tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78602901958749985092012-01-16T19:10:04.215-08:00Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.comBlogger1331100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-14758267897816700522012-01-16T19:04:00.000-08:002012-01-16T19:10:04.236-08:00

This magazine is full of words and some of them this month are mine. Why not print it onto a quiche and funnel it down your tear ducts? There are worse ways to spend a day. The other folk have written things that'll dice your eyelids. You might cry but you won't blink. They paid me in words by JD Nelson and Chad Redden. They squirted these words onto little bits of paper and put them in a bag and

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-88907448779562660512012-01-09T16:30:00.000-08:002012-01-10T09:52:44.289-08:00

The phone won. In the shop I'd gone for the cheapest but in the queue I looked at the shelves again and saw, for not much more, something-something free music and something-something touchscreen. And I thought I like music and I like touching screens. And who's next please and I pointed at it and said that sounds good, hurry up.But the free music was like you call up your friend and she puts her

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-18123309872180165882011-12-28T10:07:00.000-08:002011-12-28T12:41:25.096-08:00

Football fans serving drinks to football fans at the football stadium before the football match. Good view of the pitch from the bar. The match starts and they close the doors and bring the shutters down over the windows. There are three screens on the wall. If the game was being televised we could watch it. They guess what the score is from the noise of the crowd. We eat tiny triangular

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-76967644720662892072011-12-12T08:57:00.000-08:002011-12-12T10:08:04.656-08:00

Argos phoned for a catch-up. I'd purchased something and instead of it arriving when they said it'd arrive, what arrived was a voice, through a phone, saying there's been an error, and why not spend the rest of the week nailing yourself to someone who gives a fuck. So I did. Then I emailed to complain about the delayed arrival of the item and the tone of voice used to deliver the news of the

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-90172948895133158012011-11-28T10:04:00.000-08:002011-11-28T16:01:32.973-08:00

I'm going to stand and point at the output of two people.SaraChivI don't know if they're mortified by their own output. But if they didn't want it being looked at, they shouldn't've put it on the internet. They also shouldn't've, after that, told me where to find it. I might've had to do some mild wheedling. But I didn't cajole.I look at their output and think two things. One is: I wish I could

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-57889127498320131652011-11-14T03:07:00.000-08:002011-11-14T03:24:09.432-08:00

Caroline made a world out of cardboard. There were devices and the sea and industries. People were invited to paint it and they did. It was part of a big yearly thing. It went on for about eight hours and as soon as it ended we took it down. Next door someone was making something out of paper and everywhere else there were things popping up and whizzing about and films and music and singing on

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-60055054986069072072011-11-03T08:33:00.000-07:002011-11-03T08:36:52.485-07:00

We were given a load of cash and asked what we thought about chewing gum. We didn't think it was very good.Weird texture and it makes you make a noise.Yeah the noise is horrible I have to leave the room.Do we buy it.Not really.Maybe before a job interview or before we think we might be about to put bits of our mouths inside other mouths.So if you were offered some you'd decline it.Never. Accept

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-66916634111307106782011-10-23T10:50:00.000-07:002011-10-24T13:15:00.292-07:00

By following instructions and also doing things I wasn't instructed to do but which needed doing I filled the kitchen with astonishment. The guy who'd had the job before me was so bad at it he'd broken his leg. I was invited to spend eternity in the corner with my sleeves rolled up. My fellow scrubbers would be Harry and Giuseppe. Harry walks very slowly and makes large metal noises by hurling

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-12544660805470481052011-10-15T17:33:00.000-07:002011-10-17T06:28:08.604-07:00

I asked a window to give me some work. It said there were very many repetitive tasks available and asked what kind of thing was I looking for. I said I was looking to exchange my time and basic limb-manipulation skills for cash I can spend on things I won't remember.Yes, it said, I have some work for you, tonight, in the Stuff Parade, you have to stand at the end of a tunnel while bits of stuff

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-39419884580570986502011-10-05T05:43:00.000-07:002011-10-05T10:15:28.770-07:00

That whiskey, there's a woman's face advertising it too. She's got something about love written on her in gold and her photo is black and white so you know she's from the past. I don't know who she is and neither does the internet. The adverts mainly appear in what used to be the chasm of despair but is now quite a nice road. Its buildings were designed by war-drunk architects who thought that

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-73908713273933983572011-09-29T05:16:00.000-07:002011-10-04T04:17:04.720-07:00

We went to the all-human circus and the best thing there was the man who wore loads of hats.I tried to post this yesterday but the bottom bit got cut off, which was unbearable, so I deleted it and now I can't remember what else I had to say, but:My friends had a show and asked me to write about it so I did.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-70265141156920031092011-09-28T08:24:00.001-07:002011-09-28T09:01:27.841-07:00

Twice now some people I've never met have printed something I've written together with other things other people I've never met have written or drawn and distributed it to other people I've never met. I haven't thanked them for this yet, because I'm a fucking monster. And monsters get scared of confronting reality. Ask anyone (who's a monster). They're at Darklane Quarterly and also some of them

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-250035181001238942011-09-27T03:03:00.000-07:002011-09-28T08:19:27.319-07:00

