You know those hangovers which are so sophisticated that they get their own second wind not long after you've risen? Well, my new Waitrose is so close that I'd got there, bought eggs, bacon and Bombay Sapphire and was home again before I started spewing. That's convenience.
Just read 'unwary maiden' as 'unwieldy maiden'. Not as good as mishearing 'cumbersome' in place of 'buxom' the other day. Also, Charlotte Green, does she gargle with dairy products (o.n.o.) before hitting the studio or what?
Can I have another drink yet? Have I been awake long enough?
24 December 2008
20 December 2008
These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things
When considering the correct approach to reading a newspaper I omitted to mention the tide tables. Consultation of these is important for those whose city is complemented by an estuarine body of water. Few things are more cheering than the sight of the river at the height of its froth looking fit to swamp the Embankment and fill the cellars of Southwark with its ebullient swell.
Fewer still more depressing than at its lowest ebb when it appears that every water molecule with a valid passport has emigrated to a villa in Bulgaria.
Banks of mud and broken masonry are exposed, strewn all across with:
used firearms and shanking tools,
red Royal Mail rubber bands,
Nutrament tins,
Railtrack luggage trolleys,
traffic bollards,
plastic bags from Gregg's,
skateboard halves and bicycle segments,
used GHB bottles,
Make Poverty History bracelets,
crack pipes and clay pipes,
the plastic surrounds SIM cards are snapped out of,
discarded Filipina domestics,
Oyster card wallets,
exhausted fire extinguishers,
Waitrose charity tokens,
luminous visibility tabards,
Next and Top Shop clothing hangers,
latex gloves,
Fitness First backpacks,
IV drip stands,
fag stubbers sponsored by Addison Lee,
USB memory sticks,
acrylic nails,
conference pass lanyards,
Metropolitan Police incident boards,
complimentary Evening Standard umbrellas,
seat cushions detached and defenestrated from First Capital Connect carriages,
pages from Georges Perec novels,
cassette tapes of Clement Freud 'Just A Minute' filibusters,
and the occasional torso of a ritually murdered child.
Fewer still more depressing than at its lowest ebb when it appears that every water molecule with a valid passport has emigrated to a villa in Bulgaria.
Banks of mud and broken masonry are exposed, strewn all across with:
used firearms and shanking tools,
red Royal Mail rubber bands,
Nutrament tins,
Railtrack luggage trolleys,
traffic bollards,
plastic bags from Gregg's,
skateboard halves and bicycle segments,
used GHB bottles,
Make Poverty History bracelets,
crack pipes and clay pipes,
the plastic surrounds SIM cards are snapped out of,
discarded Filipina domestics,
Oyster card wallets,
exhausted fire extinguishers,
Waitrose charity tokens,
luminous visibility tabards,
Next and Top Shop clothing hangers,
latex gloves,
Fitness First backpacks,
IV drip stands,
fag stubbers sponsored by Addison Lee,
USB memory sticks,
acrylic nails,
conference pass lanyards,
Metropolitan Police incident boards,
complimentary Evening Standard umbrellas,
seat cushions detached and defenestrated from First Capital Connect carriages,
pages from Georges Perec novels,
cassette tapes of Clement Freud 'Just A Minute' filibusters,
and the occasional torso of a ritually murdered child.
17 December 2008
£=€=£=€ ha-ha-ha!
Avoid newspapers displaying an indecent haste in getting to the facts. Short punchy sentences, swiftly conveying information, suggest that the reader is in a hurry, has something better to do. Places to go, people to see, wanting to know the state of the world in ten minutes, reeking of business. This style of journalism is clearly aimed at persons who wear wristwatches - and consult them.
Ideally there should be many more words to get through than strictly necessary and the path to knowledge must take a circuitous route. The press should insinuate the news rather than report it.
No lady or gentleman would rush her or his morning paper (least of all by reading it in the morning). The mature reader will take a more sedate approach. The mature reader will begin with the obituaries.
Followed by the court circulars, then possibly the day's race cards. Then the theatre reviews.
Financial pages go straight to line the rabbit hutch or to light the fire in the study. On no account should they be read, other than in a period of onsetting recession, in which case they may be declaimed aloud to gatherings of family and friends for mutual delight and hilarity.
