Monthly Archive for April, 2008

Ugly Bloke

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 27, 2008
in fiction
. 4 Comments

(A short story. Sorry.)

What is it with beautiful women and ugly blokes?

You’ve heard that before, right - some stand-up or other? But it truly happens and it makes me crazy with fury and rage at the injustice of it.

Take the 9.23. I took the 9.23. Every day. I used to see this couple sitting in my carriage on the 9.23. He was - anyone would agree with me - an ugly bloke. His physique was nothing special. His face suggested that he’d sprung forth by some process of spontaneous generation from the lower layers of silt at the bottom of the gene pool. At least you’d think that if you saw him on his own - but he wasn’t on his own, was he?

No, he was always sitting next to his girlfriend (surely not wife) - the not-quite-domestic goddess. In her late 30s, I’m guessing no kids, dripping in Boden, her long dark hair framing her perfect face and lips that would kiss… she looked a bit Nigella-ish to be sure, but less playful, less - oh I don’t know…. less obvious.

I was bewitched. Maddened. Intrigued. Every morning there they were, every morning I was trying to figure out exactly what she saw in him. His repartee? Nothing doing there. His wealth? The shoes and watch say no. Good in bed? That must be it. Bastard. Lucky, lucky bastard. I hate you. I wish bad things upon you. I want you out of her life. I want her for myself.

let us prayThen one day he got on the train with his arm in plaster. After that he wasn’t on the train so much. I still saw her though, every day at 9.23 she pitched up just in time. She was what Jerry Seinfeld would call a ‘close stander’. I must have taken the spot on the platform that she had decided long ago was the optimal point to stand. I was always there long before her, and always - even if the platform was fairly empty - she would stand unfeasibly close to me. And then when we got on the train she always walked right, I always walked left.

Then I never saw him on the train again. Not once.

Last week, I was wandering home in the twilight and saw him ahead of me. Ugly bloke. Ugly bloke more dishevelled than normal, shuffling down my street with a handful of old carrier bags.

Walking up my path. Knocking on my door.

Cats - a cautionary tale

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 25, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Cats. And the consequences of cats. Listen, watch and learn:
http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/04/24/the-neighbours-cat-won/

FFS

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 24, 2008
in music
. 2 Comments

Apparently the new Portishead album - which I love - is ‘depressing’ and ’scary’. What the hell did anyone expect? An album of Aqua covers? The song from Lazy Town?!? FFS…

They tried to change the world with their fake theremin!

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 22, 2008
in music
. 0 Comments

I love Portishead. I bought their first single ‘Numb’ in a record shop (remember them?) in Greenwich purely on the strength of the name of the band - I knew nothing about them. Then I saw them live twice, once in a tiny club on Regent Street just before they got big. I even liked their second album. But I didn’t hold out much hope for album number three - ten year wait. Admirable though this work rate is - 3 albums in 14 years - they did seem to have become a bit ‘up’ themselves.

Listening to Third for the first time now on last.fm, it’s clearly a fantastic record. Their second album was too much like the first - this new one is pleasingly bonkers. There are real drums, there are synthesizers, there are drum machines… and banjos! ‘The Rip’ is utterly beautiful, and ‘Machine Gun’ sounds much more delicate (and brutal at the same time, if that makes any sense) than it did on Jools Holland.
Portishead – The Rip

File under jazz. File under psychedelic. File under folk. File under Jefferson Airplane. File under Joy Division. But on no account file under ‘trip hop’.

Why I’m Voting for Ken

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 19, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Until a few days ago, I had no idea if I was going to vote for Boris or Ken. I don’t really want either of them to win, but despite never having voted Tory in my life, I was tempted to vote for Boris. Why? Because it would be quite funny watching him fuck things up so royally. He’d fuck them up so badly it would, eventually, be bad enough even to wipe that silly impish grin off his face.

I know he plays up his buffoonery, I know he’s not as stupid as he’d like us to believe, but he’s clearly out of his depth. I’ve only watched one debate but Ken wiped the floor with him rather neatly, I thought. Studio floor came up lovely. That mop of blond hair is clearly good for something.

Then I read Charlie Brooker’s very funny Guardian column on why he’s voting for Ken, and that helped sway me. That and the fact that if the Evening Standard want Ken to lose so badly, it’s got to be worth voting for him just to spite them. Recent issues of the Evening Standard are reminiscent of the 1980s Private Eye spoof Daily Mail headline: AIDS THREAT TO LABOUR VOTERS: VOTE TORY AND WIN A MAESTRO. They make Robert Mugabe look like a subtle spin-meister.

All Cornwall is latent and the remoter west

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 16, 2008
in grief, literature and travel
. 2 Comments

I read this fine passage from E M Forster today, on the train appropriately enough, and wished I’d spotted it in time to add it to my essay on train travel between Paddington and Slough. Somehow it is made even more poignant by the fact that Mark Speight apparently killed himself so close to Paddington station because it reminded him of trips to the West Country with his girlfriend.

Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return. In Paddington all Cornwall is latent and the remoter west; down the inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands and the illimitable Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston; Wessex behind the poised chaos of Waterloo [...] And he is a chilly Londoner who does not endow his stations with some personality, and extend to them, however shyly, the emotions of fear and love.

Howard’s End, Chapter 2.

Have a Nice Day

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 14, 2008
in grief
. 4 Comments

This morning in Pret a Manger, as I walked out into the street I noticed that there was a young woman sitting in the corner with a MacBook chatting happilly into her phone. Next to her sat a woman whose face was tortured with grief and sorrow - silently screaming if not actually sobbing.

I wonder if the guy serving wished her a nice day as he did me.

Hey Mickey, You’re So Fine

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 13, 2008
in music
. 0 Comments

Cannot. Stop. Playing. This.

(’That’s Not My Name’ by The Ting Tings)

From the locker tapes

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 11, 2008
in music and nostalgia
. 2 Comments

GarageBand and a bottle of red wine have a lot to answer for…

Moving pictures

Published
by
blogmywiki
on April 11, 2008
in internet and photography
. 3 Comments

The new video feature on Flickr has - predictably - caused a small storm with thousands of users joining a group calling for video to be removed from the site; these are Flickr purists who think the site should just be about the majesty of the still image.

But Flickr’s video is no YouTube - you’re limited to 90 seconds for one thing, which really does make it a forum for small movies that are probably - in effect - animated still images. Like Martin Parr’s BBC film of people’s houses. You’re unlikely to find TV shows or movies in 90 second chunks.

Pleasingly, a group calling itself ‘We Say No to Photos on Flickr‘ has now sprung up to mock the video refuseniks.