The Voyage of Dick Headley

Naked Tea finally.

2011-12-05T17:48:00.001-08:00

It's out! Just in time for Christmas. 54 pages of world-class literature and exciting graphics.

I'm charging $12 (plus $5 shipping and handling) unsigned. Signed copies are $20 (plus $5 s & h). About what you'd pay to watch a vampire flick. A hamburger will run you that in a lot of places. With fries if you're lucky. And it's not my fault. They cost a fair bit to print...then there's tax and I have to give the author something. It doesn't leave much for me to maintain a few bad habits.

You can buy a copy here....

Naked Tea

2011-09-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

A bloke called Philip Willey has asked me to help him plug his book about William Burroughs. Why not? I think Burroughs has a lot to answer for to be honest but I don't mind helping a struggling author. I was one myself once. The book is short but contains some pretty good writing. The graphics, by Lyle Schultz are excellent. Here's the cover... More info here. It's not on the market yet. When it is I'll let you know. Dick.

Happy birthday Zippy!

2011-04-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Looking for a diversion from the unreported irradiation of the entire northern hemisphere? Bored by yet another set of liars on the idiot-box, filling the airwaves with disinformation about the invasion of Libya? Try this....

Fan Tan by Brando and Cammell.

2011-02-02T16:02:00.001-08:00

It looks like the sort of thing you might stumble across in a remainder bin in a used book store. 'Fan Tan'. Ah hah I thought another obscure masterpiece cobbled together by some old alcoholic expat in a Thai village. Judging by the cover (never do that) it looks like a Harlequin romance set in the mysterious East. There’s the exotic Asian woman in some sort of silk kimono thing and the besotted Western sailor on the ground wondering what he’s got himself into. So imagine my surprise when on closer inspection the authors turn out to be Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell! Brando of course is the well known actor who spent his later years on an island near Tahiti. But what was Cammell’s name doing there? Cammell was the film maker behind ‘Performance’ starring Mick Jagger...a destructive little shit according to Keith Richards in his autobiography ‘Life’. Intrigued I picked the book up...bought it and took it home. This could be good. Well not exactly. It isn’t a cliché ridden load of rubbish but it comes perilously close. The year is 1927. Anatole ‘Annie” Doultry is a middle aged adventurer serving six months in Hong Kong prison where he befriends a well-connected Chinese pirate. Once out he meets and falls in love with Madame Lai Choi San the pirate’s beautiful boss. Together they sail around the China Seas on her sampan looking for treasure. They plan to attack a freighter full of silver, the biggest act of piracy the world has ever seen no less. One would think this might provide for some interesting character development. But Doultry is too much like Brando. He’s a man of action but his mind wanders all over the place like Kurtz in ‘Apocalypse Now’ and his philosophical musing isn’t coherent. He has an aversion to authority of course, intellectual swashbuckling, that’s his game but he can’t stick to the plot. Here’s Annie on his bunk meditating… “However though he was once a Scot, it was not the future of the city that bore on Annie Doultry’s brain, not the world’s either; his own future it was, or would be. The reality to be expected, the facts of it. But was there such a thing as future fact? There was one for Mr. Wittgenstein, indeed.” Huh? There’s a kind of surreal madness about the book that kept me turning the pages but a lot of the writing is pretty bad. Mind you there are steamy sex scenes to make up for it. There’s plenty of action including a typhoon, intrigue and hand-to-hand combat. There’s even a reference to the famous butter scene in ‘Last Tango’ which should amuse movie buffs. It’s a strange book, full of perverse little asides, and it all takes place against a background of the revolution in China when the Nationalists and the Communists and others were forming temporary alliances. To be fair it should probably be described as a treatment rather than a novel. And it turns out that putting Brando’s name on the cover is a publishing trick. Cammell wrote it. In fact the best part of the book comes at the end where film writer David Thomson explains how the book came to be written. Cammell had tried to get Brando for ‘Performance’. Brando was in hospital at the time after scalding his private parts with hot coffee. Anyway he turned the offer down. Later, with Brando weighing about 300lbs due to ice-cream addiction Cammell tried again. They had a complex relationship. The book did get written but getting it published was another matter. Brando baulked again. Maybe he was ashamed or maybe he just enjoyed tormenting Cammell. Anyway Brando died and Cammell shot himself. The twists and turns of the publishing process would make a good book in themselves I thought.

Fun in Belgium.

2011-01-25T11:36:00.001-08:00

Time to get animated.

2010-11-17T07:17:00.001-08:00

Nick Kent: Apathy For The Devil.

2010-09-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

(Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/Faber/Guardian) Julie Burchill is full of shit. Or maybe just plain jealous if her bitchy mean-spirited review is anything to go by. She has nothing good to say about Nick Kent’s book or about Nick Kent for that matter. Nastiness in rock-writing has acquired a kind of permanence and old feuds live on. Kent has described her somewhere as Myra Hindleyesque. Now Kent has written a sort of biography, or ‘ 70’s memoir’ if you prefer. Nothing very unorthodox. His parents were straight middle class people but not unkind (he eliminates the Philip Larkin excuse in chapter one). They thought Elvis was ‘some degenerate hillbilly maniac’ and Frank Sinatra was ‘a smarmy little gangster’. Kent was a fairly typical bedroom hermit. He went to school. Literature attracted him. He’d been impressed by Keats and Elliot and made a serious study of Joyce’s Ulysses. But he liked pop music better. His parents thought he should go to university. The music press at the time consisted mainly of bland promotional copy. Seeing the Rolling Stones at the tender age of 13 was a pivotal moment. The young Kent was much taken with the Stones. He liked their ‘don’t give a shit’ attitude. As a young man he was shy, awkward and effeminate (his own words), and something of a misfit. The Stones music was exciting and primeval. It drove the girls wild. Changes came fast in the Sixties. Woodstock and Altamont were seen by some as the high and low points of the so-called counterculture. Rock Sculley called them 2 ends of a mucky stick…the ‘bloating of mass Bohemia’ (there is a distinctly cynical tone to this book). Anyway at some point Kent seems to have had an epiphany. Reading Creem and Rolling Stone he suddenly knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a writer like Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe and Lester Bangs. New journalism it was called. Kent prefers the term Zeitgeist-surfing. He likes the word Zeitgeist. Kent even went to America to meet Lester Bangs and learn the art of myth-debunking from a master. In 1972 he landed a job writing record reviews for Frendz, a radical magazine, at £4 a month. Seeing his words in print was exciting. Nick had found his niche. He quickly realized that he was in the right place at the right time, part of a new kind of rock writing. He was free to write whatever he wanted. Hands on stuff where the writer becomes a willful participant. Alternative magazines like Frendz were struggling in 1972. The revolution wasn’t going well. But there was plenty of music to write about. Music fans were almost begging for an extreme, abrasive kind of writing that would penetrate the pot haze. Kent did some interviews and it wasn’t long before the New Musical Express noticed his efforts. They hired him to increase circulation. He, Charles Shaar Murray and Ian MacDonald had the UK scene pretty much to themselves for a while. He wrote a two piece article Led Zeppelin which really got the ball rolling. Led Zeppelin liked it. So did the NME. Sales figures improved. Everything was going well. Nick found interviews easier to get though Bowie remained elusive. Rock writing could be dangerous work. There was trouble in the toilet with Bob Marley, a near death experience with Iggy Pop, an unhappy relationship with Chrissie Hynde, and a vicious attack by a Sex Pistol. The bulk of the book deals with his years at NME, interviews, anecdotes, drugs, getting sucked into Keith Richard’s vortex, that kind of thing. Young readers will probably find it all a bit silly and pointless. In retrospect a lot of it probably was. Kent himself seems almost apologetic sometimes. But he was definitely there. There aren’t many startling new revelations about the private lives of rock royalty however. Kent has dealt with them elsewhere. In the ‘The Dark Stuff’ for instance, when he was on top of his form, he wrote about the down side of rock, people like Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett and Kurt Cobain. Perhaps he got too close to the maelstrom. Maybe he thought he could handle heroine. Maybe he was just young but he became a victim of his own dark side. Compassion was in short supply in the music industry. Kent can sound whiny at times, as if he feels unappreciated. He has certainly mellowed. Almost fatalistic. There are a few flashes of the younger acerbic young rock-writer but he seems almost embarrassed about some of his excesses which makes for an interesting combination of self-effacement and self-importance. Regrets? Some, but he thinks he got what he deserved. And things turned out OK. Laurence Romance, quel nom alors, replaced methadone in his life. They have a son, James. Kent now lives in Paris and writes the occasional piece for Mojo. Things could be much worse. So what have we learned from all this? Nick was on top of the music scene for a while but he messed up? That’s too easy. It would be kinder and more accurate to say that he got taken over by events. Rock changed. Yes getting bashed with a bike chain by a three-chord junkie like Sid Vicious was just another McClaren publicity stunt but it must have hurt in more ways than one. Kent says he was too stoned to remember it. He was already pretty strung out by this time, his girlfriend at the time had left him and he was homeless. Still it’s hard not to see the event as a metaphor for the prevailing nastiness. Or some kind of karma perhaps. The point is he lived through it...and he did really love the music, it may have only been rock and roll but he liked it, and he wrote about it well. Which brings us back to the ongoing feud with Ms. Burchill. They seem to deserve each other in a way. It’s tempting to speculate on what kind of loving couple they would have made. Kent is definitely on top when it comes to self-knowledge. Good for him. His book makes a good read. Ms. Burchill can get knotted.

A job with a view.

2010-09-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

The Silk Road.

2010-09-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading up on the Silk Road. Fascinating story. A good place to start is Peter Hopkirk’s book ‘Foreign Devils on the Silk Road’. It’s a very readable account of how people like Sven Hedin, Aurel Stein et al. rediscovered lost cities and helped themselves to artifacts and manuscripts (for which the Chinese have never forgiven them.) Here’s Paul Pelliot in Dun Huang…
Paul Pelliot et le trésor national chinois
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Ricky and Louis.

2010-09-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

Some viewers may find this offensive. Some may not. Some may be so bummed out they just don't give a shit.

Ginsberg and McCartney.

2010-09-01T09:19:00.001-07:00

Not many people realize how influential Paul McCartney was in the London 'underground'. His generous donations were a big help to Barry Miles who founded Indica with Peter Asher and John Dunbar in 1965.

Izzy breaks out.

2010-08-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

Who? E@L's delightful ex-flatmate of course. No not the bloke with the tattoos. See here for details. Xiaxue keeps on shopping.