Then to the comment pages and editorial, to put one in a properly prejudicial frame of mind before moving to 'the front of the book'. International news first - start with the Tropics, other developed nations' remote holdings, one's own remnant empire and former colonies, then the neighbours. Finally domestic news, beginning with the parliamentary sketch: never quite as satirical and scurrilous as Hansard, but it will do
Ideally there should be many more words to get through than strictly necessary and the path to knowledge must take a circuitous route. The press should insinuate the news rather than report it.
No lady or gentleman would rush her or his morning paper (least of all by reading it in the morning). The mature reader will take a more sedate approach. The mature reader will begin with the obituaries.
Followed by the court circulars, then possibly the day's race cards. Then the theatre reviews.
Financial pages go straight to line the rabbit hutch or to light the fire in the study. On no account should they be read, other than in a period of onsetting recession, in which case they may be declaimed aloud to gatherings of family and friends for mutual delight and hilarity.
Then to the comment pages and editorial, to put one in a properly prejudicial frame of mind before moving to 'the front of the book'. International news first - start with the Tropics, other developed nations' remote holdings, one's own remnant empire and former colonies, then the neighbours. Finally domestic news, beginning with the parliamentary sketch: never quite as satirical and scurrilous as Hansard, but it will do
05 December 2008
7 pence an hour
They didn't really riot of course, that's just typical Evening Standard bollocks. But I'm told things got pretty foul.
This evening, the sort of noise that in the print media would be described as 'a sickening thud' and the bus driver dropping anchors and swearing loud and panicky. 'Ah f ck we jus run summon over y'know.' the girl behind me remarks.
The mildly uncomfortable feeling of being on a bus that is on someone. Though arguably more agreeable than being the someone under the bus, I'll grant you.
Due to the height involved only the gathering crowd, briefly distracted from London Lite, Blackberries and Foot Locker, gives a clue as to what is happening directly beneath the windows. Hands over mouths in a dismay sort of way, but not actual wincing. Then a sort of quasi-religious reaction, gaping and widened eyes and actual smiles. She is risen.
Seems she'd fallen into the kerb by the vehicle, and was tucked into the gap between bus and pavement. Brief glimpse of her standing unaided looking down herself in wonder, all still there.
And off we go again, I'll be off in ten minutes, the driver's got no break until Golders Green. Had it been me I'd have turned out the passengers and parked up on Portman Square for an hour to cry or punch the seat cushions or just hit the pub. I don't know how they do it. Not just the near misses and actual hits - Oxford Street full stop. The collision took place at low speed, between lights, short of precognition what can you do?
You don't get a much bigger frontal profile on a moving object. 14 feet high, 8 wide, bright red. It doesn't exactly test the peripheral vision. But just try the view from the front up top, Centrepoint to the Arch. It's a series of masterclasses in making attempted suicide look like an accident.
Shoppers, they're not all there. Drunks have better coordination and spatial awareness. Free-range psychotics display more concern for their own personal safety. Like toddlers transfixed by the brightly coloured objects they blunder across the spaces between shops without regard for what they may meet on the way. Could be a river running between the pavements, boiling with snapping crocodiles. Or a chasm without floor until the flaming pits of Hades. They'd still step off the kerb without for one moment taking their eyes off the opposite window display.
In the suburbs the shops open at eleven on Sunday mornings. In Oxford Street they don't switch the tills on before noon. The creatures from Burb World forget this. By 11:15 the pavements are crawling with whimpering staggering zombies, pawing and beating at the closed doors, scratching at the windows with their credit cards. At the request of the London Ambulance Service many shops relent at half-past, giving the junkies thirty minutes of product fondling before they can finally start Chipping and Pinning.
A fine bloody recession this is turning out to be.
This evening, the sort of noise that in the print media would be described as 'a sickening thud' and the bus driver dropping anchors and swearing loud and panicky. 'Ah f ck we jus run summon over y'know.' the girl behind me remarks.
The mildly uncomfortable feeling of being on a bus that is on someone. Though arguably more agreeable than being the someone under the bus, I'll grant you.
Due to the height involved only the gathering crowd, briefly distracted from London Lite, Blackberries and Foot Locker, gives a clue as to what is happening directly beneath the windows. Hands over mouths in a dismay sort of way, but not actual wincing. Then a sort of quasi-religious reaction, gaping and widened eyes and actual smiles. She is risen.
