Ouch...

So Pete & Gerry didn't make it, but the rest of them did, and boy, did I make a fool of myself (it only took one bottle of still water) - key words/phrases from the evening include 'cheap frames' and 'cervical'.

Ouch, ouch...and ouch.

Thinking: is it me, or is okcupid a little bit scary?

Day to Day

Friday: immensely flattered by beautiful 25yo lady

Today: kicking-in dancing shadows, as I scribble on quango parchment

Tonight: brought back down to earth by the Old Duffer's Club in Marlow

I just hope I can hang on til Saturday, when I see Werner Herzog on the Southbank!

Background conception: a devious little short story involving a politician

Amour? C'est très très dur!

+ve

It's good to be awake and not spaced out as I have been the past week. I'd love to have a sleep pattern that wasn't so random right now.

Gave the shiny new HB42 intake a talk. Quite pleased as I managed to get the words 'shit' and 'twat' in there. More seriously though, I do hope they got the key message that if you want to learn, it's yours.

Amazing to have managed to catch up with Gurjit after all these years. I wish I had picked up the phone (when I still remembered his home number) sooner.

-ve

I feel hungry but just don't want to cook.

I told someone I was 'serious', but while they believed me, they responded with 'I can't'. Kind of reminds me of this:

The sum of all encounters

25th September 2005

You said I didn't,
I said you wouldn't -
kind of agreed we couldn't,
for we both knew we shouldn't.

Plans: plans? Oh. Errrrrr...some episodes of UT, some studying, some sleep, some time for regrets. Etc, etc. On and on, ad nauseum.

Listening to: Mandrill, Osibisa, Cymande & Vinicius de Moraes

Thoughts for the day

Oh dear, Borlaug's dead.

Expression to use in a poem or short story - 'plastic spastic'

Thinking: if the government is participating in over 50% of the economy, do we imagine that we will create a large 'leech' economy, with companies solely created to extract cash from the government?

Well chief, it's kinda like this...

I make a point of not discussing my work in any detail on this blog, but I can admit to having developed expertise in dealing with authoritarian administrations and high levels of state intervention. But it is strange (though not entirely surprising) that my latest assignment could have been prepared for by reading large amounts of Kafka.

20 years, 11 years...

Well, two down, leaving George, Sohail, DaveM and Gurjit.

Hatoyama

Japan's incoming PM has vowed to 'change history', according to World Service this morning.

Is that possible?

Does he have a tardis, or is it just the way he walks?

Link of the day

Is Letters of Note.

Flippety-flop

Upsides: am around to see Werner Herzog and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan at the Southbank, and may even catch Sonny Rollins at the Barbican.

Downsides: I will be unable to watch the electrifying Staff Benda Bilili in November

Nostalgia: to be sure, I am showing my age, but this Friday, i'll be going to see Womack & Womack with the Cistern Kid & the iPod Perv.

Listening to: Clara Moreno

Autodidact course catalogue

From Johns Hopkins University.

'District 9'

It was a good film, but I wonder how many caught on to some of the subtle ironies in the film - and not just the discrimination.

What does a cunt look like?

He looks like this

On writers & writing

I've been reflecting on how hard it must be to show your writing to someone. It's not something that I have ever felt, but a recent encounter has made me wonder, and served to remind me of other writers I have worked with.

I have seen some quite amazing writing, from people who were very talented, but needed lots of support to get going. Check out 'Autobiographical Extracts', 'Becoming' and 'I Reign' by Angela.

I dug this out for someone who can write, but doesn't believe it. Hemingway on writing.

How can you get someone to believe in their writing, or indeed, themselves?

The 'Huggy Bear Chronicles'

During a chat with my friend and former colleague, I wondered aloud how it could be that Michael Jackson was buried - 'with that much plastic, couldn't they just recycle him?' He laughed guiltily; unsurprising, given his resemblance to Tito Jackson.

Watching tonight: 'District 9'

Yes, the dusting and hoovering have worked wonders

Now all I have to do is the shredding and filing. It ain't happenin' tonight honey.

Listening to: The Voices of East Harlem, African Scream Contest and Marvellous Boy (calypso from West Africa)

Thought #785,234,992

The more I think about Google, the more I am reminded of Milo Minderbender and M&M Enterprises.

Listening to: Love, Roland Kirk, Alan Price & Donald Byrd

I swear...

...these poems are somewhere in this blog, yet I can't find them. So, here they are again.

Gyorgy Faludy

Learn by heart this poem of mine,
Books only last a little time,
And this one will be borrowed, scarred,
Burned by Hungarian border guards,
Lost by the library, broken-backed,
Its paper dried up, crisped and cracked,
Worm-eaten, crumbling into dust,
Or slowly brown and self-combust,
When climbing Fahrenheit has got
To 451, for that's how hot
it will be when your town burns down.
Learn by heart this poem of mine

'The Solution' by Brecht

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?


'Concerning the Label Emigrant' by Brecht


I always found the name false which they gave us: Emigrants.
That means those who leave their country. But we
Did not leave, of our own free will
Choosing another land. Nor did we enter
Into a land, to stay there, if possible for ever.
Merely, we fled. We are driven out, banned.
Not a home, but an exile, shall the land be that took us in.
Restlessly we wait thus, as near as we can to the frontier
Awaiting the day of return, every smallest alteration
Observing beyond the boundary, zealously asking
Every arrival, forgetting nothing and giving up nothing
And also not forgiving anything which happened, forgiving nothing
Ah, the silence of the Sound does not deceive us! We hear the shrieks
From their camp even here. Yes, we ourselves
Are almost like rumours of crimes, which escaped
Over the frontier. Every one of us
Who with torn shoes walks through the crowd
Bears witness to the shame which now defiles our land.
But none of us
Will stay here. The final word
Is yet unspoken.

Eyeballed

So I finally watched 'Django' albeit a few decades late. 'Let the Right One In' was stark yet dreamlike, although it was toned down from the novel.