@ 2007-09-30 – 23:24:28
Goodbye September. Another month gone fast.... i am still living in Hammersmith, sale of house taking forever and far from completed.
i long to move to Brighton. to clear my debts at last. to get re-energised. i've put so much of my life on hold, waiting.
anyone believe in the power of prayer? or white voodoo?
and, while you're at it, pray that my mother recovers and is happy, or dies in peace.
@ 2007-09-30 – 22:29:59
why oh why?
why did I consent to join facebook?
the 'real' me, the Official Me,
where i can be poked [??]
and never be what i am here -
more or less myself?
PS no hard feelings, but if anyone from blogland tracks me down there, i'll walk on by. this blog to me is a bit like adulterous love.
@ 2007-09-30 – 20:08:59
"Dying is easy, comedy is hard"
were the last words of either
George Bernard Shaw, or
David Garrick, or
Groucho Marx, or
Donald Wolfit, or
Oscar Wilde, before he said
"My wallpaper and I are fighting ourselves to death. One or other of us has to go."
On the other hand, all these remarks could have been made up by a later scriptwriter.
Bugger Bognor
@ 2007-09-30 – 11:20:19
First of all, a welcome to my Friend, Polish_English_me, who arrives today at Oxford University via Ryanair and Stanstead, probably with some toothache. To those who don't know her blog, I suggest you check it out.
Meanwhile - or rather yesterday - my local hyper-Tesco was the scene of an international political happening [and I don't mean the urine related incident related below]. I read about the planned event in The Guardian and went along to observe.
Donald Tusk, a leader of a right wing Opposition party in Poland [But right wing in a different, more market-orientated, less mad way than the Terrible Twins now in charge, who appear to want to re-introduce capital punishment, probably for abortion. Polish_English, or any other Pole reading this, please correct me if I'm wrong]
Anyway, this guy Donald Tusk decided to make a play for the votes of the million Poles who now live in the UK and Ireland, for the upcoming General Election [a week before the British one G. Brown has yet to announce] And Mr Tusk's main campaign stop was my local supermarket, where lots of Poles work.
He'd arrived early - and the first I saw was a rugby scrum-like mob of camera crews rushing out of the store, presumably surrounding the Tusk, who I couldn't see. For goodness sake, there were enough crews for a McCann's press conference!
Up close, there was a head, talking in Polish - and an uber-plasticated PR woman over empasising her rehearsed words to 2 crews who prefered to hear English. I asked her if Poles had to return to their country to vote or was there a postal voting system. Her eyes flashed loathing - presumably because she hadn't prepared an answer.
In fact Poles can vote at various polling stations in this country.
I never got close enough to see Donald Tusk properly. But all those camera crews - surely they filmed him? Unfortunately, so far this is the most arresting image Google could come up with. Is this a true likeness of Mr Tusk? I long to know.
@ 2007-09-29 – 23:41:17
i can see it in their eyes:
i don't fit in
i don't believe in Original Sin.
ahead, there could well be a scene i haven't read
where the three of us jump into a vat of molten lava. moulten? mouton?
a scene i won't be playing.
i can see it in their eyes:
they hate, resent despise, fear
my optimism.
you see, though i don't believe in god,
i have faith in the passing possibility
of heaven.
@ 2007-09-29 – 14:25:24
I don't often visit my local hyper-Tesco's. But today I had my reasons, which I will reveal tomorrow.
Anyway, as I walked across the car park, I heard a mother scolding behind me. "How disgusting to do it there! Disgusting! Couldn't you wait?" she shouted. It sounded a bit of an over-the-top way to treat a child.
At the store entrance, I pause - looking for signs of the activity I will tell you about tomorrow - and then enter. I might as well do some shopping while I'm here...
A security guard approaches. "Excuse me sir. Did you just piss?"
"What?"
"Did you piss in the car park? That lady over there says she saw you pissing."
"She must be psychotic. Out of her mind."
"So you didn't piss?"
"Certainly not." Eventually, I convince him of my piss-innocence.
But maybe, after that unfortunate incident in Wimbledon Common a few months ago - which led me to being tagged an alfresco defacator on my blog profile - my reputation has begun to follow me around.
On the other hand, perhaps there's something about my particular brand of charisma that attracts loonies.