Seems she'd fallen into the kerb by the vehicle, and was tucked into the gap between bus and pavement. Brief glimpse of her standing unaided looking down herself in wonder, all still there.
And off we go again, I'll be off in ten minutes, the driver's got no break until Golders Green. Had it been me I'd have turned out the passengers and parked up on Portman Square for an hour to cry or punch the seat cushions or just hit the pub. I don't know how they do it. Not just the near misses and actual hits - Oxford Street full stop. The collision took place at low speed, between lights, short of precognition what can you do?
You don't get a much bigger frontal profile on a moving object. 14 feet high, 8 wide, bright red. It doesn't exactly test the peripheral vision. But just try the view from the front up top, Centrepoint to the Arch. It's a series of masterclasses in making attempted suicide look like an accident.
Shoppers, they're not all there. Drunks have better coordination and spatial awareness. Free-range psychotics display more concern for their own personal safety. Like toddlers transfixed by the brightly coloured objects they blunder across the spaces between shops without regard for what they may meet on the way. Could be a river running between the pavements, boiling with snapping crocodiles. Or a chasm without floor until the flaming pits of Hades. They'd still step off the kerb without for one moment taking their eyes off the opposite window display.
In the suburbs the shops open at eleven on Sunday mornings. In Oxford Street they don't switch the tills on before noon. The creatures from Burb World forget this. By 11:15 the pavements are crawling with whimpering staggering zombies, pawing and beating at the closed doors, scratching at the windows with their credit cards. At the request of the London Ambulance Service many shops relent at half-past, giving the junkies thirty minutes of product fondling before they can finally start Chipping and Pinning.
A fine bloody recession this is turning out to be.
26 November 2008
Now with 2.5% less charm
King Herod, it seems to me, is ripe for re-appraisal. Rather than a despotic tyrant, in the context of the Roman Empire he had only limited latitude for determination. He did not dictate the overarching policy, this being a matter for central authority. Rather he sought to implement it in the region, having regard to distinctive local conditions.
It can't have been an easy job, what with all those divergent interests and nuisances. An impressionable and excitable populace, prone to unlicensed gatherings. One messiah after another, often several on the go at once, some of them more disruptive than others. It's true that the Massacre of the Innocents wasn't a universally popular initiative, but it fell to King H to take some tough decisions and from that one he did not flinch. Though not achieving its objectives, as a process all reports suggest that it was delivered on time and within budget. This so rarely gets the recognition it deserves.
Today I was put in mind of Herod the Great, and the adversities he faced, by an attack of Stakeholders. I don't know if you have Stakeholders in your field - perhaps you have customers? Well, Stakeholders are worse, deputations of disputacion, pestersome mendicants, the lot of them.
Often they want guidance - not for practical purposes, more as an amulet against failure or scripture to blame when they screw things up. Refuse them and paralysis will ensue while all involved wait for each other to do things. Eventually someone will crack and start doing, and unto that endeavour will be accorded the acclaim of 'Best Practice'. When in fact it has the utility and consistency of the first pancake.
As frequently they will want money. In June. Unringfenced. In cash would be handy, ta.
Sometimes Stakeholders want to be allowed to do things hitherto prohibited and unmentionable, or at the very least for their overseers to look the other way for a bit - at this point you may hear the phrases 'light touch', and 'self-regulating'.
But most often Stakeholders just want biscuits. This is the worst of it. To preserve the dignity of policy development there must be the minuscule thong of consultation - with Stakeholders. Consultation requires meetings and at meetings there are biscuits. Referring to another body of which mine is a contemporary Stakeholders will insinuatingly observe that:
'at ----- they had Jammie Dodgers' or 'Weren't there Viennese fingers last time? Oh no, that was when we went to ----'.
Perhaps they like to see themselves as acid-tongued coquettes, seeking to ignite jealous rage in an intemperate suitor. Rather than, as they appear, the sort of people who habitually feed feral pigeons.
Where hard baked goods are concerned the Stakeholders will defenestrate all notions of fraternal cohort. For budgets they will compete in a ladylike or gentlemanly manner but for Bourbons they are like hungering beasts. Once when our internal catering broke down we brought in a selection from Marks and Spencers and they tore each other to shreds about the biscuit plate, consuming scraps of each others' flesh along with the white chocolate wafers and those ones wrapped in yellow foil. Imagine if we provided a working lunch finger buffet - identifying the participants afterwards would be down to dental records.
