solipsist in exile

169

2009-05-27T14:47:00.000+01:00

168

2009-05-20T14:07:00.001+01:00

The end.

167

2009-05-13T17:04:00.001+01:00

Group hug.

We reach out, needing something beyond our tired isolated selves. For the self is vast, but the world is much, much vaster. The self is resourceful but the world easily defeats it. The flood of despair rises. Hey you! Other people! Can you help at all? I'd like to believe I share some of your feelings, I'd like to believe I can help you. Surely empathy can't be completely useless?

(We misunderstand, we disappoint, we hurt each other. That really wasn't the intention. Sorry!)

Maybe at least we could all shout 'HELP!' forlornly together.

166

2009-05-11T17:55:00.001+01:00

You will be inhabited by strange cheese.

(There. Who says that Drodbar doesn't have a dark side?)

165

2009-05-09T18:55:00.000+01:00

Did I say 'eery'? I meant 'eary'. Since yesterday, everything has ears. Everything - walls of course, also windows, wallabies, wheels. Apples, bananas, carrots. New Zealand has ears that stick out a hundred miles - you can see them on the map. Tennis players (Virginia Wade, Yvonne Goolagong) are hitting the ball with their giant ears, instead of rackets.

Have you got ears?

164

2009-05-08T15:07:00.001+01:00

I can't find them anywhere. In truth I found them unsatisfying and slightly eery. I wanted to like them, for they had the solidity of the old. They were round, transparent, but too much geared for 'childlike fascination', i.e. for poets, not for real children. There was an ugly flake in the middle, representing a colour, but always an unattractive shade, and the shape and texture of the flakes were definitely rather horrible.

And what, precisely, could one use them for? Eventually, just as I should by rights have been feeling too old for them, I found a use, thanks to David Vine. Substitute snooker. But then next Christmas my parents gave my brother and me an actual quarter-size snooker table. I liked the motion, the motion of the body in playing a shot and the motion of the snooker balls. Solitary snooker accompanied my meditations: a misspent youth - meditating.

So, as quite often, I feel slightly guilty and regretful for not being more excited about things of which I approve.

But anyway, aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, the sun has got his hat on (or has she?), Miriam Margolyes, abracadabra Unreliable Witness, zxcvbnm. And a packet of cheese and onion flavour crisps, please.

163

2009-05-07T14:16:00.000+01:00

Residents of Australia! Would you like to join my Lets Pretend We Live In England Society?

(N.B. Residents of America, Argentina, very small islands, Greeks who live in Scotland etc. also very welcome.)

(P.S. Residents of England! Why not start a Lets Pretend We Are Residents Of Australia [etc.] Pretending To Live In England Society?)

162

2009-05-06T18:09:00.002+01:00

And apparently Canberra is north of Sheffield, at nighttime and during the winter, and occasionally at weekends.

161

2009-05-06T14:10:00.001+01:00

They say that King's Lynn is north of Leicester. Should we believe them, do you think?

160

2009-05-05T22:07:00.000+01:00

Did you know that Norwich is north of Birmingham?

159

2009-04-29T20:08:00.001+01:00

Goodbye, Jean-Paul Sartre. Fare thee well, Samuel Beckett. So long, Albert Camus. Cheerio, William Burroughs. Be seeing you, Hunter S. Thompson. Toodlepip, John Noakes. Au revoir, Oscar Wilde. Auf wiedersehen, Pete {my next-door-but-one neighbour}.

158

2009-04-27T21:55:00.001+01:00

The dogs have sandwiches. They hold them in their paws as they race. Around and around they run, holding aloft tuna and sweetcorn, prawn and mayonnaise, cheese and tomato, ham.

The greatest of all was Happy Harvey. As a handicap, he would hold a fullsize baguette (cheese and pickle), and still he outraced all opponents on every outing, for three years in a row. After his retirement he had a brief spell in media, before opening a successful employment agency, with branches throughout the country.

157

2009-04-23T18:32:00.000+01:00

Why is the sea full of rabbits?

156

2009-03-16T00:01:00.001Z

I am taking a holiday from self-expression.

See you later. Bye!

155

2009-03-13T23:11:00.001Z

I have saved 82p from 'multibuy savings' during my visit to the supermarket today.

Looking at the receipt upon my return home, it feels good to recognise the names of my friends: macaroni cheese, mushrooms, granary loaf, Marston's Pedigree, baked beans, swede.

Perhaps a reader is thinking 'get a life'. Well, I have had one of them already, and it wasn't very good. Standing in noisy bars with bouncers on the doors, with horrible modern music and aggressively flashing videoscreens, drinking overpriced lager and straining to hear what someone is shouting in my ear. I think that's what some people mean by 'life'. Oh, to think of what I'm successfully avoiding: all the cackle of banal conversation, all the having to maintain relationships with lots of different people, some of whom I like more than they like me, some of whom like me more than I like them, some of whom I thoroughly dislike and the feeling is mutual, some of whom wish me well but are quietly looking forward to being on their own again, as I am.

No, macaroni cheese and granary loaf are far more rewarding companions.

Get a loaf.