Siam and South Korea (1931)

2010-08-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

with Nathaniel Shilkret's Travel Talk Orchestra.

Hitchens, Amis, Cancer & God.

2010-08-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it sounds like a prestigious law firm. But it's no laughing matter. Hitch may only have a few months to live. Great career move by Goldberg when he's not drumming up wars. "How am I? I'm dying."

Mick Farren looks back.

2010-08-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

Mick Farren, looking very er...mature and dignified, discusses his book Speed Speed Speedfreak with Richard Metzger...

Mick Farren - Speed Speed Speedfreak from DANGEROUS MINDS on Vimeo.

Nick Kent: The Seventies

2010-08-02T16:11:00.001-07:00

I haven't read the book yet so a full review will have to wait. Julie Burchill says it's not very good....but she would.

Frienemies, the Afghan War explained.

2010-07-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.markfiore.com/

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet.

2010-07-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

‘The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet’ David Mitchell is set in Japan in 1799. Jacob Van Zoet is a young Dutchman working in for the Dutch East India Company at the precise point when European powers are trying to get a foothold in Japan. The Dutch East India Company is the only European company permitted to trade so most of the story takes place in the claustrophobic foreign enclave of Dejima where the foreigners are confined. The Japanese distrust the foreigners but they are also fascinated by all things Western. This tension is a constant throughout the book as the forces of European colonialism and Japanese tradition clash like Sumo wrestlers. Dutch pragmatism is contrasted with the Japanese love of the transitory. We see the seeds of modern Japan being sown. East meets West has been a staple topic for numerous writers. Great writers like Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess and even Chuck Woww have all had a crack at it. Mitchell excels in the research and his imaginative powers are extraordinary. He is able to project himself backwards and create vividly detailed vignettes and authentic dialogue. Unlike ‘Cloud Atlas’, TTAOJDZ is a straightforward linear narrative. It’s written in the third person and it doesn’t stray far from Dejima. Jacob meets, and falls in love with, Miss Orito Aibagawa, a medical student whose face has been scarred, making her unmarriageable. Orito gets whisked off by a powerful abbot who runs a mysterious mountainside convent/shrine dedicated to a dark fertility cult. Jacob brings her back. This is an adventure story complete in itself. TTTAOJDZ is packed with stories. Sailors, merchants, clerks, interpreters are all squeezed into a small hot space where they are obliged to deal with each other on a daily basis. When these characters aren’t busy private-trading on their own account they pass the time by defrauding the company and telling each other hair-raising stories. So the book is essentially a series of anecdotes joined by a common location. This is what gives it its intensity. There are points where it seems as though Mitchell is getting carried away with his own imaginative virtuosity. This new novel sprawls, like the title, but it’s compulsive reading.

Burroughs/Gysin/Dream Machine.

2010-07-11T15:47:00.000-07:00

Flicker is a film by Nick Sheehan. It’s a look at artist/writer Brion Gysin who never got much attention during his life. He was born in 1916 in England to Canadian parents may have given Gysin something of an identity problem. Or perhaps he was naturally rootless. He grew up in western Canada and later attended Downside School near Bath, Somerset. In 1934 he moved to Paris where he studied La Civilisation Francaise, an open course at the Sorbonne. Whilst there he became attracted to the Surrealists but he got in a fight with Andre Breton and was expelled from the movement. This event is not given much weight in the film but it must have driven him further in on himself. Then came the legendary meeting with Burroughs in Tangers, the cut-ups, and the years they spent in the Beat Hotel, Paris. The film contains comments from people like Kenneth Anger, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithful, Jean-Jacques Lebel and Genesis P.Orridge. Various intrepid cultural icons record their experiences in front of the machine. They talk about amazing colours etc. but any long-term effects on perception are unclear. Some of the most illuminating comments are hidden between the lines. Gysin comes across as a complex character. Prickly, knowledgeable and obtuse. An outside outsider. Not bitter or anti-social particularly but isolated from the mainstream avante garde. He appears to have genuinely wanted to transcend himself, much more than Gertrude Stein or even Joyce and Beckett ever did. A rose is a rose…I am that I am that. Apart from his collaboration with Burroughs nothing seemed to go right for him He invented a dream machine but failed to interest any companies in the commercial possibilities. It wasn’t seen as a second Lava lamp and he couldn’t get an article about it into Rolling Stone. The lack of success or recognition must have weighed heavily on him. It’s harder to dismiss Gysin’s paintings. There the main concern is language itself. The paintings represent many different attempts to become the ‘other’ and to isolate the essence of language. Robert Palmer in his introduction to ‘The Process’ talks about Gysin’s paintings being written in Japanese from top to bottom with Arabic across it from right to left. John Geiger describes him as a mythomaniac. His book ‘The Process’ has been reprinted perhaps as part of a general reassessment of his legacy. Was he an important cultural figure? What’s the book like? Well, it’s not very good. The basic idea is a pot-smoking black American professor, Hanson, who is hired by a Foundation to cross the Sahara. So it’s a quest for or away from the self. This involves him in a personal journey into his own self. The Sahara dominates everything. It is both spectacularly beautiful and completely merciless. Life there is hard and all travel is controlled by a handful of regional officials who act like petty tyrants. Carries a tape recorder. Gysin transcribes the conversations. I, thou, he, she, it…these are the voices of his other selves. Lovingly described keef pipes keep appearing and Arab boys are plentiful. This book is not for homophobes and the geography is confusing. It’s not clear how he gets from In Salah to Bechar and then to Oujda but he spends a lot of time squeezed into trucks with strange people. It’s hard not to read the book as autobiography. Gysin wasn’t black but he did have an academic background. The book is a quest. The trouble is he’s not much of a writer. He comes up with some good sentences but he can’t string them together. In spite of William Burroughs glowing endorsement the writing is flowery and pretentious for the most part. Gysin was a friend of Paul Bowles so there’s more than a hint of the ‘Endless Sky’ which is basically a fictional account of Bowles own journey into the endless waste. Or maybe Gysin set out to write something mysterious and druggy along the lines of Carlos Castaneda. The ‘Teachings of Don Juan’ predates ‘The Process’ by a year. Gysin is no Burroughs, Bowles or Castaneda. He’s good at creating allusion, he uses lots of tricks but The Process rambles and goes nowhere. None of this makes the book unreadable. The attempts at humour don’t come across well, Gysin doesn’t seem to have had much time for self-deprecation, but there are some interesting details about traveling in the Sahara once you get used to the tone. There’s also something fascinating about watching a self-absorbed individual trying to get away from his own self. And it is a very unusual book…there are points where it seems to read the reader.

The Pregnant Widow

2010-06-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

In his new novel, ‘The Pregnant Widow’, Martin Amis has tried to blend Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’ with a heavy helping of the Narcissus myth. Keith, an aspiring chain-smoking poet with a proletarian name, is a mock-hero spending a summer in a castle in Italy with some friends. He wears cool pants and he’s having an on again/off again thing with his girlfriend Lily. They’ve gone there to get away from it all but of course they bring it all with them. Some of Keith’s friends are posh. Scheherazade is being chased around the castle by Adriano, a vertically challenged Italian aristocrat. Whittaker is Keith’s gay drunken mate who gets fucked by the predatory Rita. They are joined by the mysterious Gloria Beautyman whose shapely arse attracts a lot of attention from the lads in the village. Most of the time is spent lounging around the pool being witty and there’s a Muslim of course to represent sexual repression. Amis loathes Islam. For Keith, who is looking for the ultimate sexual experience Scheherazade’s breasts represent eternal female bliss if he can just find the right formula. Looking back years later he can’t quite work out why he was disappointed when he actually got whatever it was he thought he wanted at the time. It’s not clear what kind of book Amis was writing. Is it a sexual comedy of manners with major themes or a memoir? Or both? Nothing much happens and there’s no real story. Unless you count the parts where an older wiser Keith reminisces about it all the writing is flat. I was in trouble from page one. The topic, sexual revolution, seems promising but the dialogue is just too clever. Amis focuses on that point in the early Seventies where young people became sexually liberated. There was a major cultural shift going on. Girls wanted to be boys, according to Amis’ thesis, and boys weren’t sure what they wanted apart from orgasms. Love maybe? The Pill had arrived. Sex was everywhere, right out in the open, available even to the spottiest. All you had to do was ask. Well not quite. You couldn’t just go jumping on people,there still needed to be some preliminary negotiations, but there was plenty of interest and getting laid wasn’t too difficult. So there’s a lot of sex, frank discussion of sex, and nobody is squeamish saying ‘fuck’. Frequently. The girls in particular are embarrassingly liberated. They can’t stop talking about their tits and clits. There’s much of the usual smart word play we expect from Amis otherwise it’s all a trifle tedious. He’s at his best when he deals with aging but you still have to get through a lot of puerile humour and not particularly funny literary jokes. As Keith himself observes ‘Sex is bad enough, as a subject, and the self is pretty glutinous too.’ It’s all a bit of a yawn really but it’s Marty so I’m sure most reviewers will gush all over it. I'm probably just jealous.

Coppins and Musgrave

2010-06-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

Coppins and Musgrave will be appearing at Wizz's Sitting Room, The Selkirk, 60 Selkirk Road, Tooting SW17 0ES 8.30pm on June 24th. Admission £5 (Tooting Broadway Tube)

William has Phun.

