It's all going far too slow. i added another 2,00o words last night, but I somehow have to up the rate. One person has already scrawled 30,ooo words! Anyway, here's the latest installment:
�Provided the world exists�, said Socrates. �Prove it�.
�Gah, give me enough beers and I�ll prove anything�, Plato retorted. �Talking of which�?�
�James! James, me good lad�..another pair of whiskies if you will�.bless you..�
The barman poured out a pair, and Socrates turned to me again.
�We were just having a good laugh at your friend�s expense here�, he said, breathing wheezily.
�Yes, I heard Plato here shout �Socrates!� and I couldn�t help laughing�, explained Taylor, �then they ask my name and hail me as the poet�.
�And what�s your name, if I may enquire?� asked Plato.
�Dan Thompson.�
�What�s that?�, roared Socrates. �Dante?�
�No, Dan T�.�
�Oh yes, oh yes, that�s good!�, laughed Plato. �Look here, will you Socrates, Dante and the dead poet!�
They both chuckled and wheezed, while Taylor grinned into his drink. When the laughter had subsided into the wheeze that old men reach after a while, Socrates turned to me, wiped a rheumy tear from his eye, and asked,
�Well? Is it true then? Are you following your guide through Hell?�
�Em, well, I thought we were just going for a few beers myself.�
Plato tugged Socrates sleeve.
�If that is true, that means we�re in limbo, does it not?�
�Well, if so, at least we won�t be toasted by the big fellow, you know?�
�And anyway,� said Taylor, �This is Dan�s town. I�m a stranger here.�
�Only in the physical sense, maybe,� muttered Socrates. �There is the sense around you that you know where you�re going, young man, whereas you,� he pointed his bulbous nose at me, �are somewhat lost. Am I right?�
I gave a shrug, but he had discomfited me. Was it so obvious?
�Direction. Always have a direction in life, that�s my advice,� said Plato.
�Our direction, for example, has led us to here�, said Socrates, and they laughed.
�Yes, yes, we�re all of us philosophers of the pub, poets of the pint, and crapulous pundits of the world in here,� Plato chuckled, to a murmured �yes� from his companion. �For most of us, we never saw the light properly, mainly because it was being seen through the bottom of a pint glass, see?�
He pointed at the various piles of old men sat around in the twilight.
�The one with the wooden leg and the row of medals? War hero � lost his wife a few years back. That chap in the tan cap used to be mayor of Reading, don�t you know��
Someone started singing. Badly.
�..he�s a folk singer, that one, and over there is a very great gentleman.�
Socrates snorted into his drink. �Great, my arse! A good reporter as was, more like�.
Seated at the far end of the bar was a rotund, short man with heavy jowls, eyes that stuck out somewhat, a few strands of hair on his round head, and jaundiced skin.
�Newspaperman. Reported on conflicts and whatnot,� said Plato. �Of course, his liver�s gone, hence the colour on him. And he�s blind � blind drunk!�
As we watched, the man knocked back his beer in one go, then slipped off his stool. The barman came round, propped him back on, and he nodded forward until his head touched the bar and he fell asleep.
�Ah, there we go, he�s nodded off,� said Socrates. �They�ll leave him be till the wife comes in and picks him up�.
�In a wheelbarrow.�
�Speaking of such, Plato, what time do you have? The wife�ll be after me before long.�
�Time for a few more, time for a few more.� He turned to us. �Poor Socrates here has a hard time in store for himself later, you see. His other half doesn�t comprehend that philosophising requires refreshment frequently.�
We finished off our beers and made to go.
�A pleasure to meet you,� said Taylor.
�And you, O poet�, beamed Socrates. �And you, young man. Stop looking so downcast. Things will get better soon. Off with you.�
�Bye.�
We came out of the pub into the dusty light. Office workers were beginning to stumble from their offices, either heading for home or for the bars. We crossed the road towards the Town Hall, an edifice of gothic styles in red brick.
�That�s quite a funky building,� commented Taylor.
�Yeah, the guy who built it also did the Natural History Building�there�s the 3 B�s in it, but unless you want to repeat the drunk pensioner experience I suggest we leave it for now.�
�You know best.�
We walked past it to the square that leads to Market place and the Forbury. St. Laurence�s was, as ever, closed, and from its tower medieval gargoyles leered the length of Friar Street. We stopped under the statue of Victoria while I tried to make up my mind which way to go. The pubs along Friar Street didn�t appeal at this time of day; Generally, they�d be filled with weary shoppers and perpetual drunks. As I was debating with myself, we suddenly heard a great roar and screech, and around the corner came tottering a group of young women, yelling and giggling. In the middle of them was a twenty-something woman, wearing a bridal veil, a pair of fake tits, furry handcuffs and an L-plate.
�It�s a bit early for a hen night, isn�t it?� asked Taylor.
�This is Reading on a Friday,� I replied. �It�s never too early for anything.�
There was another shout then, but this came from the alleyway between the church and Blandy and Blandy�s offices. A troupe of young men staggered into sight, half-carrying one of their number; He too was wearing an L-Plate, and he feebly waved a plastic ball and chain.
�Dave! Dave!� bellowed one. �When�s the �Oneypot open?�
�Not �till seven�, yelled Dave, who was lanky, spotty and red-faced. �Let�s go to Burger King and get something to eat before we go on.�
The two groups saw each other.
�Alright ladies? Going anywhere nice?� drawled one of the party.
A few of the women giggled, the one bellowed, �Sod the chat, get it out!�
�Yeah, show us yer cock!�
�One at a time and later on, yeah?� someone else shouted back, and the two parties slipped laughing past each other. The women walked straight past us on their way towards O'Neil's, the Irish Bar. The bride-to be slipped and fell right into me with a loud �whoops!� I helped her back up onto her feet.
�There you go,�
�Ta. I�m getting� married tomorrow�, she said.
�Really?! I�d never have noticed�,
�Yeah�, she replied, with the sudden seriousness of the very drunk, �My Gary. Met him at school .�
She looked directly into my face, and gripped me at the elbows, as if trying to make me comprehend entirely what she meant, her face serious, her brow buckled. �I love him! I really, really love him!�
And then she started crying. Her friend peeled her off me, saying �Come on Fran, yeah, let�s have another drink�� She turned to me. �Sorry �bout that.�
�That�s OK � tell her to be careful, yeah?�
And then they whirled away and were swallowed by the pub�s dark mouth.
�Well, They�re off in that direction. Let�s try this way, it�s probably quieter,� said Taylor, and he turned left towards Market Place. I followed on.
FIVE: a vision
Report of activity recorded on CCTV in Reading Town Centre, July the --, ----.
3.55 p.m. camera 5, Station Hill: The view outside Forbuoys Newsagents. The number 137 bus enters the picture. It stops, and several people alight from it: An elderly woman, with white hair, walking stick and floral print dress; A woman of approximately 30 years of age, with a young child in a pushchair, wearing a yellow top and white shorts; One middle-aged Asian man, approximately forty to fifty years of age, wearing a light grey suit; Two teenage girls, wearing light-coloured tops and shorts; An elderly couple in beige; And last, two men, in their thirties, one of whom was approximately five feet eleven inches tall, with greying dark brown hair, wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans, and the other several inches taller, with long black hair, white shirt and dark trousers. These latter two walked towards the station.
3.58 p.m. camera 7, station concourse: The two men enter the picture via the station entrance of W.H. Smiths. They are seen to stop briefly in front of the information board, apparently to check the time. A man carrying a suitcase can be seen falling over behind them, but they do not appear to notice. They walk towards the far end of the concourse, past the Reading College and School of Art and Design Pavilion. The taller man turns and smiles at a woman in her mid-twenties wearing a short blue dress. She returns the smile. The shorter man walks on. He is apparently talking, although about what is not clear. His companion smiles and nods. They leave the concourse via the southeast exit.
3.59 p.m. camera 8, station and railbus: The two are seen coming down the stairs. The shorter one slips, but regains his composure. They walk around the side of the 4.15 railbus departure and are lost to view.
3.59 p.m. camera 11, corner of Station approach and Blagrave street: the two men walk slowly towards the corner. The shorter of the two gestures in front of him; his companion smiles and shrugs. Having passed the corner, they enter The Blagrave public house.
4.32 p.m. , camera 11, corner of Station approach and Blagrave street: The two men are seen leaving the Blagrave public house, and heading up Blagrave street. They cross the road towards the Old Town Hall, then walk up to the square. They stop under the statue of Queen Victoria, and are the seen to look to their left.
4.35 p.m., camera 13, St. Laurence�s and Market Place junction: A party of women, all aged between approximately eighteen and forty, are seen to enter the square from the east. It could be said that they are in high spirits, and it may be surmised that they have been drinking. Shortly after, a party of men, all aged approximately in their twenties, enter the square via the alleyway that runs between St. Laurence�s church and Blandy & Blandy, solicitors. One young man is apparently the worse for wear, being supported by his companions. The two parties converge and converse briefly, but without any incident of note. The party of men then proceed westwards up Friar Street, while the group of females heads towards the Irish Bar on the corner of Friar Street and Blagrave Street. One woman, aged approximately in her twenties, stumbles and falls onto the shorter of the two men being thus far observed, appears to talk to him briefly, before being assisted into the bar by her companion. The taller of the two men then heads eastward and turns the corner into Market Place, followed by his companion.
And all the while this narrow view is going on? Men and women walk through the streets, living, working, crying, whatever; A few pigeons roam the square, and are chased by a delighted two-year-old boy; there are beggars on the corners, lazily asking for spare change; a traffic warden writes out a ticket for a badly-parked car by the church, and a woman comes racing toward him, screaming curses before getting in her vehicle and driving off; a woman in her forties looks out of the window of the solicitors and sighs; three girls, two Slovaks and a Pole, come out of the private language school on the corner and chat as they walk towards Marks & Spensers; And all the time there is bustle and movement and life and God knows what that a single eye can�t take in or understand.
Six: The well-worn quote
If I�m drunk on forbidden wine, so I am!
And if I�m an unbeliever, a pagan or idolater, so I am!
Every sect has its own suspicions of me,
I myself am just what I am.
Omar Khayyam, Ruba�iyat LXXIV
In which the Author continues to interrupt the narrative; He comments briefly on the action thus far and what may be expected later; And discusses the use of prefatory quotes and summary paragraphs, as well as authorial interruptions, for their ability to pad out and impart greater gravitas to even the weakest of stories.
It would appear that I am still on the bus, it seems � or at least, my presence in the town has not been commented upon by Dan. This poses a problem: If I am not there, who�s writing the story? It resembles something out of Zen philosophy, does it not? You see, it does not matter how clever the writer is at disguising him- or herself, the Authorial Hand is still present and detectable in even the most well-written internal monologue. Just as the single word can contain multitudes of meaning, so the text can be pared back, layer after layer, to reveal the writer and their naked mind.
This is why I have decided to jump into the narrative as a character (or, perhaps later, characters) in my own right; I may be in the background, but I�m the idiot waving and jumping, the boy pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes on, the clown pointing the obvious fact: this is a fiction. Likewise, being the fool in the court, I may safely wade into the middle of the action and bring it to a crashing halt while I pontificate on what I like. And the joy is, this too is fiction! Yes, I admit it; I am a character myself, and one that is increasing in strength as this tale unfolds. So who�s pulling my strings?
You also have to decide something, dear reader: Which is the real narrative?
