tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37665543065579415542011-04-21T23:31:18.445ZBlatherskitenoreply@blogger.comBlogger661100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-58581577379446158632009-04-09T09:42:00.009Z2009-04-09T22:42:31.063Z

Wandering around Tate Britain yesterday afternoon I came across the 1993 installation by Lucia Nogueira, entitled Vai e Vem (in English, Come and Go) purchased for the permanent collection sometime in 2008. The installation consists of a dvd player and tiny monitor screening a whirling spinning top which, as it moves across a sheet of paper, leaves in ink the trail of its passage in concentric

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-3450515543265321092009-04-08T10:33:00.009Z2009-04-09T22:28:44.116Z

In the show entitled Altermodern at Tate Britain, Lindsay Sears exhibits an installation Extramission 6 (Black Maria) which documents her life as an artist. We learn that as a child she did not speak but retained an eidetic memory, capturing images of the world around her like a camera, recording, documenting, storing, archiving, measuring the world as the reader measures a text, progressing

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-89930155096595627502009-04-07T21:35:00.011Z2009-04-09T09:54:11.906Z

I find my appreciation of time-based art easy, if not oppressed. Its tendency to capture and manipulate the viewer in darkened seated rooms is a bit like watching tv. I find the installation, which works on my senses like a day out at the fun-fair (I’m like a child in a sweet shop) not unlike like the frustrating pleasure of catching the fading morning memories of what seemed an all too vivid

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-53487618777845771672008-12-30T23:43:00.005Z2009-01-20T22:35:34.066Z

I seldom write here about myself, well, when I say about myself, what I mean to say is, I seldom write here the stuff of a journal, well, why would I bother? This might be contrary to the motivations of many who do write, as I think it fair to say that journaling is the preferred form hereabouts, the preferred ‘prattle’ if you like. We’ve chronology on our side after all, and the obsession

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-49050007371458202302008-12-16T00:50:00.009Z2008-12-17T00:31:07.965Z

I love the journal precisely because of its audacious claim to truth. Words emit truth like radioactivity the minute they take form, but unless the writing is purely cathartic (ie: it takes no published form, or the pages are burned when complete, or the post is deleted rather than published, or perhaps the draft is kept locked in a tin box, stuffed under the bed, hidden deep in the inaccessible

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-87064274762887649462008-12-15T00:31:00.005Z2008-12-15T00:39:23.558Z

I’ve been reading. It’s a job, a project; NetNewsWire grooms for me, post after post, a reading list expanding without end, a list which splutters in fits and starts, mapping out a histogram of frequency, flooded with data, a mapping of observations which fall under disjointed tags. Is there an optimal number of blogs one should follow? Should one choose one or more based on the frequency of

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-88580072517467999382008-12-10T00:32:00.006Z2009-04-08T10:44:29.496Z

At the heart of these stories, these fables, these tales strung from unearthly worlds, call them what you will, lie creatures strange, worlds stranger still, in which terrible witches cast their evil spells, where toys come alive, where the mouse-organ plays its endless roll, where a mechanical chicken rattles in space and in the depths of the shimmering green soup wells, the soup dragon gurgles;

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-13586537431211220172008-12-10T00:31:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:36:27.410Z

The Pogles, now where shall we find the Pogles? Yes, there is the notice board, can you read it? Of course you can: “Pogle’s Wood”, the wood where The Pogles live. Now then, let us go into the wood and let us see if we can find a hedgehog. You know why we have to find a hedgehog don’t you? Because the hedgehog goes to wake The Pogles in the morning.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-10335560074017675952008-12-10T00:30:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:36:40.933Z

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there lived a little girl and her name was Emily, and she had a shop, there it is. It was rather an unusual shop, because it didn’t sell anything. You see, everything in that shop window was a thing that somebody had once lost, and Emily had found and brought home to Bagpuss, the most important, the most beautiful, the most magical, saggy old cloth cat in the

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-73205637429133627492008-12-10T00:29:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:36:57.835Z

Stranger stars by far than ours ever shone in our night sky, and planets too. This calm serene orb, sailing majestically among the myriad stars of the firmament - perhaps this star too is home for somebody. Can we imagine the sort of people that might live on a star like this? Let us go very close, let us look and listen very carefully, then perhaps we shall see…. and hear…

