| 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2007 |
21/10/04
Le Corbusier is probably the most admired and most maligned architect of the twentieth century. One of modernism's most famous figures, he's best known now for writing 'A house is a machine for living in.' But his healthy, clean living, purifying philosophy wasn't shared by his wife, who said 'All this light and air is driving me crazy.' When he had a bidet installed next to their bed, she knitted what could only be described as an extra large tea cosy to cover it. There's a wacky sitcom there, waiting to be written.
24/9/04
"Think. It's patriotic" - slogan on a tee shirt worn at an anti-Bush rally in America.
20/9/04
Here are some interesting reflections on Western attitudes from Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk:
'I was surprised that the word Turk was used as a sort of synonym for my name. Instead of writing "Pamuk says this or that" they wrote "This Turkish author said this or that." It did upset me a little. If I wrote an essay about Proust or Hemmingway I might occasionally write about the French or American author, but not all the time. It seems if you write fiction in this part of the world your nationality and, even worse, ethnicity are important. When an English writer writes about a love affair he writes about humanity's love affair, but when I write about a love affair I am only talking about a Turk's love affair.'
6/8/04
Caught an interesting interview on the radio yesterday with Michael McClure, one of the original Beat Poets. Still going strong at 72, he often teams up with former Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek for live poetry readings accompanied by music. As you would expect, he was not a Bush supporter. The interviewer asked if he would be actively supporting the Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. McClure was rather dismissive of Kerry and said he the guy he really wished he could vote for was Ken Livingstone. 'Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London?' asked the interviewer, taken aback. Yes replied McClure, Ken was a hero to the American left, who relish his anti Bush statements, which were printed in many magazines. An opportunity is clearly there for Ken to tour the States with McClure and Manzarek who could, I'm sure, provide a funky soundtrack to Ken's speeches.
But would they give him a visa? This is the administration who refused entry to Ian McEwan.
3/8/04
It's probably just a coincidence that whenever the president's rating slumps in the polls a plot to attack the USA is discovered and everyone has to pull together in the interests of national security.
Of course it's extremely debatable whether Bush was actually elected as president at all, given the shenanigans in Florida last time. However, come November, the Americans could reassure the rest of the world that they are indeed committed to democracy by turning to a British company who make a product called 'Electoral Stain.' This is a dye that is used to ensure fair elections by preventing people from voting twice. The voter simply dips his/her finger into the pot of Electoral Stain before going into the polling booth, therefore identifying them as having voted. It has already been used successfully in countries with questionable standards of democracy such as India, Burundi, Rwanda and Bosnia, so why not the USA?
2/8/04
Veteran American journalist Bob Woodward has added a few more tasty morsels to the feast of conspiracy theories surrounding the invasion of Iraq. In his book 'Plan of Attack' he confirms the bleedin' obvious - that the Bush administration's special relationship is with Saudi Arabia, not Britain. Apparently the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar, has the kind of access to the Oval Office that other ambassadors can only dream of (in Michael Moore's film 'Farenheit 9/11', we are told that Bandar's relationship to the Bush family is so close that he is known as 'Bandar Bush' within The White House). He is the only person who dares to talk back to Bush, interrupting and at times even taunting the little schmuck. Woodward suggests that the Saudis were given special treatment because they had promised to rig oil prices so that the global economy would be on the up just as Bush stood for a second term.
There's a great portrait of Bush at the January 2001 briefing in the Pentagon shortly before he is sworn in. He is too distracted by the tasty looking peppermints laid at each place around the table to pay attention to what the outgoing defence secretary and chief of staff are saying. He eats the peppermint placed in front of him, then takes everyone else's too, while they attempt to brief him. Elsewhere Woodward goes against the popular stereotype of Bush as a fecking eejit, portraying him as a man often overruling advisers and taking his own decisions, but it's the image of the greedy peppermint scoffer that sticks in the mind.
26/7/04
My daughter and I are in town. We have just bought the latest Big Issue. My daughter asks why the man didn't have a dog like most of the other Big Issue sellers she's seen. I say he probably can't afford to keep one. This makes her sad, and she begins to worry that he'll be lonely without a pet. Suddenly she brightens up and says 'I'll bet he could afford an insect.'