Samuel Beckett's face is advertising whiskey. Maybe it's not his face. It definitely looks like his face. Drink yourself clever, it seems to be saying. The actual slogan is something else. Something about a bard. Would you really call him a bard though? Maybe it's a coincidental face. A lot of old wiry white men end up looking similar. But it's got the same glasses and hair. It doesn't say his

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-90081688239124706532011-09-25T16:51:00.000-07:002011-09-25T16:53:40.370-07:00

We ate elaborate breakfasts and walked round looking at stuff. Some of it was art and some of it was architecture and some of it was peril and one bit of it was a blob in a jar. It used to be alive. I think it had a mouth. There were very many other things in jars and we were hungover.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-35651423079117170732011-09-20T06:29:00.001-07:002011-09-20T09:56:41.953-07:00

Impossible not to think of that Sex Pistols song when you're in front of the Berlin wall. It's very tall and close and forms an impression in your mind and neck. There are many murals or one big mural, and signs asking you not to write anything on anything and a lot of writing on everything, thoughtful things like fuck yeah and woohoo and security round these parts is not what it used to be.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-9586160518928393992011-09-04T03:01:00.000-07:002011-09-04T03:15:53.015-07:00

An old man said you know things used to be different round here, it wasn't like it is now and it isn't like it was then, back then we had an unalterable allowance of things and the differences between these things were very carefully monitored by scrupulous hawks and if the differences became too great we had to dig a big hole and put the differentest things in it until the children stopped

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-18025166088068855982011-08-28T16:35:00.000-07:002011-08-28T16:36:41.252-07:00

Can I no. Is there a chance of no. I know it's not allowed but could we no. Have you got a bit more no. Are dogs allowed in the no if we're no. Last time we were here we did that so could we no. Have you got any more no. Could we have a no. Yes. What do you think. I try not to think.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-34768042278009280312011-08-22T11:14:00.000-07:002011-08-22T11:22:21.044-07:00

The new Stella glasses arrived. They're big news. They have a gold rim and a red logo and a stem and a flat bit on the stem with magic on it. And if you put one round each ear you can hear Belgian angels getting to know each other. Stella already has these egg-shaped glasses with lovely mess all over the outside like something you'd give a dying prince for Christmas. Sometimes a manly man asks

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-87539997963608110632011-08-16T11:23:00.000-07:002011-08-16T11:30:58.728-07:00

What've you got that's local? Nowt. That's weird for a country pub. For you maybe. For me it gets a bit less weird every day. And it wasn't that weird to begin with. It's not right. Most things are from somewhere else. I thought you were supposed to support your local breweries. There aren't any. There's one in Hawkshead. That's too far to be local. Go and stick your tongue in the lake. Er no

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-85553020901360075282011-08-11T08:23:00.000-07:002011-08-11T08:27:52.707-07:00

A queue sometimes forms. Of squashy red and orange people and their little gobshite squadrons. The queue eliminates waiting-time-based arguments at the bar. Which is handy because they all look the same out of your eye-corners and you have to decide who's next by who's being less of a cunt. And when they're hungry that's very hard. Then they find out we don't have Foster's. Sometimes you suspect

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-62564145922216319842011-08-01T16:58:00.000-07:002011-08-01T17:03:17.320-07:00

We ran out of some stuff and told people we were out of some stuff and the most miffed asked questions that revealed a lack of understanding of the information delivered two seconds previously, even though the information delivered two seconds previously was very clear and delivered two seconds previously: It is all gone. You have as much of it as we do. There is none of it left. Where it was is

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-56380335948891691042011-07-19T14:23:00.000-07:002011-07-19T15:18:41.227-07:00

Can we come in if we're a bit wet? Yes. But if you get any wetter I'll have to ask you to leave. They all had hot chocolate and ate fruit and hooted kayak-related technical terms at each other and laughed. One of them was particularly not good at doing something while also doing something else, they said.They got in their boats and went away. I mopped up. The remaining customer returned from the

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-47913332253295603452011-07-12T15:51:00.000-07:002011-07-13T14:39:49.115-07:00

Some temporary work in the country near the wet place known as England's most beautiful lake. They say. And they've seen them all. They had a big lake show and everyone put their lakes into carrier bags and went to a stadium and poured them onto a catwalk. This one won because of its versatility, unusual length and agreeable breeze. Some of the other lakes thought they should've been allowed to

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-87924160584204772162011-07-05T10:40:00.000-07:002011-07-05T10:44:12.601-07:00

The box of flashing lights made a noise like a boiling zoo and its lights stopped flashing and everyone stared at it and stared at each other with their longest faces and stared at it again and someone switched it off at the wall. Speculation built. We had to get a man in. He arrived early and we posted him through the slot and he furtled about with the innards and dropped out through the bottom

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-89942524444106056872011-07-01T10:56:00.000-07:002011-07-01T11:04:23.554-07:00

Everyone puts their money in the box of flashing lights. They soon run out of money. They get some more money and because the box hasn't given them their money back they put more money in it. It's a laughing matter. Eventually the maximum amount of money that the box will ever give back if it feels like it which it nearly never does is less than the total amount of money everyone has put into it.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-17954586519136704222011-06-30T10:33:00.000-07:002011-06-30T16:35:35.830-07:00