@ 2007-09-29 – 12:00:53
My Friend ohlala, in a comment on my last post, "Lonely" asked if I ever had any children.
The answer is 'no' (most probably; it is one of the most profound differences between the sexes that a woman can always be certain)
But once I almost did become a father. My daughter would be 42 years old by now.
It's a long story. For the moment I have not the time to retell it. Instead, here is a long post I wrote 16 months ago:
For the first twenty one years of my life I was very close to my father. Too close. I don't mean he sexually abused me, anything like that. But after a very messy divorce, he made me believe I was his only confidant. At the age of nine, he explained the book about Liberalism he was writing, and asked my advice on how he should finish it. Of course, I worshipped him
God the Dad
Also when I was nine, my dad asked me if I thought he should get married again - to a woman I'll call Deidre, who I didn't like. I didn't have the courage to say 'no.' Would he have listened? My 'not liking' Deidre turned to hate. They got married - and divorced after 2 or 3 unhappy years, and a daugher, my half sister.
Anyway, forget her for now. (And my temporary step bro and sis)
From then on, my father and I had an even more intense relationship. Talking philosophy on the hills of Somerset. Then abot his business, then about politics, then my Mother, who still obsessed him.
Meanwhile I was sent to boarding schools, and eventually developed a sexual tast for young teenage boys. "Gay" would not be a word I would use. Sad and after I left school, unrequited. (Later I discovered my father's diary: he had felt much the same thing, perhaps platonically)
Hetero, after all
Then, at University (Oxbridge, in those days few girls around) I met Alison, and everything changed. We liked each other, talked a lot, had clumsy sex. Very soon she got pregnant.
This was in 1965, two years before abortion became legal.
We went to see my father, hoping he could help us get an illegal termination. It was possible and usually safe if you had the contacts and the money. In fact, I later learnt that my father had helped a girl friend of his get an abortion a few years earlier (though, apparently, not his child)
But my father freaked out at the news of the pregnancy (at the fact I wasn't gay?) Freaked out in a philisophical way.
He quoted Immanual Kant at us, the Categorical Imperative, which... well, I won't go into the metaphysics of it, but it meant we were immoral fools for thinking that abortion was the way out. On the other hand, Alison couldn't keep the baby a remain single, either
Wedlock
He wanted Alison to give birth in a special home, and then have it adopted. Two terms missed. It would be the end of her University career. Her Cambridge College was, apparently, explicit about it. A student had a baby out of wedlock... she got expelled, "sent down"
So Alison and i (who thought we were sort of in love) got married, in Church.
Then, two months later, a week after Alison's twenty first birthday (I was 22) she had a late, five month, miscarraige. Another two weeks, the baby girl would have lived. She would have been 40 years old by now.
We could - should- have got divorced straight away. In fact a solicitor mother of a friend offered to arrange it. But we were stubborn (or perhaps, only I was, it's hard to remember) We struggled on for five more years.
Prodigal Son, but I didn't repenteth
I don't think I ever forgave my father, or he forgave me. We were never close again. I disagreed with his politics and philosophy now. He resented me for not helping him complete his book. And he told everyone I was aggressive and rude. A dangerous leftie. Too pro feminist...
He tried to replace me with a couple of pseudo step sons. I never got married again, never had children.
25 years on, towards the end, I spent a lot of time with my father, organised his financial affairs, found him young women to change his sheets and underwear. But on his deathbed, he seemed surprised I was there.
@ 2007-09-29 – 00:00:34
so.
i'm not going to go round another circuit,
pounding down the familiar,
though it is tempting.
i'm not going to hop off into fantasy,
towards the outrageously unexpected
though i would love the buzz,
the closeted vengeance.
no.
i'm going to hold my ground,
breath and wait for my feelings
to catch up with my impulses.
god, it's lonely
@ 2007-09-28 – 17:35:43
when mr brown
talks of british values (pronouncing the word eccentrically, not quite the scottish of the manse)
does he include
the value of
resentful resignation
that we are likely to live in this insipid sunless gloom
all the way to some unfeasible optimistic day
in april?
@ 2007-09-28 – 14:28:01
Maybe it's the weather, or I'm sickening for a cold...
But, more likely it's the fact the negotiations seem to be taking forever.