154

2009-03-11T20:48:00.001Z

It occurs to me that, between us all, we inhabitants of this planet could have come up with a much better name for it. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter: they're alright, but Earth? Let's name all the other planets after Roman gods, and let's name our own one after that mucky brown stuff in the ground.

Or maybe it is appropriate, after all?

I hereby declare a competition to think up a better name for our planet. So come on, readers, send your 'Renaming Our Planet' suggestions to Solipsist In Exile. On your marks, get set, go. I'll forward the best suggestion to Prince Charles.

153

2009-03-09T19:47:00.000Z

I want to write closer to the womb.

As opposed to from an established position in society.

As if guiding potential human beings as to whether it's worth popping out or not.

152

2009-03-05T23:38:00.000Z

I could argue, paradoxically, that romantic idealists are actually the true pessimists and the true realists.

Pessimists in that the keen desire for a far better, much different world is produced out of a deep dissatisfaction with the world as it is; a desperation that requires some outlet; a place for the positive feelings that can't be met in the world we actually inhabit.

Realists in that the depiction of the desired society as utopian indicates, consciously or unconsciously, a belief that it isn't really possible. This contrasts with the optimism of those who believe that a desired society can come about through political change, or of those who are sufficiently content with the world as it is not to desire fundamental change.

It is a yearning. It is the best part of us crying out forlornly for a world that matches its goodness. Better for that part to express itself forlornly than for it to resign and perish.

I salute those who have the courage to express this yearning. Such expression embarrasses and antagonises those who have resigned to cynicism. But can there be real joy, deep happiness, in cynicism? I doubt it.

151

2009-03-03T23:53:00.002Z

150

2009-03-02T19:09:00.000Z

With all this social networking, perhaps soon everyone will officially be everyone else's friend. Won't that be nice? Maybe that'll see an end to wars and so forth.

149

2009-02-27T18:36:00.000Z

I'm going to a good place. It's called 'the past'.

It's terrific there. All those trends that are making society so dire are in glorious reverse. Oh, I really recommend it. If you're fed up with all this 'dumbing down', journey into the past and thrill as things get smartened up again. Fed up with rising prices? Well, the further you travel into the past, the cheaper everything gets!

Everything in the past feels so much more solid.

And, by its very nature, it's fantastically safe. It's invulnerable, and totally unthreatening.

And when it looks unpleasant, as, to be honest, it does on occasion, you can feel smug about the fact that you don't actually live there, you're just visiting.

148

2009-02-23T00:04:00.002Z

I have discovered an excellent English author of the nineteenth century. He is called Charles Dickens.

In a long, prolific career, Dickens (1812-1870) wrote many classic novels, including Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, Octopus Girl, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist. These are tremendous, action-packed sagas, and yet so much more. Socially concerned, psychologically astute, emotionally uninhibited yet sensitive, Dickens realised the broad potential of the novel form as very few other writers have before or since.

Dickens is a master creator of characters. Once you have encountered the most colourful, they will stay with you forever: Mr. Micawber, Little Dorrit, The Artful Dodger, Uriah Heep, Donny the Dolphin, Scrooge. Dickens was equally adept at creating atmosphere, and his descriptions of houses in particular are some of the finest passages of writing in English that I have come across.

A distinctive feature of so many of Dickens's novels is a fascination with the lives of marine mammals and molluscs. It is as if Dickens (who lived in a house overlooking the English Channel in Broadstairs, Kent) is saying to his readers, 'life for humans on land is a painful learning process, why can we not live more like the beautiful and sagacious creatures of the ocean?'

My two very favourite of his books are Great Expectations (1861) and David Copperield (1850). Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, an orphan who finds fortune from an unknown source, which brings tragedy in its wake. In this novel Dickens combines his penchant for the gothic with an unflinching social realism which was courageous, almost revolutionary for 1861. David Copperfield is another bildungsroman, in which a porpoise (David Copperfield) forms an unlikely friendship with a sailor on a fishing boat, whom he eventually rescues when the boat capsizes, following an unfortunate misunderstanding with Iggy the Iceberg.

Dickens's novels are long, but they are mostly quite cheap. Readers find in them a robustness, a sincerity and a compassion, which, from our twenty-first century postmodern vantage point, we can only envy.

147

2009-02-21T19:00:00.001Z

It is seven o'clock in the evening here, and many people throughout Britain are preparing to go out. I hope they all have a very pleasant time.

Reader, I wish you an extremely happy evening/morning/night.

146

2009-02-19T19:20:00.000Z

Do you think that I should move house?

145

2009-02-17T14:09:00.001Z

People give blood for the sake of doing some good they will never know about; other people create and spread computer viruses for the sake of doing some bad they will never know about. There is so much good in the world, and there's so much bad. (Well, there's a lot of all sorts in the world, so that's not surprising really.) The good makes the existence of the bad more painful, more exasperating. One feels a drive to fight for the good and remove all bad from the world. But this will never happen. There will be bad and good, ugliness and beauty until the end of time.

And in our own lives, happiness and unhappiness. Drives to happiness don't seem to succeed, in any long term. There is no arrival, no final harbour of contentment, just a messy mixture of good and bad feelings over which our control is disappointingly slight.