2010-05-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

I’m pretty sure it was Brion’s idea. Very simple, he said, you take a train from Victoria to Worthing, get off and look for a local bus. Just ask the first aimless looking hippie you see. Who knows, you may even get a piece of ass. And I strongly advise you William, he added, using his best mid-Atlantic phraseology, to shoot up before you go. The chances of finding any horse are slim to none and you don’t want to be caught carrying in Worthing. So nobody packed me a hamper. In fact I wasn’t carrying much apart from my briefcase and the tape recorder. The train mainlined me deep into the lush countryside of Surrey or Sussex or Somewhere. Such a civilized country England. Uptight but civilized. On the way I skimmed through the promotional literature. Phun City. A festival it said. Phun. Pretty Things? Pink Fairies? Hmmmm sounds promising. Just before the train pulls into a place called Brighton I crack a tab of Methadone (1,1-diphenylbutane-2-sulfonic acid and dimethylamino-2-chloropropane) developed in 1939 Germany by scientists working for I.G. Farbenkonzern at the Farbwerke Hoechst. They were looking for a synthetic opioid that could be created with readily available precursors, to solve Germany's opium shortage problem. People, all young, all with long hair, are sitting in groups around a stage. I notice some ominous looking scaffolding. Towers open fire. I get a whiff of hash smoke. Sweetish. Almost certainly Red Leb. There’s a light show. Music. Nobody pays much attention to me. Just the occasional ‘Who’s the old bloke in the suit with earphones?’ Words can hurt. It occurs to me that we could start a tapeworm club and exchange body sound tapes. The word ‘free’ comes up a lot. There’s a group called Free (who refuse to play for free apparently), a free food kitchen (nettle soup), a hamburger stand (under attack) and even a sign flashing a message …“London has been nuked, you are now free”. I start to feel faint. Too much fresh air. Where’s Doc Benway when you need him? Next thing I’m coming to in a kind of tent. Everybody is very helpful. One of the organizers hands me a cup of lukewarm tea. I switch on the tape-recorder. They are complaining about gatecrashers, especially a group called the Swampies, a bunch sleeping rough in the woods. But there’s no gate to crash. No fence. What do they expect? Funny really how even in a situation like this a hierarchy quickly develops. Politics. Outside again and it starts to rain. My trilby elicits some envious looks. I am approached by a girl holding a plastic bag. I make a modest donation. The rain gets heavier. I take a cab back to the railway station. On the train back to London I make a few notes. I’ll work them into something later…

Thai troubles.

2010-05-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

Trying to be topical I would like to draw your attention to E@Ls thoughts on the Thai revolution or whatever it is. And here are some dramatic pictures taken by intrepid photographers. doc40 thinks it's coming to a town near you. Meanwhile Tim Footman takes a piercing look at the media coverage. It's all connected.

Literary ghosts.

2010-05-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

Has Facebook lost its lustre?

2010-05-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

Confirm or deny. Edit profile...

Meet Gordon Camerlegg.

2010-05-08T11:40:00.001-07:00

a well connected ordinary public school bloke with a slight accent. thanks to Mr. Veryverybored for clearing things up...

Thai politics.

2010-05-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

The trouble in Bangkok triggers international repercussions....

The cartoon game.

2010-04-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

Wow! The Ryanair PR team comes up with a neat cartoon.... Molly has second thoughts about hers.... Matt Bors just can't decide.

Hanson Blues.

2010-04-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

something nice for marshmallow....
Thinking 'Bout Somethin'

HANSON | MySpace Music Videos

Shake girl.

2010-04-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

Blogging is dead. So says Chuck Woww. He's twitting mainly these days and dabbling in Facebook. Still he has to post his metafictional movie reviews somewhere so looks like I'm it. 'Brighton Line' - a review by C.Woww. One hardly knows what to say about ‘Brighton Line’. But one will have a go anyway. Somebody has to. Directed from prison by Roman Polanski it’s a rambling story centered on Simon and Arthur who probably both have surnames. They were at Grammar School together, read Henry Miller simultaneously on Brighton beach and hitchhiked to India together trying to be beatniks. They were ahead of their time in a way. The first in what would become a steady stream of young Westerners going East. There is a touching scene where Arthur watches a cargo ship leaving for Penang from the window of the British Consul’s office in Madras (Chennai). Back in England, after the trip to India obviously, Simon and Arthur begin to go their separate ways. Arthur marries Alice mainly because she is pregnant and has just inherited a tobacco and newsagent shop in a small town which Arthur helps her run. The shop not the town. Simon gets into rock writing and goes on to become a well-known TV personality. Alice dies and Arthur disappears in Northern Thailand not that anybody misses him much. Mixing cast and characters could make for a confusing film one would think but in the skillful hands of convicted rapist Polanski the nuances are perfectly captured without being laid on with a trowel. Nobody is sure who actually wrote the screenplay but it’s narrated by somebody called Dick Headley a retired property developer living on a yacht in the Virgin Islands with 4 or 5 Thai girls. Me? I just write movie reviews. It’s a living. Having Sir Ian McKellen play the young Arthur was a stroke of genius by someone. He even finds an element of humour in Arthur’s endless introspection, self-hatred and escapist tendencies. There is a slightly unconvincing performance by George Clooney as Chuck. Clooney looks right but he seems a little too smug somehow. Michael Sheen is in fine form however, part David Frost, part Brian Clough, part Tony Blair. Sheen is perfect for the role of Simon. Olivia Williams is wonderful as the mysterious Samantha and Dick Headley plays himself (apparently both Ray Winstone and Alfred Molina were unavailable). The generic Chelsea Mews and Portobello Road locations will be familiar to most Londoners while the more exotic scenes were filmed in Marbella and at ‘Brown Sugar’ the Flashman family plantation on Barbados. Highlights include Simon interviewing William Burroughs in Fortnum and Mason’s tearoom and some grainy footage of an impromptu Hawkwind concert somewhere. All Saints Hall, Notting Hill circa 1969 most likely. Arthur’s musings get a little tedious but the ante is upped considerably after Dick gets into a fight with Bob Dylan on a Caribbean beach and Simon hosts the Brit Awards. There is plenty of light-hearted banter along the way, Butch and Sundance kind of stuff. Simon and Arthur meet again in Bangkok and have a few beers. Throw in a few cameo appearances by well-known cultural figures and you have a potted history of the last 50 years. About halfway through some viewers may be gently reminded of Gertrude Stein’s facetious remark about Oakland, Calif. to wit ‘There is no there there.’ but since the whole thing was adapted from an unpublished novel at least nobody will be able to say the book was better. Another graphic novel.....loaded with sexual ambiguity and reviewed. It's all about the words...

Birds and animals of Thailand.

2010-04-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

Thailand is home to many birds and animals. Here is a pigeon enjoying a hearty breakfast. Not a very good picture because the lighting wasn't ideal and the pigeon wouldn't stand still and the photographer had a hangover. Voici Gustav, a highly intelligent yellow-crested cockatoo from Indonesia who likes to fly around the lobby of a hotel in Pattaya screeching at the guests. It's not a bad life but he does get lonely. He tries not to think about the partner he left behind on Sulawesi and the way his species is disappearing due to demand from the pet market. Still Gustav is lucky not to be a parrot. If he was he would be screeching 'Fuck Off' in 8 different languages. Thai chickens are fast. They have to be. The slow ones risk getting caught and turned into votive offerings. Or the main ingredient in tom kha gai* along with a lot of lemon grass and garlic. The biggest ones are sold to KFC. It is all part of the great cycle of life and death. Most Thai cats are receptive to attention. Some of them may become quite attached. Elephants have a natural talent for the tourist business. Their photogenic qualities make them a big hit with tourists. Some may see this as exploitation but it beats illegal logging. Here we see a baby elephant with his mahout, an irresistible combination. Dog's are everywhere in Thailand. The ones with collars usually belong to someone. It's the law. Meet Bruce from down-under. Bruce is 3/4 Blue Heeler 1/4 wombat. Following a painful divorce he decided to try his luck in Thailand and now makes his home on the beach in Pattaya where he’s doing alright. Don’t be fooled by the various props Bruce uses. It’s actually a clever trick to get you to part with your money. *Tom kha gai recipe: 2 cups (16 fl oz/500 ml) coconut milk 6 thin slices young galangal or blue ginger (kha orn) 2 stalks lemon grass/citronella (ta-krai), lower 1/3 portion only, cut into 1-in (2.5-cm) lengths and crushed 5 fresh kaffir lime leave (bai ma -grood), torn in half 8 oz (250 g) boned chicken breast, sliced 5 tablespoons (2 1/2 fl oz/75 ml) fish sauce (nam pla) 2 tablespoons sugar 1/2 cup (4 fl oz/125 ml) lime juice 1 teaspoon black chili paste (nam prik pow) 1/4 cup cilantro/coriander leave (bai pak chee), torn 5 green Thai chili peppers (prik khee noo), crushed How to cook: 1. Combine half the coconut milk with the galangal, lemon grass and lime leave in a large saucepan and heat to boiling. Add the chicken, fish sauce and sugar. 2. Simmer for about 4 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked. Add the remaining coconut milk to the saucepan and heat just to boiling. 3. Place the lime juice and chili paste in a serving bowl then pour the soup into the serving bowl. 4. Garnish with the torn cilantro leaves and crushed chili pepper, and serve. SERVES 4

Travel tips.

2010-04-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

You want to get away from it all, maybe travel round the world, but nasal hair can be a big problem. Naturally you want the best nasal hair remover you can find. One that doesn't take up a lot of room. Seasoned travelers will instantly recognize the Groom Mate Platinum XL Nose Hair Trimmer. I personally would never go round the world without one. Thanks to this dude for the travel tips. Here's another little gadget you may find useful when you're stuck between flights.

The Audition.

