come back here

Due to an unfortunate prior commitment to conscientious university attendance the management will be making strategic cutbacks to the content generation division of this weblog (henceforth 'blog') in the interest, going forward, of maintaining and leveraging high value in the long term.

While we are adamant that the challenging economic and educational conditions shall not require permanent job loss, certain key team members will be taking voluntary sabbaticals in order to refocus on their core competencies; namely, writing dissertations.

This is a temporary setback, but in around two weeks we commit to leverage new articles - delivered by a sane and refreshed staff - on such topics as 'New York, New York', 'Opera' and 'Oy lads, gerroff 'im an' chug this'.

With sincere thanks,

the management (by dictation)

little low, little high

They say the best fiction stems from experience - though I hope creativity is allowed too - so it's nice when life unfolds like a storybook. This is one of those moments. It might not be extraordinary, but it was out of my ordinary.

A few days ago I was full of cold and tasteless, so plumped for a hugely fiery lunch of prawns with garlic, spring onions, two chillies, ginger and lemon. The ingredients were chopped and lying in Venn diagrams when M. walked into our kitchen. It's shared accommodation, and we're lucky enough to have cleaners for the communal areas. We said hello and M. started on the sink. Seeing my disorgazboard he said,

'Coriander would be nice'
'It's off, sadly.' I held up the recently binned bundle. A convivial pause as I put the pan on the heat. As I reached for the oil he pointed to some butter on the table. 'It will be nice with butter'
'I think I've only ever done it with oil'
'No, but put some oil with the butter, or it ...'
'... burns?'
'Exactly. You get it hot, cook the prawns a little, put in the rest, but don't for leave too long, or do you know?'
'They get tough.'
'Yes.' He had put down his sponge by now, his eyes riveted to the board. The pasta was bubbling over. He was concerned to hear that I'd added neither oil nor salt - '... they'll stick. You can't salt them unless in the pot. Do you have olive oil? Look.' Taking the pan from me he drained it into a colander and, drizzling oil over them from a height, shook them to glistening point.

'Should I start the prawns?'
'It's ready, hot. Go!' The prawns hissed and slid in the furious butter, and as I stepped back M. took the pan, threw in the aromatics and shaking his head at the proffered wooden spoon started to toss the lot. The plump prawns flipped and plunged together like a flaming pancake. 'Can you get the rosemary?' I was already out the door and running. Briefly vacillating between two or three sprigs I ran back and put them on the board to be chopped and crushed under his knife. M. poured the curry onto the pasta with a flourish, adding, 'You should buy better pasta. It is only a few more pennies. I could tell you three hundred pastas.'

I was unbearably curious, so he told his story. He is a recently retired chef who has worked at the town's two most prestigious Italian restaurants, as well as its unrivaled seafood establishment. He told of long nights slaving over 350 servings of pasta, days preparing ragu, and Salmon roast the Scottish way. His current job is less tiring, he says, although he did hint he might have been too frank at times. He tried the dish and approved, although he wouldn't have a bowl and 'the chillies are for your taste with the cold, but maybe less the next time'.

Leaving he thanked me for trusting him, as if I was the one doing him a favour. He's decided to go back to being a chef - and if I ever need a whole trout filleted, I'm to tell him.

edit, edit, edit

The best literary advice ever given to me was this:

'Don't publish'

Once it's printed, that's it. The words are your dumb ambassadors fled to be read and misread. I used to think I was pretty nifty at poetry, and so sent in an incomprehensible mishmash to the school magazine. The reaction: 'It was... good. What does it mean?' There's a good story by Kipling (who I've been spending an amount of time with lately) which has a tired old writer advising a boisterous amateur. The boy churns out reams of doggerel, 'seeing all that he intended to do so clearly that he esteemed it already done, and turned to me for applause'

Looking over what I wrote is excruciatingly cringeworthy, begging the question: will this blog cause me pain down the line? I've pretty much stopped writing poetry, but I have been editing. So with reservations here is an experiment in sonneteering written around five years ago; maybe six. And with it, the year-old rehash. Perhaps it will be interesting to see what's changed, including me.

Please excuse the anachronisms, bizarre word orders, herniating metre and the word 'methinks'.

p.s. this spellchecker doesn't recognize the word 'metre'. The world's broken.

***

I would that I still could begin to write,
without the stress to stress or beat in time,
why should I wrap my words in corset tight
or sacrifice my meaning to a rhyme?
I would reveal my mistress fair and true,
enveiled in myst’ry thick yet clear to see
for those who know us, for those lucky few
I need not hint nor with lewd phrase demean me.
Methinks my quest to write is yet in vain,
without any skill’d verse I, truth to tell,
do stumble, ungainly, mending again and again
trapped within a dull and senseless cell.
yet for all my groping for image and sound
she defies the best to write her down.