144

2009-02-12T22:30:00.000Z

Why not listen to British modern jazz?

143

2009-02-10T14:26:00.002Z

I like to say 'good morning', 'good afternoon' and 'good evening'. They possess more character and dignity than 'hello'. The only problem with them is, though, that at certain times of the day I'm not sure which of the phrases to use. I used to say 'good afternoon' to people as soon as the time was after noon, but people kept replying 'good morning' to me at half past twelve. When do you think the afternoon turns into the evening, exactly? Perhaps at quarter past five?

Occasionally, the part of me that regulates my speech goes awry, and I say, for instance, 'good morning' at seven o'clock in the evening. Do you ever make such mistakes? Are you subsequently embarrassed, or amused?

142

2009-02-05T15:02:00.001Z

And, deep down, there is an unwillingness to believe that the world is as bad or as random as it is. It seems so wrong, too wrong to accept.

We might find consolation, solidarity, if our culture addressed this fundamental angst. But instead, but instead... well, turn on your TV, read your newspaper, read the adverts everywhere that are supposed to excite and motivate you. One feels more alone, seeing the misery everywhere, and seeing it failing to be addressed. As if not to think, not to feel, not to care is the healthy attitude. Or, rather, to think, feel and care only about what doesn't matter. As the pain accumulates privately.

141

2009-02-02T14:23:00.000Z

Have you ever sat on an egg?

140

2009-01-29T22:20:00.001Z

Spicy beanburgers, mashed potatoes, swede, tomatoes, mushrooms.

I want to be totally absorbed in the eating experience. I want to get inside my food.

The paradox with food is that I put a lot of effort and thought into buying it in the shops, I get hungry and look forward to eating it, I spend a long time preparing it all, after I've finished I think 'oh, that was nice', but while I'm actually eating it I'm nearly always thinking about something else. If only I could savour the pleasure in the moment a bit more, what a happy man I would be.

139

2009-01-26T16:27:00.000Z

Do you prefer animals to plants, or do you prefer plants to animals?

138

2009-01-20T18:34:00.004Z

Isn't it nice when people say 'thank you'? I wonder how may times 'thank you' has been said or written today, in whatever language. It's heartening to imagine people all over the world, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, saying 'thank you' to one another. It's good to think of people helping each other in this difficult life, and in turn appreciating each other for this help. Let us savour the contributions people make to keeping ruthless selfishness, cruelty and sheer misery at bay. For what is benign always seems vulnerable, in peril.

137

2009-01-19T19:38:00.000Z

There are now definitely too many pairs of scissors in my house.

136

2009-01-13T18:55:00.001Z

It really is the case, isn't it, that all the blue pens turn black when you want a blue pen, and all the black pens turn blue when you want a black pen?

It de-pens...

But maybe twenty-first century modern people don't use pens anymore.

135

2009-01-12T16:00:00.000Z

I don't mind watching the telly, as long as it isn't actually turned on.

134

2009-01-06T14:51:00.003Z

As an alternative to the introvert/extravert axis, one could distinguish between those who most like having good experiences and those who most like talking about their experiences.

Would you rather do something good and not get any credit for it, or be given a lot of credit for something which you didn't actually do?

133

2009-01-05T15:18:00.000Z

We are brought up with certain values. These values are made of stone. It didn't matter what we felt about them: they were there, they were real.

And so, in some ways, they remain. Within us, throughout our lives.

We develop our positions in relation to them. We rebel, or we develop individually away from them in a more thoughtful, discriminate way. Maybe returning closer to them after a while, maybe not. Yet our development is in relationship to them; they remain part of us.

So when society's values change we feel orphaned. The values we have molded ourselves around become just a curiosity of history. It was for us to develop away from these values, not society. We feel displaced in a strange world, a world that in some ways seems less real that the displaced reality of our childhoods. A valueless world, since the new values have no solidity, no roots within us.

But when was I entitled to use the royal 'we'?

132

2009-01-01T18:25:00.000Z

What do you know? We've just got through one year, and before we can even pause for breath, straightaway another one begins.

It's a hard life, isn't it?

On 1 January 2008 I wished you all a happy New year. So perhaps, if you had one, my good wishes can take some of the credit. If you didn't, I'll try to wish more effectively this time.

It remains for me to quote Jude Simpson again:

Will it be a blue year, a true or an askew year?
a yabadabadoo year?
or yet another getting-in-a-stew year?
I haven't got a clue, dear, but have a happy new year.

Good luck, everybody.

131

2008-12-27T23:57:00.001Z

I have spent these last two days completely on my own, not leaving my home. It's been most pleasant. I didn't watch television either.

I wasn't alone on 25 December, though. I'm not that hardcore.

130

2008-12-22T14:27:00.000Z

Enough words for the time being.

129

2008-12-20T16:18:00.000Z

Retired blogger Itelli has asked me to spread the word about this mistreatment of an innocent woman by Greek police:

http://policeviolence.blogspot.com/2008/12/woman-arrested-and-attacked-by-greek.html

128

2008-12-18T15:52:00.000Z

I smashed it up with a hammer.