2010-03-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

The hotel isn’t top of the line but it isn’t too awful. Simon likes the anonymity. He checks in without being recognized. So far so good. Only one bag so nothing much to unpack. He showers, changes and out he goes into the Bangkok night. He locates the entertainment plaza easily enough and soon he’s in the thick of the famous Bangkok nightlife. Thanks to a few weeks worth of stubble and a baseball cap pulled down in front nobody recognizes him. Simon wanders around before allowing himself to be ushered into one of the bars by a young lady in thigh length high-heeled black plastic boots with Jimmy Page symbols on them. He slips into a dark corner. So this is one of the famous Bangkok go-go bars. It looks much as he expected. Central stage area, chrome poles, a line of girls gyrating to disco type music. One of the girls catches his eye and he finds himself smiling back. Why not? She finishes her dance and joins him. She snuggles up and asks him where he comes from. The moon he says. She doesn’t follow that up. You very hansum man she says. Really? Well he’s not going to fall for lines like that but there is something rather charming about the way she keeps making minor adjustments to her skimpy little outfit. Apart from that she doesn’t seem to have a lot to say. You pay bar? An older woman has suddenly appeared. The girl’s agent presumably, mamasan or whatever they call themselves. You like this girl? She want go with you. Decision time. There are some minor negotiations with the mamasan…short time? Long time? He decides on the short time option and waits while she changes into street clothes… Walking back to the hotel with her is a little embarrassing but they certainly aren’t the only inter-racial couple on the street. They even share the lift with two grinning young men from Scunthorpe and their respective companions. My name Nok says the girl. Nok? OK. With the door safely locked they shower separately. Nok first, then Simon who takes his fanny pack with him to the bathroom. Nok, now wearing nothing but a towel, busies herself with the remote. Ooo…bik! It has been a long time since Simon’s member has elicited such an excited response. Big? He’s always thought of it as fairly normal. Perhaps she’s comparing it to Asian models she’s come across. Anyway she obviously likes it if the slurping sounds are anything to go by and her raven black hair does fall beautifully over his stomach. What next? Should he let her continue or is he supposed to just flip her over and plunge in? His mind is made up for him. She has deftly unwrapped a condom with one hand and she’s slipping it gently over his knob. Good. He doesn’t want any nasty souvenirs of Bangkok. She certainly has talent. Quite beautiful too in some ways. Such a waste really. Does she have any ambitions? Perhaps she can sing? Her breath smells of garlic but that can be fixed. Nah, don’t start that. Pretty soon she’s sitting on him and moving up and down. Giving pleasure or concentrating on her own, who knows? He slows her down. There’s no rush. Plenty of time to enjoy the sensation and analyse his feelings. What are they precisely? Guilt? Hardly. He shed the last traces of that years ago. It’s more a kind of detachment, as if he’s part of a TV documentary about single males in Bangkok. He is half-expecting a SWAT team of grim looking feminists to crash through the door. The Daily Mail would have fun with that one. Gotcha Simon! Well known TV personality caught with pants down. Meanwhile events have come to a satisfactory conclusion. And that’s it. He watches her dress, gives her 2000 baht plus a little extra to assuage his residual conscience and off she goes into the night. It had been interesting. Sordid but interesting. The money exchange had been very matter of fact and he feels no great sense of shame. In fact he feels no great sense of anything. Still it was something to think about on the 12 hour flight back to London. Comfortable in first class he lets his mind wander. It had been an amusing little diversion. Something different. It hadn’t been exactly what he’d been expecting but there had been something about it…the sex itself had been nothing special, just another piece of tail really but he’d liked the clandestine aspect. It had added an element of risk, and the monetary transaction had an interesting dimension. He might do it again sometime. Is the cell phone on or off? On obviously because he’s just starting to doze when he gets a call from Giles. You need a new battery mate. Where the fuck are you? Not telling. OK but I’ve got a pile of stuff here you need to sign and FOX are mumbling about a new contract. Bugger FOX. Bugger ’em all. There must be more to life than TV.

Market Street, San Francisco, 1905.

2010-03-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

Work from home

2010-03-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

using the most up-to-date technology.

Clocktowers and Tesco Lotus.

2010-03-12T01:32:00.000-08:00

Remember the old clock tower in Chiang Rai? Back when the place was just a sleepy little market town? Well things are changing. Chiang Rai now has a brand new clock tower designed by famous Thai artist Ajarn Chalermchai Khositphiphat in an elaborate Lanna style. Chalermchai’s current incarnation is the creative force behind the famous White Temple or Wat Rong Khun situated just South of Chiang Rai. The temple is an ongoing project begun in 1998. Here you’ll also find an exhibition of Chalermchai’s paintings showing a range of work based on Buddhist themes, impermanence, freedom from desire etc. along with more contemporary comments on things like globalization and nuclear war. Well worth a visit. Apart from the clock tower Chiang Rai now has a new bus station a walking street and of course a Tesco Lotus. And, great news for cholesterol lovers, the All Day English Breakfast has found it's way up from Pattaya! Now you can enjoy a full range of exotic delicacies like Shepherd's Pie, Bangers and Mash and Beans On Toast while you watch your favourite premier League teams on flat screen TV. Life is change.

Tuk-tuk girl.

2010-03-04T03:02:00.000-08:00

This is Kaek, tuk-tuk driver extraordinaire, in Chiang Mai. She can usually be found on Soi 1, Rajdamnoen, behind the Montri Hotel. She will be happy to take you for a ride.

I hesitate to use the word 'liberal' but...

2010-01-31T11:10:00.000-08:00

talking of up-to-date...

Lower Suk.

2010-01-28T08:56:00.000-08:00

Another Chuck Woww ripoff.... ‘What a bloody circus!’ ‘It is indeed.’ Arthur has found somebody to talk to. Feeling like a bit of a sit down he has perched himself on a plastic chair on Lower Sukhumvit. It’s late but he isn’t ready for bed just yet. One more beer won’t hurt. A large sweaty farang has joined him at the rickety table. It's that time again. The revelry on the street is slowly turning to desperation. Just a few katoeys left now. ‘I’m on medication you know’. ‘Really?’ says Arthur. ‘Mogadon.’ ‘Arthur.’ ‘Yes. Can’t manage without it. Had to get out of England. The place was driving me mad.’ ‘I know the feeling.’ ‘I feel better in Thailand. Oh you can find trouble easy enough but it’s normally the tourists who get them selves in trouble. They don't take responsibility They think they can come here and get pissed or they take drugs when there’s warnings at the airport about it and then they start getting mouthy and disrespectful so the cops pick them up and they start screaming about scams and extortion and that but they think because they don't have the money they should be let go and not pay the fine.’ ‘Definitely.’ ‘It’s these bloody experts that annoy me. You meet some who’ve been here years. The cynical old bastards. Think they know everything about Thailand just because they speak the language a bit or they fell in love and spent all their money on some Thai tart twenty years ago. Always going on about the ‘good old days’. Wankers.’ ‘I know the type.’ ‘I blame the TV. All these programs about the sex trade in Thailand. Daft buggers. Then they come here and splash all their money in go-go bars buying so-called lady-drinks. I saw one of those programs once. It’s the reason I’m here I think. Made Thailand look like fucking paradise it did.’ A large African lady in an electric blue Spandex suit is blocking the view. She comes straight to the point. ‘You fuck me. 5000 baht.’ Arthur smiles politely and declines. She flounces off. ‘All these single blokes in Britain sitting looking out of the window at the pouring rain as the forecast said for the next 3 months watching the wheelie bin inspector checking to see if he put a bottle in the wrong box, and reading his extortionate council tax bill while he’s wanking over Dierdre Barlow on Corrie. Cause he’s worrying about finding enough money to pay his TV license and will he get a fine through the post as the camera flashed him while doing 35 in a 30 zone, while reading the Sun which is telling him how the Government and MP's are voting them selves a 30% pay rise so soon after the scandal in the house where over half the MP's were shown to be fiddling their expenses but were they taken to task for it? Were they buggery….’ Arthur looks around. Lower Sukhumvit has certainly become seedier over the years, no doubt about it. At one time it had been quite pleasant. There was room for everyone. Now some sois are Arabian bazaar and Thermae is a Japanese tourist attraction. And that’s not counting present company. Where do all these people come from? Why do the Thais let them in? And what about all these mobile bars? Isn’t anybody in control? ‘Then in the middle of all this he’s half listening to the report on the Pakistani families who are getting an allowance for their kids back in Pakistan who don't even exist followed by the report of the parents at the local school in Dover who received a letter from the School board warning then not to allow their kids to walk to school alone from the train station because of the amount of Kosovan asylum seekers who are free loading in the guesthouses stealing the kids money and phones but nothing was done because no one in the police could speak the lingo. ‘And along with all that the cost of fuel beer and fags is going up again, then his mobile rings and it’s his Lawyer telling him that now he has lost his house in the recent divorce he has to pay his wife 300 quid a week to look after the kids when he knows 200 of it goes on her Bingo and she already gets more in benefits than he does. ‘Then he opens his mail and the first letter says he has to wait over a year for his hernia op which has been giving him pain already for months and he has to go to a hospital miles away for the op, the second one is his 10 year savings bond which unfortunately has accumulated sod all in fact he has lost 50 % of his money, then there’s a brown envelope asking for donations for hungry horses...' Arthur isn’t really listening. Tonight feels different somehow. There is tension in the air. ’So he thinks, sod it I’ll go down the pub, but it’s pissing down and freezing and he can’t have a fag in there anyway and the beer is bloody expensive and his ex-wife will probably be in there buying all her mates a drink with his money or maybe go and see his elderly mother in the rest home that's costing her 300 quid a week for a pokey little room owned by an Indian family who learnt how to manipulate the system by getting a cheap relocation mortgage and started up a rest home with a big incentive from the government, all that 300 quid out of her savings when she sold her house, but then he would have to pay a lot of inheritance tax if she left it to him so may as well give it to the Indian family. ‘He doesn't really want to watch the news again telling him how 15 British soldiers were blown up in Afghanistan and that one of the bombers shot used to live next door to him and his family live in London and go to the new mosque which was funded by the British Government and can be seen from the moon and that the children of the family receive a grant to get better than normal education, while they don't need to wear a crash helmet as they wear a traditional turban as this is their religion. ‘Then he remembers the drunk driver who killed his pal’s son in a hit and run but got off because there was insufficient evidence but everyone knew he did it, and with all this he’s still paying the fine for verbally abusing the Somali taxi driver for refusing to get in his taxi because he was a muslim and was taken to court for racial abusing him.’ ‘It sounds like one thing after another,’ says Arthur. ‘Right. So one day he just says sod it and off he goes to Thailand where they don't worry about a few petty rules and regulations. It's warm and sunny and peaceful, the people are friendly, you can buy yourself out of trouble and the girls don’t care what you look like…’ A tank rumbles past followed by several truckloads of men in riot gear. ‘Chek bin kap.’ Says Arthur. ‘And another thing……’ (Thanks to Dave at Canterbury Tales Cafe, Soi Chaiyapoon, Pattaya. All day English breakfast 90 baht.) More Thai stuff... And Stickman has an Epiphany.

Huxley versus Orwell.

2010-01-23T11:34:00.000-08:00

If you enjoy a stimulating philosophical debate you may want to check here. OK, Aldous and George weren't cool young dudes who posed naked for centerfolds and they wouldn't even get past the first audition on American Idol. But they made some pretty good predictions.

Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail.

2010-01-18T08:54:00.000-08:00

Let's say you enjoyed Avatar but you're still not sure about the meaning of life and you're in the mood for something a little more meaty. You may want to check out the latest Rockmother Production.....

Living with Avatar.

2010-01-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

Dancing with wolves or hang-gliding with pterodactyls through the spectacular floating mountains, it’s anti-greed, anti-war, state of the art anti-technological neo-Pantheistic War and peace. It’s got everything. Even a huge deposit of Unobtanium. We’re all connected even if our glasses don’t fit too well or we flinch when the gas canister comes bouncing towards us. The imperialists are humiliated and the hippies finally win one. Reality just doesn't seem the same. (I've been having problems with the comments feature. Sorry about that. DH)

Banksy does not believe in global warming.

2010-01-04T10:40:00.001-08:00

But Simon Cowell fancies himself as the ballet master...

Chuck Woww update.

