Long way up, short way down

A rectangle of flat rooftop is visible from my bedroom window, perhaps six feet by twelve, with a raised edge no more than a foot high. In the past few weeks a black and white rabbit has been put out to pasture on that platform. It lollops gently about, raising its head at the boundary and sniffing the air.

At first I was worried it might make the leap, fall to the gardens below. It hasn't yet, so my concern recedes, it must know, its owners must know.

But still. It might.

Placed in similar circumstances who among us can be certain we wouldn't?

"Every time that I look on the first day of summer / takes me back to the place where they gave ECT"

Strange prospect of travelling to the North East in the near future. By which I don't mean Leyton or Chingford. It's been years since I left Z1 other than to leave the country or for filial duty.

Reminds me of an acquaintance, she worked in HMV and I worked on Wells Street and we shared a pub. Early on we established that she could not get me free records and I could not get her free Kevin Bacon. I'd thought our cliques had been overlapping for ages before we met, but she said one day: "No, that's you and me that is. Y'naar." She was from Wallsend.

Seems more natural to accept an invitation I recently received to visit a former colleague in Cardiff. It is at least abroad and foreign, though its nightlife appears thoroughly English to me.

In all your decadence people die! In all your decadence people die!

He was from Ottawa, I meant to ask him about the place, but conversation turned elsewhere. He had curly hair, and brown, kind yet slightly insinuating eyes. He said:

"[Our Host] tells me you're dating an actress."

It seemed so improbable, in multiple. I at first translated it as a misunderstanding arising from Our Host's tendency to declare people's occupations as what he thinks they should be. Perhaps I was now some biographer, and the dating described the process of establishing a chronology in the life of this actress. Maybe that's what we call it in the biography trade, the dating.

He had me confused with someone else, of course. As well as about Ottawa, I wondered who this actress was, but I never found out.

Early on I felt that I wasn't getting enough to drink. Like shortness of breath it wasn't something that could easily be fixed.

Later someone put 'Shaved Women' by Crass on the stereo. I'd no idea so many people were familiar with it. It was a corridor-filler.

And Our Host drew me to him with something to say, slurred, by now he'd had enough to drink certainly. Several years ago another man had said a very similar thing to me, and I later wondered if we held that acquaintance in common.

"Y'know, you 'n me, our generation, may be the last men on earth to have seen pubic hair. On the women. Eh? Like the opposite of growing up, isn't it?"

FFM: Ohne Titel

I was very tired, on the U3.

At Schweizer Platz a young couple sat diagonally opposite me. I could see their reflection very clearly in the window against the dark rippling tunnel wall. The girl clasped her hands together like an opera singer and held that pose for a moment. Then, soundlessly but in perfect synchronisation, she mouthed the words of the next-station announcement as they emanated from the carriage public address system:

Nächste Station, Willy-Brandt Platz.

Aufstieg links.

Umsteigen für den U-Bahn Linien vier oder fünf,
und den Straßenbahn Linien elf oder zwölf.


It was like poetry. Spooky and captivating. It was the most beautiful thing that day.

FFM: She has taken everything but didn't give anything

"Ah, our colleague has returned to the hotel bar for a nightcap... I've got Angela Merkel."

He wasn't my colleague, it wasn't my hotel, but as to the latter, there she was, her face clasped between his knees as he sat down. More than life size, a full colour print on plastic placard, approximately A0 size. He must have hoisted her off a lamp post by gradually easing her up the pole and over the light fitting.

"So what are you going to do with her now?"

He didn't answer, too busy cherishing her magnified visage, pansticked the colour of cooked salmon. It was one of the few that had not been adorned by now with comments, devil eyes, a square you-know-who moustache. She was pristine and I had to agree when he said:

"She has the bluest eyes."

The waiter came over, expressionless at the sight of a slightly drunken Englishman pawing at his Bundeskanzler. We put another double Scotch on someone or other's tab. I pressed my question again, he shrugged and smiled.

"You haven't thought this through, have you?"

He shook his head and smiled again. The next day at 9:15 a.m. he gave his paper, and he left on an early afternoon plane. We didn't see his luggage.

He does nothing, the boy does nothing!