127

2008-12-15T22:15:00.003Z

I'm on your side.

126

2008-12-11T22:19:00.000Z

Do you take your clothes off when you have a bath?

125

2008-12-08T14:48:00.000Z

Peace was has been declared in the war between the people who prefer showers and the people who prefer baths.

Hostilities have been soaking, with whole bathrooms thoroughly drenched. The scatter-gun tactics of the Showerhead Artillery were initially very effective, but lately the Armoured Bath Divisions have been advancing closer and closer to the watertank.

At the peace summit in Avon today it was declared that the thing to do was to lie in a full bath, then turn on the shower attachment above it, so that you can actually enjoy the benefits of a bath and the benefits of a shower at the same time.

The respective presidents of both factions celebrated by jumping into a bath-plus-shower together. A celebratory concert is being planned, featuring Gilbert O'Sullivan, Johnny Hallyday and The Simon Park Orchestra, who are reforming specially for the occasion. "This is a tremendous day, for bath enthusiasts and shower enthusiasts alike," said Felicity Kendal.

124

2008-12-05T15:15:00.002Z

Question: When you are filling up your tub in readiness for a bath, do you initially just turn on the hot tap, then add some cold water at a later stage, or do you turn both taps on at the very start of the operation?

123

2008-12-03T14:19:00.000Z

Death: 'Would you like some pudding?'
Knight: 'Lets listen to Boney M.'

122

2008-12-01T15:01:00.001Z

My subjective consciousness desires your subjective consciousness. They must meet, touch, merge, tear apart, make love, fight, consume each other.

121

2008-11-26T14:50:00.006Z

The old soldier tramped wearily across the marsh. The pain in his body was piercing, yet somehow fitting, for it was the pain in the soul that was truly consuming. The hopes shattered, the peace forever lost. His mind wandered back to those far gone days when life reverberated with promise, when all was either passionately exciting or serenely beautiful. Oh, long lost happiness! Oh, cruel, bitter world!

He thought of childhood days of innocence, at the zoo, and watching Blue Peter. The days when his father seemed the greatest hero on earth, his mother the very womb of the world, the font of all love. He thought of all the women he had known in his life, the moments of pure exhilarating union that seemed to transcend time, the warmth of the female caresses that soothed a thousand aches, the deliciously illicit pleasures of the body, with mayonnaise and so forth. And all the times he had seen Leeds United play at home. Gary Sprake, Jackie Charlton, Peter Lorimer, Johnny Giles. And all the great television programmes he had watched: The Generation Game with Bruce Forsyth, Sale Of The Century with Nicholas Parsons. And oh, The Golden Shot, and Celebrity Squares. And Blankety Blank, initially with Terry Wogan, later with Les Dawson. All those happy memories of the family gathered as one, engrossed in It's A Knockout.

And Boney M, who somehow seemed to encapsulate it all: Ma Baker, Brown Girl In The Ring, Mary's Boy Child, Daddy Cool. And Rasputin. Before he knew, his voice was singing out, with a peculiar defiant joy:

There lived a certain man in Russia long ago
He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow

His whole body seemed to pulsate, possessed by musical fever:

Most people looked at him with terror and with fear
But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

His whole life became a 1970s disco, as the very marsh itself joined in the verses:

He ruled the Russian land, and never mind the Csar
But the kazachok he danced really wunderbar
In all affairs of state he was the man to please
But he was real great when he had a girl to squeeze

A ghostly chorus of old soldiers, living and dead, friend and foe alike, danced deliriously to the chorus:

Ra-Ra-Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen
There was a cat that really was gone
Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine
It was a shame how he carried on

There was a cat who really was gone. Yes indeed.

Anyway, while all this was going on, a UFO landed on the marsh, and out of it walked an purple alien, with three heads and fifteen feet. He abducted the soldier and whisked him off to an intergalactic zoo, where he was to spend the rest of his days in a cage, shared with a snake from the planet Venathos, whose eye was five times larger than the rest of its body.

120

2008-11-24T18:13:00.001Z

Ludwig van Beethoven is good.

119

2008-11-18T23:25:00.001Z

Apparently, my voice sounds like Jools Holland's.

118

2008-11-11T22:49:00.000Z

ping

117

2008-11-07T19:39:00.003Z

So where are they now? The visionaries and the saints, the poets and the painters, the fearless, the outcasts and the audaciously beautiful?

So where are they now? The lovers and the referees, the custodians of the verities, the heroes and the narrators, the substitutes and the subterraneans, the Romans and the Greeks, the dancers and the usherettes, the masterminds and the six billion dollar men?

They were here just a minute ago.

So where are they now? The musicians and the Chancellors of the Exchequer, the self-contained, the officers, officials and officious people. So where are they now? Peter, Paul and Mary (and Philip)?

Yes, where are they now? The Jefferson Airplanes and the Samantha Fox impersonators? The Joe Gormleys and the ding-dong-ding-dong-bells?

Where on earth can they be? Julius Caesar and Tony Blackburn, the surveyors and the hopeless cases, the push-me-pull-yous? Where are they now? Lester Piggott, A. J. Ayer, Mr. and Mrs. Watkins and William of Orange?