5/7/04
Last Wednesday I did an event at the Humberside Literature Festival with Jane Rogers and Tom Palmer. It was called 'All This Will Be Yours' and was about the chain of support and influence that exists among writers (Jane had been my mentor on a London Arts Board scheme about five years ago, when I was writing short stories, and I am now providing critical feedback to Tom about his novel). It took place in Hull Central Library, and the librarian expressed concern that we wouldn't be rudely interrupted when we read. 'Why?' I asked, 'It seems very quiet at the moment.' She warned that the joyriders often took a circuit around the Library at night, and that the noise could be quite horrendous. Poor Hull, it took a lot of stick a while ago, after being voted into first place in the Idler Book Of Crap Towns. However while other towns in the book were lambasted for being extremely boring, full of concrete monstrosities, filled with drunken yobs, etc etc, all the comments made about Hull pointed to one overwhelming source of discontent - the council. How it had taken one disastrous decision after another, wasting huge amounts of money, plunging the city into a black hole. Not one mention of joyriders, funnily enough.
Actually, in many ways, Hull reminds me of Cardiff in the 80s, once a great port, now down on its uppers. If you had told me 20 years ago that Cardiff would one day be regarded as one of the most exciting places in Britain, I would have burst out laughing. Then they started pouring money in. So, let's hear it for Hull!
30/6/04
When the physicist Murray Gell-Mann discovered that protons and neutrons were divisible, he struggled at first to come up with a name for what they were divisible into. Allegedly he was reading Joyce's Finnegan's Wake at the time, and was struck by the sentence 'Three quarks for Mister Mark!' and was inspired to name the smallest elements in the universe Quarks.
This is either a.) A charming story illustrating how science and art can cross fertilise. Or b.) A total fabrication by some demented Joyce scholar, ever eager to exaggerate his hero's importance (I can hear the ghost of Flann O'Brien in the background crying 'I declare to god, if I hear that name Joyce one more time I will surely froth at the gob.')
29/6/04
I read an interview with a man who used to be a lecturer in Liberal Studies at a technical college in east London during the 60s. 'A wonderful time. I taught whatever came into my head, like Picasso to apprentice panel beaters, who thought he couldn't draw - "Can't see a farkin' face there, Sir!" So I switched to Catcher In The Rye - "The geezer's a poof Sir!" Wonderful years.' Or, if you're Norman Tebbit, yet further proof that the 60s were responsible for the ruination of this once great country of ours.
27/6/04
Sign of the times yesterday in a village near Todmorden, where I saw a sign that read 'Rebate on England flags now available.'
25/6/04
In this country the short story is a sadly neglected form, accorded little respect and regarded as commercial death by publishers. In America, though, there is still a large audience for short fiction. However, despite this, American writer Shelley Jackson has written a short story called 'Skin', which she has no plans to publish. It is 2,095 words long, and she is now looking for 2,095 volunteers to have one word of the story each tattooed on his or her body. The full text will only be known to the participants, who will only get a copy of the complete story on paper once they have been tattooed. Jackson will not allow the story to be summarized, quoted or adapted for any other medium.
Apparently people are pouring in from all over the world, eager to participate. Mothers and daughters have written to Jackson wanting to become words together as a bonding experience, and groups of friends have asked to be tattooed in sequence so that they can become a sentence. This is despite the fact that anyone taking part must sign a contract and a disclaimer releasing Shelley from any any responsibility for health problems, loss of employment or relationship difficulties that may result from their tattoo. Neither can they choose which word they will be tattooed with, as Jackson allocates each one in the strict order in which they appear in the story. They can, however, choose where to have the tattoo - 'One of my words had "in" tattooed on his butt' said Jackson, who refers to the participants as 'words' once they have received their tattoo. 'I'm wondering whether a kind of caste system is going to arise,' she said, 'Where the common "ands" and "thes" will be looked down on by fancier words.'
All this is very interesting and amusing, a wacky story that will make great copy for journalists, but has anyone stopped to actually consider whether the actual short story in question is any good? What if you go the trouble of getting tattooed, then find you are a part of a story that you think is awful? Did Jackson put some kind of disclaimer in her contract that covered that eventuality? 'The author accepts no responsibility for disappointment suffered by anyone who thinks the story is rubbish, or the participant feeling they have been conned into taking part in something that is nothing more than a shameless publicity stunt of the Brit Art variety, aimed at raising the author's profile.' Probably not.