It's not uncommon to wake from a lurid dream still caught in the moment, pursued by the hounds of hell, in the arms of the imagined lover, out in front of the audience, swimming, flying. Eyes are open, can see the room, but at first the creation of the sub-consciousness doesn't recede.

This morning, surfacing into the real world, I felt certain that I was instead standing facing the recycling bins that are situated in front of the Hotel Oden, diagonally opposite the Gustaf Vasa church. It was evening and I had nothing in my hands to post through the slots. I had that impression, not for as much as a minute, but all the same for a very long time.

Our dreams give the most free and intense expression to our imagination, yet mine serves me a profound moment of banality.

His bill can hold more than his belly can

One of my favourite book covers as I grew up was that of 'Stylistics' by GW Turner, published by Pelican Books, the more academic imprint of Penguin. It used the encounter between a linguist and a pelican to illustrate the various stylistic approaches that might be adopted to describe it. In differing fonts: 'Linguist sees pelican'; ' "I have seen the pelican" said one linguist.'; 'LINGUIST SIGHTED PELICAN STOP'; 'It was the pelican that the linguist observed.'; and lastly, in 'comic' script: 'As the linguist approached: "Aaargh! A pelican!" '

I looked for a scan of the cover but could only find a tiny example, from which the above is transcribed. I expect I read at least some of the book too, at the time. You can see more of Pelican's excellent book covers here, or here.

-

St James's Park, lunchtime, near the pond, the western end. A man in a suit, an escapee from a nearby office, sits on a bench reading. He is joined by a pelican, the bird waddles across the path and hops up onto the seat, occupying a spot close to the opposite arm. The pelican is a silent neighbour and it does not fidget. The man returns to his book, the presence of the pelican, being only relatively unusually close, does not trouble him. There is a period of peaceful coexistence that is regrettably brief.

Others see the pelican. Their bear down on it with their attention and cameras. Most concentrate on the pelican, they normally congregate on a distant rock and it's an accessible novelty in its chosen position. But some, particularly those with cameras, apprehend the aggregate scene of pelican and man reading his book in passive harmony and each paying the other no attention. It is a Picture and they Take It, repeatedly and from several angles. More people, more cameras are arriving.

I had to leave at this point and alerted by the adjacent movement the pelican turned its bill towards me as if in enquiry. I wanted to say: "Excuse me, it's not you, it's these others, I feel awkward, self-conscious. Perhaps you feel the same, but are more resilient. For me it's too much, you mustn't be offended."

But even with a basic grounding in linguistics there was no real prospect of making myself understood to the pelican.

Can I ask you a question, yeh?

In the field of bait & switch fraud, and outright begging, I wonder if the practices of spiel and strategy are making a return. I haven't heard a good line in ages, or a convincing one in ever and I didn't hear either th'other weekend, but two in quick succession is one short of a trend, no? A journalist would wait for the third, but I haven't need of such principle.

Great Portland Street, Saturday afternoon, in the vicinity of Villandry. It's a wide empty road, and some breed of hatchback is moving down and across with the slow solitude of a vehicle that didn't just leave the lights. Inside is a balding man with eyes so large his spectacles can barely contain them, he hails me and asks me the way to Heathrow. He's keeping it simple, but as they say in football, it's a poor first touch.

Now he has my attention he gets to the point, peppered with interrogatives to create a sense of engagement: 'I am Italian... you know Giorgio Armani? I have... you know John Lewis? I work, I buy... I see you wear good clothes...' Which is the point at which the seams of his clumsy garment of schmutter-patter fully pull apart. I was wearing my thirty-yard coat that day - it convinces at three dozen paces, any closer and its chainstore provenance is evident. Even with his mouth full of suits and jackets and prices those big goggling eyes of his are softening with disappointment. Because I just can't help smiling, and not rhetorically or out of politeness and we both know the exchange is over.

Conduit Street around nine on a Sunday evening, all the retail has died down and gone home. If I'd a dog this is where I'd be taking it for its evening walk - down to the foot of Bond Street and then zigzagging home left and right at random. We're on the lozenge of pavement outside the Westbury. Well made up and turned out she is, mobile in hand, no betraying blisters about the lips. And the opening question this time, reasonable enough for the district is 'Do you speak English?'. Then the cadge is quite well framed and delivered, in tones of contemporary received pronunciation though a trifle hoarse, a mix of ditz and desperation and, gosh, not knowing where to start, but here's the problem...