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-47289151979094458512008-12-10T00:28:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:37:14.497Z

Not very long ago in the top left-hand corner of Wales there was railway. It wasn’t a very long railway, or a very important railway, but it was called The Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited, and it was all there was. And in a shed, in a siding at the end of the railway, lives the Locomotive of the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited, which was a long

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-37287982546309883642008-12-10T00:27:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:37:41.471Z

In the lands of the North, where the Black Rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long, the men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale. They tell how a prince built a long ship and sailed in it beyond the black ice at the edge of the world, to bring home his bride from the land of the midnight sun.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-68600802459163222442008-12-07T18:49:00.013Z2008-12-14T19:38:19.902Z

Listening to Adele today, I detect three elements of singing: here is the melody: pretty, recognisable, anthemic, melancholic, the transport for the song; and here then are the words, the narrative, the story told, the because, the why, the I, the you; but listening, there is a third element nesting: a texture, a lubrication, a grain.This grain is the substance that fills the gaps between words,

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-32051946927907648862008-12-06T17:49:00.030Z2008-12-14T19:38:37.136Z

Today at Green Park station a stocky-legged kilted enthusiast is playing the bagpipes. He wrestles with the plump tartan bladder as if fighting with a demon from whose lungs he wrings a filthy banshee wail. What musicality could be extracted from this straining attempt was immeasurable as the player’s fingers fumbled. But as the tuneless dirge continued, I thought I heard another tangled sound

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-79469428219504253032008-11-16T19:41:00.014Z2008-12-14T19:39:23.643Z

This morning I arrived at a site, previously unknown to me, in the ‘journal’ tradition; it wove, with tight accent, vocabulary and grammar, a sad lacerating tale of love lost, infidelity, the painful ordeal of the withdrawal of the loved-being, of soul-destroying oblivion, of astonishment, of suspicion, of dedication, of demons, of clouds, of night—the lover’s discourse—nothing new for the

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-91239041690873881532008-11-08T00:56:00.016Z2008-12-14T19:39:43.820Z

In a bar near Smithfiled Market,Whitewashed walls "fucking beautiful" no carpet,You sweep across our conversationLike a slide in an old school projectorAn image darts across the screenThe clunking mechanical selectorReplacing the first with its successor

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-34022162506084454902008-11-07T09:21:00.016Z2008-12-14T19:40:25.418Z

In reading, it seems, we cannot find the writer, we cannot hear the author’s voice. If, like a hound digging frantically for bones, front paws churning the earth into showering clods, we toss words asunder, neurotically broadcasting text in all directions whilst conducting our search; if, like a blackbird, head cocked to one side listening for the worm,hop, hop, stop, cock, hop, hop,we listen

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-6255511470591183972008-11-05T21:10:00.007Z2008-12-14T19:41:12.795Z

Idly clicking tonight or last night, from site to site, skimming ranks of links, I find routes on other writers sites that lead me back here, to where I started, links which, in many cases, I have never seen.It’s true, I too have created these ranks which become a bibliography, a ragged route as traceable as footprints crunched through snow in the wintry wood. These lists, these rolling credits

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-45228074568579118302008-11-04T22:21:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:41:56.181Z

Somehow still alive.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-9242259282942932142008-11-04T22:17:00.007Z2008-12-14T19:44:35.165Z

I’ve realised again that I can’t tell the difference between writing and reading, the punctuation of silence. I pause, with head cocked to one side, discerning, from whence comes a sound indistinct, who authors? I stumbled, flirting, crying, still listening, yet absent, flummoxed, writing.Ah, could this be the moment the reader writes, or the moment the author dies?