2010-01-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

Another new year is upon us. That means the annual Chuck Woww update. This time he's asked me to let you know that his next novel, tentatively titled 'Brighton Line', is nowhere near ready. You'll just have to be patient. He can't be bothered working on it he says which is a better excuse than anything we get from E@L. In the meantime you can buy copies of 'Losing the Plot' here. And then you will have something to read on the beach. It's not that long. You can probably read it before your sunscreen wears off. And nobody minds if you get a bit of sand between the pages. The Beach by Alex Garland was pretty good too I thought. This tropical beach is in the outer Hebrides so take a sweater. Time to check on Mr. Veryverybored. Oh dear, he's still tangled up in the Christmas lights. Maybe we should all go ice-fishing.

Lady Gaga for dummies.

2009-12-22T06:57:00.000-08:00

I admit I was quick to dismiss Lady Gaga. Just a female version of Marilyn Manson I thought with real tits that squirt flame. But I have been obliged, by a close relative who, in the family tradition, wishes to remain nameless, to revise my opinion. I’ve been told there may be more to Lady Gaga than meets the eye. So I did a bit of research. Turns out there are many schools of thought. Alex Donohoe, who as everybody knows, is front-man for the Rakes, thinks she’s ugly trash. She dresses like a prostitute he says. Dlisted is even blunter about it. They think she looks like a giant butt nugget surrounded by fart bubbles! Course they may be doing a bit of self promotion themselves. Just Jack just thinks she just sounds like a robot. But it’s not all bad Arctic Monkeys are covering Poker Face. And you have to admire her ambition. She wanted to be famous and she is. Perhaps even a star. Basically she’s a performance artist if you ask me. Steeped in irony. More sexual ambiguity than you can shake a stick at. She's a sort of sexy Laurie Anderson. AND she's made friends with Madonna! You might expect a bit of cattiness, or at least friendly rivalry. Not at all. Debbie Harry likes her. Edie Sedgwick probably would have been a fan. A Warhol series is not hard to imagine. So what we are witnessing here may well be the final triumph of form over content. Is she exploring the relationship between physiognomy and perception? Or something a good deal less profound? She's so darned enigmatic. Fashion is a big part of it. Gaga loves dressing up and making broad statements about fame and the price thereof. The New York Times was not impressed. They say she nicked the bubbles off Hussein Chalayan. I'm staying well out of that one. So if you’re trying to make up your mind about Lady Gaga there are a lot of opinions to choose from. Something for everybody in fact. Take your pick. She’s rumoured to like oily men in Speedos so I’m keeping my legs crossed.

Gulf Stream.

2009-12-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

Brit Awards eh? Due for a few of those myself. I’ve been blogging for 6 bloody years now and still no knighthood. But I'm not bitter about it. What an exhilarating Odyssey it has been. Brixton to Brighton, Bangkok to Barbados with many exotic stop-offs in between. And what an amazing bunch of people I’ve met along the way. You know who you are. The ‘non-fight’ on the beach ends with a draw by the way. Jimmy and Bob wander off down the beach. So I round the girls up and get them back on the boat. We bid farewell to Foxy’s fair haven and set an easterly course which is never easy down here but today we’re lucky and we soon pick up a nice little breeze. Mainsail and a jib should do it. Funny meeting Simon like that. Brit Awards eh. Wouldn’t mind watching that. Got to keep up with the trends. Which reminds me. It’s time for the Annual Dick Headley Stream of Consciousness Competition again. There’s no actual deadline but we anticipate a lively turn out this year so get those entries in early. Stream of consciousness as you are no doubt aware is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow, tracing a character's fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings. Not to be confused with dramatic monologue used chiefly in poetry and drama wherein the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself) and generally considered a fictional device. Making it look natural is the trick, which is why I’m sat up the back in my Speedos with a flying fish in my lap. Wardrobe adjustment time. Or you can think of it as a variant on word association if you like. Just don’t be afraid to edit it a bit so it looks spontaneous. The British Virgin Islands for instance are located a few degrees south of the Tropic of Cancer which got me thinking about Henry Miller. Old Henry liked to let his mind wander...chaos is the score upon which reality is written said Henry. James Joyce, Virginia Woolfe they all had a crack at it like so I’m thinking why not have a go yourself Dick put ‘Milly’ not Molly on a long tack and have a little Irish ramble tá fáilte romhat just like Henry bare light-bulb stuff Miller I can still smell the formaldehyde dodging psychophants in Plaka picking up the mail at the American Express in Syntagma Square now a McDonalds writing long excited letters to Larry sipping ouzo in a Piraeus whorehouse deciding eventually on a tallish one with melancholy eyes words flitting comma thousands of them comma like fireflies between Paris and Corfu or enjoying a coffee in Les Deux Magots pissoirs and Gauloises perhaps buying a Herald Tribune from Jean Seberg look-alikes in ginger genes while I wait for inspiration at a long marble bar long hand no revision just let it run or an Irish Times lost in the ladies lavatory and don’t worry too much about the intelligibility and communicability of each momentary thought bugger punctuation he has a wife and eight children in Bombay not to mention the numerous little femmes de chambre try the italic feature picked up along the way it’s all female flesh and they all get mixed up with Molly anyway if you read enough no not the one from Flanders a whore always shoplifting anything she could cloth and stuff and yards of it dreaming of Angus her long distance lover stuck in Fort Athabasca with nothing but Cree maidens for company and his bulky cumbersome laptop made of spruce gum and sinew covered with birch bark it could take weeks for an article to reach Rolling Stone but no wors’n Uncle Slayton with his Texan pride back in the thickets with his Asian bride got a Airstream trailer and a Holstein cow still makes whiskey 'cause he still knows how plays that Choctaw bingo every Friday night you know he had to leave Texas but he won't say why Lily Allen’s tits maybe a real Sarah Palin recession’s over swine flu war is peace bail out the bankers balloon boy a lot of talk about free speech lately should the BNP be allowed to speak on television rocking the boat etc. marginalizing these characters has always worked but the anger keeps simmering now we’re seeing the backlash personally I find a lot of what passes as free speech every bit as insidious as the inflammatory kind who would have believed that millions could be talked into eating dried flakes of mushed cattle feed for breakfast Stan working the dodgems with Johnny Ray blaring and an old crone in a caravan with a turntable and a stack of 78’s she’d sit by herself drinking Mackeson Triple Stout and smoking Weights Stan’s uncle was a steward on an ocean liner he said the best music wasn’t on the hit parade it was made by darkies in America the works of Robert Johnson being the purest form of poetry and talking of poetry if speed poetry's your game then Tim Clare may be your man or you can try the Poet Laureate who's come up with her own festive offering which involves a buzzard on a branch here I'll save you a search full stop Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas from Tesco.

2009-12-15T11:30:00.000-08:00

Yet another ethical dilemma. Is Tesco a serious contender for the 2009 Bad Taste Award? Or should mom lighten up?

Gareth Pearson.

2009-12-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

talented young guitarist. Catch him live in Wizz's Sitting Room at The Selkirk, 60 Selkirk Road, Tooting. Dec 22nd. at 8.30pm.

Red Dawn the remake.

2009-12-09T08:13:00.000-08:00

America braces itself for for the next massive attack. And by sheer coincidence another superb piece of writing by Marina Hyde See also E@L on the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Keeping the legend alive.

2009-12-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

Esher! I mean really. Where does he think he is...Vladivostok?

The Brit Awards.

2009-11-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

Pleasant trip to BVI. The few days on Necka were especially relaxing. Sir Richard was his usual charming self. The perfect host. Tough as nails underneath of course. We chatted about old times when I sold his magazines on street corners. Had a good chuckle over that. Now it’s back to gloomy London. The rain. Keep busy is the trick. Tonight it’s the Brit Awards where it will be my privilege to introduce a succession of foulmouthed young drug addicts and make a few sarcastic remarks...in a nice way of course. Hope it won’t be too dreadful. Only one bag so I go straight from Heathrow to South Kensington on the tube, peasant class. Nobody recognizes me. Which is both a relief and somewhat disappointing. Short walk from the tube station along King’s Road and I’m back in the mews. The house is just as I left it. Russian oligarchs on each side now but I still like it. The renovations were definitely worth doing. Can’t remember what it looked like when I bought it all those years ago. Easier to imagine it in Dickensian times when it was used for coaches and teams of horses. My bedroom once held hay. The living room was the stable-boys quarters. Another small room upstairs was perhaps a tack room or stable-boy’s quarters. Now I use it for storing Hockney drawings, Furry Freak Brothers Comics, back issues of OZ, first editions of Naked Lunch and other collectibles. Good strong lock on the door. Coming in off street level it’s always amusing to think of great draft horses munching on hay and pissing foaming streams across the Kerman Ravar. Time for a shower and a change of clothes and it’s off to Earls Court. The Brit Awards turn out better than I expected. Bit awkward at first. I feel like a relic from the Age of Aquarius but it passes. Nobody runs naked across the stage. Even Jarvis seems restrained. My jokes go down well and I actually start to enjoy myself. Obviously a lot of the audience hate me but that’s par for the course. What were they expecting? Russell Brand? Still I get a good round of applause and everybody seems to have a good time. As usual the action is all backstage. That hasn’t changed. No stink bombs. Minimal dry ice. I mill around chatting amiably with this group and that, trying to remember their names. Lots of grinning entrepreneurial types in power suits, rock-writers trying to pin down elusive Zeitgeists, surfer dudes looking for the next wave. Everybody is bright and outgoing and optimistic and nobody misbehaves. It’s all good clean family fun. I find Pete Dougherty having a cup of tea with Amy. Self-destruction temporarily on hold. ‘Outrageously’ coiffured young presenters keep coming up and screaming what a pleasure it is to meet me. Bullshit. They’d dance on my grave. Oh well…that’s the way it goes. The son kills the father or tries to…but they haven’t got me down yet. A person called Gaga or Google or something smears lipstick on my suit. A young lady called Lily is much more polite. She offers me an exclusive which is nice of her. Of course she may have been taking the piss. And that Duffy is quite tasty. I give the Gallagher Brothers a wide berth but even they seem subdued. All I get is a surly scowl. So the whole thing goes quite smoothly. The British music industry has finally got the award show it always wanted. Structured, safe and no embarrassing moments. So what was I doing there? Letting the buggers know I’m still on the ball I suppose. Suss out the up-and-comers. But I mustn’t be grumpy. I’m glad I did it. It was interesting just to see if any other old farts turned up. Silly really but you’ve got to keep up with the trends. Disappear for too long and you’re dead. Piercings? No thanks, and I’ll pass on the nose-rings thank you. I did think about getting my ears pierced once, well one ear anyway, but it wouldn’t look right. Simon’s just trying to be hip they’d say. I feel sorry for them in a way. They’ve got no taboos left to shatter. They’re inhibited too but they won’t admit it. Brainwashed by decades of political correctness. Scared to say anything in case it offends someone but wanting to push the envelope at the same time. Meanwhile the audience has become unshockable anyway. I meet a young photojournalist from Tokyo who seems up for it and I invite her back for a nightcap. Her name is Kiyoko. She is trying on one of Yumi’s kimonos when Mick shows up. He’s with his new girlfriend, another leggy American model, no visible tattoos. They’ve just come from India where they stayed with the Maharaja of Jodhpur. Mick offers his appraisal of my performance. He thinks I handled it well. Wouldn’t do it himself, he says, the resentment is almost tangible these days. We talked about this and that, who’s dead and who’s still living. The current fascination with the living dead. He’s thinking of buying a place round the corner he says. Six million quid after a few renovations. Simon Hurst is doing it. I wished him luck. Kiyoko serves cups of Horlicks ceremoniously much to Sir Michael’s obvious amusement, though his American companion is nonplussed. They just don’t get it.