I don�t know about you, but Socrates� outburst about Dante took me by surprise. Is this whole story really just a gloss on Inferno from The Comedy? Is it, in short, blatant theft? Well, I am going to deal with the pernicious, mendacious nature of tales in a later interruption. If it is a gloss, why? Is Reading a comic version of Hell? Is the story a comedy? Of course, comedy in its original sense meant a story with a happy outcome. Right now, I�ll settle for Dan managing to get back home safe and unmolested (unless, of course, he wants to be molested), which technically means it�s a comedy. I�m not intended to have dead bodies all over the place, although it may inject a bit of zest into it, don�t you think? Let�s face it, two men on a pub crawl is hardly enthralling is it? And I must say, I�m not particularly impressed by my own conjuration of the town and environs so far � there doesn�t seem to be much detail. Must try harder. And Taylor Coleridge is somewhat of a mystery still � he seems rather taciturn, despite Dan�s assertion that his friend was back on form while talking with the bar sages. However, we must take into account the fact that the narrative is from a personal perspective, and it could be that Dan is not a particularly observant chap. Let us see what happens next � I daresay it will involve more pubs. They have added one more beer each to their respective tallies, and it isn�t even five o�clock yet. I hope they can last this kind of pace until two in the morning, but then, what does it matter! This is fiction! And, by the way, I�m not too sure about this use of a CCTV�s perspective � contrived, maybe, and for what purpose?
There is also the matter of these interludes, the absurd chapter titles, the introductory quotes and the chapter summaries � why? Well, and I answer � why not? I�ve already explained that I can do as I like in terms of narrative interruption, and I won�t explain that further. The other stuff � can it be explained or justified? Well, the chapter summaries have an ancient and noble history in the rise of the English novel, and have been of immense value to those people who are generally far too busy to read any given novel in full � in short, those whose lives are so ostensibly rich and varied that they do not need the vapid joys of a novel or a soap opera on TV. They merely need to flick through each chapter heading, get the gist of the thing, and claim to have read the book from start to finish. This is why, and only those who have actually read this will know it, that from now on the chapter summaries will be unfaithful to what is actually in each chapter: some may be accurate, but you will not be able to rely on them hence. There, that�s you warned.
As for the quotes � well, they give a bit of class, don�t they? I must admit, they�re more of a continental affectation, but anything to puff the whole story up. Quotes, preferably by foreign writers and preferably in foreign, are nothing more than a delicate bit of gilding, an ornate and unnecessary adornment to the text. For that reason, I have added them � they just look good, and give the reader the impression that the Author is far more erudite and well-read than is the real case. For example, take the quote at the head of this chapter � taken from the Ruba�iyat of Omar Khayyam. Let�s see- what buttons does it push? Foreign writer � good; Islamic Sufi Mystic � good as well; verse number written in Roman Numerals � excellent. And what is its relationship to this chapter? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a sausage. Not even a small pork chipolata on a cocktail stick. With a bit of pineapple. And a cheese cube.
But it still looks good. Why is this? Because you have been conditioned, dear reader; conditioned by the types of book you read to believe that, if there are quotes regularly sprinkled in a text, it must necessarily be LITERATURE. The fact is, these fripperies, these added-on extras, rather than being seen for the nonsense they are, somehow convey an added factor to any book � that precious and August thing, Gravitas. A book fully decked out in its costume of summaries, notes, and quotes grasps the attention. Quite possibly, it also has an introduction, which may written by someone who isn�t a friend of the Author. It may even be required reading in schools and colleges, and for which reason, it begins to resemble the Queen: Admired from afar, but never touched.
This is obviously nonsense, and, like the summaries, from now on expect the quotes to become equally unhinged from the story �they may be relevant, they may have an inner truth pertaining to the tale, they may be arrant nonsense � but just don�t rely on them. I might even make some up and attribute them to non-existent Great Foreign Writers.
Seven: The hungry and the spent
The best lack all conviction, whilst the worst are full of passionate intensity.
W.B. Yeats
In which our heroes do something. Or not, as the case may be.
Once we got round the corner, I suggested the Cooper�s, but Taylor said,
�Let�s lay off for a bit, shall we? We�ve got all evening ahead. Is there a coffee shop hereabouts?�
�OK, there�s one right ahead.�
We walked past Nino�s, the Italian restaurant that had been in Butter Market ever since I could remember. The door opened and a gush of aromas, of tomato and olive oil and herbs and hot bread raced out, then disappeared quickly as the door was shut behind two diners entering the fragrant maw. Under the plane trees, pigeons vied and fluttered over bread crumbs that were being flung by an elderly Indian woman. A couple of drunks were sat on one of the benches, with cans of cheap cider between them. One was dozing, the other muttering to himself and taking great thirsty gulps from his drink. Suddenly, a huge dog came out of nowhere and dived among the pigeons, barking and snapping. I�m not sure what kind of hound it was � something like a pit bull terrier, but much, much bigger and darker. The pigeons scattered and whirled into the trees and the dog began looking for something else to chase. Fortunately, its owner came chasing after it � the thing had slipped his grasp. Not surprising, really; Like many people who own huge dogs, he was a rather weedy specimen in a tracksuit and baseball cap.
�Trevor! Come �ere!� The man chased Trevor, who took delight in running around him in circles and knocking over some of the cider cans by the drunks� feet. Finally, the man grabbed hold of it.
�Trevor! Heel! Bloody dog�! Stop it�STOP! Stupid sodding animal�.sorry �bout that, mate, no �arm done, yeah? Great�Trevor!�
And off he was dragged by Trevor.
We walked past the old cafeteria: for a Friday afternoon on a hot day, it was surprisingly full. It smelt, as ever, of warm milky coffee and hot vinegar and fatty fried things, which was its speciality. Inside, people wolfed down their food, although they didn�t seem to be getting much pleasure from it. Outside Costa Coffee on the corner of Broad Street and Butter Market, there was a spare table which we blagged. A waitress, a Polish girl I guessed, judging by the name (Agnieska) on her nametag, took our order. I pulled out a cigarette and squinted the across the street at the crowds flowing like so much seawater into and out of the Oracle.
�Why is that shopping centre called the Oracle? It�s a bloody stupid name�, said Taylor.
�There used to be a poorhouse cum slave labour factory called the same around there during the sixteen hundreds or something�, I replied. �If you go to the museum, it�s still got the doors in it�.
Taylor�s eyes glittered and a grim smile worked its way across his face.
�And now it�s a temple selling the products of slavery and sweat.�
�Well, irony has never been something the good citizens of Reading have ever appreciated, especially when it comes to money�, I said. �Most of the riots we�ve had here historically have been about profits and who controls the dosh. A Reading version of a dictionary would probably define irony as something that resembles iron.�
�Now imagine�, he said, �Imagine that this really is a temple, say a modern version of something at Delphi. And inside it is some mad priestess woman, crazed on purchasing consumer delights, frenzied as the prophetess of Pythian Apollo after drinking from the sacred well, and she�s giving all sorts of mad pronouncements. Buy This! Don�t Buy That! Special Bargains! Imagine all these people going in, receiving her wild talk and coming out dazed and terrified by what they had encountered!�
�Well, there�s the information counter.�
We both laughed, and Agnieska brought us our coffees.
�dzien koye�, Taylor said in Polish. The girl smiled broadly and said,
�Oh, you know Polish! Very good!�
�No, only �thank you� I�m afraid. Oh, and �kapuska��, to which she laughed, then went back inside. �That means cabbage�, he explained.
�So how did you know she�s Polish?�
�And you mean you didn�t? I took an educated guess, as you did, I suspect. Besides, if I�d got it wrong, she�d have gently disabused me at best or ignored me at worst. Look around you, Dan! Don�t just guess at stuff: act upon what you know, or think you know. What have you got to lose?�
�Yeah, alright. I�ve done it before � you know that, that�s why I went abroad in the first place. Just to see what�s out there, see if I could do it, you know, work, live abroad and so on. Alright, so I don�t have your way with languages, Taylor, but I did it, didn�t I? And now I�m back here.�
�You say that like you�re disappointed to be back. And that attitude means you never went away. You know Dan, I seem to remember a conversation we had like this before � do you recall that coffee house in Cairo, all those Hookahs outside and we too getting merrily stoned on them?�
It came to mind then; a sunny afternoon in late January or early February in a small street in that city, and Taylor and me sitting on small stools, a hookah each and tulip glasses of sweet, hot tea.
�We were swapping tales, and talking about what we mean by �home� and �away��, I said.
�And remember, you said that home is something that is always in the heart and soul � you can�t escape it�, he said. �Then we decided that the level of pessimism of the soul decides whether home is a good thing or something to try and run away from, but that you cannot run away from your heart, and so you carry home with you wherever you go�.
�Christ, we must have really been puffing on those hookahs by then!� It was a weak joke, and just bluster really.
�Don�t be so feeble. Look you�re complaining about being here, but why? You said yourself, another time, that going abroad was like leaving a cage didn�t you?�
I shrugged my assent. It was true; Like many British people who escape this island, abroad had seemed an incredibly liberating action.
�Now you�re back in the cage. But I�m here asking: Is it really a cage, or is that just the way you choose to see it?�
He sipped his coffee and watched me.
I laughed, but an exasperated laugh.
�Well, what the Hell do you expect me to say to that, man?�
�Nothing, Dan. Nothing at all. Relax, enjoy the coffee and look around.�
And so I did. It had gone five by now, and I watched the world carefully over my coffee and cigarettes. Next to us were a couple of men with olive-dark skin, arguing in what sounded like Turkish; the waitress was talking animatedly in Polish with another girl; A man with short dark hair and glasses walked by, carrying a copy of El Pais; A pair of middle aged women, dressed in shalwar kameez walked within earshot, chatting and laughing in Punjabi. I saw a group of Chinese students, obviously coming back out of the college, shouting and laughing, then three girls speaking French. Over our cigarettes and the next five minutes, Taylor and I watched the world go by. Such a rush of people, and so many nationalities. I counted fifteen different languages in that time.
Taylor put out his fag.
�So why go out into the big bad world�, he said, �when it seems to be so eager to come to Reading?�
He grinned.
�I�m getting to like this place. How many people live here, then?�
�I�m not sure. Not that many. About a hundred and seventy thousand.�
�A medium sized town, then. But did you just see how many languages are being spoken? That�s quite something.�
�I can�t say I�d really noticed before�.
�Then it�s time you opened your eyes and ears a bit!�
He drained his coffee.
�I need a piss. Shall we proceed to the next watering hole?�
�Why not? The Hobgoblin�s next door.�
�Sounds good to me.�
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Monday, November 08, 2004
9,000 down, just another 41,000 to go...
This is proving slightly harder than expected, although not as bad as it could be. I was hoping to do a shedload of writing over the weekend, but eventually I only managed about a thousand words. I'm behind my own schedule - by now, by my reckoning, I should have done 11,669 words (13,300 by tonight!), so I need to get my skates on somewhat. Right, back to class.....
Thursday, November 04, 2004
part four
my eyes are going weird...........
He punched out tickets as people fed coins into the machine. One kid, about eighteen months old, was bawling its eyes out.
�Hello there�, he grinned at the child. �What�s all the noise for, eh? We�re just going on a little journey, that�s all.�
This didn�t help matters; the little boy just bawled even louder, and squirmed in his mother�s arms � she was red with embarrassment and fury. She struggled on, dumped the stroller in the rack and sat down. Taylor paid for both of us, then we stood towards the front. He looked down the length of the packed bus, then said in a low voice,
�Will you look at all these guys! Every one of them unhappy and apprehensive and sullen, even on a day like this. They look as if they�re off to their own funerals.�
�It�s probably the thought of having to fight their way through the crowds in town.�
�Yeah, but why need it be a struggle? It�s just the way they see it, Dan. They�re thinking something along the lines of, oh Hell, another day of fighting and misery and screaming kids and people who don�t understand me, and they can�t see that they can change their situation just by seeing what they have in a different light�.
What he said reminded me of something by William Blake.