I watched some music in a big field full of mammals. The coverage of it in the media was nothing like what it was. When the last band came on I was wearing my hat and I got excited and threw it in the air like at the end of the first world war. If everyone else wearing a hat threw it in the air at the same time that would've been something to see. But no one else did. There were a lot of people

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-54971703896759255552011-06-15T11:59:00.000-07:002011-06-15T13:57:36.115-07:00

A new person was there instead of the large man-cloud I usually exasperate without knowing why and she knew how to ridicule her job while doing her job. She apologised for keeping me waiting so long then retracted the apology after I said it hadn't been long enough.She told me about the forthcoming changes to the system and the new doom they will bring, something about forcing people to do things

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-22176246895822549752011-06-11T15:58:00.000-07:002011-06-12T05:35:53.617-07:00

"I've just realised you've had a haircut. You're likely to already know this, but I'd like you to know that I now know it too.""Thanks. I wasn't going to mention it, but then if you didn't mention it I was going to mention that I hadn't mentioned it. Your above-eyebrow area looks much the same as it always has to me, unless you've recently changed it and I haven't noticed, in which case it looks

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-30119498522580870752011-06-10T18:31:00.000-07:002011-06-10T18:32:51.595-07:00

The man came round to look at where we live and I pointed out the things about it that aren't good and he said he'd have a look at them. He looked at them and went away saying we'll be in touch soon and not very soon after that he didn't get in touch and we put eight hundred pounds in his bank account.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-23407051473076378762011-06-05T14:54:00.000-07:002011-06-05T14:55:01.764-07:00

I read this one about a man who had a bad time and it was quite good, the characters were nails and the author twatted them on the head repeatedly until he'd got his point across. Some of the words were in a funny order which was delightful and there was a lot of repetition. The front and back covers were wider than the pages they were covering but folded over to create inside flaps for the

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-45364920890329536882011-06-01T08:04:00.000-07:002011-06-02T06:52:59.134-07:00

One bar was playing some music and the other one was playing some other music but louder and we were on the shared terrace so you could hear both musics, the quieter one being better musically and the louder one being a lot worse musically but a lot better sonically or at least louder which is often better except when you want to hear the noise someone else is making with their mouth or have your

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-30384682679080845362011-05-25T06:05:00.000-07:002011-05-25T07:28:57.691-07:00

Twelve of us were called in one by one to sit side by side and learn about the different kinds of help the government is removing. There were boxes to tick, everyone should tick one, he said, some of them lead to learning and some of them lead to lunch. This one this one and this one will not be available next month. So now is the time to tick them. There were two spelling mistakes on the sheet

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-21278775254419925332011-05-20T03:28:00.000-07:002011-05-20T03:33:16.479-07:00

In the pub opposite the coach station waiting for a coach, a man sat down next to me and I borrowed his lighter and he asked me how my weekend was. I said great thanks and asked him how his was and he told me it was shite and why's his real ale so fucking expensive then started going on about foreigners and how it's their fault this country's gone to shit they drain the system send em all back

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-1760445509916775222011-05-11T08:54:00.001-07:002011-05-11T09:21:49.933-07:00

The Thor riots went largely unreported by the mainstream media. Thousands took to the cinemas to kick the piss out of Kenneth Branagh effigies. "It was his vision", they bellowed, "and he is therefore most blameworthy. But don't think we aren't also going to smash the teeth out of Natalie Portman's cardboard cut-outs, and the face and brains out of anyone who dares to go around resembling Anthony

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-26792681906648449302011-05-03T07:53:00.000-07:002011-05-09T12:28:44.757-07:00

The following week there was a riot re-enactment. People threw things again, the police charged through people again, at home the windows were open for the breeze and we couldn't hear Mad Men over the noise of the helicopter for four hours. Next morning the re-aftermath, the road still closed and people watching the police watching the people. Stories of wallopings and pummelment, summed up by a

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-4223660129051561022011-04-26T04:42:00.000-07:002011-04-26T05:43:29.102-07:00

We went to a small drinking-music place and three and a half hours later I went home and everyone else including the local MP went to get their faces clobbered by shield-wielding flourescent brutalists or their ribs rearranged by the batons of those special beserk officers they have nowadays, the ones with no number on their shoulders, shield or helmet, I think they came from Cardiff and must've

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-11581710199729769572011-04-20T11:14:00.000-07:002011-04-20T11:15:50.866-07:00

The beach for the weekend. The far away award-winning one. We did good beachtime things and at one point walked to somewhere and arrived somewhere else and came back. There were large ancient things to look at and the sun was very close. My sardines were controversial. An iPod crept out of my pocket and crawled into the sea. The loss makes me wince, a day-long wince broken up by roaring laments.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-35978227924483536582011-04-12T03:52:00.001-07:002011-04-12T04:21:38.967-07:00

Men queueing for the toilet will talk about men queueing for the toilet. A bright afternoon in the park and we were lining up to squelch into the darkness. The women in the women's queue were not outraged and one crossed over to say here is a taste of the gender-biased amenity-planning medicine we all have to swallow though it's only you who are sick. Banter was muttered.I shuffled up. The trench