I'm getting a bad feeling about both the the selling of my London house and the buying of the flat in Brighton. Why is the buyer of my place taking quite so long to arrange a mortgage? Could he be a front for the man who wanted to buy it first and make a deal? And why is the Brighton seller taking so long to respond? Perhaps she has a Daddy from whom she is trying to extract sugar to enable her not to move.
Paranoia, paranoia - but this moving processs has been going on since June and is beginning to get on my nerves.
@ 2007-09-28 – 06:12:29
I dreamed my book was also a non-stick saucepan, tough enough to withstand the cleaning of lots of different people.
I was going somewhere by going through a long pedestrian tunnel under a river "like one in we have in New York", a passer-by told me.
This led to being on the top of the tiled roofs of terraces of cheap ictorian hoses. I couldn't see a way down.
Think this where the non-stick saucepan came in...
@ 2007-09-27 – 23:50:25
Once upon a time, I was very young. You could only buy things if you had a coupon left in your Ration Book. And Mummy and Daddy still lived together.
Daddy had an uncle who lived in New York. Uncle Sydney
Every so often he sent me some comics, all rolled up. Sometimes they were frightening and printed on bad newspaper. I didn't like these, though I tried to. But sometimes he sent ones with shiney covers about characters I really liked, especially Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny. They made me laugh and smile.
"Why does Sydney bother to send comics if he doesn't roll up a pair of nylons with them?" mummy complained - though rolling up nylons with the comics was Smuggling and Illegal. About half the time Uncle Sydney sent nylons and half the time he didn't. My mum didn't notice the difference between the nasty, newspaper comics and the nice, funny, ones with proper colours. The nylons were all that mattered to her, because silk stockings were always getting Ladders
"I like Bugs Bunny," I told my mum. But perhaps she was going deaf already.
Her Disappointment was bigger than mine,'cos she was my mum. It wasn't fair, because Uncle Sydney wasn't even her uncle.
@ 2007-09-27 – 22:04:45
I have been sent a Private Message:
Are we allowed to use such language as your recent posting?
If I've said anything that offends anyone else, please let me know.
In the absense of chapter and verse, I can only assume she is unhappy with the language used in the extracts from Low Life Games, posted on
http://www.start-rainbow.blog.co.ukOf course, the novel is about sex. To me, to write about sex coyly or pruriently would be far more offensive, and a waste of time. Sex isn't always pleasant, loving, clean harmless fun.
Still,it would be nice to know if others felt the same way as my correspondent.
@ 2007-09-27 – 16:06:21
oh, i was so full of indignation,
this morning after a night of thoughtful waking and emotions percolating through from unknown dreams.
but before i had a chance to tap out my diatribulations on the keyboard,
my computer guy arrived and gave a much needed tutorial on all this mac & web.
then a lazy lunch and chatty shopping,
and my morning righteousness
is half forgotten, and half rather sad.
to be honest, all i want to do right now
is dose a bit again. doze?
who knows, when i awake
i may want to crash the tablets with the 10 Commandments on your head.
somehow i think probably not.
@ 2007-09-27 – 02:42:43
whatever will be, will be.
[maybe we'll cross again, i hope disundermisunderstanding-
another time zone but not inside my head
otherwise] fear of fear of fear of fear of fear of
at night they drive me mad.
whatever will be, will be.
i wish it would get on with its being.
@ 2007-09-27 – 00:24:55
i sleep,
a lot in two hours
i dream
wake?
someone called teengen leaves a Comment on a 21 month old post
about Vanessa.
how cool she would be as a mum
did i ever tell you about the time when we were wandering round Harv
@ 2007-09-26 – 22:13:10
it's not a crime to be tired... is it?
i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not i must not be hard on myself be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself i must not be hard on myself...bugger irony.
soon, i will spend a whole day doing things it would be better not to do
@ 2007-09-26 – 20:40:41
Of course she could have asked, "I've stupidly gone and lost those figures you gave me..."
Or, "Remind me how much money mum has got in her different accounts."
Or, "You know how bad I am with figures. Tell me about her financial situation again."
Or even, "We can afford to spend all this, can't we?"
Instead, my sister begins. "Now, please don't get irritated..."
Nothing irritates me more than being told not to get irritated.
But hey, this is the new Alec. I bland it out.
Would be nice, though, to have a sister I could tease a little bit.