�Hell and Heaven are essentially the same, it�s just how you see it, something like that?�
�Yee-ees, but I wouldn�t apply that to a hot bus on a sunny afternoon,� he said, and we both grinned.
The bus crawled towards Reading Bridge. For some reason, there was a lot of traffic going towards the centre, although nothing was coming the other way. The driver was grumbling to himself.
�Bloody traffic. Wonder who�s had an accident up ahead this time?�
His two-way radio crackled.
�137, where are you?�
�Coming up to Reading Bridge. There�s a lot of traffic going in. Got a full load as well.�
We inched along the road. Glancing up the bus, I suddenly saw, right at the back, the fucking weirdo again. He looked back at me and smiled briefly, before burying his head in his notebook once more. I pointed him out to Taylor.
�I think he�s following us.�
�Why should he?� he said. �Just because he was in the same pub and now on the same bus doesn�t mean anything.�
�I don�t know. He keeps looking at me, that�s all�.
I rolled and unrolled my ticket and glanced at what was written on it � time, destination, fare, jolly little �have a nice journey� message. The bus wheezed over the bridge; Some teenagers were busy throwing themselves off it and into the dark waters of the Thames below. A few swans and geese bobbed on its surface and a cruiser slid towards the lock.
�The Thames,� murmured Taylor. �Did you know that in Old British it means �Dark River�? When the Romans were first up in this part of the world, they thought this was the Styx�.
Our busload of souls were ferried over it, then, and finally we arrived at the station, pulling up to the festering monstrosity that is the Station Tower. Someone had obviously decided to start their weekend festivities early, as a great puddle of vomit lay outside the chicken kebab shop. Skirting it, I said, �well, we know where not to eat on the way back then.�
There was a waft of stale piss from the doorway of the Jolly Porter, and stale rank air rising from the depths of Bar Oz. Outside the old Foster Wheeler building, a huddle of office workers in rumpled shirts sucked upon their fags before going back to work for the final stretch of the day, that miserable last hour and a half before you can reasonably escape the drudgery of the week, then go and get drunk for the weekend. We crossed towards the station and I bought some more cigarettes from W H Smiths.
�Where now, Dan?�
�There�s the Three Guineas next to this, or the Forum over the road, but I�m not keen on either. How about the Blagrave round the corner?�
�Lead on � you know this place better than me�.
We crossed the station concourse, past great packs of tourists and language school students, all of who were trying to put as many miles between them and Reading as possible. We came out by the railair bus link, skirted a coach being filled with luggage and people destined for Heathrow and crossed the road again, round the corner and into the Blagrave. A few years ago, it was a real London-type spit and sawdust; There were etched glass windows and cut mirrors behind the bar; dark mahogany furniture and even gas lighting. Now, it has almost perpetual sport on and electric, but it�s OK as town pubs go. The one good thing about it was its sense of peace � it was essentially one of those bars that has a feeling of serenity around it. At this time of day, it was sparsely populated, and those who were there looked like they�d been at it since the doors opened. A few seemed to have been occupying the same fucking place since the pub was built. Despite the brightness of the open air, little light filtered through the panes, leaving it all in perpetual half-light. This was probably just as well considering some of the more decrepit specimens of drinker. I went for a piss while Taylor got the drinks in. I thought about what he had said so far, or rather, what he hadn�t; Neither of us, in fact, had said much, but I was damned if I could think of a reason why that should be so. We hadn�t seen each other for so long, surely we would have far, far more to talk about. I remembered an evening on the beach in Goa, where we had sat and conversed about life, love, politics, metaphysics, God and God knows what all night, and all the time we were laughing our heads off. And right now, it seemed strangely disjointed, as if we were on slightly different levels of communication. Then again, we were both older, and I had only recently begun to notice how much I had changed, much to my chagrin; I had to admit that I wasn�t immortal anymore, that I would become decrepit and die just like everyone else. That is the really hard part of being in the mid-thirties � accepting that one day you will die, and I was bang slap in the middle of the change: Perhaps Taylor had something like that on his mind, too, although it was hard to imagine him turning middle-aged. He was one of those friends you expect to produce brilliant, wild, inspiring thoughts and writings, then one day just cease to be, leaving only a brilliant after-image on the retina of the mind, a glowing thought and memento of youth. In a way, he had died for me on that evening in Beirut.
Now he was back. And what was this about Beattie? My heart had lurched when he mentioned her name, and how on earth had he found her? It seemed unlikely that he could possibly have tracked her down in Bangkok of all places, but then again, I wouldn�t put it past his abilities. It seemed to me that this evening was going to be one full of ghosts.
When I came back to the bar, there was Taylor, but the Old Taylor, the brilliant, flashing, incisive poetic one, laughing and in full flow with two old blokes. They were talking animatedly. One of the men was short, bearded and spectacularly ugly, with an enormous buckled red nose, viciously protruding teeth, all at different angles, and a scrunched, gnomish face, and the other was slightly taller and red-faced, bearded too and beaming at his companion. They were obviously both off their faces on Guinness and whisky.
Taylor handed me an ale.
�Dan, meet two friends of mine�, he laughed. �Plato and Socrates.�
I must have looked surprised, because they both laughed.
�Socrates O�Toole and Plato Jones�, said Socrates (obviously, the uglier one), �Bar philosophers and pundits and what you will.�
�We have other names, you see, but these are our noms de guerre for our forays into the wide world,� said Plato.
He punched out tickets as people fed coins into the machine. One kid, about eighteen months old, was bawling its eyes out.
�Hello there�, he grinned at the child. �What�s all the noise for, eh? We�re just going on a little journey, that�s all.�
This didn�t help matters; the little boy just bawled even louder, and squirmed in his mother�s arms � she was red with embarrassment and fury. She struggled on, dumped the stroller in the rack and sat down. Taylor paid for both of us, then we stood towards the front. He looked down the length of the packed bus, then said in a low voice,
�Will you look at all these guys! Every one of them unhappy and apprehensive and sullen, even on a day like this. They look as if they�re off to their own funerals.�
�It�s probably the thought of having to fight their way through the crowds in town.�
�Yeah, but why need it be a struggle? It�s just the way they see it, Dan. They�re thinking something along the lines of, oh Hell, another day of fighting and misery and screaming kids and people who don�t understand me, and they can�t see that they can change their situation just by seeing what they have in a different light�.
What he said reminded me of something by William Blake.
�Hell and Heaven are essentially the same, it�s just how you see it, something like that?�
�Yee-ees, but I wouldn�t apply that to a hot bus on a sunny afternoon,� he said, and we both grinned.
The bus crawled towards Reading Bridge. For some reason, there was a lot of traffic going towards the centre, although nothing was coming the other way. The driver was grumbling to himself.
�Bloody traffic. Wonder who�s had an accident up ahead this time?�
His two-way radio crackled.
�137, where are you?�
�Coming up to Reading Bridge. There�s a lot of traffic going in. Got a full load as well.�
We inched along the road. Glancing up the bus, I suddenly saw, right at the back, the fucking weirdo again. He looked back at me and smiled briefly, before burying his head in his notebook once more. I pointed him out to Taylor.
�I think he�s following us.�
�Why should he?� he said. �Just because he was in the same pub and now on the same bus doesn�t mean anything.�
�I don�t know. He keeps looking at me, that�s all�.
I rolled and unrolled my ticket and glanced at what was written on it � time, destination, fare, jolly little �have a nice journey� message. The bus wheezed over the bridge; Some teenagers were busy throwing themselves off it and into the dark waters of the Thames below. A few swans and geese bobbed on its surface and a cruiser slid towards the lock.
�The Thames,� murmured Taylor. �Did you know that in Old British it means �Dark River�? When the Romans were first up in this part of the world, they thought this was the Styx�.
Our busload of souls were ferried over it, then, and finally we arrived at the station, pulling up to the festering monstrosity that is the Station Tower. Someone had obviously decided to start their weekend festivities early, as a great puddle of vomit lay outside the chicken kebab shop. Skirting it, I said, �well, we know where not to eat on the way back then.�
There was a waft of stale piss from the doorway of the Jolly Porter, and stale rank air rising from the depths of Bar Oz. Outside the old Foster Wheeler building, a huddle of office workers in rumpled shirts sucked upon their fags before going back to work for the final stretch of the day, that miserable last hour and a half before you can reasonably escape the drudgery of the week, then go and get drunk for the weekend. We crossed towards the station and I bought some more cigarettes from W H Smiths.
�Where now, Dan?�
�There�s the Three Guineas next to this, or the Forum over the road, but I�m not keen on either. How about the Blagrave round the corner?�
�Lead on � you know this place better than me�.
We crossed the station concourse, past great packs of tourists and language school students, all of who were trying to put as many miles between them and Reading as possible. We came out by the railair bus link, skirted a coach being filled with luggage and people destined for Heathrow and crossed the road again, round the corner and into the Blagrave. A few years ago, it was a real London-type spit and sawdust; There were etched glass windows and cut mirrors behind the bar; dark mahogany furniture and even gas lighting. Now, it has almost perpetual sport on and electric, but it�s OK as town pubs go. The one good thing about it was its sense of peace � it was essentially one of those bars that has a feeling of serenity around it. At this time of day, it was sparsely populated, and those who were there looked like they�d been at it since the doors opened. A few seemed to have been occupying the same fucking place since the pub was built. Despite the brightness of the open air, little light filtered through the panes, leaving it all in perpetual half-light. This was probably just as well considering some of the more decrepit specimens of drinker. I went for a piss while Taylor got the drinks in. I thought about what he had said so far, or rather, what he hadn�t; Neither of us, in fact, had said much, but I was damned if I could think of a reason why that should be so. We hadn�t seen each other for so long, surely we would have far, far more to talk about. I remembered an evening on the beach in Goa, where we had sat and conversed about life, love, politics, metaphysics, God and God knows what all night, and all the time we were laughing our heads off. And right now, it seemed strangely disjointed, as if we were on slightly different levels of communication. Then again, we were both older, and I had only recently begun to notice how much I had changed, much to my chagrin; I had to admit that I wasn�t immortal anymore, that I would become decrepit and die just like everyone else. That is the really hard part of being in the mid-thirties � accepting that one day you will die, and I was bang slap in the middle of the change: Perhaps Taylor had something like that on his mind, too, although it was hard to imagine him turning middle-aged. He was one of those friends you expect to produce brilliant, wild, inspiring thoughts and writings, then one day just cease to be, leaving only a brilliant after-image on the retina of the mind, a glowing thought and memento of youth. In a way, he had died for me on that evening in Beirut.
Now he was back. And what was this about Beattie? My heart had lurched when he mentioned her name, and how on earth had he found her? It seemed unlikely that he could possibly have tracked her down in Bangkok of all places, but then again, I wouldn�t put it past his abilities. It seemed to me that this evening was going to be one full of ghosts.
When I came back to the bar, there was Taylor, but the Old Taylor, the brilliant, flashing, incisive poetic one, laughing and in full flow with two old blokes. They were talking animatedly. One of the men was short, bearded and spectacularly ugly, with an enormous buckled red nose, viciously protruding teeth, all at different angles, and a scrunched, gnomish face, and the other was slightly taller and red-faced, bearded too and beaming at his companion. They were obviously both off their faces on Guinness and whisky.
Taylor handed me an ale.
�Dan, meet two friends of mine�, he laughed. �Plato and Socrates.�
I must have looked surprised, because they both laughed.
�Socrates O�Toole and Plato Jones�, said Socrates (obviously, the uglier one), �Bar philosophers and pundits and what you will.�
�We have other names, you see, but these are our noms de guerre for our forays into the wide world,� said Plato.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Chunk the third.
here it is...
Three: How do you read?
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.
