tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69279355578469448562024-03-13T08:17:32.124-07:00Glass Half Fucked - Fashionable CynicismMusings generally on depression, perception, memory and reality from someone whose opinions are no more interesting than yours.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-58438217685533388312013-09-04T13:49:00.000-07:002013-09-04T13:49:07.134-07:00Lennon and LimeI saw this...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGghSs7oG8gdRIVQZ47F77Jq5acJE9LyCQ0TJVtSgSlqbvJJ8fh2lxHtrTnPzZoBcicS-WArBCrdILb_m1k5BZawPi-WqnO67D3bGyXAPI61raILNMNnXwewUFqpyP6YlFbmxe2Hn_Ceh2/s1600/1236372_10152201846996110_1274050664_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGghSs7oG8gdRIVQZ47F77Jq5acJE9LyCQ0TJVtSgSlqbvJJ8fh2lxHtrTnPzZoBcicS-WArBCrdILb_m1k5BZawPi-WqnO67D3bGyXAPI61raILNMNnXwewUFqpyP6YlFbmxe2Hn_Ceh2/s320/1236372_10152201846996110_1274050664_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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And thought of this...
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-5128546638441120462013-07-08T02:29:00.002-07:002013-07-08T02:35:03.851-07:00Most things may never happen: this one will<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aubade</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In time the curtain-edges will grow light. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Till then I see what's really always there: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Making all thought impossible but how </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And where and when I shall myself die. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arid interrogation: yet the dread </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of dying, and being dead, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> - The good not done, the love not given, time </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An only life can take so long to climb </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But at the total emptiness for ever, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The sure extinction that we travel to </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not to be anywhere, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a special way of being afraid </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No trick dispels. Religion used to try, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Created to pretend we never die, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And specious stuff that says No rational being </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing to love or link with, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The anasthetic from which none come round. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so it stays just on the edge of vision, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That slows each impulse down to indecision. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most things may never happen: this one will, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And realisation of it rages out </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In furnace-fear when we are caught without </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People or drink. Courage is no good: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It means not scaring others. Being brave </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lets no one off the grave. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Death is no different whined at than withstood. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have always known, know that we can't escape, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet can't accept. One side will have to go. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Intricate rented world begins to rouse. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The sky is white as clay, with no sun. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Work has to be done. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Postmen like doctors go from house to house. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Philip Larkin</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-15394087938467874052012-11-23T06:32:00.002-08:002012-11-23T06:32:59.991-08:00Whoever first defines the situation is the victor<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">"The struggle for definition is veritably the struggle for life itself. In the typical Western two men fight desperately for the possession of a gun that has been thrown to the ground: whoever reaches the weapon first shoots and lives; his adversary is shot and dies. In ordinary life, the struggle is not for guns but for words; whoever first defines the situation is the victor; his adversary, the victim. For example, in the family, husband and wife, mother and child do not get along; who defines whom as troublesome or mentally sick?...[the one] who first seizes the word imposes reality on the other; [the one] who defines thus dominates and lives; and [the one] who is defined is subjugated and may be killed." - </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Thomas Szasz</b></blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-67901881281979224872012-11-23T06:23:00.001-08:002012-11-24T01:39:27.761-08:00Sport, the "functionless and useless human performance of winning and losing"<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">This is what I wanted to articulate during the Olympics. I attempted on a number of occasions to register my opinion that I found the raising up of sport to be some sort of crystalline metaphor for all of human experience to be confounding and that, for me, it appears to have no meaning at all beyond people moving about in a field.I got disheartened in the face of popular opinion and waved my flag with the rest.</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">"I object to my tax money being wasted on it (The Olympics), and I object to performance sport in general. I think it’s horseshit. Why don’t you just go run in a field, with sheep? It’s meaningless that some guy on a bicycle gets given 20 million quid. And the way the Olympics exist in a grotesque linkage or synergy with the international finance capital is so obvious. Both are arenas that exalt an essentially functionless and useless human performance of winning and losing, and use that as the tail that wags the dog. That’s why the Olympics feed so enormously into the collective psyche." - Will Self</span>
</blockquote>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-69515070065932264082012-08-10T04:54:00.000-07:002012-08-10T04:59:25.317-07:00Don't Compare Your Inside to Other People's OutsideIn a recent John Water's interview in the Guardian he is quoted as saying, "My policy is 'unless you know the full story, don't judge', and you never know the full story." He said this as a plea for tolerance, people are quick to feel superior to others when confronted with conspicuous difference. But I would expand this belief to the way we perceive others full stop. Don't judge other people's projected identities based on what you perceive those projected identities to mean based on your own perceptions, you may be, and most probably will be, very wrong.<br />
