when you need to go through the motions of appearing communicative – for example, calls to the Inland Revenue? My alternative phonetic alphabet includes C for csar, P for psychiatry and T for Tchaikovsky. The following prompt an interesting reaction: Aesop, Csar, Django, Eiderdown, Gnocchi (Gnome?), Hors d’oeuvres, Jalapeno (Jojoba?), Knocker (Kneel?), Llanelli, Mnemonic, Neil, Psychiatrist, Qatar, Syzygy, Tchaikovsky, Wringer (Whore?), Xylene, Zyster. But I’m struggling for B (Bdelloid?), F (Final? – see V), I (Iannic?), O (Oolite?), R?, U (Urchin?) and V (Vinyl). And what about Y?”
Monday, January 24, 2005
Complex mathematical formulae
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Friday, January 21, 2005
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Obloquy
I once read something about how honest, genuine homeless people do understand if you don’t want to or can’t afford to give them money but they do not want to be ignored. They hate feeling invisible. Generally, I don’t give money on the street as charities like Crisis urge the public not to but at the same time I do not want to be rude.
So I shook my head and said, in the nicest, sincerest way I could, “Sorry mate”.
To which the beggar replied, “Are you a lesbian?”
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Insanity has 70 gates
It is miserable having no energy whatsoever and yet being bored to tears from doing absolutely nothing for a fortnight. Thank Christ for Celebrity Big Brother. It puts me in mind of something Julie Burchill said about psychiatrists. Quoting NME’s Ian Penman, “ Shrinks are so called because they attempt to shrink the magnificent sewer of the human mind”. She went on: “They leave you as a sausage machine of bite-sized second hand opinions. You might not be sick any more but I bet you’re not interesting either.”
She also said that she met Tracey Emin and thought she was lovely until her cats started writing letters to Burchill’s cats, saying “My mum’s a bit tired today, how’s your mum feeling?” I might get Minnie and Madge to start writing to Redmond and Bianca. Although Minnie is too lazy. And too busy staring.