'My colleague's gone home... I'm just a bit short... need a taxi. You mustn't think... I'm [with? from?] Saatchi and Saatchi... I'm just a bit... short...'

I know Chas and Mo like to ride their ponies hard [in their lingering spirit], but not normally on either sabbath mine or theirs, and the basic premise clanks like a cracked bell. But this is all irrelevant in any case, because I've only popped out for a stroll and so am holding no folding money whatsoever and can honestly tell her that I'm as short as can be.

Surely somewhere in academia there are studies on strategies for enhancing credibility and exploiting credulity in these circumstances. Because, cold, without reference to need or motive, it's fascinating. There's at least a full PhD's worth in there. Maybe when I retire I'll do that. And get a dog.

f i c t i o n a l

In cheery forenoon tones

For adjacent reasons, I've been reading profile pieces in foreign media. Not the sort I need translated for me, mind. But there's a certain paragraph that so often appears which I can never get used to.

It's the obscenity of the physical description. At an early stage the writer feels compelled to inform us that:

"X is trim and tan and buff. And firm. He has good, strong, bright teeth and healthy, pink gums."

The dental preoccupation I can understand: these are the criteria on which horses are purchased, so why not politicians and heads of multi-nationals? But is 'tan' surely not the same thing as 'buff'? This is a stationery term, no? So why is no-one ever 'manilla'?

There then follows a list of dimensions in imperial units - weight, height, width, girth, length. The arrangement of his hair is commented on (though the fact that he blatantly dyes it is never referred to).

The subject will inevitably have a fitness 'regimen', imparted details of which will include how far he runs and how much he can 'press'. We will hear about his diet, with several sample menus. His hour of waking, and the quantity of work he does before sunrise.

Okay, so I am making some of this up. But not all of it.

Budapest

The seats of the Magyar Állami Operaház are wooden and not well fixed. Despite Szilvia Rálik's fine lungs and the novelty of Fidelio rendered on three tiers of concrete and in costumes of vivid colour, the audience occasionally becomes restive and fidgets. Then there is an ominous creaking throughout the auditorium, as if the timbers of a ship were under the stress of turbulent sea.

Twitching sounds of the trolleybus pick-ups on the wires. Harsh buzzing of the closing doors. Otherwise the electric vehicle silent but for its tyres and the voice of a passenger in emphatic agreement with her companion, 'Igen...igen...', drifting through the open windows.

In the streets at dusk material falls from the buildings as the temperature descends, thudding and cracking plaster leaves at the end of the day.

Eversholt Street

A gaudily dressed and heavily made-up transvestite young man and a conservatively dressed middle-aged lady together at a bus stop. They have Lancashire accents:

TV: "Are we catching this bus or what?"
CDL: "It's got to turn up first."
TV: "I tell you, it were like a baby's arm... holding a tangerine."
CDL: "I know, you told me."

They got on a 253. Regrettably I was waiting for the 168.

He looked a lot like Che Guevara, but with even furrier ears

Walking with an acquaintance the other day, we were talking of the Country versus the Metropolis. He favours the former, and I was inclined to be passive in the exchange as all my arguments against the rustic life are graceless and crude. Then I changed the subject to theology: one of us Believes, the other Doesn't, but it's fertile ground for discussion between us nevertheless.

It was a long, absorbing conversation and afterwards we fell to companionable silence as we walked, until he suddenly exclaimed:

'That's it!'

'...'?

'You didn't look at the bear. That's exactly what I mean.'

He sounded almost aggrieved. This, he went on to explain, was precisely that jaded, blasé way that people had when they had lived in London for any length of time.

But now it was time to part, each to his own office, and I didn't have time to elaborate on my position. If I had, I should have said something like this:

I perceived the bear, just as he had, or rather a person dressed as a bear, passing us on the pavement. I registered the bear sufficiently to notice that the fur of its head did not quite match its body, and to have pondered whether its manifestation was related to the nearby Guard's barracks - they wear bearskins, so genuine that florid middle-aged ladies are occasionally moved to demonstrate opposition to the headgear. But probably not by getting themselves up as bears.