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When we go around comparing our inside feeling to other peoples outward appearance. What else can we do? We have no way of knowing what is happening in someones mind. I always tend to think other people are happier than they are, rationally I know they are not, and time and again people shock me with tiny revelations as to the real complexity of their inner, personal lives. But the myth persists. I have to keep telling myself not to judge my inside feelings against the illusory outsides of others.<br />
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I often feel confused about myself and my identity. I wonder whether I'm doing the right thing, living the right life. I wonder whether people like me, or secretly gossip when I leave a room, whether I'm intelligent enough to hold an opinion on anything, or whether I'm just a chancer or bore, a half baked ponderer. Everyone has problems with their relationships, with their sense of identity, with their jobs. But most people's outward face has a similar expression, mostly brave. We smile at each other and make small talk; whilst our inward dialogue is a mass of contradictory statements, negative and positive, banal and entertaining, paranoid and confident. <br />
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We see a smiling couple and we assume that this simple outward appearance is all the information that we need. 'Look, they're happy. I wish I was that happy. Why am I not that happy?' But what people say, and especially how they look, is never the whole story. People talk themselves up, both to present a confident face to the world and also to prevent others from having to feel responsible for their problems. I am often amazed by how bad I am at judging other people's inner lives. I will always assume the best in others and the worst in myself.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-35574320054029338872012-08-10T04:38:00.000-07:002012-08-10T04:38:02.713-07:00What We Fail to Notice<blockquote>
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.</blockquote>
R. D. Laing<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-17767736192633092402012-06-30T09:26:00.000-07:002012-06-30T09:28:19.015-07:00Our life is not our life<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"></span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;">How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;">― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending</span><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-83964765572892774682012-06-29T06:16:00.000-07:002012-06-29T06:16:21.043-07:00Nostalgia<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. </blockquote>
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― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human BondageAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-47723529383377254202012-06-29T06:13:00.003-07:002012-06-29T06:14:41.262-07:00Unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tent-show whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning. The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man’s mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;"> Cormac McCarthy in Blood Meridian</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-2292435948622043852012-06-28T09:42:00.000-07:002012-06-28T09:42:09.093-07:00Harold Rosenberg "The Herd of Independent Minds"<h3>
<span style="background-color: white;">The Herd of Independent Minds: Has the Avant-Garde Its Own Mass Culture?</span></h3>
<h3>
Harold Rosenberg — September 1948 </h3>
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<h3>
Abstract</h3>
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"The basis of mass culture in all its forms is an experience recognized as common to many people. It is because millions are known to react in the same way to scenes of love or battle—because certain colors or certain kinds of music will call up certain moods—because assent or antagonism will inevitably be evoked by certain moral or political opinions—that popular novels, movies, radio programs, magazines, advertisements, ideologies can be contrived. The more exactly he grasps, whether by instinct or through study, the existing element of sameness in people, the more successful is the mass-culture maker. Indeed, so deeply is he committed to the concept that men are alike that he may even fancy that there exists a kind of human dead center in which everyone is identical with everyone else, and that if he can hit that psychic bull’s eye he can make all of mankind twitch at once. (The proposition, “All men are alike” replaces the proposition, “All men are equal” in the “democracy” of mass-culture institutions, thus making it possible for rich or politically powerful mass-culture leaders to enjoy their advantages while still regarding themselves as “men of the people.”)<br />
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On the other hand, the producer of mass culture has no use for experience, his own or another’s, which cannot be immediately shared. What is endured by one human being alone seems to him unreal, or even an effect of madness. The “alienation” of the artist, his characteristic neurosis, which we hear so much about today, is an essential axiom of mass-culture thinking: every departure from the common experience appears to be an abnormality requiring some form of explanation—medical, sociological, etc. Actually, the concept that the artist is “alienated from reality” has little to support it either in the psychology of artists or in any metaphysics of art. As Thomas Mann said recently, it depends on who gets sick; the sickness of a Nietszche may bring him much closer to the truth of the situation, and in that sense be much more “normal,” than the health of a thousand editorial writers."Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-73133229430267120972012-05-27T15:59:00.000-07:002012-07-21T03:14:17.332-07:00Next, Please - Philip Larkin<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Always too eager for the future, we</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Pick up bad habits of expectancy.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Something is always approaching; every day
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Till then we say,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sparkling armada of promises draw near.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How slow they are! And how much time they waste,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Refusing to make haste!