Fresh air?

2009-11-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

Like like.

2009-11-21T11:23:00.000-08:00

I'm like posting this because like E@L like put it on his blog and I like think there should be like some kind of like campaign about like so like spread it around.

Anonymous sexblogs.

2009-11-16T15:00:00.001-08:00

The mystery is over. Belle de Jour has exposed herself. Was she writing fiction? Was she a man? Was she a well-known author having a giggle? Turns out she is none other than Dr. Brooke Magnanti who specializes in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology at a hospital in Bristol. So how does she feel about things now? Does she have any regrets? Well it's complicated. When is a prostitute not a prostitute? Is prostitution anything to be ashamed of? Did she do anal? These and other questions are subjected to rigorous scrutiny in an interview with the timesonline. Not to be outdone Zoe Margolis, remember her? girlwithaonetrackmind, wants to remind us that she too was outed. Ages ago. In fact she was first. So she knows what it's all about. She even has some advice for Brooke. Any more out there? This would be a good time to own up.

Visions of the future

2009-11-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

More here.

Gambling metaphors.

2009-11-10T05:36:00.000-08:00

Feel free to sing along... M-m-m-more I wanna hold 'em like they do in Texas, please Fold 'em let 'em hit me raise it baby stay with me Love game, intuition, play the cards with spades to start And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart Oh, woah, oh, oh, oh, oh I'll get him hot, show him what I got Oh, woah, oh, oh, oh, oh I'll get him hot, show him what I got [chorus] Can't read my, can't read my, no he can't read my poker face (She's got me like nobody) [x2] P-p-p-poker face, p-p-p-poker face M-m-m-more I wanna roll with him, a hard pair we will be A little gambling is fun when you're with me (I love it) Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun And baby when it's love if it's not rough it isn't fun (right?) Oh, woah, oh, oh, oh, oh I'll get him hot, show him what I got Oh, woah, oh, oh, oh, oh I'll get him hot, show him what I got [chorus] Can't read my, can't read my, no he can't read my poker face (She's got me like nobody) [x2] P-p-p-poker face, p-p-p-poker face M-m-m-more I won't tell you that I love you Kiss or hug you, 'cause I'm bluffin' With my muffin, I'm not lyin' I'm just stunnin' with my love glue gunnin' Just like a chick in the casino Take your bank before I pay you out I promise this, promise this... Check this hand 'cause I'm MARVELOUS [chorus] Can't read my, can't read my, no he can't read my poker face (She's got me like nobody) [x2] P-p-p-poker face, p-p-p-poker face M-m-m-more [repeat till end] Thanks to Mr. Veryverybored.

Song of Simon.

2009-11-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

Marina Hyde excels herself with this one. Anything I say would be superfluous. All I can do is wait for Mr. Mann's (Mr. Mann!!!) appearance on Hardtalk.

Song of Siam.

2009-11-05T06:55:00.000-08:00

Our changing world....

My life as a zombie.

2009-11-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

Being something of an agnostic all my life I just assumed that when I died that would be the end of it. Here one day, gone the next. I never expected to be stuck in a state of limbo. I was out of it alright but it wasn’t as if I was completely dead. I still kept noticing things. There were other dead people wandering around but none of them were very communicative. Needless to say I felt alienated and detached. I was finding it increasingly difficult to get along with the other zombies. I had a lot of time on my hands. So that’s how I came to join the zombie support group thinking I might find some kindred souls. What a bunch! Some of them are just plain brain-dead and it’s not easy to have a decent conversation. I try to be pleasant and all I get is a lot of blank stares. Waste of time. Mindless idiots. What annoys me most about them is their complete lack of curiosity. Nobody ever asks me what I did before I was a zombie (I used to be a much-loved TV personality) or how I manage to stay healthy. I’m not going to tell anyone about my stash of formaldehyde. Take Big Roy for instance. Talk about thick. He never says a word. He just sits there in a state of suspended decomposition. Well OK his mouth’s sewn up but still you’d think he could manage a grunt now and then. Nothing. He stinks of rotting flesh too but of course nobody wants to say anything. Fiona, the group leader, is thinking of committing suicide again much to the amusement of Gav and Kev our resident teenagers. They died in a car crash but they don’t even seem to realize they’re dead. I don’t know why they come to the meetings. Very disruptive. Fiona should have a word with them. All they want to do is go round smashing up payphones. Great fun till somebody loses an arm. Then there’s Nigel always going on about zombie rights. Ha. We have no bloody rights that’s obvious. People just wish we’d go away. He’s the type who writes letters to the Guardian. But does he want a bunch of us camping out in his back garden? I don’t think so. All the rest just sit around looking stoned. I tell them we need to stay focused. Now they want me to be group leader. Me! Mr. Weltshmerz. It’s all so bloody tedious. Tonight we are going out scaring people again. Basically this involves hanging around on street corners or coming up behind them when they least expect it. Staring at them through windows is another thing we do. Some variations would be nice but nobody has any imagination. Also I’ve noticed that it’s getting harder to scare the young people. Kids just laugh. You have to actually bite a chunk out of them to get any reaction. Some members find this very frustrating and I think that’s what encourages some of them to be more and more disgusting. Some of them are even getting into public necrophilia. They only do it because they’re bored. It’s a vicious circle and frankly I don’t know if it will ever end. Well I could go on but it would sound like moaning. Yes I know, it could be worse. I could be on a slab getting sliced up while medical students make crude jokes. Cheer up mate and that sort of thing.

Hard drive clean up.

2009-10-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

Amazing how this stuff piles up.

Inherent Vice.

2009-10-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

Just finished the new novel from Thomas Pynchon. Made some notes. It's a detective thriller set in LA in the late Sixties. Gordita Beach (Manhattan Beach?) to be precise, a fictional place the reclusive Mr. Pynchon knows well. The style is Chandleresque with a dash of Elmore Leonard. ‘Inherent Vice’ gives Pynchon a chance to indulge in some Sixties nostalgia. But not the way he did in the long drawn out, some might say dull, ‘Against The Day.’ This time he has a lot of fun recreating the scenes and characters of the post-hippie period and he obviously has a lingering affection for surf, drugs, and rock and roll. Everybody is stoned or tripping but it’s a surprisingly disciplined novel given the subject matter. The lonely, proud private eye is a favourite character in American fiction. Doc is not a typical example. He’s a likeable pothead with an Afro, less hard-boiled than Philip Marlowe and funny in a Cheech and Chong sort of way. Of course he’s cynical with it. You have to be in that job. He has plenty of spare time to sit in his office staring at a velvet painting of an idyllic California beach scene and trying to come to terms with the corruption of the counterculture, which is what the book is basically about. One day an ex-girlfriend, Shasta, shows up looking for help. She’s got herself involved with somebody called Wolfmann, an interesting mix of white Aryan Jewish Nazi tycoon real estate developer. There are many cartoonish characters with silly names. There are murders. There’s money involved too which puts Doc at odds with himself because he usually works for free. Lots of things happen but nothing too cryptic. References to “Hawaii Five-O”, Tiny Tim and the Archies may be a little obtuse for younger readers but generally speaking Pynchon sticks to the point. No metaphysical meandering. He still goes off on little tangents but stops well short of gonzo. And there’s a plot for those who like their prose linear. It’s complicated, even a bit messy, but it keeps you reading. I have a feeling hardcore Pynchon fans expecting another ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ might be disappointed. Under 400 pages for a start. This is a much more orthodox novel not likely to become a cult classic. I enjoyed it even if my own Sixties memories aren’t quite the same as Pynchon’s. Everybody who lived through it remembers it differently. Perhaps Pynchon has even exaggerated and embellished a few of his own more lurid memories. That’s fine. It makes for an entertaining read. Probably filmable too. Think ‘Big Lebowski’.

Caribbean wind.