And he was right, I didn't look at the bear directly. Still less did I gawp at it.

• If someone is dressed as a bear in a public place it is almost certainly to attract attention, in which case it is the duty of the ambient populace not to encourage such behaviour by staring.
• It is entirely possible that someone has been employed to dress as a bear, coerced into doing so by the regrettable necessity of earning such payment as perambulation in a bear suit attracts. They may even have been trafficked into the country with the express purpose of performing that function. For the sake of that individual's dignity, it is considerate not to look at the bear.
• The bear impersonation may be behaviour symptomatic of psychosis on the part of the wearer. In which case, need I spell out why it is not a good idea to risk engaging mutual regard with the bear?
• The ursine costume might have been the only clean clothing available to the wearer that day, all other apparel being at the cleaner's. No-one's first choice for a weekday in town, but better than venturing out in a soiled loincloth or safety-pinned duvet cover, just. Only polite not to emphasise the unfortunate person's plight by gazing uninhibitedly upon the bear.

I'm sure there are other reasons for wearing a bear suit in a populous part of SW1 at lunchtime and I'm certain few among them justify rendering it a spectator sport. But my companion considers me calloused and insensate, scoured of the capacity for wonder and fascination by the relentless multiple stimuli of urban existence. And when next we meet I'll find it prohibitively difficult to steer the conversation towards an opportunity to explain myself.

There it is.

.

I've only ever knowingly met one Basque. She had that growly voice, and the nose. Possibly the ears as well, but her hair covered them and I could hardly ask if she wouldn't mind...

At one point she reeled off a list of famous fellow countrymen (imagine the growly voice now):

"...Balenciaga: another Basque; Manu Chao: Basque too; Eva Peron: also Basque..."

And so she went on, but then there were names I'd never heard of and I had to nod and smile as if I knew them.

Trelawney doesn't count, because he's only famous for actually being Cornish. So in return I told her about Nigel Martyn, born in St Austell, the first million quid goalkeeper, I saw him at Palace many times, and he played for England...

Then I couldn't remember the name of the fellow who sort of invented steam trains, and essentially dried up at that point.

She wasn't impressed.

f i c t i o n a l

Bilbao

Mornings, smell of the strong detergent sprayed by the street cleaning machines. Doorsteps liberally splashed over with Don Limpio. Women shaking out rugs from upstairs windows and hanging out washing. Is there even a word in Spanish for tumble dryer?

Caged songbirds on the windowledges and balconies trilling. Scents of dark tobacco, frying, burnt milk. Out of town there was the tang of something industrial in the air, familiar but unplaceable, then I saw, mountains of scrap metal: the odour of rust in the noon sun.

Saturday evening in the Casco Viejo and the kids are everywhere, decanting cheap rum and juice concentrate into empty Fuensanta bottles, vodka into Fanta, whiskey into Coke. Acrid whiff of spirits and perfume and synthetic fruit. I'm in Barnsley!

I got there before The Now Show, but could not be arsed: Tiocfaidh Allah!

Following the exhumation of homicidal hasbeens the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, expect further splintering into absurdly branded factions as they struggle to come to terms with their own irrelevance:

• IRA Plus; IRA Plus HD.
• IRA Lites; IRA Regular; IRA Super; IRA Superplus; IRA SuperAdvance; IRA Apex; IRA Offpeak; IRA Weekend Unlimited.
• IRA Online; IRA Direct; EasyIRA.
• IRA Classic; IRA Unplugged.
• IRA Gold; IRA Gold Top; IRA Skimmed; IRA Semi-skimmed; IRA One-Cal; IRA Sport; IRA Energy; I Can't Believe It's Not IRA; IRA Be Good To Yourself.
• IRA Organic; Free Range IRA; Dolphin-Friendly IRA.
• Southern Fried IRA; Dixie IRA; IRA Shack; IRA Cottage
• Wheat and Gluten Free (may contain traces of nut) IRA; Lemon Zesty Fresh IRA.