@ 2007-09-25 – 23:04:45
it is time i fed her.
she needs me. she hasn't eaten in 17 hours.
i gave birth to her - almost two years ago. i pretend it was mechanical. she's got used to two, three, four meals a day.
it's probably because i'm a guy, but i try to smother my maternal instincts.
but she needs my attention
- my blog.
@ 2007-09-25 – 06:26:26
yes,
so much eagerly forgotten,
such a thick-trowled facade.
modulated honesty.
oh, shit.
i think i'll pause for a while.
words are getting in the way,
the lust to amuse, compulsion.
the blog is for me
not me for the blog.
it has no heartbeat of its own
it doesn't need feeding.
surely?
@ 2007-09-24 – 23:56:58
uh uh.
ever since posting the last item,
i've been remembering embarrassing, nasty stuff
descriptions of which i certainly don't want to launch into cyberspace,
not yet, anyway. not tonight.
suffice to say i used to have quite a temper
@ 2007-09-24 – 22:45:54
Today, I learnt from a close friend - we met in a therapy group 20 years ago - that my sister told her how frightened she was of my anger. She was surprised that my friend didn't feel similarly afraid.
Now, I'll admit that in the past I have got angry. I have been known to shout and slam doors. Maybe there are incidents I have conveniently forgotten. But I am not a violent man, and over the years I have become calmer and calmer.
Yet, now that my friend mentions it, I can see my sister's terrified eyes - and my mother's. They think I am a smouldering volcano, a raging bull. I seem to recall, in less temperate times, this very. fear was what used to set me off. Almost as if they wanted me to be the fall guy....
Maybe there is a lot I have conveniently forgotten.
But, maybe, too, what they fear, what they are both petrified of, is not my anger, but their own. Their barely expressed, barely containable rage. How convenient for them if they really did see foam on my mouth.
@ 2007-09-24 – 17:41:05
As he didn't say no, it most likely means yes. And, after all this build-up, if Gordon Brown doesn't call an election now, he'll be called a scaredycat.
If he calls an election at the end of October, and loses, he'll have been in office for a shorter time than any PM bar George Canning - who died after catching a bad cold in 1827 (you read it here first).
But Brown won't lose. Cameron will win more seats than the last guy Michael Howard did, a so survive as tory leader - a long term disaster for them. The Lib Dems will do badly - tho' maybe not as badly as the polls suggest at the moment - which will mean they can ditch Ming, which will help them avoid long term disaster...
One thing is pretty certain - the voter turnout will be the lowest ever.
And finally - all politicians are not the same, although they may all have the same disease. Power tends to corrupt - it's only absolute power that corrupts for certain. Most crucial of all - politics is far too important to be left to politicians.
@ 2007-09-24 – 10:28:12
This blog may have seemed confusing recently. I have taken to writing some semi-poetic statements - close-to-the-bone personal - while also continuing to write my more traditionalal style of blog.
It's confusing me, too. Often a "normal" type post comes out with a surrealish ending when I (or often i) see this typeface on the screen.
So, from now on (or until someone suggests a better contrasting one) posts like this one (sober,pseudo-objective) will be set in this, Andalo Mono,typeface.
Fiction of all sorts will continue to be printed in Verdana.
@ 2007-09-24 – 02:55:57
it's the time of the night that BCUK carries posts with titles like
Extend the Life of your Camcorder Battery by up to 2%!!
and i can't sleep.
it feels like a throwback of several years.
i'm beating myself up for something i didn't do.
in my family pain is expressed by giving righteous orders.
and i'm receiving them each minute i close my eyes
......why now? god knows. some kind of devil's dialectic
has got to me.
@ 2007-09-24 – 01:15:38
she knows now
(my sister told her, 'to prepare her for the shock')
'i'm thinking' of moving to brighton'
so my mother knows and
'interested,'
'kindly', 'meaning no harm'
is thinking of all the problems,
insummountable problems,
brewing up my life up inside her head.
but i won't let her distract me
(will i?)
and tomorrow in therapy
i'll talk about my father for a change.
@ 2007-09-24 – 00:49:27
(he's telling me now:)
"there, you see,
you can't do without me,
can't put me outside you.
curse if you must, but
parasites have their uses,
you need that constant
hating.
you resent it, but you crave it,
that loath that tells you