Carl Sagan
In which the Author returns to pontificate; He comments upon the action and characters so far, hopefully pre-empting bilious comments from the critical reader.
You choose a book; One from your own personal library perhaps, something you haven�t read before, or a tattered, dog-eared old friend that you haven�t seen for a while and wish to become reacquainted with. Or your local friendly librarian hands over a hardback title, one covered in a battered plastic wrap, that smells of mustiness and many hands, and contains tatters of past lives as bookmarks: a bus ticket, a torn piece of note, a used cotton bud, complete with waxy residue. Or you�re at the airport and you hurriedly buy something chunky with a glossy cover, where the author�s name is writ large and the title, which contains the definite article and a word like �protocol� or �dossier�, is writ small, and you hope it will suffice for the beach � junk food novelry. Or you find, cleaning out an old cupboard, all those books you once had to read at school, and all the ones that you never had time for, and you pick out one in wonder, then blow off the dust.
And then you open the book. You glance at the first page, with the title, the author�s name and the publisher. What do you do then? How do you read? In this world, there are so many things to read, and so many things from which a meaning can be inferred if �read� in the correct way. Long, long ago, long before our ancestors invented pictograms and hieroglyphs and abstract symbols that conveyed a sound or a meaning, they could read the sky, the wind, the movement of animals, the flash of a red eye in the dark, the meaning of a face. Back then, mystery and understanding were one, as simple as times when fog rolls over land and makes the solid earth and ephemeral, changing air one thing. The painting of animals on cave walls rendered them real � if you looked at the painting for long enough, you would find yourself watching a herd of the real thing, and if you were watching a herd of bison, then pretty soon you would find yourself in the depths of a cavern, looking up at a painting composed of a few lines. But then along came symbols and hieroglyphs and writing, and suddenly what we see as �real� and what we see as �mystery� were pulled asunder. The more that was written, the more that various meanings were piled upon even the most innocent word, so that to extrapolate the true meaning of any given sound or symbol required extravagant lengths of interpretation. This infection of the written word spread in time to the uttered word, so now when someone says �hello�, it can be interpreted in many ways: Is the speaker sincere, is it a genuine greeting, is he angry with me, and so forth. And as writing spread, so there were more things to read, and the more there was to read, the ways to read things became many and varied. Look at this list of things: A label in a skirt; A cigarette packet; A bus ticket; A newspaper front page; A newspaper article on the economy; A religious book; A comic; A novel by a respected, �serious� writer; A novel by a populist writer; a cookery book; the telephone directory.
Now tell me, do you read all these in the same way? What would happen if you did?
Of course we don�t, because then all these things would either be imbued with tremendous significance or none at all. Then again, perhaps everything is significant; Perhaps everything we read has layer upon layer of meaning. That�s the problem with words � what may seem the simplest phrase can suddenly elude the grasp of even the best-read of us. And then there is the simple matter of reading a book. Some people, after leafing through the first chapter, will then skip to the very last page to see the outcome. These characters are the type of person who wants to know what�s ahead of them at all times, in order to render their lives simple. Then there are those who read a classic, then read the introduction (usually by some academic) afterwards; They are people who wish to have the book�s secrets unlocked for them and their ideas confirmed. And what about the type of reader who races through page after page, wolfing down great gobbets of a writer�s delicately crafted fare, merely in order to reach the end and claim to have read it? Don�t invite this character to a gourmet meal: they�ll tear it limb from limb, then belch loudly and go to the nearest McDonald�s. There is the languid dipper, who picks at a chapter here and there, never deigning to do anything so gauche as to actually finish a book from start to end.
But then there is that rarest of readers, the participant in the text. He or she reads diligently, carefully, with neither too much attention to significance nor too little, who treasures a writer�s craft without coddling it. This reader will carefully consider what the author has proffered, tasting it thoroughly and accepting or rejecting as necessary. It is far too easy to be precious about books, but the truth is that a story has to be tough, considering the battering it will get at the hands of the reader and the critic.
What I am trying to say, I suppose, is please be gentle with this tale! I can only do my best; and if so far you have not enjoyed the tale, what can I do? I�m as stuck right now as you are; However, you are in the fortunate position of being able to skip a few pages, or right to the end, or pick languidly if you wish, while we poor creatures must trudge through a line after line to ascertain our fate. A reader, in truth, can travel in time through the individual universe that each tale proffers � you can see the characters� future fates, then flick back and watch as we reach it. Even if you don�t like what you�ve seen so far, bear with me � it�s going to start getting interesting in the next chapter. Probably.
You may have surmised that I, the Author, am a fictional construct. Indeed, you may have seen how I seem to have been fitted into the tale. You may be right, you may not be. If it is the case that I�m fictional, why has my written style changed? The first few paragraphs of this interlude do not much resemble those of the first chapter; so what is happening?
There are two possibilities:
Either I am an appalling writer, and cannot create a consistent style, or:
I am taking the piss somewhat.
Whichever way you guess, you can�t be certain either way.
Can you see me grinning?
But what to say of Dan Thompson and Taylor Coleridge thus far? The latter, I�m sure you will agree, has an absolutely ridiculous, but strangely rather cool, name. Now, let�s not pretend this is, in any way, shape or form, a real tale; therefore both Dan and Taylor are ciphers for something else, even if the former has expressed himself with all too real emotion. How we read the characters and their situation will inform how we see their tale, even if we read more into it than is intended. So, we have someone in a pub, having a drink and feeling depressed; An old friend of his walks in and mentions his lover; they finish their drinks and start walking towards town, stopping off for a small drink on the way, which is where they are frozen for the moment. It might be salutary, at this point, to keep tabs on how much they have drunk; After all, this might be fiction, but we don�t want to ruin it by having them drink life-threatening quantities of alcohol and still function like real people. So far, then, Dan has had three pints of Bass and a bottle of lager in the Prince of Wales; Taylor has had two pints of lager and a bottle of same. Since we joined the tale at two o�clock, we can presume, I think, that Dan has had something to eat. This will keep him on his feet for the next few hours. I have a feeling that the pair of them are going to consume considerably more in the next few hours. Then again, have you considered the possibility that Taylor Coleridge is no more than a figment of Dan�s depressed imagination? I know, it�s the old �And suddenly I woke up and it had all been a dream� scenario; Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn�t; Shall we go and find out?
Four: across the dark river and into the maelstrom
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times�..
Charles Dickens
In which our heroes cross the Thames by Reading Bridge; They reach the Blagrave pub and there encounter some great thinkers; And past the Town hall come face to face with a stag party and a hen party.
�Come on, there�s a bus, let�s grab it!�
We needn�t have hurried; there was a large queue waiting at the bus stop in front of the playing fields in Westfield road. For such a warm and sunny day, this group seemed a miserable bunch. There were a few pensioners shuffling forwards and a pair of harassed-looking mothers with young kids, who all seemed to be bawling their eyes out.
� I�m late as it is!� shouted the bus driver. �Come on love, on you get, I haven�t got all day�that�s it, on you get, put it over there�.can I see your pass, lovely��
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.
Carl Sagan
In which the Author returns to pontificate; He comments upon the action and characters so far, hopefully pre-empting bilious comments from the critical reader.
You choose a book; One from your own personal library perhaps, something you haven�t read before, or a tattered, dog-eared old friend that you haven�t seen for a while and wish to become reacquainted with. Or your local friendly librarian hands over a hardback title, one covered in a battered plastic wrap, that smells of mustiness and many hands, and contains tatters of past lives as bookmarks: a bus ticket, a torn piece of note, a used cotton bud, complete with waxy residue. Or you�re at the airport and you hurriedly buy something chunky with a glossy cover, where the author�s name is writ large and the title, which contains the definite article and a word like �protocol� or �dossier�, is writ small, and you hope it will suffice for the beach � junk food novelry. Or you find, cleaning out an old cupboard, all those books you once had to read at school, and all the ones that you never had time for, and you pick out one in wonder, then blow off the dust.
And then you open the book. You glance at the first page, with the title, the author�s name and the publisher. What do you do then? How do you read? In this world, there are so many things to read, and so many things from which a meaning can be inferred if �read� in the correct way. Long, long ago, long before our ancestors invented pictograms and hieroglyphs and abstract symbols that conveyed a sound or a meaning, they could read the sky, the wind, the movement of animals, the flash of a red eye in the dark, the meaning of a face. Back then, mystery and understanding were one, as simple as times when fog rolls over land and makes the solid earth and ephemeral, changing air one thing. The painting of animals on cave walls rendered them real � if you looked at the painting for long enough, you would find yourself watching a herd of the real thing, and if you were watching a herd of bison, then pretty soon you would find yourself in the depths of a cavern, looking up at a painting composed of a few lines. But then along came symbols and hieroglyphs and writing, and suddenly what we see as �real� and what we see as �mystery� were pulled asunder. The more that was written, the more that various meanings were piled upon even the most innocent word, so that to extrapolate the true meaning of any given sound or symbol required extravagant lengths of interpretation. This infection of the written word spread in time to the uttered word, so now when someone says �hello�, it can be interpreted in many ways: Is the speaker sincere, is it a genuine greeting, is he angry with me, and so forth. And as writing spread, so there were more things to read, and the more there was to read, the ways to read things became many and varied. Look at this list of things: A label in a skirt; A cigarette packet; A bus ticket; A newspaper front page; A newspaper article on the economy; A religious book; A comic; A novel by a respected, �serious� writer; A novel by a populist writer; a cookery book; the telephone directory.
Now tell me, do you read all these in the same way? What would happen if you did?
Of course we don�t, because then all these things would either be imbued with tremendous significance or none at all. Then again, perhaps everything is significant; Perhaps everything we read has layer upon layer of meaning. That�s the problem with words � what may seem the simplest phrase can suddenly elude the grasp of even the best-read of us. And then there is the simple matter of reading a book. Some people, after leafing through the first chapter, will then skip to the very last page to see the outcome. These characters are the type of person who wants to know what�s ahead of them at all times, in order to render their lives simple. Then there are those who read a classic, then read the introduction (usually by some academic) afterwards; They are people who wish to have the book�s secrets unlocked for them and their ideas confirmed. And what about the type of reader who races through page after page, wolfing down great gobbets of a writer�s delicately crafted fare, merely in order to reach the end and claim to have read it? Don�t invite this character to a gourmet meal: they�ll tear it limb from limb, then belch loudly and go to the nearest McDonald�s. There is the languid dipper, who picks at a chapter here and there, never deigning to do anything so gauche as to actually finish a book from start to end.
But then there is that rarest of readers, the participant in the text. He or she reads diligently, carefully, with neither too much attention to significance nor too little, who treasures a writer�s craft without coddling it. This reader will carefully consider what the author has proffered, tasting it thoroughly and accepting or rejecting as necessary. It is far too easy to be precious about books, but the truth is that a story has to be tough, considering the battering it will get at the hands of the reader and the critic.
What I am trying to say, I suppose, is please be gentle with this tale! I can only do my best; and if so far you have not enjoyed the tale, what can I do? I�m as stuck right now as you are; However, you are in the fortunate position of being able to skip a few pages, or right to the end, or pick languidly if you wish, while we poor creatures must trudge through a line after line to ascertain our fate. A reader, in truth, can travel in time through the individual universe that each tale proffers � you can see the characters� future fates, then flick back and watch as we reach it. Even if you don�t like what you�ve seen so far, bear with me � it�s going to start getting interesting in the next chapter. Probably.
You may have surmised that I, the Author, am a fictional construct. Indeed, you may have seen how I seem to have been fitted into the tale. You may be right, you may not be. If it is the case that I�m fictional, why has my written style changed? The first few paragraphs of this interlude do not much resemble those of the first chapter; so what is happening?