Finally all the above varieties will eat each other up in a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions until only three Republican paramilitary entities remain, re-branded by their communications agencies and image consultants as:

"Provisionally Yours",
"We Haven't Gone Away You Know",
and a jumble of punctuation characters that no-one can understand, still less pronounce as a spoken phrase, but is intended to be reminiscent of peat and Semtex.

'The Longest Journey', E.M. Forster, 1907

 

'Oh, Tilliard!' said Ansell, with much irritation. 'But what can you expect from a person who's eternally beautiful? The other night we had been discussing a long time, and suddenly the light was turned on. Every one else looked a sight, as they ought. But there was Tilliard sitting neatly on a little chair, like an undersized god, with not a curl crooked. I should say he will get into the Foreign Office.'

I blame Cedric Klapisch

Amendments which it would be necessary to make to 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' to render it watchable:

1. Jettison all the non-Spanish characters. Drop Vicky and Cristina somewhere in the Llobregat marshes. Eviction and deportation of the rest by a sturdy crew of Mossos d'Esquadra. This need not be depicted.

2. Delete the dire voice-over, and execute the narrator as an example to others. This need only be depicted for purposes of catharsis.

3. In the real world, Barri Xines sex workers - those that are left - will make quick mince of any clown with a camera, Javier Bardem in attendance or not. It is vital that this is depicted.

4. Increase Javier and Penny's screen time to fill what were aching voids even before Scarlett and the rest were disposed of. Also, more of his cute poet dad.

Long term actions needed to address this problem:

Strengthen the Euro to the point at which mainland Europe is no longer an attractive location for once great but now merely competent directors to have a holiday and make a lazy, pointless, weak and intermittently crass movie on the side. Thankfully this is already in progress, ha!

f i c t i o n a l

Things that could be part of some sort of series but aren't: Bus Stop Bingo

To pass the time while waiting for the bus, and test your own deeply ingrained sense of injustice against actual outcomes, mentally (if physically, you will need a dry-wipe marker to allow multiple plays on the bus stop panel, and possibly a stepladder) cross off the number of each bus which is not yours that calls at your stop during the time it takes for your bus to arrive. Once all but yours have been crossed off you have reasonable cause to feel aggrieved. And the gentle mental exercise involved in retaining the numbers in your head is beneficial to the grey matter.

Experts can factor in weighting for known variations in frequencies of all buses. For advanced players, award yourself further misery points for notyourbuses which pass in multiple during your waiting period. See also, buses grouped to call at another stop and passing yours, even buses going in the other direction!

You may also wish to test your empathy against the experiences of other passengers, shifting the focus from your own plight to that of those reliant on e.g. the 189, of which there are hardly any, or the 113, half of which turn at Portman Square: two minutes walk up the road but for all practical purposes at this stop, on the moon.

Also count vehicles which might get you where you're going if you were more desperate or didn't already have a bus pass or travelcard on your oyster so don't see why you should pay twice, ffs. Proper cabs (orange light on). Legit minicabs doing the 'Mr Smith'*. Datsuns driven by qat-chewing Somers Town psychotics providing innovative transport solutions for London's Vibrant Night-time Economy, rickshaw bikes providing third world solutions for etc.

Then include vehicles which do not carry (human) passengers: Ocado vans, Royal Mail vans, pizza delivery mopeds, Onyx rubbish lorries, Essex Taxis. Also, decommissioned Routemasters carrying wedding parties, George Michael looking for a quiet spot to park up for a spliff and snooze.

*"Mr Smith? Mr Smith, yeah? But you're going North London, yeah? Where you going? Call it fifteen, yeah?"

These foreign measurements, coming over here, stealing our heights and depths...

It's all bollards when people say that they deeply mourn the passing of such and such talented figure, when they didn't even know the individual personally and will have forgotten them by tomorrow.

On the other hand. Heard on the news that half a foot of snow is expected in some parts of England tonight. And couldn't help thinking of the late Humphrey Lyttleton discussing the weather with the lovely Samantha, who declares that the last time she had six inches in her front garden was...

Well, Humph would have recounted it so much better.

Jacqui Smith and her guilty shoplifter's expression

Satire seems practically impossible in current conditions. The humorous critique usually works by taking the subject and exaggerating and distorting a little. Not too much, or it's no longer funny. It has to run slightly ahead of that subject but these days how can it even keep up?

