Advice to would-be writers

Keep notes on everything.

And don't start burning them until you're sure you're dying.

I love the world (even if it's not mutual)

You can buy a coat in TESCO for 97p.

Seriously. A COAT!

OK, so it's a bright yellow plastic poncho. But still...

The Amnesiac Texts II

ASH: “I’ve just left the house for the first time in about a month without my laptop over my shoulder. What a fucking relief.”

Dom: “For the rest of us, too.”

ASH: “Heh. Not a chance. I still have my notebook and pen.”

The Discomfort Zone

"Just about anything - protesting against world hunger; getting a laugh out of words like 'nooky'; dispensing wisdom; dying - is easier than real comedy."

"Schulz wasn't an artist because he suffered. He suffered because he was an artist. To keep choosing art over the comforts of a normal life - to grind out a strip every day for fifty tears; to pay the very steep psychic price for this - is the opposite of damaged. It's the sort of choice that only a tower of strength and sanity can make."

- from Jonathan Franzen's 2006 memoir. Highly recommended.

Superb cover art - and other arcana - found here (p4).

The Amnesiac Texts

Dom - "I'm sitting listening to office workers on their lunchbreaks, and feelin intensely proud of us. Sadly I need to wizz like a racehorse, but just bought un cafe in a Republic with no bog."

ASH - "Republics. A great idea, until you need working toilets."

Setting the Standard

FRITZL 'FACES' COURT

- BIZARRE PICTURE

Yesterday's banner headline, from London's Quality Evening Newspaper.

If the 4th estate isn't dead and buried, it probably should be.

Distended metaphor

Religion is... a humble potato.

It has a tiny, superficial flourish; but deep roots which thrive in shitty environments.

It's not as sustaining as people claim; but not as boring as it looks.

The most palatable bit is in the centre; but ugly growths soon form on the extremities.

And the Irish love it.

In House entertainment

"Have I humiliated you in the last half hour?"
"No."
"... Check your e-mail."

Running gags

On Sunday I ran the adidas Silverstone half marathon.

This is not a picture of me.

Bourdain again

"Maybe only music has the power to bring a place or a person back, so close that you can smell them in the air. And I can't play guitar."

A man after my own heart - and lack of talent.

(Extract taken from the blue-ribbon Preface of The Nasty Bits)

Bourdain on writing

Spot on, as per:

"Fiction's hard. I do it because it's therapy. I spend a lot of time writing about myself, talking about myself and what happens to me. Me, me, me. Fiction is a nice escape from that. You can also be a lot more truthful about a lot of things. Things I can't say in non-fiction, I can say in fiction. But there's that damn plot thing. I really resent plot. I like creating characters and environments. That's really fun for me. But having to create a story arc is something I have always resented."

(A.V.)

Café Lyrique UPDATE

Yep, I get that it's ironic (the other lines bang on about wanting lots of diamonds, etc.).

What I'm objecting to is the use of the conjunction: the sentence in question is 100% tautologous.

Lily Allen isn't up to that kind of irony.

Haiku - 'limericks that don't make you laugh'

"The hardest thing after writing poetry is writing about poetry, as you must already have noticed. It makes the author sound either pretentiously airy-fairy or thuggish."*

- AA Gill on poetry, in The Times.

--
* And what holds true for poetry, holds true for all arts criticism.

Café Lyrique

Whichever air-head teeny popstrell is responsible for

"I wanna be rich / and I wanna have money"

should be taken out and shot.

Fucking doggerel.

Woody Allen in 1971, taking the piss out his future self

Parts 2, 3 and 4 of the interview are just as great.

It's wicked to mock the afflicted, but...

... there's this blind busker dude who hangs out on Oxford Street, "playing" the violin. If you live in London, or even if you've just visited, chances are you've seen this guy. He's been around my whole life, I swear, in one place or another. The bloke's a permanent fixture. You would've thought by now he'd have learnt how to play a bit.

But no. Blind Willie Johnson he is not. As far as I can tell, this guy actually just wacks the strings with his bow. The sound is bad. Really bad. I assume he does his wacking randomly, but when I passed him today, I paused to wonder. Maybe I've got this guy all wrong. Maybe he's actually playing some 'contemporary' piece. I'm thinking something like Georges Antheil's Violin Sonata (actually composed in the twenties, but believe me, it'll do).

So, bearing this in mind, how much money should one drop into this maestro's velvet-lined violin case? The going rate for a Festival Saver ticket to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is £290. I reckon that ought to buy Blind Violin Guy a few lessons.

The Special One

just got a little more special in my estimation:

Angry Jose Mourinho allegedly thumped a Manchester United fan after his team was beaten at Old Trafford.

p.s. No comment on The Arsenal's desperate display in Rome last night, except this: COME ON YOU BEAUTIES!!!!!

Burnt by the Sun

Reviewed, at the National.

In the House, with Hugh Laurie

"House has no friends because of his dedication to discovering and telling the truth. I suppose that's sort of the definition of a hero."