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Each rope distinct,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No sooner present than it turns to past.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Right to the last
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We think each one will heave to and unload
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All good into our lives, all we are owed
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For waiting so devoutly and so long.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But we are wrong:
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No waters breed or break.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"></span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-10314716800332557342012-03-15T17:38:00.001-07:002012-04-27T06:35:40.738-07:00Robert Kegan hits the nail on the head“Successfully functioning in a society with diverse values, traditions and lifestyles requires us to have a relationship to our own reactions rather than be captive of them. To resist our tendencies to make right or true, that which is merely familiar, and wrong or false, that which is only strange.” <br />
― Robert KeganAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-71647786165647519742012-01-22T09:39:00.001-08:002012-01-22T09:39:16.828-08:00Julian Baggini: Is there a real you?<object height="360" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GFIyhseYTWg&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3">
</param>
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</param>
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always">
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GFIyhseYTWg&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></embed></object>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-5799222003230020742012-01-22T08:04:00.001-08:002012-01-22T08:06:06.873-08:00Nigel Slater is Smug<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">“</span><span class="quote" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin-top: 0px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px;">I’m not sure my omelette pan is any such thing. A pan worthy of the name should probably be nonstick and have a totally smooth surface and gently curving sides. The pan in which I make mine is black steel, only nonstick because of the years of service it has given, regularly being wiped with kitchen roll rather than taking a ride in the dishwater, being used for not only omelettes and the odd frittata but for frying onions, sautéing the occasional piece of chicken or frying some fingerling-sized strips of bacon to add to a winter salad of chicory, shredded celery and roasted walnut halves.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">”</span></blockquote>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 10px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px;"><tbody style="margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px;">
<tr style="margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-top: 0px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 1px;" valign="top">—</td><td class="quote_source" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top">Nigel Slater, The Observer, Sunday 22 January 2012</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><div>
Christ.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-68391976732858660452012-01-11T06:02:00.000-08:002012-01-11T06:04:52.734-08:00Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory<div class="tr_bq">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XgRlrBl-7Yg" width="640"></iframe></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About to read <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/1846140552" target="_blank">Thinking Fast and Slow</a> by this man. Below is a one of the less ebullient quotes from the cover...</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Profound . . . As Copernicus removed the Earth from the centre of the universe and Darwin knocked humans off their biological perch, Mr. Kahneman has shown that we are not the paragons of reason we assume ourselves to be. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">(</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The Economist</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> )</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">i'm expecting a lot.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-22230398905906424942012-01-11T05:52:00.001-08:002012-01-11T05:57:33.978-08:00The Zebras - You Look ReadyAmazing that something so obviously great can be so overlooked.<br />
<br />