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-6029907085361482002008-11-04T22:17:00.006Z2008-12-14T19:43:42.918Z

Without words there is no text; without meaning we find absence; without punctuation where is rhythm? Yet as these emerging words, rested for so many months, jostle as they slip across your screen, they seem to murmur to each other, with uplifted glance, in a language we shall never learn.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-82126025982862441122008-11-04T22:02:00.005Z2008-12-14T19:45:07.301Z

This morning the radio plays piano, McCoy Tyner, accompanied on vibes by Bobby Hutchinson. It occurs to me that the piano is a muddy, ranging sludge which only takes form when the oscillating bars of the vibraphone sound their resonant vibrato call, and like a limitless line of type without comma, ellipsis or stop, the vibraphone offers a kind of punctuation that adds rhythm to text and thus

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-42626400938398231382008-11-04T22:01:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:46:34.358Z

It seemed, for a moment, that I was to reach out and touch, assembled, all the joys the world had ever known. To feel your sweet and tender breath skimming my lips, to hear your blessed words nourish and sustain me; but as the pain grew worse through listening, I realised that I was deaf.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-8910968011620139922008-11-04T22:00:00.003Z2008-12-14T19:46:52.449Z

Having flirted with so many; not having had a dream for a long time; having slumped off and left you for what seemed the riches, haut and affectations of the demimonde, I return in sweet humility.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-29964945299346617482008-11-04T21:58:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:47:10.566Z

I stumbled into flummeryblog; a day or two ago, a week ago, a month ago. I thought it was a lonely place. The pretty type all set in pink and grey, the entries unfolding, with vigour for a time, had concluded in an uncertain concoction of reflexive verse.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-20945451863466464672008-11-01T16:44:00.003Z2008-12-14T19:47:24.582Z

When you returned from Prick, the tattooistWith that massive carp inked across your soft bicepWrapped in damp clingfilm like sweaty hung meat,I could smell a whiff of your BO.During four hours of painYou'd dripped sweat half grimace half grinAs you gained a new emblem,And when I touched you—a sexy wince.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-9052544588483328222007-05-03T22:52:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:47:41.175Z

Was it possible to guessThe carnival of callsAnd many reciprocated textsWho’s subjects ranged throughMemory, love, sentiment, remorse, regret(the common themes articulating affection)Was it possible to guessThe above would soon dissolve quite literally into thin airWith all the visual distortion associated with convection,Or the wiggly TV dissolve utilised to denote a mystery,That I'd I willingly

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-82611978422465984142007-05-02T08:15:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:47:56.292Z

Whatever tranquility you cravedStumbling through April daysWhatever it was you couldn’t find hereI’ll not hinder you with unkind dearBut seal in a lover’s kissAll the innocence and bliss.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-84993175786150007472007-04-18T08:21:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:48:13.709Z

When you called me out of the blueI had no idea that crammed into the monthsAnd years since we last metSomething akin to a kaleidoscope of memoriesHad crept and that it would only takeOne or two childish shakes to rearrange againThe pretty broken shards into revolving shapesFunny how these exquisite images of symmetry Suspended in the little mirror growing Like precipitated crystals with each

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-80757056259130010252007-02-25T21:08:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:48:31.338Z

When somebody loves youIts no good unless he loves you - all the wayI recently asked myself how I got here, how I came to start this blog (I can hardly bring myself to press the keys and form the word without cringing). It all unfolded one evening in front of a tv show about, well, bloggers, some two or three in particular—you’ll know the ones I mean—and there I was, surveying their sites,

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-71328558410852027322007-02-07T01:14:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:49:28.274Z

Seventeen years here. Here in the dark. No sound. Almost no sound. There’s the scurrying of course. Is it scurrying? No. It’s certainly, what would you call it, footfall? Yes, somewhere up there, dull undefined footfall. And the sounds here—scratchings, scrapings—all the sounds that reach this point below, which make their traffic through the leaf litter and the soil into this rotten

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-7713075527556436732007-01-28T22:16:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:50:10.638Z

Whilst once again wondering what to write, where to begin, how it will end, where occurs the middle by which I may commence—as it were—the tormented countdown to some kind of conclusion; in what direction I will launch my address, by which I suppose I mean, who will be listening—yes, yes, we have briefly squinted at these questions before, dwelt several times on their impact, in fact I have

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-80896725283482924662007-01-24T00:14:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:50:41.528Z

Waiting tonight on Houndsditch for the 42, my bought tea stretching out the deformed Tesco carrier. I’m wrapped against the winter cold. The 78 passes, then the 100, and another one, a double-decker, the number - something or other - three of them, including a ‘2’. I left my gloves on a train a month ago, heading home for Christmas, and with no replacement the plastic carrier straps chop up