17/6/04
Last night I saw an absolutely tremendous production of Under Milk Wood by The Wales Theatre Company at The Grand in Leeds. You might think that 'A Play for Voices', originally written for radio, would prove unsuitable for transferring to the stage, but it was fantastically theatrical, in the best sense of the word. The extraordinarily beautiful, funny and poignant language was brilliantly delivered, but there was also great use of movement, mime and sound effects, plus wonderful singing - and all this delivered at a breathtaking pace as the characters' lines overlapped and undercut each other, and the cast bobbed and weaved energetically around the sloping set. Catch it if you can.
7/6/04
Bored to tears by the usual tales of rock stars' excesses involving sex and drugs, thrashing hotel rooms, driving limos into swimming pools etc etc, it was interesting to read about the peculiar demands The Smiths made on promoters in their pomp in the mid 80s. According to Johnny Rogan's Morrissey & Marr:The Severed Alliance, Morrissey would ask for flowers to be placed in the dressing room 'to the approximate value of £50, including gladioli;no roses or flowers with thorns.' That was subsequently replaced with the request for 'a live tree with a minimum height of three foot and a maximum height of five foot.' Their manager would carry a saw in his briefcase and prune the tree to the required dimensions when sloppy promoters failed to comply with the exact demands. On tour in Ireland, Morrissey once stipulated the need for a 'young sapling' in the contract, with which he wanted to flog himself on stage in Waterford. I saw The Smiths a couple of times, and they were a wonderful live band but, unfortunately, I missed the thrashing oneself with a young sapling stage of Morrissey's career.
OK, Morrissey may have been a very charismatic, original, and highly influential pop star, but, I ask myself, did he ever have a paper round too? Until we are told, I fear his reputation as one of the greats will have to be put on hold.
3/6/04
A friend of my daughter's tells me proudly:'My dad used to be a pop star, and he used to have a paper round!'
1/6/04
An acquaintance tells me ruefully:'Sometimes I think I've been living here too long. Especially when I walk into a room, look around and see someone I had a terrible row with years ago and haven't spoken to ever since, then realize I've got no idea what the row was about.'
26/5/04
There are 23,000,000 refugees in this world. If you would like to learn a little more about their plight (and have fun too), then why not buy the board game Run For Your Life! Players use a dice and coloured counters as usual, but the object of this particular game is to get from your village to a refugee camp, while avoiding land mines and being fired on by soldiers. The cover proclaims it to be 'An action packed new board game on refugees and landmines.' The perfect xmas present.
25/5/04
On Saturday I did a Readers Day at Oldham Civic Centre, a really good one, I thought. During one of the coffee breaks I chatted with a very nice man called Aubrey, who'd picked up on the Kierkegaard quotation in the front of my novel. He told me he was an existentialist. It was a strange moment - it must be over 20 years since I've heard anyone describe themselves as an existentialist (apart from my friend Peter B, of course). I would guess that he'd have been old enough to remember the huge controversy people like Sartre provoked here in the 50s and 60s. Much British spleen was vented on Jean-Paul Sartre - he wasn't a philosopher by British standards, he was merely a novelist and playwright with a penchant for troublemaking and anyway, he was foreign so, ipso facto, shifty and unreliable.
This fevered hostility to existentialism stretched into the 70s, when I went to Leicester University to study philosophy. In the very first lecture the head of the philosophy department announced that anyone who'd thought the philosophy course would include any discussion of 'existentialism' (pronounced with all the distaste of someone forced to mention the vilest swearword, followed by a pause for a look of disdain over his reading glasses), was sadly mistaken. Those with questions about the meaning of existence should have gone to The Sorbonne. Right, I thought, that's me screwed then. I struggled on for two terms, but knew my time had come when I fell asleep in a tutorial on the Philosophy Of Science.
We are alive, but we don't know why; we will die, and have no idea what happens afterwards;isn't it natural to wonder about the meaning of existence? Of course Sartre's politics, which led him to champion anti-imperialist movements all over the world, didn't endear him to the status quo either. His flat was blown up by a bomb planted by a group outraged at his pro Algerian stance during the Algerian struggle for independence from France during the 50s (anyone interested in that period should try and catch the justly celebrated film The Battle For Algiers). But alas, there was no time to ask Aubrey about any of that, as we had to rush back into the main hall for the last session to discover, amongst other things, that Lord Of The Rings had collected the most votes for people's Room 101 book - yes!
P.S. Thanks to Yvonne for being such a wonderful minder.
19/5/04
The next time you're driving along the motorway, pause for a moment to reflect on the fact that your journey is being helped made possible by an army of unknown authors. Pulped books get mixed with bitumen and used on motorways, at the rate of 45,000 per mile. Apparently Mills & Boons are much sought after, because they're slushier. Not many people know that.