2009-10-24T01:59:00.000-07:00

Even when you get away you still sometimes have to get away. Life is like that. I mean you have to be somewhere. I can always get the boat out but I still have to go from somewhere to somewhere else. There has to be a destination. It would be nice just to drift aimlessly but there is no random when you’re in a boat. On a boat random puts you on the rocks. Currents, riptides, sudden squalls, all have to be taken into account. There’s a bottomless pit just off to the side. Or an Oscar down at the pool all day drinking, farting and scratching his crotch. Narrating it all can be stressful. So, in keeping with the nautical theme, I decide to take a few of the girls out for a little sail. Normally I don’t bother with the tourist places. But I’ve got a soft spot for the island of Jost Van Dyke. It’s an easy sail. I’m not one of these New Age types but I know the Hand of Destiny when I feel it on my knee. And them Caribbean winds still blow, from Nassau to Mexico, fanning the flames in the furnace of desire. Jost Van Dyke was named after a Dutch pirate. We headed round to Foxy’s beach and found a lot of boats already there. The moorings were all taken so we dropped anchor in the sand. You have to be careful where you drop your hook in BVI these days because they try to protect the coral. First time I saw Foxy was with Samantha on our honeymoon. He was just a bloke with a guitar singing calypsos on the beach. His wife Tessa was selling lemonade from a makeshift stall under a palm tree. Hang on…come to think of it I was the one suggested he open a proper bar. Now look, they’ve got a bar spread across half the beach. Yachties everywhere eating and drinking. Further down the beach a big party is going on. It looks like Jimmy Buffet, Bob Dylan and that lot. Foxy’s got an amazing memory too. He spots me in the shallow water and comes running down the beach. Dick!!! How are you man…long time no see!! I could get all nostalgic and soppy here if I’m not careful. Hard not to with Foxy hugging me and Tessa waving from the bar. The memories come flooding back. ‘How are you then Foxy?’ I ask when he’s got me sitting back at the bar. ‘And who’s this?’ I point to a life-size model of Foxy playing his guitar. ‘That Epoxy Foxy Dick. He takes care of the place when I’m not around. So how’s life Dick? You looking good.’ ‘Very nice Foxy. Got a good boat. Good little crew.’ I can’t fool Foxy. And he’s too smart to ask about Samantha. But I’m not. ‘Was she here?’ ‘Oh she been a few times Dick. Got a surprise for you.’ ‘Dick!!!’ Somebody is approaching from the beach. Bugger me it’s Simon, or a very good copy thereof. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Just popped down. I was in New York. Doing Letterman.’ ‘Didn’t know you were like that.’ ‘The show Dick, the show. What about you?’ ‘I’ve been living down here. Remember Oscar? I keep my boat on his island. I just sail around. That’s my crew having a swim.’ ‘Thai?’ ‘Right.’ ‘Is Oscar still doing porn?’ ‘Flogging used mechanical cane-cutters to Castro.’ ‘That has a ring to it.’ A freighter is making its way slowly eastwards through the Francis Drake Channel. ‘He gets paid in Bacardi.’ Before the conversation can degenerate too far we are approached by a familiar figure. ‘Hi Simon,’ says a well known whiny croaky voice. ‘Oh hi Bob, Bob Dick. Dick Bob.’ ‘Bob.’ It’s him alright. Curly hair, hunted expression, Hawaiian shirt, baggy shorts, skinny white legs, wispy beard, eyepatch, pirate hat (the Skull and Crossbones logo has been replaced by ‘God Made Me Do It.’). Simon knows everybody. ‘Dick. Are those your Thai girls?’ Just like that. Bit rude really. Hallo I think, here we go again. ‘How do you know they’re Thai?’ I ask. ‘Limey arsehole. Don’t get smart with me. Everybody knows Thai girls man.’ What!?! He’s drunk obviously. I just ignore it but he takes a kick at my leg. It doesn’t hurt. I could give him a good right-hander in the gob but I just shove him lightly instead and down he goes. A crowd is gathering the way they do when there’s a fight. There’s a lot of tut-tutting from the yachties but nobody does much. Mostly people just shuffle around looking embarrassed. It’s not much of a punch-up. ‘What’s goin on here?’ says Foxy. ‘Bob hit Dick first,’ says someone. Bob’s rolling around on the ground muttering something about a Christmas Album. I hardly bloody touched him! Jimmy Buffet helps him up. Foxy is bringing me a drink. Then Jimmy Buffet has his arm round Dylan’s shoulder and he’s leading him away. Phew. It’s hard to believe it all happened. And all the time Simon’s got his cell-phone out. I’m wondering what it’s going to look like on Youtube.

Hot air.

2009-10-20T07:31:00.001-07:00

Tommy Cooper found in meat pie.

2009-10-16T08:36:00.001-07:00

I'm not going into this too deeply. You can read all about it here.

Tracey fucks off.

2009-10-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

I warned Mr. Cameron. Don't do it David, I said, do not anger this woman. She means what she says. Well it looks like he wasn't listening. Tracey is packing her tent.

More rock and roll moments.

2009-10-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

see my baby jive.. through the canyons of your mind.... idiot wind blows through Fort Collins... what every girl needs.... and who could ever forget the Seeds

The view from downunder.

2009-09-28T15:59:00.001-07:00

Weybridge.

2009-09-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

I just had a Skype call from the editor. Not happy. She seems to think we’re on dangerous ground. It’s starting to read like one of Chuck Woww’s Bangkok novels she says. Not that she’s read any of course but she knows the kind of thing. It’s Arthur she says. Sex tourism. Upsets women readers. ‘Not enough Dick?’ I ask. ‘Hmmm, it’s not that. I think we need more Simon.’ More Simon she says. Do I have to do everything? As if I can change my thought patterns just like that. Also I don’t quite see how it advances the narrative but there is no arguing with Samantha. She holds all the cards. In fact she has a whole arsenal of clichés at her fingertips and she won’t hesitate to use them. Resistance is futile. She knows every trick in the book. There are no flies on her. So here’s Simon, late Sixties, arriving at his friend John Dunbar’s place on Bentinck Street, W.1. Lennon is there and someone called Magic Alex. Greek bloke. He seems to have worked his way into the inner circle somehow. I don’t like him at all. They are looking at some kind of machine that is supposed to resurrect dead pharaohs or something. Sounds a bit silly. I just listen. John asks me if I’ve got my car. I say yes. They say they are going out to Weybridge to drop some acid. Come along if you like. The extra car will come in handy. Why not? It will be nice to get out of town. Unwind a bit. Find out what’s really goings on at Weybridge. The Alex creature disappears which is nice. It’s my first time at Lennon’s house. In the sunroom, safe as milk, he says, ‘Don’t look so worried Simon.’ ‘Do I? Sorry. I just don’t know. I suppose I was expecting something more….’ ‘Glamorous?’ ‘Something like that. Here you are at home doing the same things I do. Watching TV, drinking tea…’ ‘Picking me nose. I’m just a bloody scouser you know.’ ‘I’m not exactly landed gentry myself. Middle class small town Sussex. Long way from the Memphis.’ ‘Make some brass and move South. That’s my advice lad.’ ‘You do the accent very well.’ ‘Thanks. It’s all part of the act. So Mr. Dunbar did you bring the stuff?’ They intend to drop some acid. I decide to pass. I have to drive back into town for one thing. I don’t want to spoil the fun for another. It’s standard acid etiquette. Mind games are to be avoided at all costs during acid trips. Especially this one. World peace could be at stake. Funny thing is I don’t feel like a hanger-on at all. That Morrissey article in Rolling Stone has given me some clout. I need a pee. When I come back they’re raving. ‘Flashbacks is it? I can do those. Remember walking to school in the rain?’ ‘Dead wet leaves.’ ‘Fog. Woodbines behind the bike-sheds.’ ‘Barbers selling photographs.’ Fog? Wet leaves? Bugger that. Time for a walk. I find Cynthia and another woman in the kitchen cutting up onions. A very domestic scene and quite a contrast to the other goings on. Cynthia says hello. ‘You aren’t indulging today Simon?’ ‘Not today.’ I say. She knows very well what the Johns are up to in the sunroom. I’m never quite sure where I stand with Cynthia. She’s so bloody wholesome. And judgmental. It’s not hard to see his problem. I mutter a few pleasantries but no cup of tea is forthcoming so I wander outside onto the terrace. Terry is in the garage rolling a joint. We stare at the famous Rolls together. Rebellious? Ostentatious? I can’t decide. I suppose I should feel privileged to be here. Thousands of people would. But I’m starting to wonder why I came. Lennon seems bored. Fed up with pop lyrics, verse, chorus, middle eight. The Rolls offers no great insight. It probably seemed like a groovy idea at the time. Terry doesn’t care one way or the other. Just another motor. So I wander around a bit more. It’s nice enough. Big mock Tudor house. Shrubs, flowerbeds. All very English. But I don’t feel a lot of energy here. More like inertia. I’ve shelved any ideas of an interview by this point and I’ve got no camera, which is probably just as well. Out on the verandah a small boy is trying to fix a bike. This must be Julian. I offer to help. Turns out the saddle is loose and the gear cable needs some adjustment. Easily fixed. Otherwise nothing much was accomplished. Driving back to London, beneath Surrey’s blue suburban skies, I only partially listen to Dunbar solving the secrets of the universe. Do you hear what I hear?

Global regeneration.

2009-09-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

Don't just sit there, potentialize potential. Vertigilize vertigo.

Lily Allen's tits etc.

2009-09-14T09:30:00.001-07:00

I’m not sure if this has been photo-shopped or not but it looks like a fairly good example of what most guys look for in a mammary gland. The nipples are well rounded but not too pointy with just the right amount of surrounding areolae. The tits themselves appear plumpish but certainly not saggy (yuk), there are no disturbing blemishes and Lily’s expression is demure without being lascivious. This should have general appeal and help sell a few copies. All in all a very tasteful production. Well done Lily and the team! In a slightly more cynical vein we have this... gosuroris? I knew that.

The horrible ordeal of Jonathan Charles.

2009-09-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

Modern world.

2009-09-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

Blood on the tracks.

2009-08-27T13:37:00.001-07:00

Goodbye Joan... Goodbye Sara... Hello Isis.

A complete unknown.