"The thinking woman's sex symbol"
- Playboy 20Q, 2006

"I’m more stubbly and grumpy than bright and shiny."
-Playboy interview, February 2009*

"I’ve had it a lot better than many people. I went to a pub with Kenneth Branagh once and a man shouted, ‘Oi, Branagh! You’re a cunt!'"
- The Times interview, March 2009

--
* NB "sketch shows like Blackadder..." ?? And anyone who has to write "very funny" so the audience registers that a Brit cracked a joke...

Calling all (Il)literati

Some interesting things you might consider reading:

The Lifted Brow

Falcon vs Monkey

... if you have the sponz for the subscriptions, obv.

Erm...

Tariq Aziz, for many years considered the spokesman for Saddam Hussein's government, has been sentenced to fifteen years in jail for involvement in the execution of Iraqi citizens.

Two of Saddam's half-brothers were also found guilty. They are to be executed.

Bring on the revolution

"We are determined to make this country a hostile place for criminals involved in cannabis cultivation"

- Home Office spokesman (BBC)

Paul's Bowel Diary

After a long weekend on military rations and no sleep, my mate Paul not only seems to be having trouble with his inward parts, but also with discerning what levels of information should (and shouldn't) be shared with one's friends. I quote:

1228hrs
Movements: 3, by midday
Average size: 3x normal (all of them)
Notes: at a push, could probably go again

1521hrs
Movements: 4
Average size: 3x 3x normal (all of them), 1x normal

At time of writing Paul was once again leaving his desk (a 'bowel movement', in fact), having already posted warning that this event might be 'smaller'.

[Thanks to PC]

Creaming my Gooner boxer shorts

I've been putting it off all morning, but I really must say something about The Arsenal's mindblowing display against Burnley at the Emirates yesterday.

All three Arsenal goals were absolute belters. Vela's first was exquisite, and Eboue's third was vintage Wenger-era Arsenal. But Eduardo's volley for the second was genuinely one of the best goals I've ever seen (it reminded me of a goal I scored myself against Farley House when I was ten - though mine was better). For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, check it out:



I say 'one of the best goals I've ever seen' because I would still rank Marco Van Basten's strike in the Euro 88 final as the best I've ever seen:



Even with the crappy picture quality it looks too good to be true.

Myerson's treason

It perhaps goes without saying that the authors of this blog have never felt any strong sense of unity with our fellow scribbling brethren. Indeed, I myself remember once writing the line: "I'd be the first to rejoice if every other writer in the world but me died horribly in a horrific nuclear explosion."

However, I doubt we can recall ever having felt so distanced from a writer comrade as we do right now from Julie Myerson, who has managed to offer the worst excuse for writing a book that we have ever heard:

"The reason I wrote about it is there is an emergency out there in this country and it's called skunk."

Dear Hunter S. Thompson, Please return from the dead to save our writerly souls.

Meanwhile, Ms. Myerson could do a lot worse than take a look at this.

Heaven is...

I have to say it somewhere, so it's here. I'm in seventh heaven. Baseball is back. Spring training has lifted my spirits to soaring level. But even more so, the World Baseball Classic is rocking my world.

Couple of corking games so far today. The Netherlands upsetting the Dominican Republic is one for the ages. And the game just now between the US and Canada was an absolute belter. So damn good to see this mattering so much to both teams. I'm a huge supporter of the WBC. Loved the inaugural classic (I was livin in America at the time), even though too many Americans pretended it didn't matter (after being totally outplayed, frankly, by the smallball masters of Korea and Japan). Today, the Rogers Center in Toronto was packed to the brim, and the players really meant it out there. Canada took the nailbiting loss hard. The Americans were pumped (and I love the scrappy team of gamers the US is fielding - workhorses like Youkilis, Pedroia, McCann, Victorino, et al, are always gonna mean it for you).

Man, am I stoked. This is so damn great. Worth staying in on a Saturday night for. Kneeded some homemade sausage pizza, blended some fresh homemade pesto for the left over dough balls. Things are looking good right now. It's Panama vs. Puerto Rico. Hells yeah.

Wery funny, yes indeed.

Review of England People Very Nice, at the National

'Batter my conscience.'

Review of Doctor Atomic, at the Coliseum.

James Joyce and Cystitis

So, apparently, two out of three Britons have lied about reading books they have not.

Top of the lie list is 1984 by George Orwell. In second place, War and Peace by Leo Toystory. In third, James Joyce's Ulysses.

I am sure I have pretended to have read books that I've never even touched. I remember once chatting up a girl by telling her I'd read Understanding Cystitis from cover-to-cover. I believe I once caught my fellow amnesiac doing exactly the same thing.

However, in my defence, I am also quick to admit to having failed in my efforts to read certain books. I have no shame confessing that I have tried on four separate occassions to read Ulysses, and have never made it further than half way through the damn thing. I honestly think the book is unreadable. My old man claims that it's his favourite book of all time, and I just know he is lying.