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-75099625075135499822007-01-22T23:39:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:51:31.565Z

Today, during an afternoon management meeting, the Director of Front of House Operations recommended that OK magazine be utilized as a tool to keep tags on our current customer base.Ok BradOk OprahOk VictoriaOk ScarlettOk AngelinaOk MadonnaOk Colin & JustinOk VanessaOk RobbieOk NicoleOk DavidOk BillieOk AntOh - fuck off Jade - didn't see you there.Ok, that's better.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-78220995814065563232007-01-21T12:50:00.003Z2008-12-14T19:52:01.535Z

And so once again dear reader I turn from something to almost nothing as I consider this, my address to you, and in doing so realise that in addition to not knowing the 'what' and the 'why' of writing, the thing that now plays heavily upon my thoughts is its 'when'. I don't know 'when' to write. I don't know when you are ready, you don't say, because of course you don't ask me to write. It is

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-90132455538284168392007-01-20T23:40:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:53:01.321Z

During the pilot stage of a televised audition and casting show conceived to pluck a short list and crown this years blog idol from a circus of thousands of mostly dismal applicants, the self-appointed (and some would say, rashly opinionated) judging committee abandoned their project in it's rudimentary stages over an irksome argument that developed whilst deciding the final name for this award.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-77048484478513171172007-01-13T23:00:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:53:23.066Z

And so once again I turn my attention from almost anything to almost nothing and start to write, but write what? It occurs to me that there is a stock of themes here from which I may draw my scripts trajectory, templates if you will, with plots and characters waiting to be directed and named. Here is the mother of all templates of course, the journal. If this is blogging then ostensibly it’s

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-49516205669156441462007-01-11T12:14:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:53:39.733Z

It was recently suggested to me by a friend that reading Hello magazine would give me the advantage at work of knowing which celebrities were in town and whom is dating whom.Hello KurtHello PeteHello KateHello KylieHello JustinHello ReneeHello GoldieHello JordanHello BritneyHello JenniferHello VictoriaHello Sir RichardHello Your Royal HighnessWell now, isn't this nice...

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-5387496325093864172007-01-08T00:06:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:53:59.596Z

It's greyer out than in. Flat winter sea-side light that won't allow a texture in, stops forms from etching in the gloom. It's floodlit, but not like a photoflood. No, not warm, it's dank, fills every empty pool with a banality that depletes me. It's SAD light. Inside it's tungsten yellow, a warm mellowness, for matinees, muffins, and fireside hostages. I'm walking to the river, as it's

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-73827517915674496542007-01-04T21:01:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:54:15.379Z

I've decided my imagined relations with MorrisseyRepresent a spastic outpouring of flummeryI'm saving my tearsFor Britney Spears

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-65436845885977504502007-01-04T20:27:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:54:40.906Z

Here at home on the couch feeling - what d'you call it - disenchanted, not comfortable, physically taut - I'm waiting for something to happen what is it ? There's a twinge in my thorax - so rest and watch tv - the Blue Planet - I'm hungry and want tea. I've spoken to mother and booked lunch for her birthday at Scott's on Monday February the fifth at twelve-thirty. I'm aware of a familiar

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-36954319107538198272007-01-03T00:32:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:55:41.913Z

I flout the censure that forbids adult tears, Demands a man prove his virility. By dissolving in tears whilst withholding constraintI follow the orders of my body. I'm in liquid expansion,I make myself cryTo prove my grief isn't illusion. Tears are signs not expressionsThat of body not speechWords what are theyOne tear says more than all of 'em

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-75219668644627505222006-12-31T12:27:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:55:59.898Z

Travelling home on the 42 I'm all weighed down with shopping and other bags. I aim myself awkwardly in the direction of those two sets of seats facing each other towards the back where I plan to have everything unwind and spill off while I collapse. I'm shot in that direction when the driver accelerates off from the stand firing me down the bus with the little extra help I hadn't planned, tho'

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-9815305865106017932006-12-30T20:11:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:56:24.416Z

I receive a cheerful and polite email begging me to reveal my author's identity to quench an outbreak of speculation.I politely quench an outbreak of emails and beg the author to speculate upon the cheerful revelations I have identified.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-48950005151550132852006-12-30T13:57:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:57:25.738Z