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-78478931450848990922011-04-05T06:53:00.000-07:002011-04-05T07:12:55.475-07:00

No more moving about except in postcodes that begin with BS. Kyuss are playing tomorrow. Most of them. Afterwards we will not be washing our ears.The bus left Wales without me. I had to make some hasty rearrangements that involved four hours in Cardiff. I ate a pasty and thought about where my life is going. After I'd finished I thought about where it isn't going. That took a lot longer and I

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-75970213035653355842011-03-19T16:08:00.001-07:002011-03-29T01:29:35.866-07:00

The sinks never emerged. We drove to Wales. In the morning we moved some things from one place to another. When they were all in the other place there was some debate about whether they'd needed moving at all. Out of these things we then assembled bigger things. It went on for days. I broke two drill bits because I am not a real man. Also weeded a path. Twelve tons of woodchip didn't arrive.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-42696122675304484242011-03-12T05:56:00.000-08:002011-03-15T13:11:01.097-07:00

There were no more holes to dig and fill in again. We smashed up some hard things with big sticks with pointy bits.There is a sink mystery. We need some sinks to go in the sheds that we built for the sinks. Months ago they were in the shipping containers on site. When we opened them yesterday they were not there. There were a lot of items there that were not sinks, like forks and mattresses and

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-36746589350138739562011-03-08T09:15:00.000-08:002011-03-08T09:21:09.019-08:00

We stayed in the peasant palace with the whole top floor to ourselves and six beds each. The other buildings were mostly roofs and the bank had a big mosaic of a wench on it. The shops were open for five minutes a week.The site was placed between a lake and a prison for screaming geese. It was about the size of a large Tesco. We dug some holes and filled them back in again.Then the drive to

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-44945977420577920602011-03-07T09:36:00.000-08:002011-03-08T09:15:01.884-08:00

Buses in Birmingham don't give any change. None whatsoever. This isn't advertised to the visitor, you have to find out yourself by getting on the bus with a tenner, maybe it's slightly too much but there's a chance he'll have a fiver and there's always a load of coins and you don't mind coins really they're good for buying snacks so everything'll be alright, but it wasn't and I had to get off

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-54249350438208759762011-02-18T12:46:00.000-08:002011-02-18T13:37:10.588-08:00

A beast in the lake. The size of three cars. That's a quote. Skin like a seal and humps like black rainbows. Reclusive, the eighth sighting in sixty years. Lazy you might say. Dossing about underneath all the tourism. A customer this morning bought five copies of the local paper and told how she had seen the monster yonks ago with her ex-husband and she'd been telling the story for years and

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-16338127533702674672011-02-13T09:19:00.000-08:002011-02-14T10:14:49.658-08:00

Do you have the variety of prawn that I want that isn't any of the three varieties of prawn on your shelves? I want the big ones full of nice bits. I've forgotten where they're from. They're not the Thai ones that you have. I can taste the air miles. No I've never been. I hear it's full of sin and disease. Are you sure there's none in the stock room? Maybe you have them in a sort of backup pond?

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-3391426671855132872011-02-10T15:08:00.001-08:002011-02-10T15:13:49.175-08:00

From now on the Sea Lion will take care of the small stuff. He lives behind barbed wire and his best days are ahead of him.Polite Demands

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-47003574251869962232011-02-07T14:48:00.001-08:002011-02-07T14:48:25.660-08:00

The river's escaped. It's all over the road. It's going up the hills and getting in everyone's shoes. We called the sheriff and he rushed over in his canoe with the sirens on and shot sponges out of a big pipe.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-16692681987792021062011-02-07T14:14:00.000-08:002011-02-07T14:54:48.766-08:00

He had himself made into a chair?Yeah he insisted. He wanted people at the funeral to sit on his lap and talk about how they knew him. He was smirking.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-72380292031854025812011-01-31T12:18:00.000-08:002011-01-31T13:17:03.656-08:00

I handed in my notice, in black biro on white A4, I filled it up with sorries and words like abrupt, understand and accept. It was well-received and I was congratulated by everybody in the company and they let me have the day off and gave me a crate of broccoli and a fairtrade air-horn to toot whenever I'm delighted.I feared the notice-handing-in would be more uproarious and huffmaking as I

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-13966696221453516542011-01-22T18:39:00.001-08:002011-01-22T19:13:18.043-08:00

If you're reading this, thanks for reading this.There is no news except that Sting has a cottage round here and his favourite hobby is to drive round in a small old car pretending not to be Sting. This is a fact so true that people are bored of talking about it. Unlike the cold and miserable future.If I was to make something up out of slices of things I've made up that didn't make it anywhere it

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-37081365322646620672011-01-13T09:28:00.000-08:002011-01-13T09:37:33.472-08:00

In order to continue improving our service we want to know what Helpful Banking means to our customers. * Tell us about any instances where we've been particularly helpful. * Have there been any instances where we could have been more helpful? * We're constantly looking for new ways to help our customers. What could we do to help you?You could help me by making sure the branch

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-77990861454841692722011-01-08T15:31:00.001-08:002011-01-08T16:34:37.062-08:00