There are two possibilities:
Either I am an appalling writer, and cannot create a consistent style, or:
I am taking the piss somewhat.
Whichever way you guess, you can�t be certain either way.
Can you see me grinning?
But what to say of Dan Thompson and Taylor Coleridge thus far? The latter, I�m sure you will agree, has an absolutely ridiculous, but strangely rather cool, name. Now, let�s not pretend this is, in any way, shape or form, a real tale; therefore both Dan and Taylor are ciphers for something else, even if the former has expressed himself with all too real emotion. How we read the characters and their situation will inform how we see their tale, even if we read more into it than is intended. So, we have someone in a pub, having a drink and feeling depressed; An old friend of his walks in and mentions his lover; they finish their drinks and start walking towards town, stopping off for a small drink on the way, which is where they are frozen for the moment. It might be salutary, at this point, to keep tabs on how much they have drunk; After all, this might be fiction, but we don�t want to ruin it by having them drink life-threatening quantities of alcohol and still function like real people. So far, then, Dan has had three pints of Bass and a bottle of lager in the Prince of Wales; Taylor has had two pints of lager and a bottle of same. Since we joined the tale at two o�clock, we can presume, I think, that Dan has had something to eat. This will keep him on his feet for the next few hours. I have a feeling that the pair of them are going to consume considerably more in the next few hours. Then again, have you considered the possibility that Taylor Coleridge is no more than a figment of Dan�s depressed imagination? I know, it�s the old �And suddenly I woke up and it had all been a dream� scenario; Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn�t; Shall we go and find out?
Four: across the dark river and into the maelstrom
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times�..
Charles Dickens
In which our heroes cross the Thames by Reading Bridge; They reach the Blagrave pub and there encounter some great thinkers; And past the Town hall come face to face with a stag party and a hen party.
�Come on, there�s a bus, let�s grab it!�
We needn�t have hurried; there was a large queue waiting at the bus stop in front of the playing fields in Westfield road. For such a warm and sunny day, this group seemed a miserable bunch. There were a few pensioners shuffling forwards and a pair of harassed-looking mothers with young kids, who all seemed to be bawling their eyes out.
� I�m late as it is!� shouted the bus driver. �Come on love, on you get, I haven�t got all day�that�s it, on you get, put it over there�.can I see your pass, lovely��
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Chunk number two
here's today's portion. Much harder, I must say.
He glanced up at me, then put his nose back in his notebook and began scrawling frantically.
�A pint of Bass again�, I said, and the barmaid (barMAID? She was at least fifty, with great sagging bingo wings flopping over red elbows, and a face like an overweight trout) filled up my glass. I looked at myself in the mirror, and behind me, at the seven or eight people ranged on sofas and barstools who were watching the match. Their faces were intent and fixed � the same kind of expressions you see whenever someone watches a not particularly interesting stretch of a game, or a play, or a debate, waiting to see the outcome of the next move. Myself, I looked weary, frustrated and beaten. I paid for the beer, then slunk off to my seat in the corner. I lit a fag, started trying to do the crossword again. Nothing. I flung my pen down again, and beat around in my own head for something, anything to do. Oh God, I muttered to myself. I�ve got to get my life together! For Christ�s Sake get me something to do!
Now here�s the laugh: Just as I�d thought that, the door opened. Call it divine intervention or diabolic or just an awful bit of literary plot-twisting (and why shouldn�t life be like a bad book plot, anyway? Let�s face it, most lives are twisted, confused, fearful and full of coincidences), but in walked someone I hadn�t seen for almost four years: Taylor Coleridge.
Taylor and I had travelled together for nearly a year, working our way up from India, round the Arabian Peninsula, then through the Red Sea and Suez Canal and finally to Beirut, where I lost him in a bar. He was a most excellent companion to have on any journey: witty, conversational, knowledgeable, creative and prone to following his own whims. I don�t think he�d ever settled down anywhere, but preferred to wander, merely because he could. In a way, he was somewhat like his near-namesake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but without the laudanum or pomposity. After losing him, I�d continued up around the Mediterranean coast, while he, as I learnt from other people and from one badly torn letter and a few brief emails from him, had headed back into the desert, then up onto the Silk Road and subsequently towards China. While I would expect to find him in an Algerian souk, a Turkish pazar, on a camel in Tajikistan or on the summit of a mountain I�d just climbed, one place I�d never expect him was here on my home turf.
He saw me and smiled his lazy, feline smile.
�Ah, there you are�, he said.
�Jesus! Long time no see, my man! How are you!�
�Same as ever. Just chilling, thought I�d come along and see how you are. Nice place, this. How are you?�
�Ah, you know, not bad, not bad. The same. What are you drinking?�
I got him a beer and we sat down together. I asked him a few things about his travels and what he�d been up to, and he sketched them in for me. He seemed to be a bit more taciturn and less upbeat than I�d have expected, but then again it had been four years since we last met.
�So what happened to you last time we were together? I got up for a slash, I come back, you�ve buggered off.�
�I could say the same for you, Dan. I lean over to chat with that most enchanting babe, I turn around, and you were no longer there. I looked around, I couldn�t find you, someone said, there�s a party round the corner, do you want to come, I went, you were left behind. That�s the way it was.�
�You could have tried to find me.�
�You could have done the same.�
�True. Sorry.�
�Nothing to be sorry for. Here we both are, on this fine July day, drinking beer in your local in your home town�what could be better?�
�Yeah.�
We drank our pints in silence for a while and watched the TV.
�She says hello, by the way.�
�Who?�
�You know. Beattie.�
I was stunned briefly. Beattie was�.well, Beattie. I�d been pretty intense with her a couple of years previously, and in fact, I�d been thinking about her that morning, wondering about What Ifs.
�How the Hell do you know her?�
�You talked about her often enough � and I saw photos of you two together. Anyway, I came across her in Bangkok. Recognised her straight away, said hello, mentioned your name. This was two weeks ago.�
�Jesus! Really? How was she?�
�She was good, very fine �and, in fact, thinking about you. She�s the reason I�m here. I was heading for the UK and she still had your address. I decided to check it out, thinking to have a beer on the way, and here we are.�
�So what was she up to?�
�Still teaching, and still single. My man, you must have really done something to her � when I told her I was heading back this way, she asked me to look you up. Said she had some kind of premonition that you needed help, something like that, and your last email had sounded like someone in jail. And looking at you, I�d say she�s about right.�
�What�s that meant to mean?�
�I mean you look miserable as sin.�
He looked straight at me, and he was absolutely right. I was miserable. What could I say? I lit another cigarette.
�Ah, shit, Taylor, I don�t know. You�re spot on, but I don�t know what to do. I�m stuck here and I can�t see a way forward, it�s like, well, I don�t know, like I�m in the middle of a big wood in the middle of the night and I can�t see a way out. I feel � well, I feel lost, I guess.�
�That�s not like you.�
�It�s this place. It�s England. Once I got back here, it was as if all the travelling and working in all those places hadn�t happened, like some kind of dream. No-one was interested, no-one wanted to know �you know, �so what was it like?�, and you start, and they go �hm, yes��.
And I spilled it out � the months of frustration, the shitty jobs in anonymous offices, the whole hateful trudge of the nine-to-five with a whole bunch of others who hated their jobs, their lives and each other, and above all, man�s total indifference unto man. Taylor listened quietly, and bought another round.
�So why don�t you get out again?�
A good question, but how could I answer? I was stuck; that was the only answer I could give. The sunlight edged round the carpet; the match on the TV came to an end; and it came towards three.
Taylor knocked back his pint.
�Come on, finish off,� he ordered.
�Why? Where we off to?�
�To find yourself again, Dan T. To find yourself again. Beattie was right, you need rescuing. This is what we�ll do; let�s saunter into town, wander from place to place, and try to find where your soul went, my man.�
�And get utterly arseholed as well?�
�That�s the idea.�
Well, what else was there to do, but neck my pint, have a slash, then follow Taylor Coleridge as he led me down towards the wild hub of Reading on a Friday afternoon, evening and night?
As we came out of the pub, the weirdo I�d seen before sidled past us, glanced at me again, coughed an apology and crept around the corner. Suddenly, it felt good to be in sunlight again, especially with my old friend and the prospect of doing something rather than fester by myself. I felt a current of excitement, as if I was back to my journeys once more.
�Shall we take the bus?�
�No, we�ll have to wait ages from here. Let�s walk down the hill and catch one in Caversham.�
As we walked past the duck pond and down Peppard road, I noticed that someone had somehow managed to uproot, haul and then dump the sign that said �WELCOME TO READING. TWINNED WITH DUSSELDORF� from Henley Road and lay it on the strip of grass by the bus shelter, which had, as ever, been kicked in and graffitti�d by some arsehole. The word HELL, in large red letters, was sprayed on it.
�Nice welcome�, said Taylor.
We carried on walking down the road, past Buckingham Drive and Sheepwalk, where we could see the town beneath us, drowsy in a reddish haze; The gasometers at the confluence of the Thames and Kennet, the shopping centres squatting in the town, the church spires waving feebly between the tower blocks. We hit Caversham, and stopped in the Prince of Wales for a quick one. Sitting on the patio, we watched a large group of teenagers, all of them riddled with acne and all looking sullen and hateful in a way that only an English teenager can, wander past, then stop and go back, then redouble their steps once more. They were arguing between themselves about where to go, what to do. One argued for sitting on the bench on Balmore hill, another said to sit on a bench in the park, while someone else suggested sitting by the river. They went first this way, then another, aimless.
Fuckwits.
He glanced up at me, then put his nose back in his notebook and began scrawling frantically.
�A pint of Bass again�, I said, and the barmaid (barMAID? She was at least fifty, with great sagging bingo wings flopping over red elbows, and a face like an overweight trout) filled up my glass. I looked at myself in the mirror, and behind me, at the seven or eight people ranged on sofas and barstools who were watching the match. Their faces were intent and fixed � the same kind of expressions you see whenever someone watches a not particularly interesting stretch of a game, or a play, or a debate, waiting to see the outcome of the next move. Myself, I looked weary, frustrated and beaten. I paid for the beer, then slunk off to my seat in the corner. I lit a fag, started trying to do the crossword again. Nothing. I flung my pen down again, and beat around in my own head for something, anything to do. Oh God, I muttered to myself. I�ve got to get my life together! For Christ�s Sake get me something to do!
Now here�s the laugh: Just as I�d thought that, the door opened. Call it divine intervention or diabolic or just an awful bit of literary plot-twisting (and why shouldn�t life be like a bad book plot, anyway? Let�s face it, most lives are twisted, confused, fearful and full of coincidences), but in walked someone I hadn�t seen for almost four years: Taylor Coleridge.
Taylor and I had travelled together for nearly a year, working our way up from India, round the Arabian Peninsula, then through the Red Sea and Suez Canal and finally to Beirut, where I lost him in a bar. He was a most excellent companion to have on any journey: witty, conversational, knowledgeable, creative and prone to following his own whims. I don�t think he�d ever settled down anywhere, but preferred to wander, merely because he could. In a way, he was somewhat like his near-namesake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but without the laudanum or pomposity. After losing him, I�d continued up around the Mediterranean coast, while he, as I learnt from other people and from one badly torn letter and a few brief emails from him, had headed back into the desert, then up onto the Silk Road and subsequently towards China. While I would expect to find him in an Algerian souk, a Turkish pazar, on a camel in Tajikistan or on the summit of a mountain I�d just climbed, one place I�d never expect him was here on my home turf.
He saw me and smiled his lazy, feline smile.
�Ah, there you are�, he said.