The challenge for a good satirist is that reality is now its own satire, done badly. Politics and government play like a series of Armando Ianucci sketches, abandoned by the writer on grounds of implausibility. Popular culture and mass media appears to have been produced by a gigantic factory staffed by an army of clumsily cloned Chris Morrises who weren't really into it this morning but supposed they might as well, assisted by a branch plant of genetically modified Charlie Brookers, each of whom has recently suffered a mild stroke.

I've recounted unto tedium how waking to an aural background of Radio 4's morning news and current affairs programme distresses my subconscious into producing nightmares featuring the content. Like Goya's 'Sleep of Reason', but with cabinet ministers in place of the sinister compound winged beasts.

Woke at a less uncivilised hour the other day, to Mr Bragg and crew discussing Jonathan Swift's 'A modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick'. Can't be bothered to post a link here, Google it baby!

Bertie Bassett's Barmy Army! Bertie Bassett's Barmy Army! Bertie Bassett's Barmy Army!

In the interests of maintaining the delegates' focus on the matters in hand, through sensory deprivation, there were no windows. The lighting was erratically spaced and curiously specific: here a glare like that of nuclear fission from which people emerged permanently sightless, there a murky gloom in which nothing could be deciphered. Also, some dire framed reproductions of countryside scenes, fuzzy and with the colours printed out of register, lit as if they were works of art.

There was also a poor attempt at a chandelier, whose plastic crystals gently tinkled whenever a certain piece of apparatus in the gym upstairs was used. The pattern of exercise was generally one of slow but steady application escalating to a climactic frenzy. Even in the context of a hotel, this wasn't nearly as amusing as it should have been.

In addition to the usual false leather blotter, wide-bore ballpoint pen that clicks and unclicks with an unpleasantly loose rattly action, paper with widely spaced lines and the hotel chain logo squatting ugly at the top, blank nameplate toblerone, and a map of the building showing escape routes, each place at the table had been provided with a pack of Refreshers.

To my immediate neighbours I remarked: 'Refreshers. I didn't realise they were still doing them.' There was a pause and then from left and right a rush of Refresher reminiscences, to which I quickly contributed.

Later we introduced ourselves, later still we exchanged business cards. It wasn't much, but in difficult circumstances it was all we had.

Esperanza

Once in my early teens, seeking to relieve the tedium, I let off a fire extinguisher. It was a warm day and the exercise was intended to provide both entertainment and a welcome cooling shower for my companions. In this measure it was successful, but I'd only intended a brisk squirt and once the lever was depressed it irrevocably stayed that way. The stream was unending and all attempts to halt it proved fruitless. The situation was becoming desperate, as this took place in furnished quarters. I was left with no option but to point the thing out of the window until fully discharged, thereby betraying my misuse of emergency appliances to a wider audience than intended.

It would indicate me as callous, lacking in empathy, quite without the basic human wherewithal to engage sensitively with the emotions of another, if I were to admit that, whenever confronted with a person crying I experience an acute jolt of memory back to the day of the unstemmably flowing fire extinguisher. So I won't. In particular, on such occasions I do not recall the sense of rising panic, nor does the repeating tickertape thought: "ohmygodhowdoimakethisstopohmygodhowdoimakethisstop" return to mind. At all.

And I certainly don't hang anyone out of the window as a last resort, in case you were wondering.

It's clear that no-one ever told Esperanza to pull herself together. No stiff upper lip for her. There's a Mediterranean saint for you - an English equivalent, faced with the suffering of Aar Lord would probably set her face at lemon sucking and possibly emit a disapproving tut. I expect if Esperanza ever did dry up someone would have been quick to restart the waterworks:

"Oh hello Esppie dear, how cheerful you're looking today, glad to see you're not letting thoughts of Christ's suffering get you down so much now... you know, the crucifixion, darling... with the crown of thorns, the nails and that." And she'd be off again, snot everywhere, shares in Kleenex, etc.