I'm glad I have a job and that shops still provide employment opportunities. Unlike in the future or the Japan I've never been to where shops are massive vending machines powered by robot juice and greed that never close or run out of anything.We are being elbowed in this direction by the new brilliant ideas, which require fewer workers to do more work in less time. Competence is now laziness and

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-56560878978531905792011-01-05T17:23:00.000-08:002011-01-06T06:59:03.608-08:00

The taxman wrote. We’d lost touch. I miss him. We’ve never been very close, but now he’s showering me with numbers. I’m not sure what he wants exactly but I’m not turning anything down. He’s full of remorse. I can tell by the lack of apologies. When he says calculations he means errors. When he says within fourteen days he means sooner than never. Maybe he’s joined a religion that requires him to

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-56810377629696964402010-12-31T08:09:00.000-08:002010-12-31T09:19:49.999-08:00

Another year slides off the face and into the bin. The bus ticket was one pound of money and fifty pence of despair more than I had imagined the upper limit could possibly be even in this new modern world we currently live in nowadays before I jogged to the bus and got on board. I regretted the jogging, and did an impression of the driver saying to me the number he'd just said, and before I'd

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-71622650383601833142010-12-24T12:42:00.000-08:002010-12-24T12:57:41.125-08:00

The two-spar system couldn't last. They shut one. We moved to the lake district, or the Lake District.I work in a small shop that sells things you want. Where are the eggs? people ask, with tears on their faces and panic in their brains. They are at ankle-level, towards the back of the shelves, which is why you can't see them. Next to them are the Kinder Eggs. A daring location, away from

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-53565240240915740482010-11-26T05:13:00.001-08:002010-11-26T05:34:16.023-08:00

Now the hotel is finished they've reopened the 24-hour Spar. But they haven't closed the temporary Spar round the corner, so there is a two-Spar situation. It's the talk of the north-west. The new one has a better range of beers but a brutally narrow selection of crisps. You'd only go there when Sainsbury's is closed, though. Unless you're an absolute fucking nutcase.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-72437345478908030642010-11-12T02:17:00.000-08:002010-11-12T03:31:42.404-08:00

In the square a white-haired man approached and said can you believe it? They mugged me, in the metro, there were three guys and they take my wallet, passport, cards, it was as easy as a cake, where is the police station?I didn't know, neither did the woman next to me. The man said never again will I keep things in my trouser pockets. I said but that's where I always keep mine. I was just about

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-81410177129307416152010-10-31T08:02:00.000-07:002010-10-31T09:09:02.348-07:00

To Spain, to see Rodrigo, about the car, he might've had the spare part, he didn't, he shrugged, so we went to other place, who did, and negotiated some kind of tax-free cash-only pick-it-up-later deal. Back in France for lunch. Girls sit on folding chairs under the motorway bridges and at the truck stops. The border is unmanned, except for when it isn't. A few days of rain and the river went

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-45132960434221568292010-10-16T06:17:00.000-07:002010-10-16T06:56:11.323-07:00

Donny picked me up on the hill and we went through the gorge. He was spending Sunday in his car with The Clash. He went dff-doosh along with the drums in Police and Thieves, explained that he was a physio in Amelie and it was boring, he was doing it to get the money to go off and do Chinese medicine, and the difference between Joe Strummer's voice and Junior Murvin's, in the original, produces a

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-54480555577258893102010-10-03T07:10:00.000-07:002010-10-03T07:51:52.070-07:00

The rocks in the gorge have a lot of faces, mainly gaping cubist gargoyles. It was a week before I saw one, then they all clicked in at once on the walk back up from Amelie after a pizza and news binge. It was two days after the full moon and there was plenty of light, no cars or people. Without a torch or moon it would be easy to imagine every dark outline was a ferocious hog and wonder blindly

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-69113131990744452662010-09-25T06:40:00.000-07:002010-09-25T07:05:17.147-07:00

Amelie, it's a town, with hills and baths and older folk going up the hills to the baths, the under fifties steer well clear, you sit and watch the world go by and it doesn't. It's surrounded by green steepness and when it rains a nuclear klaxon goes off and everyone remains calm. I nearly dropped my sandwich in the river. Apparently it's for the emergency service, volunteers, it's cheaper than

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-56468828976662570942010-09-16T08:35:00.000-07:002010-09-16T09:12:12.926-07:00

With the pine-needle carpet. Twenty feet away there was a twenty foot drop to the sea.I heard seagulls only once.There was a shop round the corner, a church down the hill, sunrise to the left, sunset to the right. I ate salami, drank water, started reading Moby Dick. I wanted something putdownable.It was a different bush every night, plenty to choose from and no need to get complacent.Joggers

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-75019443474033261132010-09-11T08:28:00.000-07:002010-09-11T09:02:47.888-07:00

The beach was a mile long and had twelve people on it. They were all surprised to see me.I walked up it, ate a sandwich, looked at the sea, looked at the industrial happenings, walked back down.On the road back out I saw flamingos. I'm sure they were flamingos. If they weren't flamingos they were at least very flamingoid. They were pink and wading, doing that stalking kind of walk, almost in