�Jesus! Long time no see, my man! How are you!�
�Same as ever. Just chilling, thought I�d come along and see how you are. Nice place, this. How are you?�
�Ah, you know, not bad, not bad. The same. What are you drinking?�
I got him a beer and we sat down together. I asked him a few things about his travels and what he�d been up to, and he sketched them in for me. He seemed to be a bit more taciturn and less upbeat than I�d have expected, but then again it had been four years since we last met.
�So what happened to you last time we were together? I got up for a slash, I come back, you�ve buggered off.�
�I could say the same for you, Dan. I lean over to chat with that most enchanting babe, I turn around, and you were no longer there. I looked around, I couldn�t find you, someone said, there�s a party round the corner, do you want to come, I went, you were left behind. That�s the way it was.�
�You could have tried to find me.�
�You could have done the same.�
�True. Sorry.�
�Nothing to be sorry for. Here we both are, on this fine July day, drinking beer in your local in your home town�what could be better?�
�Yeah.�
We drank our pints in silence for a while and watched the TV.
�She says hello, by the way.�
�Who?�
�You know. Beattie.�
I was stunned briefly. Beattie was�.well, Beattie. I�d been pretty intense with her a couple of years previously, and in fact, I�d been thinking about her that morning, wondering about What Ifs.
�How the Hell do you know her?�
�You talked about her often enough � and I saw photos of you two together. Anyway, I came across her in Bangkok. Recognised her straight away, said hello, mentioned your name. This was two weeks ago.�
�Jesus! Really? How was she?�
�She was good, very fine �and, in fact, thinking about you. She�s the reason I�m here. I was heading for the UK and she still had your address. I decided to check it out, thinking to have a beer on the way, and here we are.�
�So what was she up to?�
�Still teaching, and still single. My man, you must have really done something to her � when I told her I was heading back this way, she asked me to look you up. Said she had some kind of premonition that you needed help, something like that, and your last email had sounded like someone in jail. And looking at you, I�d say she�s about right.�
�What�s that meant to mean?�
�I mean you look miserable as sin.�
He looked straight at me, and he was absolutely right. I was miserable. What could I say? I lit another cigarette.
�Ah, shit, Taylor, I don�t know. You�re spot on, but I don�t know what to do. I�m stuck here and I can�t see a way forward, it�s like, well, I don�t know, like I�m in the middle of a big wood in the middle of the night and I can�t see a way out. I feel � well, I feel lost, I guess.�
�That�s not like you.�
�It�s this place. It�s England. Once I got back here, it was as if all the travelling and working in all those places hadn�t happened, like some kind of dream. No-one was interested, no-one wanted to know �you know, �so what was it like?�, and you start, and they go �hm, yes��.
And I spilled it out � the months of frustration, the shitty jobs in anonymous offices, the whole hateful trudge of the nine-to-five with a whole bunch of others who hated their jobs, their lives and each other, and above all, man�s total indifference unto man. Taylor listened quietly, and bought another round.
�So why don�t you get out again?�
A good question, but how could I answer? I was stuck; that was the only answer I could give. The sunlight edged round the carpet; the match on the TV came to an end; and it came towards three.
Taylor knocked back his pint.
�Come on, finish off,� he ordered.
�Why? Where we off to?�
�To find yourself again, Dan T. To find yourself again. Beattie was right, you need rescuing. This is what we�ll do; let�s saunter into town, wander from place to place, and try to find where your soul went, my man.�
�And get utterly arseholed as well?�
�That�s the idea.�
Well, what else was there to do, but neck my pint, have a slash, then follow Taylor Coleridge as he led me down towards the wild hub of Reading on a Friday afternoon, evening and night?
As we came out of the pub, the weirdo I�d seen before sidled past us, glanced at me again, coughed an apology and crept around the corner. Suddenly, it felt good to be in sunlight again, especially with my old friend and the prospect of doing something rather than fester by myself. I felt a current of excitement, as if I was back to my journeys once more.
�Shall we take the bus?�
�No, we�ll have to wait ages from here. Let�s walk down the hill and catch one in Caversham.�
As we walked past the duck pond and down Peppard road, I noticed that someone had somehow managed to uproot, haul and then dump the sign that said �WELCOME TO READING. TWINNED WITH DUSSELDORF� from Henley Road and lay it on the strip of grass by the bus shelter, which had, as ever, been kicked in and graffitti�d by some arsehole. The word HELL, in large red letters, was sprayed on it.
�Nice welcome�, said Taylor.
We carried on walking down the road, past Buckingham Drive and Sheepwalk, where we could see the town beneath us, drowsy in a reddish haze; The gasometers at the confluence of the Thames and Kennet, the shopping centres squatting in the town, the church spires waving feebly between the tower blocks. We hit Caversham, and stopped in the Prince of Wales for a quick one. Sitting on the patio, we watched a large group of teenagers, all of them riddled with acne and all looking sullen and hateful in a way that only an English teenager can, wander past, then stop and go back, then redouble their steps once more. They were arguing between themselves about where to go, what to do. One argued for sitting on the bench on Balmore hill, another said to sit on a bench in the park, while someone else suggested sitting by the river. They went first this way, then another, aimless.
Fuckwits.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Today's chunk of writing so far.
Here we go...
One
In a series of increasingly irritating interludes to the narrative, the author introduces himself and comments upon his incipient creation, along with observations of a trivial and foolish kind.
I believe it was Pasteur who said something along the lines of �Chance favours the well-prepared mind�. Well, in that case, I can expect no great opportunity to befall me, as I am utterly unprepared for the task ahead of me. Fifty thousand words in one month! What a stupid enterprise to enter without a notion in the head as to plot, characterisation, and whatnot. Yet, I am determined to give it a shot. I am, as you may guess, the author* of the following sad story, in which � what? The plot is, so far, nonexistent, the characters a series of mere wisps of the imagination, the scenes in which all shall be played out nothing but speculation. As such, there is clearly a need to, as it were, pad things out a bit, with a digressionary chapter here and an aside there, or the judicious (or not) use of quotes and summaries to head my chapters. Besides, I see no reason why I may not intrude upon the action as I see fit, as and when I want, just as Henry Fielding did in Tom Jones. This is my piece of fiction and I may do with it as I will, and hang the consequences. The consequence, of course, being that no-one is likely to read this (save my aged, future self, cackling over it), but, well, this is meant to be a bit of amusement. Of course, if you�re one of those readers who just wants to get on with the action, you can quite easily avoid these rambles altogether; I feel, however, that you may be missing out � after all, the rambling road is all the more interesting than the motorway.
So here, I present my tale. At the moment, it involves a man in a pub. I don�t know what�s going to happen next; At the moment, he is just sitting there, nursing a pint at around two in the afternoon, wondering what to do next. The location: My home village, in my hometown, namely Emmer Green, in Reading, Berkshire. After all, one of the exhortations to any new novelist is to write about what one knows, and why not start with the pub I know best in the world? And the character�s name? Let us call him Dan. And why write about Reading, of all places? Well, as I said, because I know it; But also, because no-one else ever has written much regarding the place, as far as I�m aware; Hardy calls it Aldbrickham, and is not particularly nice about it; Jerome K. Jerome denigrates it; Defoe praises its wealth; and that�s about it. Of course, the Reading I write about should not be confused with Reading, the real place, just as one should not confuse a fictional character with someone who ostensibly resembles him or her, even though they share the same name, family, clothes, opinions, lovers and so forth. No, the town is as much a character as Dan, even if it is a boring one. This is Reading as a metaphysical place, and yes, I am well aware I can here spluttered laughter erupting from the mouths of any reader who lives in it, or who has had the pleasure of getting lost on its ring road. It is metaphysical inasmuch as any real place can be made representative of other things. It must be said that Reading is about as solid and real a place as you could hope to visit; For that reason, let us try to render it as evanescent as cloud, and the characters that appear in it as solid as the bricks from which the physical place is built.
As the author* of this tale, I�m not sure what�s going to happen next; I am as swept along with all this as you are, so permit me to be not so much the Chorus to this story, as an interested bystander, drifting behind my own creation, recording his every move along the way, using different voices to catch him. That is, of course, if he deigns to move � I�m not sure how much he likes his pint, or lounging in this pub on a sunny afternoon in July, smoke furling in the light from languid cigarettes and an international football match on the TV in the corner. I feel, however, there is some frustration building within him, and that some other shall come along presently. Now, of course, the problem arises: How to present him?
Which narrative style to use? Externally? Let my voice alone guide, present, manipulate and swoop through each character as and when? Perhaps different perspectives: the character seen through the lens of a camera, a layer of smoky fug, a police report, a diary entry, someone�s email, a hastily scribbled note, a lover�s letter, a court summons, a news report. It will immediately be obvious that our hero, and all those others who may appear, will appear to be almost completely different people according to which perspective I, the author*, use. The only way of being certain of whom is being described is from a physical perspective, and that is itself unreliable: I don�t even know what my character looks like yet. So, how about internal monologues? We gain a perspective on the individual�s psyche, but it is a necessarily limited perspective, a view restricted by what the teller of the tale can know, see and feel � and again, it makes our story tenuous. Well then, and how else? Photography? Cartoons? This is an exercise in words, not pictures, so that counts those out. Dialogue solely? Perhaps. Descriptions of coughs, shuffles, movements of hands, gestures, looks? Maybe. Crosswords, acrostics, logic puzzles? Entertaining, possibly.
Merely by writing, as I write, possibilities start queuing up to be counted and used � the whys and wherefores of those phantoms, my characters, rising to feed on the blood of the pen and utter what they must; Different possibilities for writing styles and perspectives parade for my inspection; And the reader � the great Objective Reader, for whom I write � who are you? What would you like to read? How shall I entertain you? Your host I must be; Here is the scene, here the bill of fare; I hope you will be amused and fed, and then go on your way content. And so, let us swing into the scene, and find, for want of a better word, the hero of this book. There he is; His back is to us as we come in the door; In his mid-thirties, although he looks younger, except for the streaks of grey in his hair, which has just begun to thin; Handsome, but haunted, and his face is scowling into his pint; a lit cigarette is in his left hand, and his right holds a pen, and he is scrawling over a crossword. He is arranging some letters in a circle, and then reading them backwards and forwards, side to side, up and down. His circling pen stops, then rapidly he writes seven letters in one of the clues. It says:
* Of course, I may not be the author, but the Author, another layer of characterisation in this story. But then again, that�s for me to know and you to work out, isn�t it? Ha ha ha.*
*In which case, who just wrote this?
Two: At the sign of the White Horse
Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer.
W.B.Yeats
In which our hero, Dan Thompson, ponders his thunderingly tedious life, and seeks escape; Upon which he meets an unexpected friend from the past; They have a drink, then the friend suggests moving on to another bar.
�FUCK OFF�.
�I�m sorry?�
�That�s what I�ve just written. Fuck off. Begone. Go away, you fucking weirdo, and stop staring at me like that�
�Oh..sorry��
And off he fucked, the weirdo. Looked like a scarecrow, with wild hair, staring blue eyes, unshaven and overweight. And he was dressed like a right arse.