Should be at a party to celebrate the Announcement Of The Recession but cried off citing indigestion

Among the stacks of books I had not previously got around to reading, 'Anna Karenina'. Had always meant to, though all I knew of it hitherto is that the lady of the title does not buy a return ticket. Saw Il'ya Repin's portrait of Tolstoy at that RA exhib not long ago, which gave me fresh impetus - the fellow was standing in the out of doors, barefoot and in his nightshirt. How could I not?

I took advice on the translation. Limits to what can be done to convey style - only deadpan travels relatively unharmed. Best you can hope for is that the prose made their own is unobjectionable. I was ordered to seek out the rendering by Constance Garnett. A perfectly Victorian name, speaking of sublimated urges, which is what you want in a translator.

In fact her work was the only one in my language to be found. There's an Oxford Classic edition faced with that hoity toity sort in the Ivan Kramskoy painting, and several others but I bought an import on the strength of the lovely supple floppiness of the cover. Didn't look at the introduction - I usually read these last, like film reviews they make more sense afterwards. Only when several pages into the thing did I sense something missing among the words.

Went back to the forenote, and after emphatically saying they have not flipped with the text they admit to having altered some 'Britishisms'. What are Britishisms? Perhaps in Miss Garnett's unaltered draft someone is erroneously depicted lurking about the samovar with a jug of Jersey cream? The sleighs and carts misrepresented driving on the wrong side of the carriageway?

So far, no appreciable damage. The cleaner at the publishing house will have been finding the odd excised 'and' here and expurgated 'to' there for several weeks after the adaptation process, but I seem to mentally slip them back in anyway.

Even without trousers there are some satisfying lines. Just as much as the one about families, etc, I like the ones that just sit nicely, even if not doing a great deal beyond the necessary. At the opening of the chapter in which the youngest Tcherbatskaya starts pashing on Mlle Varenka:

It was a wet day; it had been raining all the morning, and the invalids, with their parasols, had flocked into the arcades.

I can read that repeatedly without it ever seeming banal to me.

This is why I don't

It had been a while since my phone was last charged. From a number I didn't recognise, a message obviously not for me:

"i miss u"

So I composed a message back. It took ages, even with making a concession to the medium of using the word 'text' as a verb (it felt wrong but I thought it might be more easily understood).

"Sorry, you texted the wrong number."

In reply, seconds later.

"fuck u"

There's only so much you can do. I consider the correspondence closed.

Things I've recently thought of on waking

Appearance of a cloudless sky where, beyond the crest of a hill, there is sea beneath.


In an empty playground as a child, near the top of the steps of the slide, no-one to rush you: thinking that you can, but if you can't that's okay too.


Weakness and aching of limbs after a long time spent in bed: with illness or a person, the feeling is the same.


Creak and thump of doors in a hotel, how quickly they become familiar.

Not that if have, but I did I'd be selling tickets

If I have a wood chipper and the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform at my disposal, the only moral dilemma I am faced with is feet first or head first, no?

Chicken Curry With Chips! £4:00

Bought vodka because I liked the shape of the bottle (that Polish twisty one), but then gave it to my host later in the evening. Now they've moved the booze corner in Selfridge's it's even closer to the Orchard Street door and I hardly have to see any shopping taking place at all!

Yesterday, freezing, dandruff in the air. Today, eh?

The fire station, with its rescue practice tower, adjacent to the north side of the Barbican, has gone. Gone. Awww, bollocks!

At the cinema, 'The Reader'. Fiennes his usual wooden self (he makes Rickman look expressive), but fair do this time around as he was playing someone stilted by regret. Winslet does middle-aged fine, but someone should tell the make-up artists when to stop: in rendering an actress elderly, think day-for-night. David Kross, what a sweet lad, you can see why she's alle aufsteigen and taking him back to the depot.

At the Photographer's Gallery's new home, so many stairs, that'll put a stop to the traditional pushchair jams in the cafe. On the walls, teenagers handjiving. Morris dancers. I forget the rest.

In & out of Wandsworth, numbers on their names, funny how the missus always looks the bleedin same

The other week I was standing sentinel whilst the person of whom I was temporarily in loco parentis did the necessary between parked cars. Sound of collapse and hysterical laughter from behind me but ever the gentleman I didn't turn around. And got a plentifully hot ankle for my discretion. You would think, having lost balance and been overcome by hilarity, she'd at least have halted the flow. Then she told me she got more on her jeans than mine, so that's all right then.