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-31243152933843093542010-09-11T07:33:00.000-07:002010-09-17T07:59:14.660-07:00

It's where he painted Cafe Terrasse. Amongst much else. The café's still there, the terrace too. I went. We had it hanging on the wall, a copy of it, in the kitchen or the hall or the front room, in the first house I lived in. I used to stare at it. I thought it looked quite good.There are eight other cafés around it now. You still get the picture. I stared at it. It's not a bad place, a leafy

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-26302505910823393332010-09-08T02:19:00.000-07:002010-09-08T03:03:31.187-07:00

It was calmer this time. I sat in a park and watched people photograph the sculptures and the church and each other. The pope's old house was across town. I didn't go. I wondered how the current old nazi pope is getting on, with his tour, has it happened yet, has he been arrested by Richard Dawkins.I took a train to Montpellier. I practised my sleeping man impression and was unbothered by the

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-63847247166204639382010-09-06T13:08:00.000-07:002010-09-06T13:58:30.809-07:00

It took a while to properly leave. I packed incorrectly. Two bags is madness. I dragged them to the first roundabout thinking I don't need to be carrying seven shirts, three blank notebooks, two coats, army boots, two different shower gels...I'd forgotten how to move, six straight months, ish, in one place. I didn't have a tent.The first car that stopped contained two people I already knew. I got

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-63272238831546150402010-09-01T11:18:00.000-07:002010-11-12T03:40:14.256-08:00

The future is arriving in three days and bringing with it a whopping sense of freedom. It might also be windy. I'm getting a small tent or a jacket with pegs and pitching it in the places between places. I will spend a lot of time with my thumb out, on the side of a road, saying where is the work.Three more days here and ten of us left. Tents down, poles bundled, pegs bucketed, bins battered.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-43202039002835919452010-08-16T05:58:00.000-07:002010-08-16T05:59:15.438-07:00

Someone in the car was saying “at death's door, on death's porch between the umbrellas and the shoes, listening to the kitchen clank and thinking size five's a bit small for a reaper”. We had been caving, six of us, a black road through limestone trees and all we knew was the cave mouth was near a chapel. There was more than one chapel. We didn't find the cave. So we went to a bar and bought a

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-51531800691840066232010-08-11T03:24:00.000-07:002010-08-11T03:26:12.724-07:00

I’ve been moved from a tent now and not up or down but side-graded into a haunted caravan with a south-facing quarry and a room just for spiders and a view of three moons, two of which are on sticks attached to the earth and unmovable while the other one cheesewheels and thumbnails in the usual manner.There’s a green L-shaped bed and a fan and no bother. It’s a reward for something. I should

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-25585187064137871882010-08-11T03:20:00.000-07:002010-08-11T03:23:57.259-07:00

A serious beer, they call it, and it’s almost a pint and almost never on the menu and you have to ask for it twice. Normal unserious beers are served in glass thimbles and only good for quenching. This isn’t a complaint. I’ve been trying to write a story in my head, for a while, to save on paper, about this bald woman and her three-legged pug and a bar where it rains indoors. It’s impossible, but

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-78731861256283768442010-08-11T03:16:00.000-07:002010-08-11T03:20:41.872-07:00

Asleep in the duty hutch dreaming horses I woke up to two of them looking through the open windows and I went whuh and they trotted off in the direction of everyone else. Which was troubling because although I am not a horse-wrangler I supposed I was supposed to make them leave. So I got out of bed and followed, and they were blurry and brown and part mammoth. And hungry. So I didn’t get close.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-85345024903249807162010-05-26T12:11:00.000-07:002010-05-26T12:22:45.075-07:00

I'm emailing farmers. For September. I speak Google. I will perform tasks and my reward will be slow Frenchification plus knowledge of self-sufficiency. These are the reasons I gave the agency when they asked why do you want to do this, why, come on, why, really. I missed out "not wanting to go back to a country now ruled by chubby blue scum", because it's partially my fault that that scum has

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-31227135501478019262010-05-24T12:09:00.001-07:002010-05-24T12:10:26.363-07:00

It's happened. It's horrible. Here.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-26918569658116502892010-05-13T11:20:00.000-07:002010-05-13T11:35:10.989-07:00

It's floody with a chance of sun. It's raining in your pants and the lightning gets behind your eyelids and the thunder punches your ballbag and some people's feet have rotted off, you can see them at the edges of puddles like white toads. The sky needs putting back together. There's a tree at the bottom of the weir turning over and over and shards of it are being washed down brownstream. Lidl is

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-70910451845309301192010-04-29T23:57:00.000-07:002010-04-30T00:04:26.147-07:00

There's a Europe-wide shortage of coaches-with-beds-instead-of-seats. But we're here, and the sun's everywhere and the grass is going mental. Half the kids were ill on the first day, and some of the adults too, and Jackson Pollock had been through the bogs and there was a quarantine-the-infected / sanitise everything situation. It was save yourself for a while and the pale were shunned, along

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-85619919755364181922010-04-20T16:15:00.000-07:002010-04-20T16:40:40.581-07:00