I was at the end of my tether. I felt knackered, lost and unwanted. Here I was, thirty-five, and hideously aware of time�s rapidly spinning thread. I was pondering what I�d managed to do up till then with my life, and I didn�t really like any of the answers coming back my way. Sure, I�d been abroad for most of the past decade and had had a blast, but it had been a voluntary exile in many ways: When I�d left, the country had been a total shithole, as was my life. Now, I was back, and here I still was, in my old boozer, with the same faces lining the bar as from before, living the same lives, and me back as though nothing had changed at all. I felt fucking bilious and weary. It seemed to me that my foreign sojourns had been nothing more than an escape, an adventure, a diversion from the dour realities of Reading. What I found even more galling is that they hadn�t had the good sense to leave of decorating the White Horse. Where it used to be liberally caked in crappy old prints, horse brasses, dodgy plates and strange fire implements, and stink of rancid viscera, it was now a place where you would happily bring children. It had decking, complete with large sun umbrellas and heaters. It was open plan. It had sky TV, which was at this point in my tale churning out some international friendly. It had a non-smoking dining area. It even had an aquarium. Actually, the latter wasn�t too bad; When the talk became tedious, I�d have something entertaining to stare at. And here I was, at two on a Friday afternoon in July, drinking beer and failing to do the Bastard Sodding Araucaria crossword in the Guardian (as ever), and wondering what the Hell I should be doing with life. It was a hot day, and it was one of those that seems to simmer with frustration and regret. I had no job, a damp room in a damp house with a couple of damp housemates who worked for a call centre, and I felt like I was going nowhere. Hell, I�d been debating with myself since 8 in the morning whether to go into town and check out the temporary job situation, or write off for some work abroad, or just go and do something different, but no, I ended up back in the good old White Horse again.
I knocked back my drink, then headed to the bar. The fucking weirdo was still there, nursing a pint of bitter and scrawling something in a notebook, and occasionally muttering a word or giggling to himself.
In a series of increasingly irritating interludes to the narrative, the author introduces himself and comments upon his incipient creation, along with observations of a trivial and foolish kind.
I believe it was Pasteur who said something along the lines of �Chance favours the well-prepared mind�. Well, in that case, I can expect no great opportunity to befall me, as I am utterly unprepared for the task ahead of me. Fifty thousand words in one month! What a stupid enterprise to enter without a notion in the head as to plot, characterisation, and whatnot. Yet, I am determined to give it a shot. I am, as you may guess, the author* of the following sad story, in which � what? The plot is, so far, nonexistent, the characters a series of mere wisps of the imagination, the scenes in which all shall be played out nothing but speculation. As such, there is clearly a need to, as it were, pad things out a bit, with a digressionary chapter here and an aside there, or the judicious (or not) use of quotes and summaries to head my chapters. Besides, I see no reason why I may not intrude upon the action as I see fit, as and when I want, just as Henry Fielding did in Tom Jones. This is my piece of fiction and I may do with it as I will, and hang the consequences. The consequence, of course, being that no-one is likely to read this (save my aged, future self, cackling over it), but, well, this is meant to be a bit of amusement. Of course, if you�re one of those readers who just wants to get on with the action, you can quite easily avoid these rambles altogether; I feel, however, that you may be missing out � after all, the rambling road is all the more interesting than the motorway.
So here, I present my tale. At the moment, it involves a man in a pub. I don�t know what�s going to happen next; At the moment, he is just sitting there, nursing a pint at around two in the afternoon, wondering what to do next. The location: My home village, in my hometown, namely Emmer Green, in Reading, Berkshire. After all, one of the exhortations to any new novelist is to write about what one knows, and why not start with the pub I know best in the world? And the character�s name? Let us call him Dan. And why write about Reading, of all places? Well, as I said, because I know it; But also, because no-one else ever has written much regarding the place, as far as I�m aware; Hardy calls it Aldbrickham, and is not particularly nice about it; Jerome K. Jerome denigrates it; Defoe praises its wealth; and that�s about it. Of course, the Reading I write about should not be confused with Reading, the real place, just as one should not confuse a fictional character with someone who ostensibly resembles him or her, even though they share the same name, family, clothes, opinions, lovers and so forth. No, the town is as much a character as Dan, even if it is a boring one. This is Reading as a metaphysical place, and yes, I am well aware I can here spluttered laughter erupting from the mouths of any reader who lives in it, or who has had the pleasure of getting lost on its ring road. It is metaphysical inasmuch as any real place can be made representative of other things. It must be said that Reading is about as solid and real a place as you could hope to visit; For that reason, let us try to render it as evanescent as cloud, and the characters that appear in it as solid as the bricks from which the physical place is built.
As the author* of this tale, I�m not sure what�s going to happen next; I am as swept along with all this as you are, so permit me to be not so much the Chorus to this story, as an interested bystander, drifting behind my own creation, recording his every move along the way, using different voices to catch him. That is, of course, if he deigns to move � I�m not sure how much he likes his pint, or lounging in this pub on a sunny afternoon in July, smoke furling in the light from languid cigarettes and an international football match on the TV in the corner. I feel, however, there is some frustration building within him, and that some other shall come along presently. Now, of course, the problem arises: How to present him?
Which narrative style to use? Externally? Let my voice alone guide, present, manipulate and swoop through each character as and when? Perhaps different perspectives: the character seen through the lens of a camera, a layer of smoky fug, a police report, a diary entry, someone�s email, a hastily scribbled note, a lover�s letter, a court summons, a news report. It will immediately be obvious that our hero, and all those others who may appear, will appear to be almost completely different people according to which perspective I, the author*, use. The only way of being certain of whom is being described is from a physical perspective, and that is itself unreliable: I don�t even know what my character looks like yet. So, how about internal monologues? We gain a perspective on the individual�s psyche, but it is a necessarily limited perspective, a view restricted by what the teller of the tale can know, see and feel � and again, it makes our story tenuous. Well then, and how else? Photography? Cartoons? This is an exercise in words, not pictures, so that counts those out. Dialogue solely? Perhaps. Descriptions of coughs, shuffles, movements of hands, gestures, looks? Maybe. Crosswords, acrostics, logic puzzles? Entertaining, possibly.
Merely by writing, as I write, possibilities start queuing up to be counted and used � the whys and wherefores of those phantoms, my characters, rising to feed on the blood of the pen and utter what they must; Different possibilities for writing styles and perspectives parade for my inspection; And the reader � the great Objective Reader, for whom I write � who are you? What would you like to read? How shall I entertain you? Your host I must be; Here is the scene, here the bill of fare; I hope you will be amused and fed, and then go on your way content. And so, let us swing into the scene, and find, for want of a better word, the hero of this book. There he is; His back is to us as we come in the door; In his mid-thirties, although he looks younger, except for the streaks of grey in his hair, which has just begun to thin; Handsome, but haunted, and his face is scowling into his pint; a lit cigarette is in his left hand, and his right holds a pen, and he is scrawling over a crossword. He is arranging some letters in a circle, and then reading them backwards and forwards, side to side, up and down. His circling pen stops, then rapidly he writes seven letters in one of the clues. It says:
* Of course, I may not be the author, but the Author, another layer of characterisation in this story. But then again, that�s for me to know and you to work out, isn�t it? Ha ha ha.*
*In which case, who just wrote this?
Two: At the sign of the White Horse
Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer.
W.B.Yeats
In which our hero, Dan Thompson, ponders his thunderingly tedious life, and seeks escape; Upon which he meets an unexpected friend from the past; They have a drink, then the friend suggests moving on to another bar.
�FUCK OFF�.
�I�m sorry?�
�That�s what I�ve just written. Fuck off. Begone. Go away, you fucking weirdo, and stop staring at me like that�
�Oh..sorry��
And off he fucked, the weirdo. Looked like a scarecrow, with wild hair, staring blue eyes, unshaven and overweight. And he was dressed like a right arse.
I was at the end of my tether. I felt knackered, lost and unwanted. Here I was, thirty-five, and hideously aware of time�s rapidly spinning thread. I was pondering what I�d managed to do up till then with my life, and I didn�t really like any of the answers coming back my way. Sure, I�d been abroad for most of the past decade and had had a blast, but it had been a voluntary exile in many ways: When I�d left, the country had been a total shithole, as was my life. Now, I was back, and here I still was, in my old boozer, with the same faces lining the bar as from before, living the same lives, and me back as though nothing had changed at all. I felt fucking bilious and weary. It seemed to me that my foreign sojourns had been nothing more than an escape, an adventure, a diversion from the dour realities of Reading. What I found even more galling is that they hadn�t had the good sense to leave of decorating the White Horse. Where it used to be liberally caked in crappy old prints, horse brasses, dodgy plates and strange fire implements, and stink of rancid viscera, it was now a place where you would happily bring children. It had decking, complete with large sun umbrellas and heaters. It was open plan. It had sky TV, which was at this point in my tale churning out some international friendly. It had a non-smoking dining area. It even had an aquarium. Actually, the latter wasn�t too bad; When the talk became tedious, I�d have something entertaining to stare at. And here I was, at two on a Friday afternoon in July, drinking beer and failing to do the Bastard Sodding Araucaria crossword in the Guardian (as ever), and wondering what the Hell I should be doing with life. It was a hot day, and it was one of those that seems to simmer with frustration and regret. I had no job, a damp room in a damp house with a couple of damp housemates who worked for a call centre, and I felt like I was going nowhere. Hell, I�d been debating with myself since 8 in the morning whether to go into town and check out the temporary job situation, or write off for some work abroad, or just go and do something different, but no, I ended up back in the good old White Horse again.
I knocked back my drink, then headed to the bar. The fucking weirdo was still there, nursing a pint of bitter and scrawling something in a notebook, and occasionally muttering a word or giggling to himself.
Hvaet!
I'm starting the novel today. Wish me luck over the next month. I'm going to post extracts as I go along so you can rate and berate them.
Dear American readers: it's election day tomorrow. Whatever you do, please vote - it doesn't matter who for, although you probably know that I personally don't like simian horsef*cker pseudo-redneck knobwicks, but please vote. It's important.
Dear American readers: it's election day tomorrow. Whatever you do, please vote - it doesn't matter who for, although you probably know that I personally don't like simian horsef*cker pseudo-redneck knobwicks, but please vote. It's important.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Cheating Gits.
A very apposite article from the BBC about cheating gits trying to wiggle into university. I say that it's appropriate because I've been dealing with a couple of them today - one guy who blagged his way onto an HND course by expediently adding a number onto his results form, so that he had double the credits he actually achieved, and another begging for a fake results letter!
The arrogance of a minority of my students never fails to astound me. Only yesterday, one of them called, angry that he hadn't been granted a pass even though he had paid for the course! He obviously thought that payment automatically conferred a certificate.
The arrogance of a minority of my students never fails to astound me. Only yesterday, one of them called, angry that he hadn't been granted a pass even though he had paid for the course! He obviously thought that payment automatically conferred a certificate.
27.7833333333333333333333333333333333333
,or 1666.666666666666667. Or 50,000. That's the scale of the challenge ahead of me. If I devote one hour per day to the national novel writing month, I will have to write this many words per minute. Freaky. I'm don't have any very firm ideas, beyond a vague plot involving two blokes and lots of pubs. I am, however, determined to do this - and, loyal, tiny band of readers, should you wish to donate anything for my endeavours via the button on the left, I will in turn be donating to Breast Cancer research.
3 days to go....
3 days to go....
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Turkish Accession to the EU
Here's the latest on this issue. I don't write as much as I probably could or should about Turkey, but Turkish Tork, Aegean Disclosure and Maviboncuk (all in the links on the left) do a good job.
On the meze front, by the way: A turkish friend has given me a vine roller! It's like a giant cigarette roller, and will also do, according to its accompanying blurb, 'sigara boregi (cheese puff pastries), mercimek koftesi, tekirdag koftesi AND lahana dolmasi (but only on the top setting).
On the meze front, by the way: A turkish friend has given me a vine roller! It's like a giant cigarette roller, and will also do, according to its accompanying blurb, 'sigara boregi (cheese puff pastries), mercimek koftesi, tekirdag koftesi AND lahana dolmasi (but only on the top setting).
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
John Peel.
I've literally this minute heard that John Peel's died. No bloody way. He was too young to go.
101 uses for a head of state...
....or rather, what is a president/monarch for?
Obviously, it depends on which country you're in. In the UK, we don't require much from our queen than to be inbred, equine-looking, and good at waving. For this, the taxpayer gives her a lot of money.