***

To put wrong right these words I'll write,
without the stress of stress or beaten time.
Why should I pull this age-old corset tight
or sacrifice my meaning to a rhyme?
I'll reveal my sweetheart fair and true,
behind a veil of words but clearly seen
by those who knew us, those patient few
who've met us both, and the veils between.
This form is her loss as her life was my gain,
this love too old to be roped to a page
to stumble, ungainly, again and again,
ripped clipped and tripped in a fourteen line cage.
They say 'love hurts' as they shrug and they turn.
So it did, so it does, and these dead words still burn.

***

Why, why, why?

This morning I woke up fresh and energised. I rolled over luxuriously, found and put on my glasses limpidly, languidly clasped the alarm clock and brought it in range. On the one day where I have nothing to do, the day when I should catch up on lost sleep, I wake up at 8:15. After much grumbling sleep did return, and brought with it those random dozy dreams. A sample:

- There was five pounds on my desk (there isn't)
- A friend tried to find me, and then did.
- My mum offered to give me a lift to a party at 7. I forgot, and when I remembered (the loudest I've ever shouted a swear in a dream) she was still there, at 10. She still drove me. Was relieved.
- Two people I vaguely know were wandering drunkenly on a hill. I asked them if they were drunk. They were.

Always entertaining. Occasionally you get the odd nightmare in the mix - angry corpse in car, purple teddy with powers of paralysation - but it's a fair price to pay. Last night I went to a room party held by a friend I haven't seen in ages. Rather like this bullet point thingy, so here's some things I learned itemized for your convenience:

- Never drink Aldi's 'Bardolino' red wine. A friend described it as 'not fun to swallow'
- There is a writer who documented every movement he made in a day. Things like 'raised left arm'. Naturally, being postmodern, he did some rather personal things and wrote them down too. How frank, edgy, and coincidental.
- If you meet a charming, beautiful woman there is a good chance her beauty has already charmed someone else. Retreat like the gentleman you are.

On the last point. I noticed an American friend of mine flirting with a girl he knew had a boyfriend. His excuse: 'does she have a ring on her finger?'

Fair play?

photo noggin phenomenon

No research whatsoever has gone into this post, but it was probably on TV once so it must be true. There is a kind of psychic hokum where you put your hands on charged metal plates while your photo is taken. After some mumbo jumbo bunkum (presumably photoshop based) your picture is printed. You are surrounded by an aura of colour which presumably indicates that you are suggestible.

Let it be known that this is the first report of a phenomenon I shall coin 'photoblimpnogginism', a condition of which I am the only known sufferer. I suppose I'm an ordinary sort of vain: I expect other people to love me, and if they don't the fault's almost certainly with them. My hair is a little fluffy, so I tend to gunk it up. I like nice clothes but don't like ironing, so average out at presentably rumpled. At home there is a tall mirror opposite the stairs, which allows for convenient self-appraisal with built in handy alibi. All in all, I think I look fine. As in 'okay, alright, passable', rather than 'daay-mn, he is FINE!'

But something horrible happens when a camera is pointed my way. In the teensy split second while their finger is depressing the button and electrons are shunting round camera circuitry, my jaw hangs moronically loose, my eyes half close, phlegm dribbles towards where the second and third chins are blooming. Spots sprout, and I gain between three and four stone. If there was ever a good picture of me, I was probably sucking in my cheeks, or standing in some miracle of light and shade. The really sad thing would be if that photo-me is the one other people see.

The moral of the story? If you take a picture of me I will become less attractive but necessarily more modest. I'll leave you to weigh it up.

tardy and mardy

At the risk of seeming more than normally hormonal, today is a grumpy day. Found myself wanting to break things while tidying, and stamping on innocent steps. Not even my many coffees or my new wall map of the U.S.A. has lifted the fug. Trivia: do you know which spot in the U.S. is the intersection of four state borders? I want to go there and tap dance.

And another thing: the BBC lied to me. Yesterday they promised five days of snow, but in response to protest from commuters there will only be a light flurry on Thursday.

You may have seen the news about the Chinese Prime Minister being shoed while giving a speech. From where I'm sitting I could probably hit the same spot, if the roof went away. The security was great fun to watch. A friend and I had a mini protest - 'leave Tibet alone' - before the hardcore kafkan solidaritists showed up, but only a sniffer dog showed interest. Somebody was saying loudly how their snowball had a grenade in it. There were men on all the roofs, presumably with sniper rifles. They also had wussy harnesses, as if falling off a faculty building was their biggest risk. The University Security also pitched in, bless them. Imagine kung fu special forces with old men in navy uniforms trailing around after them.

In a beeb video one of the Chinese supporters was in floods about the visit. And somebody else threw a shoe. I wonder what the 'correct' stance is, if you could omnisciently take into account everything he's done for the country. Cry while lobbing? Throw some tissues? Pleasant wave? I don't understand politics.