Waking, the room bleached with the loveliest light, sharp low-slung rays of winter sun, I stumble down-stairs to gather up the curtains in roughly managed knots. They hang from butchers hooks twenty feet up, drawing them open or shut is no real solution - the knotting I like, it represents an honesty with the calico from which they're hewn - a rough and basic cloth which diffuses light rather

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-70630628059729094382006-12-28T12:22:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:57:55.662Z

Should tenderest love betray it's nameAnd beg my hand to marryI'd render up my heart aflameI've fallen for Prince Harry

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-48797597752351631432006-12-28T01:20:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:58:17.859Z

We have recently received unreliable evidence suggesting that our robin redbreast beloved of Christmastide has persistently and perniciously deceived us in his twitterings and titter-tattle, in his endless demur posings for that sycophantic card, and his coy modeling for a place between Santa and the fir-tree atop our white-decked cake. Whilst concluding the Christmas whirlwind this afternoon

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-64745026359650692252006-12-27T23:29:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:58:33.802Z

Stop it - I know, I know - you thought now it was put to bed. Just one more mention - bare with me - then I promise - I promise that it will soon be over, however, there is still one more post to follow this on the giddy seasonal merry-go-round.I realised today that all Christmas cards fit into one of these fourteen categories:a robin - holly gate percha forest - pine tree silver bircha stocking

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-84394844083397127332006-12-26T18:55:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:58:58.738Z

Oh dear. It seems the collapse of Pauline Fowler into freshly fallen snow has escaped my earlier Christmas chronicle. The winter had the same effect on the little swallow who fell dead at the feet of The Happy Prince. What's wrong with these birds ?

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-3014979921020978092006-12-26T12:47:00.002Z2008-12-14T19:59:18.115Z

Boxing Day soundtrack: I sit, motionless and still. From the kitchen - voices, mostly mother's shrill bleatings, arguments perhaps? No, not arguments, just pressing, snagging voices which rasp the stillness. These sounds certainly resemble arguments but in fact are the shifting fissures of mother's well-worked marital intolerances exercised for Boxing Day upon husband Jeff. No, we don't want

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-56132889653185964922006-12-24T17:26:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:59:56.461Z

Having barely begun this missive I feel somewhat humbled by the whirlwind of emotive seasonal ramblings already posted hereabouts by one or two or three individuals who's creative capsule has provided entertainment and warmth over the last month or so. This Christmas story, whatever it is, has always been consumed by the medium of it's recital, from the idle Christmas skuttlebutt of three

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-50739008736254062822006-12-22T19:18:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:00:23.039Z

Those giant ants have shown scant disregard for the manic spirit of the season remaining almost aloof in a quiet corner of the kitchen. They prefer to hide out in a bag than show empathy with their menacing 1954 mutant post-nuclear Cold War cousins debuting in the film Them ! They're almost comatose. Just you wait 'till Christmas day, I tell them, when they replace the twiglets in a vintage

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-4186406653185637192006-12-21T08:49:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:00:43.365Z

Three last minute gifts I found in Fortnums: giant toasted ants,- rare delicacy of Amazon indians- the worlds largest ant- nutty bacon like tastesome twiglets and a box of after-eights.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-60207202699773427562006-12-20T23:52:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:01:05.304Z

Such a chilly day for Christmas shopping. I meet Jean-Noel for lunch at Scotts, lets say to warm up, hoping this lavish distraction will bolster the arduous task ahead. He has meetings and a broken phone to replace on Oxford Street, ungh, and I plan a one-stop shop at Selfirdges, ungh, to cover all bases. The restaurant fills... it's early days. We eat at the counter and digest the

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-65048197137576672272006-12-19T12:34:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:01:28.903Z

I'm heading off to mother's for Christmas who lives down by the river in Buckinghamshire. Having considered my Tesco Christmas shopping list it's clear that much has yet to be purchased, not withstanding:coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawaterecstacies indeed. Hopefully there will be space in my little boat to pack it.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-51209909309662503332006-12-16T23:31:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:01:43.343Z