Lucy suggested writing a story on a beer mat. I went to a pub. There were no beer mats. I read most of Bill Drummond's book $20 000. It was good. I drank three beers. The man next to me at the bar asked if the book was good. I said it was fucking brilliant. We talked about the KLF and burning a million quid, then nailing ten thousand quid to a board and framing it and selling it for more or less

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-81005300008377372082010-04-15T16:58:00.000-07:002010-04-16T15:19:47.219-07:00

The word scranige rhymes with damage and vanish, sort of, and means food and twelve years ago it was everywhere. We shortened it to scran, or fat scran for when there was more than you could eat, which for me was all the time since I used to have a shrew's bladder instead of a stomach and it was ages before I found a proper human belly on the NHS. There was a rapid transplant after the donor

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-40983427775199582512010-04-07T05:57:00.000-07:002010-04-07T06:40:58.222-07:00

28 days left in the race between doddering old ghoul and young blue menace. A reset button is begging to be pressed. I'll be away on the big day. I'm going to sell my vote and put the money on the greens getting at least one seat. The papers are full of what might happen, what might happen if what could happen happens, what happens if what is happening continues to happen, and what happened in

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-25615592964159846102010-04-02T14:09:00.000-07:002010-04-03T01:39:00.682-07:00

A narcoleptic phone is barely any use. It won't be coming wih me to the land of the lunch break. I got back a week ago and go forward in two. I will be spending a lot of time in the cave and phones are inappropriate there. You can get right up to the bats while they sleep and they don't seem to mind but probably you shouldn't do this too often.While I'm away there'll be a disastrous election. And

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-67214242852448506042010-03-21T07:43:00.000-07:002010-03-21T07:45:15.704-07:00

I suggested someone draw a dodo and they did do. This is very pleasant.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-18972934515036470532010-03-17T11:34:00.000-07:002010-03-17T11:43:23.604-07:00

I lost a quite good thing. I'd scratched it into some bark with a fingernail. Bark is plentiful since we're murdering all the trees. For safety. They've done nothing yet. But the obese ones could fall onto our tents and skulls if the wind gets pushy.Obviously we've tried putting them on diets. Special K for breakfast and milkshakes for dinner and 99 pushups at noon and all that. But before you

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-87609159324057165342010-03-14T07:47:00.001-07:002010-03-14T07:55:32.551-07:00

It's only minus nine so keep your moaning silent, ninnypants, and get on with what you've got to be getting on with. Alaskans wear t-shirts in this weather and start thinking about what flip-flops to buy when it reaches zero. And it keeps your thoughts fresh and stops your mind stinking. Makes it slower maybe, but weren't you tired of it clattering around up there all morning while you were

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-12385641800554389712010-02-18T16:11:00.000-08:002010-02-18T16:15:02.900-08:00

That squib with the hair products is regional manager now. And he needs me to sharpen up.He was born eighteen months after I was. And the cast of the film of his life is small. But their roles are rigid. The soundtrack is jangy-jangy la-la shit-foam. And there is little scope for DVD extras.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-18294181199757962212010-02-15T13:59:00.000-08:002010-02-18T16:05:58.958-08:00

For the last nine years I've kept a daily diary of my feelings. Here it is:Nothing yet.****************Obviously it's quite small so I can take it with me everywhere. I don't go everywhere, though, ever. Usually I go here and there and somewhere else and the overall effect equals going nowhere fast.Some people I know are going places. They tell me a monkey could do my job. I tell them a monkey

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-3777150874335770232010-02-10T12:55:00.001-08:002010-02-10T13:47:47.371-08:00

I went south on a train recently. I wanted to see the sun. I hear it's nice. I spotted it after the train left Stoke. It was in the sky, doing what I believe is called "shining down". The journey was from then on very agreeable, except that every train station displayed pictures of Iggy Pop, selling insurance against a purple background, everywhere. And they made me wish for a national insurance

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-60140330022365378992010-02-08T14:51:00.000-08:002010-02-08T14:56:18.033-08:00

If it was puzzling you, we are sorry. It wasn't meant to go on so long. It was meant to display courtesy, sympathy and taste. Like in the song. We didn't want to get it all over your t-shirt. But if you're going to insist on parading it around, the least you could is shut up about it.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-51714630919367485922010-02-03T10:39:00.000-08:002010-02-03T12:32:57.634-08:00

While I wake up there's a voice in my head speaking a language I don't understand. Every morning so far this year it has said the same thing. It wants me to learn what it is saying and say it. It knows my life would be pineapples and thunder if I could say this thing. Then I wake up fully and it goes away.On the news today underneath a picture of a grey-haired man feeding a dog were the words

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-29718967984524349822010-01-30T10:41:00.001-08:002010-01-30T12:31:50.196-08:00

It's half past bollocks on the millionth of January and all the headlines end with question marks. Hunger's turned up unexpectedly. It's odd how they put the food court next to the seafood hall. When you open your mouth for the pizza or the pad thai the fish wriggle off their stalls and float up your face-holes, shaking ice-flakes to the floor. A hundred tiny puddles and not one yellow cone.