This was posted on YouTube 9 months ago and currently has 361 views. Tragic.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3iaadp9eMIg" width="480"></iframe></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-89027115017984251052012-01-11T02:15:00.000-08:002012-01-11T05:57:20.277-08:00Sentimentality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4cnu65a1vs2DWt9x0akaGDlh26AoNWkILz231ecHq1QOmpp-3Y081pkQW0Ij7JsVIh4zvTeLCqfXQCm52_0CZlVs-LdNkdeFlu0wVjGaJEucUGq4lH8azWm4_cuecu2CX2HGADEBUJOd4/s1600/i_love_being_sentimental_mug-p168556822865414479z89we_400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4cnu65a1vs2DWt9x0akaGDlh26AoNWkILz231ecHq1QOmpp-3Y081pkQW0Ij7JsVIh4zvTeLCqfXQCm52_0CZlVs-LdNkdeFlu0wVjGaJEucUGq4lH8azWm4_cuecu2CX2HGADEBUJOd4/s320/i_love_being_sentimental_mug-p168556822865414479z89we_400.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
</blockquote>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-90678360163960327782012-01-10T02:39:00.000-08:002012-01-18T16:09:00.688-08:00Tyler Cowen: Be wary of stories<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RoEEDKwzNBw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-15329342628940625812011-09-15T10:08:00.000-07:002012-01-11T06:11:45.180-08:00Springhill Mining DisasterA brilliantly poetic story song written by Peggy Seeger and Ewan McColl and sung best, In my opinion, by Martin Carthy. The whole song invokes a great oppressive mood but the second to last line is devastating. I listened to this as events were unfolding a the Gleision Colliery near Pontardawe. Four men tragically died after becoming trapped in a flooded mine. It makes me shudder to think of what they went through, and the God awful place that these men had to work in.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zooE2Dd5-ls" width="480"></iframe></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There's blood on the coal and the miners lie</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In the roads that never saw sun nor sky.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In the town of Springhill, you don't sleep easy</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Often the earth will tremble and roar</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
When the earth is restless, miners die</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Bone and blood is the price of coal.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Late in the year of fifty-eight</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Day still comes and the sun still shines</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(But it's) Dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Down at the coal face, miners working</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Rattle of the belt and the cutter's blade</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Rumble of the rock and the walls closed round</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(The) Living and the dead men two miles down.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Twelve men lay two miles from the pitshaft</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Twelve men lay in the dark and sang</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Long hot days in the miners tomb</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(It was) Three feet high and a hundred long.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Three days past and the lamps gave out</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And Caleb Rushton got up and and said</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There’s no more water, or light, or bread</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(So we'll) Live on song and hope instead</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Listen for the shouts of the barefaced miners</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Listen thru the rubble for a rescue team</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Six hundred feet of coal and slag</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Eight days passes and some were rescued</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Leaving the dead to lie alone</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Thru all their lives they dug their grave</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Two miles of earth for a marking stone.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
And... The polar opposite of this great rendition, U2 pissing all over the song on the Gaye Burne Show. Just a stunningly bad attempt, amateurish and with a forced sincerity that makes me want to hide behind the sofa.<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mWzYSJ3-Cjw" width="480"></iframe></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-624232859978141612011-09-15T10:01:00.000-07:002011-09-20T02:40:55.115-07:00Raising Arizona - Pitch Perfect<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lBVesAXZPzA" width="640"></iframe></div>