Making the acquaintance of a woman of such rare grace, poise and sophistication, well, normally by now I'd be in love. She smokes like a Transdnistran factory chimney and treats the peppar in her Absolut as the only mixer needed. She agrees with me on the plight of the Groke. She knows every word of 'Cool for Cats' by Squeeze. When she speaks German it's with a Bavarian accent and that is heiß! Or heiße. I dunno.

But when it comes to the etceteras she only likes ladies. It's true, all the good ones are gay or taken. Or something.

I've been told it's my fault, wrong social circles and all that. In short I'm turning into the male equivalent of those girls in every third David Leavitt short story. But a bit older.

Nique la rentrée

Having run out of reading matter I turn to The Irritations Catalogue. It's a brochure of accessories, gifts and trinkets distributed to a mailing list of public and voluntary sector employees and their admirers. Here's a selection of products that caught my eye:

Beggars With Big Pleading Puppy Eyes Sitting on Blankets Beside Cash Machines Accompanied by Big-Eyed Pleading Puppies Calendar 2009. 12 scenes of aesthetically pleasing importuning, heart-warmingly juxtaposing canine and mendicant. Now with Accession 8 subjects at July and November!

Indeterminate Blankety Thing. It's a throw! It's a wrap! It's a constant source of annoyance to your colleagues as you deploy it ostentatiously in meetings when it's not even remotely chilly! Available in three exciting colours, Plum, Periwinkle and Old Semen.

Woollen Blackberry Cosy. Accessorise your persistent hand tumour with this portable communications device snuggler, hand-knitted by Peruvian orphans. Colours include Puce, Spruce, and Tubercular Phlegm (see swatch inside back cover).

'Leanne And Carl Go Halves On A Bastard' (1985) 122 minutes. Another re-release from agit-prop movie nostalgia house Days of Fatch. A wry, witty and subversive tale of love and procreation on the income support in Kirklees, West Yorkshire. Commentaries by director Trevor Spanner and Eighties societitian Beatrix Campbell. Fully restored synth soundtrack including Art of Noise, Stephen Tin Tin Duffy, Bronski Beat, and Nik Kershaw. Blu-ray format only.

Also noted: a Deluxe Inflatable Hugo Chavez (actual size - foot pump required, not included) and a boxed collection of erotic lithographs inspired by an imagined, completely hypothetical, but nevertheless steamy three-way coupling between Tony Travers, Tom Bloxham and The Outlaw Robin Wales (I know you're thinking three cannot possibly 'couple', but just see it and believe!).

Suppose I should think about getting ready for work soon.

They sliced him open like a mackerel, then stitched him back up, thankfully

Went away for a bit, but took myself with me, so had to give up and come back.

This year I resolve to do whatever I did last year. There, pressure's off now!
Can't see why they bothered changing the number of the damn' year. Hasn't done the blindest bit of good, as you can see.

But at least at this season there's Alan Bennett's diary in the LRB:
" 'She had a face like an upturned canoe,' said by the actor Charles Gray at breakfast in Dundee (though of whom I can't remember)."
4 February. More senior moments. I can't find my pullover and don't like the one I'm wearing because it has several moth holes. 'I had another pullover, ' I say to R. 'I was wearing it this morning.'
'You still are. You've put the other one on top of it.'

Bike over to Gloucester Crescent and leave the bike there while I walk round to M+S. People often smile at me, but this afternoon nearly everyone smiles. It's only when I come back to Parkway to have my hair cut that I realise that I'm still wearing my crash helmet."

Don't go long on celebrity, but I always look out for him when I'm in NW1 - never have spied the fellow.

I used to keep an eye out for Dirk Bogarde when in Belgravia, and irrationally I still do. Also quite hopelessly, Quentin Crisp when I was in Chelsea (yoursnotours). You might see a pattern emerging there and you might or might not be right - without intent I am forever clocking Peter Tatchell in the street, though it's been yonks since I saw him on his bicycle (zipping through the gap in the barriers that enables cycle-borne turns from the Strand onto Waterloo Bridge).