In Poundland.

116

2008-11-03T20:54:00.001Z

Shave half your beard off.

115

2008-10-29T16:20:00.003Z

This evening will be cloudy with outbreaks of rain across Northern Ireland, Wales and southwestern England, although skies should clearing across Northern Ireland later tonight. It will be generally dry elsewhere with a touch of frost, especially in the northeast.

Tomorrow will be cold and breezy, with a mixture of sunny intervals and scattered showers.

114

2008-10-27T18:56:00.001Z

What this country needs is more people who remind one of Johnny Morris.

113

2008-10-20T20:28:00.002+01:00

We think of our conscious minds as actors, but maybe we should think of them more as roles.

112

2008-10-17T16:18:00.000+01:00

Sir Edward Elgar is good.

111

2008-10-13T18:54:00.000+01:00

"If you ask me it all started to go wrong when they got rid of the 1970s and replaced them with those awful 1980s. Since then it's been downhill all the way. I don't know why they couldn't have kept the 1970s, I really don't. If they wanted a change they could have brought back the 1960s for a couple of years, then reinstated the 1970s when they'd had a good rest."

"Yes."

110

2008-10-09T21:23:00.000+01:00

Behind all is the mystery.

There is much beauty to be found in the world, amongst everything else. Yet beauty seems an aberration, a contradiction, not a key to the centre, nor a memorial of something lost.

It is a mystery. One can be in awe of it, and one can be exasperated at the sheer not knowing.

(I thought of all that just now, in the bath. It's rather good, isn't it?)

109

2008-10-07T20:35:00.000+01:00

It's just one thing after another...

108

2008-09-29T19:31:00.000+01:00

"How do you do? I am a writer."
"I'm very well, thank you. I am a writer too."
"Jolly Dee. Aren't us writers just brilliant?"
"Yes, I'm sure that if I wasn't a writer, I'd be feeling terrible, but as it is I'm feeling very well, as I just mentioned."
"And I'm feeling very well as well, thank you for asking."
"Where would the world be without our writing?"
"Urrrrh. I shudder to think."
"Writing makes the world go round. There's no two ways about it."
"Would you like some Parmesan cheese, to sprinkle on your pasta?"
"No thanks, but is there any pesto?"
"Yes, there's some over there. Would you like me to pass it to you?"
"Yes please."
"Here it is."
"Thank you very much."
"I think us writers are a kind of master race."
"I don't think people who don't write should be allowed to vote in elections."
"It's writing that distinguishes man from the animals."
"People who don't write aren't worth contemplating."
"Apart from Suzi Quatro."
"Apart from Suzi Quatro, yes indeed."
"Mind you, it's such a heavy burden, being responsible for the human race's spiritual well-being, the way we writers are."
"Ah, yes, but it's such sweet music, the sound of tapping on keyboards."
"You see that man over there, with the dark hair?"
"Yes."
"Isn't that Dave Bartram, the lead singer out of Showaddywaddy?"
"Well, I'm blowed. So it is."

107

2008-09-25T16:53:00.001+01:00

I am going to dig a great big hole.

106

2008-09-17T22:39:00.002+01:00

Q: Hello. You've owned every make of car, haven't you?
A: I had no Honda. Hi!
Q: Which car is the jewel of your collection?
A: A gem? Omega.
Q: But which do you like above all others?
A: Er, a love? Volare.
Q: Is there any type of driver you really dislike?
A: Ah, an ass in a Nissan - aha!

105

2008-09-15T00:41:00.001+01:00

104

2008-09-09T22:08:00.003+01:00

Then it all went horribly wrong.

‘Oh dear,’ said Peter, ‘it’s all gone horribly wrong. Blast!’

‘Oh no,’ said Ginny, ‘what a shame.’

'What a turn-up for the books,’ commented Harry.

‘And it was all going so well,’ added Bernard, thoughtfully.

‘How best can we deal with this sudden crisis?’ asked Eric, ever the practical one.

'We’ll just have to be stoical,’ replied Jennifer.

‘It’ll be a good bracing challenge, to make things go right again’ said Paul, with an enthusiasm that was partially convincing.

‘Look on the bright side,’ said Stephen, ‘at least we’ve got our health.’ He didn’t notice Cuthbert, who at that very moment was turning purple and frothing.

‘Let's sing a song, to show how cheery we are, even in the face of adversity,’ said Joyce.

‘Yes, let's,’ the others cried out in unison.

‘It’ll be a tour de force of resilience,’ stated Alan, emphatically.

And so they sang a song. And rather a good song it was too, in my humble opinion. Would you care to join in, dear readers? It goes like this:

La la la lee la lee la

Dum dum diddly-oh de-doh

Dee dee dee de dee de dee

Fodli-oh deodih fodiddleye

103

2008-09-05T18:19:00.000+01:00

Goodbye, Jimi Hendrix. Fare thee well, Bob Dylan. So long, John Lennon. Cheerio, Jim Morrison. Be seeing you, Joni Mitchell. Toodlepip, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

102

2008-09-01T21:47:00.000+01:00

Last Monday I sat on a bench, surrounded by the ruins of a castle, in a large town by the coast. The sun had set, but there were street lamps around: it was not fully dark. The atmosphere was still and powerful, redolent of so much. A classic scene for a landscape painting, a postcard or a dramatic episode in a film.