<br />Edgar Wright said of Raising Arizona "There is more visual and verbal wit in the opening 15 minutes than some comedy writers or directors manage in their entire career." He's right. It's a contender to be my favourite film of all time and this opening 10 minutes is totally perfect. It's also the reason Nicolas Cage can do very little wrong in my book, he is incredible in it. No matter how bad he is in a film, or how bad a film he is in, he always has a touch of the H.I. McDunnough about him. <br />
<br />
Some points:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>"Don't forget his profile, Ed" "Don't forget his phone call, Ed" "Don't forget his fingers, Ed" "Don't forget the bouquet, Ed" </li>
<li>The way that Ed pronounces Fiancée.</li>
<li> The flash after McDunnough turns to the side on his bunk.</li>
<li> "You ate sand!?".</li>
<li>"Ok then".</li>
<li>"I'm walking in here on my knees, Ed".</li>
<li>"This woman, that looks as fertile as the Tennessee Valley, could not bear children. But the doctor explained that her insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase."</li>
<li>The perfect music.</li>
</ul>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-64245722763682853082011-08-09T05:11:00.000-07:002011-08-09T05:40:07.074-07:00My Best Photograph: Elitch Gardens, Denver<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVtAfcvq-pXqh7ur5IL5A9e5sov1JwbYTAW0KRxmSDnGrGmIvWVMn-mrQq_9uOLOKjYNep5uE-iYBCJld1bu_3_744_gsXlALF5Hqg4hhaOUDokQ6zKXt7CPMN6a34wpZW1_X0m0xTNjbo/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVtAfcvq-pXqh7ur5IL5A9e5sov1JwbYTAW0KRxmSDnGrGmIvWVMn-mrQq_9uOLOKjYNep5uE-iYBCJld1bu_3_744_gsXlALF5Hqg4hhaOUDokQ6zKXt7CPMN6a34wpZW1_X0m0xTNjbo/s640/3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elitch Gardens, Denver. If you click on it, it will embiggen.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Pretty certain this is the best picture I've ever taken. It's of Elitch Gardens in Denver taken during a great two weeks of skiing and mooning around in 09. I know very little about the nitty gritty of composition, even less about the technical aspects of taking photos, but this one just works. It's amazing to me how many times I can get it wrong before I succeed in getting a picture that I think is ok. My hit rate is about 1 in 30, maybe slightly higher with portraits. I still make the same stupid mistakes over and over, the main one being that I take too many random shots that have no subject. But when you get a photo that really clicks, it's a great feeling.<br />
<br />
Denver is a strange town. I liked it a lot. Like many American cities it feels slightly empty when you walk around. As an Ameriphile (Yankophile?) I love spending time in The States but the big cities that I have visited, outside of New York and LA, have all had this feeling. It's as if there is too much space and not enough people to fill it. Even Chicago, which is an amazing place, feels a bit like it's closed for business after 7pm. There's nothing wrong with this, but my fantasy of American inner city life was based on the New York of the early 80's, I expected every American city to have side-walks thronging and with pedestrians 24/7, lines of yellow cabs and people shouting "I'm walking here!!". I'm used to people living in cramped houses on top of each other in a country with no space, it's no wonder a city with the option to stretch out luxuriously on to the plain seems a bit more diffuse. Then again, if you went to Coventry on a Tuesday night, you'd be hard pushed to find anyone either.<br />
<br />
I imagine that this idea is also based on my British sense of where the action should be in a city. Traditionally, In the UK, the place to do most things is the city centre. You go "into town" at the weekend, that's where all the good stuff happens. In the cities I've visited in the states this tends to be less the case. I imagine that "Main Street" has slowly lost it's influence to the ubiquitous out of town malls that dominate the outskirts of many cities, it's a shitty process that drains the life and heart out of a place, of course this is slowly happening in the UK as well.<br />
<br />
Elitch Gardens was closed when I visited Denver. I walked with my camera to a massive outdoor clothing store (REI), just outside of the central business district. I walked round for an hour and came out with an 8 Dollar discounted baseball cap. The cashier sarcastically said, "enjoy your hat" as I was leaving. I felt cheap. I saw this picture as I was walking back. I only took 3 shots but, fortunately, this one hit the nail on the head.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-16304742701317130162011-08-05T05:15:00.001-07:002012-01-18T16:09:31.605-08:00Correfoc flares in Mallorca<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWYayhFfqDS_8_vGwSutVXirfP1V1CjLJoxi3q6df_eHGTkbiaGbN1VJTthJwW2AMO0oTo0ycI-t0RWlPdJ02crPHqZENJ1aRgxjMVUn4_JYH6o_u687BdWIhDGDGtDb30AJFMVPwh7eb2/s1600/DSC02024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWYayhFfqDS_8_vGwSutVXirfP1V1CjLJoxi3q6df_eHGTkbiaGbN1VJTthJwW2AMO0oTo0ycI-t0RWlPdJ02crPHqZENJ1aRgxjMVUn4_JYH6o_u687BdWIhDGDGtDb30AJFMVPwh7eb2/s640/DSC02024.