The hard-drive in my 5 year old powerbook gave up on Thursday. Instead of starting up it now grinds quite audibly and nothing else happens... well, it makes a beep now and again and that's about it. Grinding and beeping and getting quite hot. I figured it wasn't worth fixing. The battery is all but dead, it has no airport card, the case is dented all over, sometimes it takes a few goes

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-40581042578990888832006-12-11T14:00:00.003Z2008-12-14T20:06:59.254Z

An inaugeral dinner at last at Scott's. The food is as compelling as the art - Dublin Bay prawns, Fiona Rae, Gary Hume, Michael Landy and Peter Peri, is on display.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-43158985796142225582006-12-09T22:44:00.003Z2008-12-14T20:06:43.198Z

It's my aunt Salina's eighty-fourth birthday party. We have a family dinner at Rima Tandoori restaurant in Redbridge. When he passes our table the manager asks if the food is good. He passes often. The dishes are all the same colour. Some are thicker than others. They taste similar. One of the dishes we've ordered, however, differs audibly from the others - it sizzles - so providing

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-37812080242061728252006-12-08T23:11:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:03:26.325Z

At work this evening a colleague asks me what I'm wearing, he means what do I smell of. "Is it Jupe?" he says. It's not, and besides, I don't know what Jupe smells of. When I took my bath earlier today I discharged into it an experimental elixir - black pepper, pachouli, ginger... No future need, then, for aftershave. I have become a perfumist.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-66237939729897600212006-11-29T23:50:00.002Z2008-12-14T20:06:21.212Z

Dinner tonight at St Alban. It has a carpet so it hums. It is like a sanctuary. Not the workshop clatter of The Wolseley, a cathedral where cars once parked for sale. One can't imagine cars parked in St Alban on carpets the colour of vestments. Mitchel works the service with Chris. It's their house party, which is nice. There are no windows. One can imagine the Ivy congregation enjoying

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-70796795631903410962006-11-22T23:09:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:04:19.879Z

Dipping into bits of weekend newspapers which I shove into my bag to review at chosen moments, tonight with supper for one and a glass of Verdicchio, I was intrigued to read Jancis Robinson therein, waxing lyrically about her a new discovery: the virtues of matching cheese with white wine, a discoveery which she admits to being something of a shock.She concluded that the most rewarding marriages

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-17951455648629788502006-11-17T22:56:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:04:41.173Z

Tonight there is a glimmer, a glimmer of a restaurant and guests who want to own a little part of it. The kitchen is expediting exemplary food. It's not too dark, too light, too hot, too cold, the menu font too small, the cheese too smelly, the food too expensive, the room too noisy, the a/c too drafty, oh it goes on and on. Tonight there are people who love the place, who would re-mortgage

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-12552092093661703472006-11-16T19:53:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:05:18.111Z

Classify combs by the number of their teeth.

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-76357421836401690282006-11-15T22:55:00.001Z2008-12-14T20:05:54.567Z

Breakfast at the Wolseley this morning... It's ten minutes before I can place an order, chaos reigns in The Salon. No chance today of tea or coffee whilst pondering the menu & papers. The Bircher muesli arrives, then the tea five minutes later. Another forty mintues and two boiled eggs, ordered with the muesli, arrive with soldiers.Of course it's lunch time now and I feel silly eating boiled

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-67639629968399596222006-10-27T21:05:00.001Z2008-12-14T19:31:20.897Z

With tv off ‘cos sitting here aloneI watch one show after another, relentlessly,I pick up a book to read a poem.But I’m unfocussed and inventA whirlwind of a time now spent.Tripping through the same old rooms, indulgent, Nostalgic you might call it, I recreate from memory,Fabricate from disconnected threads, what seemsA careless time – cooking for you, pouring tea,When we both lived here -

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3766554306557941554.post-70761080302519473062006-10-01T21:38:00.005Z2008-12-14T20:05:35.655Z

I've popped back to set a few words straight. I nodded off, somewhere between reading and (w)riting. Old tosh you say;Would you consider hanging around for a minute or two ?That would be nice. I've precious little else to reveal that isn't stitched all over the show Here & there.A kind of valve for all those earlier times when asked what I've been up to I and would reply,Oh, just writing a

Blatherskitenoreply@blogger.com0