It was Bank Holiday Monday in August, it was not raining, I was yards away from central streets, and yet there was no one else there at all. Much as my solitude enhanced the atmosphere, I did not like feeling that I was doing something abnormal - unique among the town-dwellers at that moment. Why wasn't I sat at home watching television (perhaps watching scenes of atmospheric castle ruins), or drinking in a horrible noisy bar, or squabbling with lovers or relatives? Or why were other people doing that, rather than sitting peacefully in the castle ruins? It's disquieting, because like nearly all people I do desire to live amongst a community for whom I feel empathy.

101

2008-08-26T10:02:00.000+01:00

'Vegetable man, where are you?'

100

2008-08-18T15:41:00.001+01:00

I'm also rather partial to soup. Which flavour do you like best?

(I don't like cold soup, though. Not at all.)

99

2008-08-06T21:15:00.001+01:00

I like sandwiches and crisps.

98

2008-08-04T00:10:00.000+01:00

yad sdrawkcab

97

2008-07-24T19:07:00.001+01:00

Many people are interested in celebrities, without irony.

96

2008-07-22T21:10:00.001+01:00

Cheer up, it's David Essex's birthday tomorrow.

95

2008-07-21T00:30:00.001+01:00

Booh!

94

2008-07-16T21:55:00.000+01:00

What I like about music is that it's so useless, so gratuitous. Life is a struggle, survival is precarious, comfort even more so; yet all this effort goes into sounds that don't even address all the desperate practical issues at stake.

It's more pure if no words are sung.

All that intensity, all that complexity and subtlety, all that passion, all that expression of the soul, for nothing other than itself.

So useless is its beauty, so pure, so unviolated by the utilitarian.

Useless and gratuitous. I can empathise with that.

93

2008-07-05T21:04:00.003+01:00

Shy person I honour you.

I honour you largely because I like you.

I like you because I endorse your refusal, your denial of the false ease of the social world. You experience an agony in having to pretend that a contrived culture is natural; that a received culture is your culture. You have courage in letting the agony show. Wear your badge with pride.

You fear the judgement of others. But in truth none of us can be immune to this fear. People appear unafraid because they have hidden themselves away, in order to become a participant on society's terms. They are good actors. You, shy person, refuse to act eptly because you do not want to act at all. Your recognition of the power of real truth won't allow you to participate sincerely in what appears to you as an obscene simulation of touch.

The social culture you are obliged to inhabit is difficult because it fails to nourish, yet it demands. Thus it becomes an ordeal. Shy person, you display in public something of the real world of private feeling. You display what the rest of us keep hidden.

Thank you.

92

2008-07-05T20:26:00.001+01:00

The battle of the sexes.

Lets call it a draw, and move on.

91

2008-06-30T19:00:00.001+01:00

I have come back again, again.

Unfortunately, within twenty-four hours of my return, my washing line snapped in two.

90

2008-06-19T14:45:00.000+01:00

I am going to Scotland again.

89

2008-06-16T18:56:00.000+01:00

I sat down to eat my supper, but then noticed that I had in my hands two knives, rather than a knife and a fork.

So I returned the two knives to the kitchen, returning to my place with a fork. Eventually I realised: I no longer had a knife on me.

I returned again to the kitchen and then back to my chair. This time I had the appropriate one knife and one one fork in my hands, and I went on to enjoy a splendid meal of cheese ravioli, carrots, tomatoes and courgettes.

88

2008-06-10T22:09:00.000+01:00

2009 was the year when the new ascendancy of poetry began. No one has quite fathomed out why the fifteen-minute poetry programme on BBC4 on Sunday mornings suddenly shot to the top of the ratings, but within a month there were six spoken-word poetry recordings in the top ten of the singles charts. Every magazine, from Good Housekeeping to Playboy, had a poet on the cover.

Before long, crowds were chanting whole poems by Wordsworth, Milton and Stevie Smith at football matches. So enwrapped did the spectators become in the subtle celebrations of life, the poignancies, tragedies and ambiguities and the deep philosophical dilemmas articulated in the poetry, that they lost interested in the game being played, and before the end of the season the players had lost interest in it too.

The daily poetry recitals at Wembley Stadium all sold out within minutes, even the ones at 7.30 in the morning.

Politicians started speaking in verse, and in July an episode of Eastenders was broadcast with each character speaking entirely in iambic pentameter. This soon became standard, in soap operas, thrillers, documentaries, the news and eventually even weather forecasts.

Housewives meeting in supermarkets stopped gossiping and took up declaiming sestinas. Unfortunately, road accidents increased, owing to drivers experiencing epiphanies at the wheel.

The birth rate decreased, as couples gave up sex, in order to concentrate on reciting love poems to each other in bed.

Space travel resumed, so that astronaut-poets could recite sonnets on the moon.