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-72842276456582369752011-07-15T13:27:00.000-07:002011-07-31T12:58:52.662-07:00St Swithin's Day<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Vernada, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Today is St Swithin's Day. If it rains today, we'll all be wet for 40 days. It's also the name of a maudlin classic by Billy Bragg that I have swooned to many times in the past. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Vernada, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Listen to <a href="http://open.spotify.com/local/Billy+Bragg/Must+I+Paint+You+a+Picture%3f+The+Essential+Billy+Bragg+%5bDisc+1%5d/St+Swithin%27s+Day/235">Billy Bragg – St Swithin's Day</a> now on Spotify, best served whilst looking plaintively out of the window.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Vernada, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Vernada, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Thinking back now</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Vernada, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">I suppose you were just stating your views<br />
What was it all for<br />
For the weather or the Battle of Agincourt<br />
And the times that we all hoped would last<br />
Like a train they have gone by so fast<br />
And though we stood together<br />
At the edge of the platform<br />
We were not moved by them<br />
<br />
With my own hands<br />
When I make love to your memory<br />
It's not the same<br />
I miss the thunder<br />
I miss the rain<br />
And the fact that you don't understand<br />
Casts a shadow over this land<br />
But the sun still shines from behind it.<br />
<br />
Thanks all the same<br />
But I just can't bring myself to answer your letters<br />
It's not your fault<br />
But your honesty touches me like a fire<br />
The Polaroids that hold us together<br />
Will surely fade away</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Vernada, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> Like the love that we spoke of forever</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Vernada, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">On St Swithin's day</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-15198576288274802062011-06-16T08:08:00.000-07:002011-06-17T12:17:16.138-07:00Dinky's Dinah, Shrewsbury: Bacon and Egg Sandwich.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJGnpxmxnEmKp7CDfGe3UrMJW9YnrA9Luty-wE4HXulr1pi3rxb4GcJGAFkGKtXyuypxGjzob7ihdH7trlslH9tMxjAglyrCwFPg7HxqUbHizAs8Z72CifhyV6pcq6LEF6mao0KY-LW-r-/s1600/DSC01920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJGnpxmxnEmKp7CDfGe3UrMJW9YnrA9Luty-wE4HXulr1pi3rxb4GcJGAFkGKtXyuypxGjzob7ihdH7trlslH9tMxjAglyrCwFPg7HxqUbHizAs8Z72CifhyV6pcq6LEF6mao0KY-LW-r-/s640/DSC01920.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Egg and bacon, the king of the sandwiches. Double egg, double decker. The lack of sauce is deliberate.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
There's a roadside cafe near Shrewsbury, Dinky's Dinah. If you get Dinky serving you, at least I think it's Dinky, he'll call you "young man" and make you feel like a princess. Bacon and egg sandwiches are my favourite food ever, full stop. I'm not a man to turn down a sausage if I'm in the right frame of mind, but bacon and egg go together like no other combo on Earth. The pig and the chicken, acquaintances in the farmyard, lovers in a sandwich.<br />
<br />
This sandwich was extra special. It came loaded with two eggs rather than your standard single egg and, bonus of bonuses, 3 slices of lovely, soft, shitty white bread. Two fucking eggs! And a double decker! Getting more than you paid for, or ever expected, is such a rare occurrence. I must have been impressed because, as you can see, I took the picture after I had started eating the sandwich and it's not like me to stop eating mid scoff. Moments of small pleasure like this make life worth living.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357671393232904644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6927935557846944856.post-71263602826023559362011-06-13T07:52:00.000-07:002011-06-13T07:52:17.033-07:00Photographs with nowhere to goI'm going to start putting photographs up on this blog. Because I don't much like Flickr, and I don't post enough words. I don't know whether this is the best format, so I may repost them on a dedicated blog in the future, who knows? Here's the first three. From a huge amount I took on a recent trip to Greece. Cha-ching!!!<br />
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