Likewise, our Prime Ministers are meant to be hard-working (but not ambitious), devout (but not in-your-face religious), clever (but not cunning), and decent (but not boring).
Of course, we are dealing in ideals. The monarch is the symbolic head, devoid of power in a political sense, but imbued with it; The Prime Minister is the one to get his hands dirty.
What about a president?
Well, a president is the boss of the entire government and its attendant civil service; He (or maybe she, eventually) approves or vetoes new laws, but cannot propose any him/herself; He is the commander-in-chief of a country's military powers; He represents a particular political viewpoint. So far, so basic.
But how far, exactly, does a president act as a symbol of a nation? Is the man the symbol, or is it the office of the president itself? In the UK, there is a clear distinction between the symbolic and the real. In a country with a presidential system, let's say, um, the United States, how does one make the distinction? And if it is difficult enough for a citizen of that nation to make the disctinction, how can you expect someone on the outside to do it? If the real and symbolic are one and indivisible, then surely the actions of the man (or woman) in office have a direct impact on how the symbol, and therefore the whole nation, is perceived by friend and foe alike.
I understand there's a big election for a president somewhere soon, and that it's too close to call. Now, I'm not the Guardian, with its spectacularly patronising and distinctly tongue-in-cheek advice to voters in Clark County, Ohio, but if I had to vote for a man (or woman) who would wield massive executive power and symbolise my nation for the next four years, I might want to ask myself the following:
In terms of representing me to the rest of the world, how will this candidate do? If the candidate is the president seeking a further term of office, how has he/she done?
Has the incumbent increased my sense of security, comfort and wellbeing through his/her actions, or will the candidate increase my sense of security, comfort and wellbeing, without compromising that of others?
As Commander-in-chief, has the incumbent taken reasonable, sensible and logical measures to protect my nation, or has he made my situation more dangerous? Will the candidate be a reasonable, sensible and logical commander in chief?
Has the incumbent allowed through laws that oppress, curtail and/or censor, my rights, freedoms and opinions? Is the candidate likely to pass laws with the same effects?
Has the incumbent allowed into office, through his role as boss of the government and civil service, those who should be disqualified from holding a role in government? Will the candidate do the same?
Well, those are a few questions. For myself, I don't trust symbols, especially when they get mixed up with real life: The king waving the sword, the eternal cowboy galloping into the eternal sunset, the gallant band of soldiers rallying to one bright and shining flag - myths, all myths.
Obviously, it depends on which country you're in. In the UK, we don't require much from our queen than to be inbred, equine-looking, and good at waving. For this, the taxpayer gives her a lot of money.
Likewise, our Prime Ministers are meant to be hard-working (but not ambitious), devout (but not in-your-face religious), clever (but not cunning), and decent (but not boring).
Of course, we are dealing in ideals. The monarch is the symbolic head, devoid of power in a political sense, but imbued with it; The Prime Minister is the one to get his hands dirty.
What about a president?
Well, a president is the boss of the entire government and its attendant civil service; He (or maybe she, eventually) approves or vetoes new laws, but cannot propose any him/herself; He is the commander-in-chief of a country's military powers; He represents a particular political viewpoint. So far, so basic.
But how far, exactly, does a president act as a symbol of a nation? Is the man the symbol, or is it the office of the president itself? In the UK, there is a clear distinction between the symbolic and the real. In a country with a presidential system, let's say, um, the United States, how does one make the distinction? And if it is difficult enough for a citizen of that nation to make the disctinction, how can you expect someone on the outside to do it? If the real and symbolic are one and indivisible, then surely the actions of the man (or woman) in office have a direct impact on how the symbol, and therefore the whole nation, is perceived by friend and foe alike.
I understand there's a big election for a president somewhere soon, and that it's too close to call. Now, I'm not the Guardian, with its spectacularly patronising and distinctly tongue-in-cheek advice to voters in Clark County, Ohio, but if I had to vote for a man (or woman) who would wield massive executive power and symbolise my nation for the next four years, I might want to ask myself the following:
In terms of representing me to the rest of the world, how will this candidate do? If the candidate is the president seeking a further term of office, how has he/she done?
Has the incumbent increased my sense of security, comfort and wellbeing through his/her actions, or will the candidate increase my sense of security, comfort and wellbeing, without compromising that of others?
As Commander-in-chief, has the incumbent taken reasonable, sensible and logical measures to protect my nation, or has he made my situation more dangerous? Will the candidate be a reasonable, sensible and logical commander in chief?
Has the incumbent allowed through laws that oppress, curtail and/or censor, my rights, freedoms and opinions? Is the candidate likely to pass laws with the same effects?
Has the incumbent allowed into office, through his role as boss of the government and civil service, those who should be disqualified from holding a role in government? Will the candidate do the same?
Well, those are a few questions. For myself, I don't trust symbols, especially when they get mixed up with real life: The king waving the sword, the eternal cowboy galloping into the eternal sunset, the gallant band of soldiers rallying to one bright and shining flag - myths, all myths.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Back to the Turtle!
I went out with a group of old friends on Saturday night, namely Dr. Lynne, Matt, Lee and his wife Kate, both of whom I haven't seen for over a year, and John Wild, who I've only seen occasionally in the past few years. We started off in our old haunt, The Coopers, which used to be a rock/goth pub but got prettified in the mid nineties, then went up London Street to the Sherpa restaurant for a curry, then rolled back down to the Turtle, where we proceeded to get utterly lashed. Last week must have been a duff one, clientele-wise, as it was a good, varied mix of people, including one spectacular Goth woman in full leather basque-and-boots getup. Towards the end of the night, three women were grinning at waving in my direction. I smiled back, but thought they were waving at someone else, so I ignored them. This pissed them off, apparently; When we were leaving, they said, 'Thanks for ignoring us!' 'What, me?', I said. 'Yes, we just wanted to ask if you were really Daniel Bedingfield'
What.The.Fuck?????????????/
DANIEL SODDING BEDINGFIELD?
My Arse. I have been compared to many famous people before, quite often insultingly - Emilio Estevez and Shaking Stevens come to mind. But this was taking the piss on a major scale.
What.The.Fuck?????????????/
DANIEL SODDING BEDINGFIELD?
My Arse. I have been compared to many famous people before, quite often insultingly - Emilio Estevez and Shaking Stevens come to mind. But this was taking the piss on a major scale.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Too good not to share, part two...
After my student's wild stab at trying to describe why he was writing about Thailand for his Academic English assignment, I sent him away to rewrite the whole thing, partly because it was bloody atrocious, but mainly because he'd plagiarised everything else. He's just bought back the revised edition. You'd have thought he would have understood the words, 'Now Charlie, this is an Academic English assignment. That means nothing about ladyboys, right? No cutting off dicks, OK? Describe the bloody country!', to mean Don't Mention The Ladyboys. And did he heed my advice?
Here's the latest effort:
After discuss long neck girls, lut us turn to disuses another people, who are men change denatured sex, those men are very different from normal gentlemen after operation. They cut off their dick; inject some medicine, which could change men become pretty ladies. After the operation, they usually join song and dance ensemble for dancing and being taken photography by visitors. Unfortunately they only can live until forty-years-old, and then the whole of them will dead, the reason is that operation.
Christ on a bike.
Here's the latest effort:
After discuss long neck girls, lut us turn to disuses another people, who are men change denatured sex, those men are very different from normal gentlemen after operation. They cut off their dick; inject some medicine, which could change men become pretty ladies. After the operation, they usually join song and dance ensemble for dancing and being taken photography by visitors. Unfortunately they only can live until forty-years-old, and then the whole of them will dead, the reason is that operation.
Christ on a bike.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
I have a strange, creative feeling..
..wriggling around in my head. It's that time of year again, when NaNoWriMo begins! It's the (Inter)National Novel Writing Month, and I'm determined I'm going to do it this year. I intended to in '03, but, well....
I'm going to post the fruits on here. AND, if I make any money out of it, half the proceeds will go to breast cancer research.
Join in here.
I'm going to post the fruits on here. AND, if I make any money out of it, half the proceeds will go to breast cancer research.
Join in here.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
How to get a National Insurance number..
Here's my good deed for the day, prompted by Marcus trying to get a NI number for his wife. It looks like a catch-22 situation when you first encounter it; Without a number, you can't get a legit job, and you can't get a number without a legit job. Here's the way out of the maze, although you'll be hard pressed to find anyone in authority to tell you straight:
When you apply for, or get a job, explain that you have a temporary number - you create it like this. The first two letters are always TN (for temporary number). It is then followed by your date of birth, in dd-mm-yy format, then either M if you're male or F, obviously if you're female. so, if you were born on the 10th march 1976, your NI number will be:
TN-100376-M(or F).
See? Easy!
Once you've got the job, ask your employer for a letter, confirming that you're working for them, then make an appointment with the nearest DSS centre in order to get a permanent NI no. You should get one within a fortnight. On the day, take the letter, passport and any other documents you need to show that you are entitled to work in the UK, then you'll get a NI number in 1-3 months.
C'est un piece du piss.
Feel free to disseminate this bit of info - people coming to the UK to settle don't often get informed about this, as it means that they get stuck in shitty, badly-paid jobs with little security.
When you apply for, or get a job, explain that you have a temporary number - you create it like this. The first two letters are always TN (for temporary number). It is then followed by your date of birth, in dd-mm-yy format, then either M if you're male or F, obviously if you're female. so, if you were born on the 10th march 1976, your NI number will be:
TN-100376-M(or F).
See? Easy!
Once you've got the job, ask your employer for a letter, confirming that you're working for them, then make an appointment with the nearest DSS centre in order to get a permanent NI no. You should get one within a fortnight. On the day, take the letter, passport and any other documents you need to show that you are entitled to work in the UK, then you'll get a NI number in 1-3 months.
C'est un piece du piss.
Feel free to disseminate this bit of info - people coming to the UK to settle don't often get informed about this, as it means that they get stuck in shitty, badly-paid jobs with little security.
Monday, October 18, 2004
The Purple Turtle
I met up with a few old friends on Saturday night, including Dr. Lynne, back from her Oz jaunt. Very good to see old faces again, but come 11 o'clock, I made the mistake of staggering off to The Purple Turtle for a few late beers. Apart from wasting my money, it was a somewhat saddening experience: From what I could see, a large minority of the clientele were early middle-aged blokes with paunches, grey hair and glasses. Time was when the Turtle was a real kick-ass place, particularly before it moved from Duke Street; Now, it looks like it's become part of the fogey Heritage Trail, with men trying to recreate the youth, live a little riskily (ha!), and get down with the kids. Sad.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Too good not to share....
...or an example of the kind of stuff I have to put up with on a day to day basis. The following is an extract from an Academic English assignment, handed in by one of my Chinese students. In it, he's explaining why he's decided to describe Thailand. Everything is as he wrote it: I very interesting about two special people in Thailand, this is cause I write about Thailand for this country description. On the one hand those are the long neck girls, who have lived in east of Burma for nearly 4 century. Since 1948s, they were Persecuted by Burma, after that most of them moved to the hamlet for refugee in Thailand. The long neck girls have not any trick to earn the money expect their long neck. Since the little girls are 6-years-old, they have been trained wear the circle of copper. On the one hand that is can be earn some money for their needy life, on the another hand, they believe long neck can take good luck for them; another special people is a man change in sharp of sex, (I don�t know the name of them actually, although I am looking up the dictionary, unfortunately I still can not find out that name.) that men are very different from normal gentlemen. They cut off their dick, and inject them some medicine, which can let men become pretty ladies. After that operation, they would join a group, and dance for the show, take photograph with the a tourist.
What can I do, but bang my hand against the wall?
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
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