Then in 2011 everyone started playing the flute.

87

2008-06-07T00:21:00.005+01:00

I've got a problem with Microsoft Word. Namely, that I can't open it. Grrr, what a wretched life this is. I mean, what is the point? Why do I bother?

It's alright for you, all you people with your so-called problems. You haven't got a corrupt Microsoft Word file to worry about. You lucky buggers, you don't know you've been born.

a bit later

Grrr...
Grrr... Grrr
Maybe... maybe ... no ... no, of course no

a bit later

Maybe... Don't hold your hopes too high, Drodbar, learn from bitter previous experience... never count you chickens before they cross the... YES! It's bloody well working, it's bloody well working ... (bursts into song) Oh, I sorted it out all by myself, I sorted it out all by myself.

Oh, all's right with the world, and I'm just a genius. Oh, they don't call me Mr. Practical Computer-Sorter-Outer for nothing, you know. I'll just do a quick lap of honour. Oh, it was nothing, it just comes naturally.

86

2008-06-05T20:07:00.000+01:00

I think very deeply.
I'm a really good thinker.

People don't bother me much.
They can see I'm using my mind.

Watch my conclusions:

hmmm hm-hm hm-hm
hm-hm hmmmm

(Ivor Cutler, 1975)

85

2008-06-03T00:53:00.000+01:00

Would you like to be a giraffe? Or would you rather be a hippopotamus?

84

2008-05-31T10:18:00.000+01:00

I was thinking today about all the people I've met whom I have completely forgotten, who will never again appear in my mind. How do I feel about these people? What would I like to say to you, if you were one of them?

Well, if you were kind to me, I say "thanks very much, I do appreciate it, really, even if I can't remember what it was that you kindly did." If you were unkind to me, then bugger you, unless you were subsequently sorry. If I served you badly, or came across as a prat, oh dear. If I made a positive impact on your life, however slight, then alleluia.

I wonder how many of these people remember me.

All rather obvious sentiments, really. But what I feel most is a sadness that we touched and then just drifted off. Any partial connection kindles the aspiration for an ultimate togetherness, which it then disappoints.

Union! Union! Togetherness! Togetherness! For everybody! All the time! (Would you vote for a party with such a manifesto? It's not very realistic, is it? But it's a nice thought, helps keep you going. Or is it actually a horrible one?)

(And time - time too. Time, our relentless master, who takes away the moment of touch, as he takes away every moment we've ever lived . We watch it recede helplessly, until eventually we turn our backs. I don't think we want moments that go, we want moments that stay firm, that we can build our homes in. "Ha", says time. The bastard. Wouldn't it be great if we could all rise up and revolt, grab hold of time and imprison him [or is time female? What do you reckon, readers?]?)

"No man is an island"*, asserted John Donne in 1624. "He's a peninsula", added Jefferson Airplane in 1968 (on the excellent After Bathing at Baxter's), before promptly bursting into giggles (I think they might have been a bit stoned). I reckon the Airplane got the metaphor right, to the extent that it can be right, while remaining poetic. The prosaic truth is, of course, that in some ways we are each separate from everybody else, and in other ways we are connected.

Oh how arbitrary and peculiar this life is, way beyond comprehension.

*"Except the Isle of Man". Have you heard that one before? I hadn't, until I heard it in a song by Murray Torkildsen about ten years ago, at a concert in which he was singing. I thought it was hilarious: I laughed out loud. I went up and congratulated Murray on his witty pun after the performance, but he told me that he hadn't made it up himself, implying that it was as old as the hills. It's a good pun, though, don't you think? (N.B. international readership, the Isle of Man is a small island to the west of England.)

83

2008-05-29T18:35:00.002+01:00

"If you're dozy, here's a tactic: tell them all they're too didactic."
(Ian Dury, 1991)

That should work.

82

2008-05-27T00:43:00.003+01:00

Kevin Coyne with Jon Langford and The Pine Valley Cosmonauts: One Day In Chicago (Spinney Records)

Kevin Coyne died three and a half years ago, and I miss him. Rugged, curmudgeonly and humane, freewheeling and down-to-earth, Kevin was the voice of worldly experience for our times: it seems wrong that he’s no longer with us, and equally wrong that his unique artistic voice is so underacknowledged. It’s true that superstardom would never have suited Kevin, indeed he often seemed to wilfully turn his back on any chance of the big time, but it would be right and just if he attained the posthumous recognition accorded to Nick Drake (who I like to think of as Kevin’s doppelganger, the voice of innocence – the other side of the Coyne, as it were).