It was a gloriously sunny weekend here in Leeds. As my daughter tucked into strawberries and cream in our garden she paused, suddenly thoughtful, and asked 'What if I'm just dreaming this?' Naturally, my first reaction was that this kind of wishy washy philosophical thinking wasn't going to help her pass her SATS.
18/5/04
I read a profile of Daniel Dennett, author of 'The Mind's I:Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul', 'Consciousness Explained', 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea' and various other large philosophical tomes.
Here's Bo Dahlbom, now head of the Swedish Institute for Information Technology, recalling his first meeting with Dennett, when he was a young philosophy student in the States:'I was 25 when I met him, we were driving in a car:the conversation moved from poetry to sailing and opera;he knew about all of them. He was a sculptor, an expert downhill skier;he had taught canoeing at a summer camp;he was a tennis champion and toyed with the idea of becoming a jazz musician...'
This, presumably, is meant to be impressive. But my reaction was that I just couldn't imagine anything worse than being given a lift by such an overbearing, self obsessed bore. A man completely unable to stop trumpeting his own achievements while you sit in the passenger seat, nodding and grinning, perhaps occasionally interrupting his endless monologue about what a fascinating and highly accomplished Renaissance man he was with a polite 'Oh really? How fascinating?' Dennett probably took the long way round, driving on B roads and dirt tracks, taking excursions into the wilderness, anything to needlessly extend the journey so he could continue blathering about himself to this young, totally intimidated student who'd just arrived from another country (his wife had probably stopped listening to him years ago - 'Do you want to hear my fascinating deconstruction of The Magic Flute?', 'I'm busy right now dear, tell me later.' ) After this horrendous experience I imagine poor old Bo diving for cover behind a bush the next time he saw Dennett's car approaching, in case he offered him another lift.
Actually, 'Consciousness Explained' was a book that I eventually admitted to myself I was never going to read about 5 years after buying it, and gave to a charity shop. I'm so glad I did that now.
12/5/04
When your career is in the doldrums and the only way you can survive is by trading on long past glories, don't despair, there is something you can do to raise your flagging spirits - insult the Welsh. This long and venerable tradition was revived this week by David Cassidy, who, in the 70s, was a squeaky clean teen idol with perfect teeth, who made Cliff Richard look like Sid Vicious. In the middle of playing to a half empty concert hall in Cardiff, the ageing has been turned on his tiny audience and said 'I don't know how you live here without slitting your wrists.' He went on to ridicule the Welsh accent and went into a huff and stopped playing 'I Think I Love You' because fans were singing along. A spokeswoman for Cassidy said: 'The weather was getting to him and he was exhausted.' Poor Dave, I suggest he lies down in a darkened room for a while - say about twenty years.
10/4/04
Overheard conversation in street between two elderly women:'How's your daughter?'
'Oh, not too bad. Her boyfriend left her.'
'The one she's just had twins with?'
'That's right.'
'Oh... I don't think much to this weather we're having, do you?'
18/3/04
My daughter tells me that yesterday they explained how the body works in school. Apparently boys' brains smell of mouldy cheese and rotting vegetables, while girls' brains smell of roses.
2/3/04
My daughter skips around the kitchen shouting her new catchphrase:'No La-De-Da Skating!'
17/2/04
A huge hoarding next to the open air skating rink in Millenium Square in Leeds city centre proclaims:
NO LA-DE-DA SKATING
NO LYCRA
NO CHEESY SMILES
REMEMBER THIS IS LEEDS
You can see why the attempt to label Leeds the Milan Of The North by an advertising agency a couple of years ago never really took off.
14/2/04
Can you spot the difference?
'Shame on the Protestant men of the Shankhill Road for allowing papists, pape's men and papishers to live on the Shankhill Road' - Ian Paisley at a rally in Belfast, 1959.
'I love Roman Catholics' - Ian Paisley on RTE's Prime Time, 11/2/04
Clearly someone has spiked Big Ian's tea with ecstasy, a cruel and heartless trick to play on a pensioner.
4/2/04
When people ask you about the process of writing a novel, they are usually seeking advice about how to handle what are regarded as the key elements of fiction - character, plot, point of view, dialogue, etc. It's certainly true that without a thorough understanding of these, your novel is very unlikely to succeed. However, even when you have got to grips with these essentials, you will still need to learn how to deal with the vitally important psychological aspect of writing.