Stakeholders often dress like provincial bailiffs, in jackets fitted with poacher's pockets with capacity for several pounds of Ginger Snaps on each side. The other day I met an elderly bearded gentleman rattling around the corridors, engaged in multiple consultation exercises for the past decade, who claimed to have subsisted entirely on Hobnobs since 1998.
Their weakness, our strength. When we wish to divide and rule a Penguin here and Tunnock's teacake there, surreptitiously and iniquitously bestowed, can sew great discord among the category. Similarly, sworn sectoral enemies can be made to unite in synergistic partnership working at the promise and sniff of shortbread. I have brokered a deal worth millions - once you include all the gearing and match funding, etc - using a formula entirely populated with Custard Creams. If a bombardment of Rich Tea fails a few fig rolls will clear out any nest of resistance. In tough negotiations* I'll have the Garibaldi option, not figuratively but literally, in my back pocket.
So I salute Herod. And also Pontius Pilate, for he suffered representations from Stakeholders in droves. There were no Peek Freans or McVities to distract them with then. No wonder he was always washing his hands afterwards.
It can't have been an easy job, what with all those divergent interests and nuisances. An impressionable and excitable populace, prone to unlicensed gatherings. One messiah after another, often several on the go at once, some of them more disruptive than others. It's true that the Massacre of the Innocents wasn't a universally popular initiative, but it fell to King H to take some tough decisions and from that one he did not flinch. Though not achieving its objectives, as a process all reports suggest that it was delivered on time and within budget. This so rarely gets the recognition it deserves.
Today I was put in mind of Herod the Great, and the adversities he faced, by an attack of Stakeholders. I don't know if you have Stakeholders in your field - perhaps you have customers? Well, Stakeholders are worse, deputations of disputacion, pestersome mendicants, the lot of them.
Often they want guidance - not for practical purposes, more as an amulet against failure or scripture to blame when they screw things up. Refuse them and paralysis will ensue while all involved wait for each other to do things. Eventually someone will crack and start doing, and unto that endeavour will be accorded the acclaim of 'Best Practice'. When in fact it has the utility and consistency of the first pancake.
As frequently they will want money. In June. Unringfenced. In cash would be handy, ta.
Sometimes Stakeholders want to be allowed to do things hitherto prohibited and unmentionable, or at the very least for their overseers to look the other way for a bit - at this point you may hear the phrases 'light touch', and 'self-regulating'.
But most often Stakeholders just want biscuits. This is the worst of it. To preserve the dignity of policy development there must be the minuscule thong of consultation - with Stakeholders. Consultation requires meetings and at meetings there are biscuits. Referring to another body of which mine is a contemporary Stakeholders will insinuatingly observe that:
'at ----- they had Jammie Dodgers' or 'Weren't there Viennese fingers last time? Oh no, that was when we went to ----'.
Perhaps they like to see themselves as acid-tongued coquettes, seeking to ignite jealous rage in an intemperate suitor. Rather than, as they appear, the sort of people who habitually feed feral pigeons.
Where hard baked goods are concerned the Stakeholders will defenestrate all notions of fraternal cohort. For budgets they will compete in a ladylike or gentlemanly manner but for Bourbons they are like hungering beasts. Once when our internal catering broke down we brought in a selection from Marks and Spencers and they tore each other to shreds about the biscuit plate, consuming scraps of each others' flesh along with the white chocolate wafers and those ones wrapped in yellow foil. Imagine if we provided a working lunch finger buffet - identifying the participants afterwards would be down to dental records.
Stakeholders often dress like provincial bailiffs, in jackets fitted with poacher's pockets with capacity for several pounds of Ginger Snaps on each side. The other day I met an elderly bearded gentleman rattling around the corridors, engaged in multiple consultation exercises for the past decade, who claimed to have subsisted entirely on Hobnobs since 1998.
Their weakness, our strength. When we wish to divide and rule a Penguin here and Tunnock's teacake there, surreptitiously and iniquitously bestowed, can sew great discord among the category. Similarly, sworn sectoral enemies can be made to unite in synergistic partnership working at the promise and sniff of shortbread. I have brokered a deal worth millions - once you include all the gearing and match funding, etc - using a formula entirely populated with Custard Creams. If a bombardment of Rich Tea fails a few fig rolls will clear out any nest of resistance. In tough negotiations* I'll have the Garibaldi option, not figuratively but literally, in my back pocket.