Start your Coyne collection with Millionaires And Teddy Bears. Existing Coyneverts will find One Day In Chicago a poignantly splendid offering to perpetuate his presence. This was recorded – and seemingly composed – on one day in December 2002 (in Chicago, indeed) in collaboration with Jon Langford, once one of The Mekons and an underrated talent in his own right. The loose, unpolished feel suits Kevin perfectly. Coyne’s improvised lyrics are streams of consciousness that meander contrarily, never failing to convey the mature passion of a dryly ironic but so-deeply felt engagement with life, unillusioned, unpretentious but naturally intense. To listen to Kevin with an open soul is to swim in a deeper, inevitably painful emotional reality, the one we know is there but usually prefer not to acknowledge. It’s cathartic, man, shy away at your loss. Hats off to an irreplaceable hero.

www.kevincoyne.de

81

2008-05-23T00:26:00.000+01:00

Do you think that birthdays should be celebrated once every two years, rather than every year? I've got no objection to my own birthday being celebrated every year, but other people's - well, there are rather a lot of them, aren't there? It can be a bit tedious, can't it, to be honest? You want to mark the day as a celebration of someone whom you love, but instead it just becomes another chore, another petty duty eating away at your freedom. So, why not making them more meaningful and less tiresome by making them biennial?

I'd vote for any party that'd say it would make birthday celebrations biennial, but not of the main ones seem particularly interested.

What do you reckon?

80

2008-05-16T16:02:00.002+01:00

Latest news: the rheumatic pain in my left foot has increased slightly.

79

2008-05-12T00:46:00.000+01:00

Today there is a protest march by the unhappy. They are protesting against the world, the world that has rendered them unhappy.

It is mostly a silent protest. There are some who protest their unhappiness loudly, but these are unpopular with the majority of their fellow protesters, who take pride in carrying their unhappiness with a quiet dignity.

Least popular in the ranks are those who use their unhappiness to justify anti-social behaviour. The deeply unhappy regard it as their privilege to empathise keenly with suffering: in their eyes for an unhappy person to create unhappiness in others is an abomination. How many have there been who have taken their own lives, yet took great pains never to harm a fly? These are the true unsung heroes and heroines. The march celebrates their honour.

78

2008-05-07T17:40:00.001+01:00

The sheer unlikelihood of existence, the something - the everything - that came from nothing, renders it all too deep a mystery.

Way too deep.

77

2008-04-30T18:24:00.001+01:00

I think that symmetry is overrated.

Odd socks. Unmatching curtains - on the same window.

76

2008-04-24T21:20:00.000+01:00

Isn't it a nuisance that, after you've gone and got something and finished using it, sooner or later you have to go through all the effort of putting it away again?

75

2008-04-21T14:22:00.001+01:00

Tip: start from a base of deep pessimism, and then savour all the little positives. And sometimes some large ones too.

74

2008-04-17T20:18:00.000+01:00

Haggis.

73

2008-04-17T00:09:00.000+01:00

Fruit salad, goulash, croissants, crisps, mars bars, birthday cake, soup, sweet and sour, curly-wurlies, rice, neapolitan ice cream, macaroni cheese, yorkshire puddings, stew, pork scratchings, ploughman's lunch, angel delight, cherry pie, porridge.

72

2008-04-09T23:43:00.000+01:00

Life is often tragic, horribly painful. When it isn't, it can be arduous and frustrating, or at least banal.

And yet it has its pleasures.

Like love. A lovely lady (or gentleman) shimmering their light into your being, coursing through your veins and transforming your world into beautiful poetry with their magical soft glow.

And puns. 'I've come about the job inserting polyfilla into this bit of fence.' 'I'm sorry, sir, the post has already been filled.'

Some of these pleasures are rare and precious. Others are actually rather common and regular. Like sleep. Sleep's good. And food. Let us give thanks for food. These days it's so easily available that one can take it for granted. But I think you can enjoy it more if you think of it as a reward for carrying on with all this difficult business. Think of all the lovely food you'll miss out on if you top yourself. Chicken curry, spaghetti bolognese, potatoes in their jackets, tuna, apples, cheese and tomato sandwiches, prawns, rhubarb crumble, peas, toast, muesli, frosties, veggieburger with cheesy chips, pears, lentils, bread and butter pudding, lasagne, courgettes.

Yes indeed, let's hear a large round of applause for food.

Tip: don't eat too much, though - it might make you fat.

71

2008-04-02T00:05:00.003+01:00

[reference points: Noakes, Purves, Singleton/Judd; Pertwee/Baker]

We are the children of Harold Wilson. And Edward Heath, and Mike Yarwood. And Morecambe and Wise. And Banana Splits and Magpie and Sweet and Gary Glitter and Gilbert O'Sullivan and The Partridge Family and Jimmy Saville and Tony Blackburn and Dave Lee Travis and The Good Life and The Goodies and Tomorrow's World and Nationwide and Animal Magic and Jackanoary.

(Then along came punk rock, and Thatcher and Grange Hill, and I got my coat.)

Recently I walked past a statue of Harold Wilson. I felt like an orphan, lost in a future without bearings, my time relegated to history.

All those adults, they were such fixtures. I don't really believe that half of them are dead now.

And what have we made of their world? A weird science fiction future, much more dystopia than utopia I think. Humanity lives on, despite, rather than through, contemporary culture. (Arguably.)

No, they have the stronger reality. They haven't departed, we've departed from them. They're all up there, I'm sure. In the afterlife it's 1973 every year.

Recently I walked past a statue of Harold Wilson. Wish me luck, Harold, and be seeing you.

70

2008-03-29T19:56:00.000Z

Lets all jump up and down.