Then again, he always did pretty well with the chicks. So maybe pretending to understand James Joyce is sexier than pretending to have understood cystitis.

Just a thought.

Essential viewing for all members of Her Majesty's Government

Aerospatial awareness

Recorded conversation between Iranian radar operator and American fighter pilot:

Iranian Air Defense Radar: 'Unknown aircraft, you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.'

Aircraft: 'This is a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.'

Air Defense Radar: 'You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!'

Aircraft: 'This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18 fighter. Send 'em up, I'll wait!'

Air Defense Radar: ...

[Thanks to ZWHS]

Stoned Immacucate

Neb. man says he put cat in bong three times
20-year-old facing charges says feline would ‘act like a stoned person’

OMAHA, Neb. - A man who stuffed his girlfriend's cat into a makeshift bong and smoked marijuana through it said Tuesday that he had done it on other occasions and that it calmed the cat down.

(Thanks to Frank)

In-swingers, shit-houses, and do you wanna be in my gang?

(Or - The art of making the headline FAR more interesting than the story.)

This, from one architect to some other architects, is possibly the most life-negating bit of prose I have ever had the misfortune to read.

Again I have just inherited plans where the toilet layouts are too small… I have, however, discovered where the problem occurs (assuming its not just bad planning)

THE METRIC HANDBOOK is WRONG.

3.6 illustrates a WC cubicle with an in-swinging door of 1550mm – this DOES NOT COMPLY with BS6465-2-1996 (pp10/ pdfp14) or PartM (clause 5.14a)

To help overcome this problem in the future (apart from this email rant) I have added additional (microstation) cells to the file G:\904-CAD\0-CAD-Data\001-V85Standards\cell\CELLS-ROOM DATA\Sanitary.cel

The cells are:

WC-Cubicle-ASContourBTW-PL (Plan BTW WC Cubicle)

WC-CubicleAmbulant-ASContourBTW-PL (Plan BTW WC Ambulant Cubicle)

Please. Please, please do not plan toilet cubicles with in-swinging doors of only 1500mm deep

Further to this and the office meeting a few weeks back, the delivery group has been split into three groups – of which I am looking at METHODOLOGY. The main intention of this group is to develop a family of ‘standards’ that the office can use and refer to.

It would be great to know if any of you have:

× any specific ideas on what could be included in this

× standards that you have already developed on projects

× or want to join the group

From this we can develop some useful guides and ways of working in the office and hopefully avoid fire-fighting on site so users can fit into toilet cubicles!

Well, do you? Wanna join the group? Be honest now... You do, doncha?

Hair Today

(...gone by 11:15.)

I was getting the old barnet primped this morning when I realised my flies were 100% undone.

With a mug of Tetley's in one hand and a copy of The Gulag Archipelago in the other, I was unable to do anything about it until my stylist went to fetch my coat.

Whereupon I surreptitiously zipped up - forgetting, of course, that I was in a roomful of mirrors and my actions would be visible to everyone present.

Re: A joke from our sponsor

"I'm going to fucking kill myself!" shouted the new admission. "I'm going to fucking kill myself!"

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said the shrink calmly. "I want you to take your meds and relax, and this afternoon we have a wonderful treat. The circus is in town and Bozo the Clown is coming by to give us a special matinee show. You just watch Bozo the Clown for a little while and, believe me, your heart will feel considerably lighter."

"Doctor," said the man. "I am Bozo the Clown."

- Kinky Friedman, Steppin' On A Rainbow

A joke from our sponsor

Man goes to doctor. Say's he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, 'Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.' Man bursts into tears. Says, 'But, doctor... I am Pagliacci.'

- Alan Moore, Watchmen

Feature pitch

I sent my editor a pitch on folk-singing, with the line: 'Fancy a feature?'

He sent me this:

I met a tart the other night and she said, "Pleased to meet ya."
So I looked and said with a jerk of my head, "Well, how's about a feature?"
I grew more bold
As we drank ice cold.
She got a packet of fags out.
I said: "More beer?"
She said: "No thanks dear.
"Tonight I've got the flags out."

It's by Barry Humphries, I'm told.

[Thanks to CG]

The meaning of life

There's a card on my bookshelf from my sister that reads (and this is a direct quote):

life is too important to be taken seriously!

(oscar wilde)

I was staring at this card yesterday and wondering if it was at all likely that Oscar added an exclamation mark to the end of his philosophical postulation. I guessed not.

So this morning I looked it up. Turns out - and apologies for not already knowing this - that not only did Oscar not include a bloody exclamation mark, but that the whole line is a sodding misquote.

What Oscar actually wrote was:

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.

The line was spoken by Lord Darlington in Act I of Lady Windermere's Fanny (or something).

I should add that the card is - of course - written in kiddy handwriting. As for me, I am now going to fold the card away and listen to Modern Life is Rubbish by Blur.

Kids TV

Just not the same since they stopped hiring The Kinkster.

6 Nations Blinders

"Neither team is going to win this game by playing tennis."

Philip Matthews, on the England - Ireland (rugby) match.