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-40360133787492415842010-01-24T08:17:00.000-08:002010-01-24T08:21:27.552-08:00

Tuesday night blank time. We should've all been home making things.The trees who didn't make it through the auditions for the part of Treebeard in Lord of the Rings were sat opposite us in the corner. The pub was hushed. The windows were dribbling and the toilets were spacious. The three trees were rustling and grumbling. I thought we could bond over our shared un-love of Lord of the Rings. Book

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-49840023712459391932010-01-18T10:18:00.000-08:002010-01-18T15:28:01.573-08:00

Simple things followed simple things until an effect was produced. The effect was a bit boohoo. The things were manufactured torrentially and distributed in battalions and dressed in gowns and left in places where people might pick them up and buy them. After a while a sticker was added to the front of them and people almost couldn't not buy them. Eventually so many people had bought them and

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-8529939801930629732010-01-13T14:02:00.000-08:002010-01-13T16:58:52.668-08:00

Glenn wants an employee. The pay will be very little. The hours will be any or all. The position will be Junior Copywriter. The advert was on Gumtree. He doesn't want a CV or references or experience. He wants some words that will make him want to buy a suit, plus two samples.Hello Glenn. Here's the r you missed out of the advert you posted on Gumtree:rYou're welcome. And now you want me to sell

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-38080402142763032010-01-06T16:57:00.000-08:002010-01-08T12:53:49.898-08:00

At last I'm employed in a brewery. I knew it: I kept having dreams about boozy mischief and I'd wake up smelling of alcohol, gently sweating. How'd you explain that?I'm in the canteen, being what some people would call a food service assistant, but anyone with any sense would call a dinnerlady. It's simple work and I don't have to talk, so I can leave my brain in the fridge and think about

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-8426870379181413922010-01-04T20:30:00.000-08:002010-01-04T12:37:32.004-08:00

Unlike most humans, I cannot stop achieving. Last year I ticked more boxes than you hated Mondays. Every day I lost the battle against success. Victory followed me everywhere like gloom follows doom and eventually I was the first person to appear on the cover of every magazine in WH Smiths in the same month. The Smiths in the train station, mind, not the new one. The pinnacle of my achievments

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-19643862998399864422010-01-03T16:25:00.000-08:002010-01-03T08:40:34.060-08:00

The disco tree came back. Your standard Oak hulk, alone on a small hill, lit from the trunk to the tip of every branch by those electric rainbow-cables they have nowadays. Are they fibre-optic or just fancy fairy-lights? Wrapped tightly and plugged into I don't know what. That special outdoor electricity you get round Christmas. We gathered, about thirty of us, cold and dancing, drinking from

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-393473056606286062009-12-27T05:05:00.000-08:002009-12-27T05:08:59.813-08:00

Nick Cave is reading me a story. It's nice of him. We've never met. He didn't ask. He's doing it through the medium of seven CDs. It's a book he wrote about a salesman. It's very good. He's done a soundtrack with Warren Ellis, which is also very, as you might imagine, good. During the reading it swells at appropriate points. His voice is mixed so that narration is right here and dialogue is over

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-45599611583970205862009-12-22T15:18:00.000-08:002009-12-22T18:42:49.180-08:00

Recently there was a request for some writing. It said:Do us a line to go in an architect's christmas card. You know, instead of Merry Christmas. He's going to send it out to all his clients. I will illustrate it.About eight words perhaps. Cheers.It came from the Inkymole office, in the form of an email. Whenever an email arrives from an address ending in inkymole.com, my computer starts to sweat

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-41844673582799825912009-12-18T04:29:00.000-08:002010-01-15T10:32:48.369-08:00

I saw Beak. It's the bloke from Portishead and two other blokes. The audience was blokes and a few missuses. Someone in Manchester's tag is "Bloke", you can see it up the stairs outside the car park next to Retro Bar. It's a good word. Onstage behind them were two fixed spotlights, which mostly stayed on, so mostly what the room in front of me looked like was black man-shapes and hairy white

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-31977390442817823312009-12-12T17:22:00.000-08:002009-12-12T17:26:10.501-08:00

One of the kitchens I work in has an unstoppable radio. It's bulbous and grey and I stab it with the big cabbage-cutting knife and it takes no notice. It's a non-digital radio and so in the daytime it can either be silent or make a terrible sequence of noises. The most heart-maiming of these noise sequences is a thing called The New Single from The Prodigy."The New Single from The Prodigy" used

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-85340837751598269002009-12-11T10:18:00.000-08:002009-12-11T17:16:45.736-08:00

The man next to me on the bus was unprepared for the schoolful of kids who rushed in to squawk and fill the aisle. He started murmuring to me and himself about what can be done. Weren't there exclusive buses for the yelping shits? Aren't there still?I unfogged the window and said yeah. And I dunno. He muttered something about maybe strangling one or two, while a solution was negotiated. He asked

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7860290195874998509.post-40697730627629572322009-12-07T08:18:00.000-08:002009-12-07T14:22:03.689-08:00

It was the type of selection weekend where you have to stand out and fit in and demonstrate a lack of over-confidence. I passed, so next Sunday is the start of evaluation week, where, who knows, you could be asked to demonstrate that you have the initiative to let someone else take the initiative, while also guiding them towards a desired outcome without actually giving them instructions, within

Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00741908079770033921noreply@blogger.com0