So I salute Herod. And also Pontius Pilate, for he suffered representations from Stakeholders in droves. There were no Peek Freans or McVities to distract them with then. No wonder he was always washing his hands afterwards.
16 November 2008
Seen from the bus up Regent Street, the webs of lights hanging above road were reminiscent of something, but I couldn't pinpoint what.
Now I've got it: in those of HM prisons with the classic gallery and landing layout, netting is strung across the voids between floors in case of prisoners chucking themselves, their fellow inmates, staff or other items over the railing. It's pretty much like that, but over a street and plugged in to the mains.
If you say 'Xmas' in your head, it makes it sounds like an irritating and unsightly skin condition. Appropriately.
Now I've got it: in those of HM prisons with the classic gallery and landing layout, netting is strung across the voids between floors in case of prisoners chucking themselves, their fellow inmates, staff or other items over the railing. It's pretty much like that, but over a street and plugged in to the mains.
If you say 'Xmas' in your head, it makes it sounds like an irritating and unsightly skin condition. Appropriately.
11 November 2008
10 November 2008
Mists and Mellow Fruitlessness
No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon!
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day
No sky - no earthly view
No distance looking blue
No road - no street
No "t'other side the way"
No end to any Row
No indications where the Crescents go
No top to any steeple
No recognitions of familiar people
No courtesies for showing 'em...
No knowing 'em!
No mail - no post
No news from any foreign coast
No park - no ring - no afternoon gentility
No company - no nobility
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
('November', by Thomas Hood)
No morn - no noon!
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day
No sky - no earthly view
No distance looking blue
No road - no street
No "t'other side the way"
No end to any Row
No indications where the Crescents go
No top to any steeple
No recognitions of familiar people
No courtesies for showing 'em...
No knowing 'em!
No mail - no post
No news from any foreign coast
No park - no ring - no afternoon gentility
No company - no nobility
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
('November', by Thomas Hood)
09 November 2008
18% of them, apparently
The second time, we took her dog for a walk. A white Boxer bitch she was, deaf in one ear. 'She don't like the grass', I was told. I liked her already.
We walked across the Heath, and for the sake of the dog's sensitivities we stuck to the path. She wasn't at all enthusiastic, not like she'd been in Kentish Town.
Then at the crest of Parliament Hill she picked up her paws and it was lunge, pull, scrabble down towards the streets across the railway line. Happy as Larry up and down Haverstock Hill and we went back through Gospel Oak.
You can't really - and it would be wrong to, anyway - e-mail or text a dog to say, remember me, I was that bloke the other day, you sniffed my hand, beer and falafel you'd recognise me by. Well, if you ever want a walk I've got some decent pavement round my way. Just, you know, if you're ever at a loose end, no-one to cop hold of the other end of the lead...
It didn't work out. That was a while ago.
We walked across the Heath, and for the sake of the dog's sensitivities we stuck to the path. She wasn't at all enthusiastic, not like she'd been in Kentish Town.
Then at the crest of Parliament Hill she picked up her paws and it was lunge, pull, scrabble down towards the streets across the railway line. Happy as Larry up and down Haverstock Hill and we went back through Gospel Oak.
You can't really - and it would be wrong to, anyway - e-mail or text a dog to say, remember me, I was that bloke the other day, you sniffed my hand, beer and falafel you'd recognise me by. Well, if you ever want a walk I've got some decent pavement round my way. Just, you know, if you're ever at a loose end, no-one to cop hold of the other end of the lead...
It didn't work out. That was a while ago.
04 November 2008
elsewhere
Saw a heavy scattering of hundreds and thousands on Waterloo Bridge as if blown back on a failed attempt to throw them out onto the river.
Overheard on the Strand,
"Why do you always wear those ugly glasses when we go out? They make you like a granny."
"I don't always. I wear them a lot around the house and you don't complain."
"...."
"Are you ashamed then? Are you ashamed of me?"
"No, what I meant..."
"We're never having children."
Overheard on the Strand,
"Why do you always wear those ugly glasses when we go out? They make you like a granny."
"I don't always. I wear them a lot around the house and you don't complain."
"...."
"Are you ashamed then? Are you ashamed of me?"
"No, what I meant..."
"We're never having children."
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