Can you hold your nerve when six months, or a year, or even longer into your novel, you find that you still have absolutely no idea how you will tie the different strands of your plot together, or what's actually motivating your main character - who they are? You are convinced it's all been a waste of time, that you've been fooling yourself, you'll never be a writer. A real writer would never have spent so long writing something so insubstantial and incoherent. Who did you think you were kidding?
There is no easy way to deal with these anxieties. They do not disappear, or lose their power once you have been published. They will never go away. Doubt is part of the process. The sooner you recognise this, the better. You may feel you can't face anyone in this state, but this is exactly the time when you most need company. You need to escape from yourself, you have become your own worst enemy. Get out of the house, see friends, give your battered mind a rest. Do something physical - go for a swim, or a ride on your bike, take a walk in the country. Refresh your creativity by going to see films, a play, a concert - relax and see the world from someone else's perspective.
When you come back to your novel you still may not feel fantastically enthusiastic about it, but hopefully you will now be able to put it in some kind of context. This is a good time to join a writing class, or form a writer's group, and get some help with your almost binned novel. If it's a good group, if the tutor is on the ball, they will help you begin to see where the strengths and weaknesses lie, what needs to be abandoned, what can be salvaged. You realise it's not hopeless, it just needs more work - thank God you didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. It also feels good to break out of your isolation, you find you feel better about yourself when you help other people identify the problems in their work, suggest solutions. And what a relief to discover that your worries and anxieties are far from unique - all the other writers suffer from them too. Despite all this, it's still very hard work, and you wonder when it will get easier. But remember what Thomas Mann said:'A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.' Carry on.
On a lighter note, I heard a report on the radio yesterday about the ukulele revival. It started in America, allegedly - they played some guy performing Hendrix's Purple Haze on the ukulele. Over here the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain recently sold out the Barbican Centre, and have recorded an album featuring Je t'aime, Anarchy In The UK, and a track by Miss Dynamite reinterpreted as a thirties swing number, which sounded pretty wonderful, I have to say. On their website www.ukuleleorchestra, they outline their manifesto: 'The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain believe that all genres of music are available for reinterpretation, as long as they are played on the ukulele.' I reckon it's the next big thing.
28/1/04
An interesting quote from Edward Albee, author of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? 'I learned that I was adopted when I was five or so, and I wasn't surprised. Many kids when they're growing up have the fear that maybe they're not the natural children. I had the terrible fear that maybe I was. When I was told that I was adopted I was rather relieved. I just didn't feel that I belonged.'
27/1/04
Our guide on the underground tour at the National Coal Mining Museum was an ex miner who travelled 50 miles up from his home in Nottinghamshire every Sunday to work there. In the week he works as a bus driver and obviously missed the team work and solidarity that mining provided. His eyes lit up when he discovered that my friend Stephen had briefly worked at a mine many years ago, and he pressed him eagerly for details. He was also delighted to discover that I had been to Big Pit at Blaenavon, south Wales, which he had visited last summer on holiday, spending several days in the area. While he made no attempt to hide how physically strenuous and dangerous working as a miner could be, he'd clearly loved it too, and you felt he'd found nothing to replace it.
Though the displays at the museum were interesting, there was no evidence of the international solidarity with other unions and campaigning organisations that you would have got in say, the Rhonnda. Many Welsh miners joined the Republican Brigades and fought in the Spanish Civil War, and are rightly proud of their efforts on behalf of political prisoners and persecuted minorities abroad, and their links with the great Paul Robeson (they were very involved in the international campaign to force the Americans to return his passport, which was confiscated during the McCarthyite era), not to mention their self funded healthcare system, on which Nye Bevan modelled the National Health Service. If there was a similar idealism to be found in the Yorkshire pits, they omitted to mention it. As a result, the overall content seemed rather insular compared to how the history of mining is presented in Wales.
25/1/04
We visit the National Coal Mining Museum. In one corner of the cafe three tables are pushed together and covered with brightly coloured paper tablecloths and ten boys, aged about 7 or 8, are tucking into pizzas and chips. It seems an unusual venue for a birthday treat. The history of coal mining, after all, is largely one of exploitation, appalling working conditions, strikes and disasters, and the galleries illustrate this in great detail. Perhaps the birthday boy is the son of an ex- miner, who never wants him to forget his roots? When they have finished their meal, the gang of boys charge out and pile into a enormous stretch limo, waiting for them in the car park. The doors are held open for them by a man built like a professional wrestler, wearing wrap around shades in the January gloom.
13/1/04
A friend tells me what worries him most about getting old. The theme to The Archers starts playing, but he is so slow and stiff that he can't get out of his chair and get across the room in time to reach the radio and turn it off before the episode begins. A chilling prospect.
11/1/04
Sometimes the most entertaining thing about live football coverage on the radio is the "expert analysis" from the obligatory old pro. Yesterday I listened to the Radio Leeds commentary on the grim relegation struggle between Leeds United and Spurs. First the commentator described how Spurs grabbed the only goal of the game - a quickly taken free kick, hit straight over the top, Keane dashing through to score while the Leeds defence slept - 'They just weren't concentrating and that's vital at this level.' Then he asked Norman Hunter, famous hard man of the 70s, and local hero, for his analysis. 'I didn't see it actually' replied Hunter, 'I was watching something else. What happened again?'
Later on, Hunter said that though Leeds had lots of problems both on and of the pitch, on the upside he was impressed with Eddie Gray, the caretaker manager. The commentator, desperate to find something positive to talk about, asked Hunter to elucidate. 'He looks like a manager' replied Hunter, 'That's a nice suit Eddie's wearing. I like to see a manager wearing a suit. Not like some of these scruffy characters you see these days who stand on the touchline in tracksuits.'
8/1/04
Maybe it's just a sign that I'm getting older, but the world seems to be getting louder and louder. When we took our daughter to see a children's film recently, the volume on the soundtrack was at a level more appropriate for a heavy metal band headlining at Wembley Stadium. Music in most city centre pubs is now so loud you have to bellow like a town crier to make yourself heard, even when the person is sat right next to you. The music in trendy clothes shops is pumped up so high that the windows hum and vibrate and the floorboards shake (this endless aural battering may well explain the disconcertingly blank look in the eyes of many of the shop assistants). The decibel level of muzak in shopping centres, lifts and restaurants are all steadily rising. We are appalled at the sight of Japanese businessmen wearing face masks in Tokyo to protect them from noxious fumes, but soon you will need earplugs every time you go into the town centre to combat noise pollution.
I blame the clubbing scene for the incessant rise of loud music in public places. I reckon this non stop appalling row is an attempt to recreate the feverish excitement of a hedonistic night out at a trendy club and convince you that you're having a fantastic time and that the drugs are going to kick in any minute, even when you're buying a pair of socks. They have adopted this approach on TV too. We now have music constantly chugging away in the background, even on documentaries, as people talk about how cheap it can be to buy a second home in Spain or the appalling level of child poverty in Latin America. They seem to think that without music to tell us what to feel, we will become disorientated or bored, and change channels.
An Irish guy I knew in London several years ago often bemoaned the noisiness of English pubs. Back home in Dublin, he reckoned, pubs were still places for people to meet and talk, unlike London, where they were more like amusement arcades, which just happened to serve alcohol. There was, he continued, something much more warm and human about entering a bar with no loud music, giant TV screens, or gambling machines, and being greeted by the hum of conversation and outbreaks of laughter. I totally agree, but the bottom line is, if the pounding music is preventing communication, and you are unable to relax, then you are likely to drink more quickly, in order to convince yourself you're having a good night out. I suspect retail psychologists are rubbing their hands in glee.
3/1/04
A teacher I know
tells me about a new pupil she has developed a soft spot for. This boy has only
recently moved here from Liverpool and seemed rather shy and withdrawn at
first, but became very animated when she showed him round the
school. He kept saying it seemed like a really great place and that he was sure
he was going to like it there. Not used to this kind of enthusiastic reaction,
she asked him what it was he liked so much about it. 'It's so laid back' he
said, 'In my last school, they had Group 4 Security patrolling the corridors.'
2/1/04
A heavy downfall of snow helped make it a magical New Year's eve here in Leeds. We and our guests rushed out into the road and had a snowball fight with our friends down the road and their guests. Some kids who were passing joined in. After we'd fought each other to a standstill, some of the adults lay down spread-eagled in the snow, to create snow angels. The kids gathered round, totally bemused, too young to yet openly voice their scorn, but clearly thinking we were very sad cases indeed.
Later, we watch a bit of that Jools Holland programme. What a strangely ill at ease, shifty looking presenter he is. He always gives the impression he's expecting the police to rush on at any minute, grab him and cry 'You 'orrible little man, what do you think you're doing, hobnobbing with all these decent, law abiding people? You're nicked!'