2009-08-25T09:48:00.001-07:00

So I’m Samantha. The Eternal Female as Chuck likes to say in his supercilious patronizing way. Hard to know if it’s meant as a compliment or not. Isis, Ishtar, Artemis all rolled into one. Knowing Chuck it could be a reference to my bum. Think Venus of Willendorf. But he’s the author so he always gets the last word. Perhaps he wants me to come across as some kind of muse? As if being married to Dick and Simon simultaneously had some deep symbolic significance. I suppose I’m lucky I didn’t have to put up with Arthur too. The bumbling idiot. Last heard of in Thailand. Don't ask me what he gets up to there. It all started in the early Sixties. I was at art school. I suppose I did have something of an identity problem at the time. Couldn’t decide if I was Jewish from Golder’s Green or a debby type with snotty parents in the country. Woww solved the problem by making me both. Bastard. I was going to be an artist that was the plan but I got sidetracked like so many into the rapidly evolving pop music scene. I smoked my first joint in Simon’s pad in Ladbroke Grove. He was just back from India and getting into rock writing so we were a good fit. He was an ambitious bastard but clueless when it came to clothes. I took him to the in shops. It didn’t take much to turn him into a hip young dude around town. Those were great days in the Grove. Hawkwind and the Mountain Grill. On again off again. Free love. What you’d call casual sex these days. But nobody worried much about catching anything. Simon had a Mini-Cooper. We’d drive out to Rediffusion to be part of the crowd at Ready Steady Go. The girls were so much more in touch than the blokes in those days. Girls wore Mary Quant stuff and beehive hairdos whereas the boys were still wearing sports jackets…with ties! It was great mixing with the musicians and singers off stage. I met everybody. The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Kinks you could find them all there. I’m not sure even now if anybody really knew how big the whole thing was going to get. Maybe Andrew Oldham had some idea but he burned out early. The clothes darling! So many changes. Everything happened so fast. Biba’s one day, floral bell-bottoms and kaftans the next. That’s why I hate it when people call me a groupie. I’ve seen myself lumped with people like Pamela des Barres and the Plaster Casters in a few rock biographies. Very irritating. I wasn’t a complete nutter. In fact I functioned pretty well amongst all the chaos. I see myself as more the Jenny Fabian type. More of a mover and a shaker. Not just another freak hanging out. I couldn’t care less about the bloody books they keep churning out. And another thing I hate…when people ask me about what it was like having sex with pop stars. Did Jimi have a big one? What did Jimmy Page do with those whips, what was Syd really like? etc. As if anybody knows what Syd was like. He had identity problems. Who didn’t? A classic romantic. He grew up listening to Radio Luxembourg and Goon show probably like the rest of us. I thought he was nice. Now we have to listen to Bono. Then things got crazy. Everything was happening at the speed of Dylan. Hard Rain on Mr. Tambourine Man like a Rolling Stone. UFO was when things really took off. Suddenly there were lots of Americans in London. What’s your sign man? Want to throw some I-Ching? And lots of acid. Psychedelic was the new in word. The BBC didn’t know what to do about it. It was quite funny watching groups stoned out of their heads turn a TV studio to bedlam. Later it was clubs like Ad Lib, Speakeasy and the Bag of Nails. Which is where I met Dick Headley. Dick was another diamond in the rough when I met him. He’d just been fired from Arsenal for drugs and it was in all the papers. I took him under my wing and built his self confidence needed some work. He was so different from Simon. Simon’s studied naturalness was easy to fall for but he was a devious bastard underneath it all. Very ambitious…and long-sighted. I can see that now. I knew he wasn’t happy with the kind of writing he was doing. Things like record reviews for the NME. A publicist is what he was, albeit a darn good one. He was selling out and he knew it. But he did enjoy being at the epicenter of what was going on. Deep down he aspired to be like Burroughs and Beckett. Of course it was much more complicated than that but this is the potted version. The Sixties are really making the news these days. Nostalgia abounds. Everything from Abbey Road, to Woodstock. Bob Dylan gets arrested in New Jersey and the Manson Family start getting released. Of course we’re all in our sixties ourselves now. Not much time left. The kids must be fed up with it but it’s fun to remind them what they missed. No point telling them a lot of it just seems plain silly in retrospect. Acid for instance…all those elitist freaks wandering around smiling like they alone had the key to life’s mysteries, what rubbish, as if it was all so groovy. There were lots of casualties too. Syd miraculously making it across the road at Notting Hill Gate in heavy traffic. Not recognizing me. Staring into space. Emily plays. Simon never needed anybody’s help in any way. He loved himself too much. So Dick was a breath of fresh air. I ‘d never met anybody quite like Dick. He was a super-intelligent lout (thank you Sam), his Dad was in and out of prison so he’d more or less been brought up by his mum who was on the game (true). I don’t think he’d ever read a book in his life. I introduced him to the counter culture and it was fascinating to watch him at gallery opening and receptions. I loved the way he was completely unimpressed by ‘all that poncey stuff’. You always knew where you were with Dick. When I got pregnant the first time everything changed. I’d helped Anita through her miscarriage the year before and it had made me think. A lifestyle change was called for. That meant cutting out the drugs and getting out of London. Which I more or less did. The odd toke didn’t count. Giles was born in a nursing home in Bournemouth. Simon and Dick were surprisingly good about it. But it was an idiotic arrangement. Having two common-law husbands could never work. I decided I wasn’t going to be a co-dependent before I’d ever heard the term. So I got a good lawyer. When everything was settled I found myself with two kids, two houses, two lots of child support and no husband. Which suited me fine. I stayed friends with both of them but I liked my freedom. Though I must admit Dick can be a great comfort. Not that Dick. Thanks to the ristocrats.

Rock and roll moments

2009-08-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

In which Legs Larry Smith discusses Keith Moon's excesses... Steve Jones keeps the rhythm going while Michael Des Barres works the crowd (look for stray cats) Pamela promotes her book... America's answer to the Beatles fly in.... Patti Smith smashes the establishment... and Annie Liebovitz had no idea what she was getting into.

Hi, remember me?

2009-08-14T11:57:00.001-07:00

More talent from the Ukraine or thereabouts.

Ukraine's Got Talent.

2009-08-13T17:46:00.001-07:00

Sand animation by Kseniya Simonova.

Confused about health care?

2009-08-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

You're not the only one...Obama is going to kill us all and sell our organs!!! That picture came from here Things are coming to a boil. I can feel it. The blogging world is in rant mode. You can catch E@L, zimmy, momentary madness and morton letting rip. They aren't going to take it anymore. Even doc40 has trouble restraining himself. I know it's a copout but when it comes to politics I'm happy to let my cyberchums do the heavy lifting.

Abbey Road.

2009-08-07T18:28:00.001-07:00

I’d been to an opening at Indica. A Japanese girl had set some stuff up. There was an all-white chess set and a white ladder. You were supposed to climb the ladder and at the top there was a magnifying glass attached by a chain. You looked through the magnifying glass at some small words on the ceiling. They said “Y E S.” I watched John Lennon climb up the ladder. Yes, he said. Well I didn’t think too much of it at the time. Then some weeks later we were at the EMI Studios on Abbey Road. A lot of people were recording there in those days, or nights I should say. Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd. It was the place to go late at night if you wanted to keep up with what was happening. You never knew who would show up there. Studio One I think it was. They were supposed to be working on Sergeant Pepper but nobody was in the mood. I talked to a few people then Sam told me she had to go off and do an interview with somebody or other. Would it be cool if she popped off to Jane’s? That would be her mate Jane Asher I supposed who may have been having it off with McCartney at the time. Not sure so don’t quote me on that. By this time me and Sam were at the point where we would go out together and come home separately. Nothing was real and nothing to get hungabout. It didn’t matter much to me. Anyway Sam left and I was out in the car park having a puff with Rick Wright who was waiting for Juliette to come and pick him up. I remember looking at a puddle full of soggy leaves and finding it odd because there’d been no rain for several days. Then a car pulls up and Mal says hop in and off we all go to the Bag ’o Nails.. ‘So Simon,’ says Lennon as we settled into our banquette, ‘what’s new in the world of popular journalism?’ ‘Oh the usual.’ I say. ‘Lucky you.’ He says. ‘Problems?’ I ask. ‘Bloody women.’ Says Lennon, and then… ‘I’d tell you about it Simon but I don’t want to be reading about my love-life on page one tomorrow.’ Now what I’m thinking. Cynthia doesn’t look happy. Out of her depth. Perhaps this won’t turn out to be just another night in the bag after all. Steve Marriott is dancing on a table to the delight of his fan club. I want to know more about John’s women troubles but I’m not going to ask. I don’t have to. Seems he wants to talk. Trouble is I can’t hear half what he’s saying. Hendrix has started and there’s an amp right in my ear. ‘Words,’ says JL, ‘I can’t stop playing with words. Turning them inside out and backwards. I try to talk normal like but everything gets turned around. Listening to too much Goons in my youth I expect. No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low. That is you can’t you know tune in but it’s all right, that is I think it’s not too bad.’ I nod and try to mutter the right things in the right places. I’m supposed to write something about Hendrix for next week’s Melody Maker…deadline tomorrow afternoon. John’s asking me something…do I want to go out to Weybridge tomorrow? Well of course I do. I’m not going to say no to an unofficial interview. Strawberry fields forever. Pity about Mal. Heard he got shot in Los Angeles. What a load of old cobbler’s. Who writes this stuff? It wasn’t like that at all. I do remember Lennon being in the Bag that night and Hendrix playing but the rest of it is just made up. I don’t even remember Simon being there. I do remember going out to the Abbey Road studios with Samantha. Sam was in her element. She liked hanging around with all the beautiful people. I tagged along sometimes for something to do. There didn’t seem to be much recording going on so I wandered around chatting to a few people. I was sharing a joint with a bloke who said he was Mariane Faithful’s ex-husband and somebody called Stash. A prince according to Sam. Nice fella. Slipped me a bit of blotting paper. Things got funny. Samantha said she was going off somewhere with some people. I said OK. I remember having a slash in the car park when a car pulls up and Mal asks me if I want a lift somewhere. Where you off then I ask. West End, says Mal, some club I expect. So I think why not and get in the car. Not a bad bunch these Scousers. ‘Bag o’ Shite.’ says a voice from the back. I turn round and fuck me there’s John Lennon and his missus Cynthia sitting there. ‘Hello Dick,’ he says. Something tells me he’s in a snarky mood for some reason so I keep myself to myself. He can be a nasty bugger when he’s like that. But he wants to talk anyway…how’s things in the world of sport then Dick? He says. Alright I say… It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. It doesn't matter much to me... Bloody hell I think, he’s rambling. As the Rolls moves out of the car park a bunch of girls rush over and started banging on the windows. ‘Don’t you lot ever sleep?’ Lennon asks. I give a gracious little wave. That was a strange night. We got shown to the best table in the Bag. Down near the stage where some bloke called Jimi Hendrix is about to give his first live performance in London. That’s what the announcer said anyway. Across the way Steve Marriott is dancing on a table. Showing off I suppose as usual…. there’s a few other pop royalty scattered around the place… Toni Basil and some other girls were giving me saucy looks so it’s just as well Sam wasn’t there. Then this Hendrix bloke starts playing. Cynthia is on Lennon’s right and I’m on his left. There’s an amp going right next to us. Cyn is smiling but I can tell she’s not happy. She’s trying not to look like a provincial suburban mum. He’s bored with her obviously. “Well Dick, says Lennon, “How’s the world of sport?” Alright, I say but tell the truth I can’t hear what he’s saying. It’s a historic occasion you could say, but all he wants to do is talk about his love-life. So I’ve got ‘Hey Joe’ in one ear and this bloke going on about women in the other. He’s reached a crossroads he says. Got to make a choice between the past and the future. I can’t remember what I said. What can you say to other blokes about that stuff? I’m stoned out of my pod and I got my own troubles anyway with Samantha. She wants a divorce. We’ve only been married a week. Lennon starts rambling again…always, no sometimes, think it’s me, but you know I know when it’s a dream. I think I know I mean er ‘yes’ but it’s all wrong, that is I think I disagree. Something about a working class hero. Mostly I’m wondering. Why me? Sam told me later I’d witnessed a historic moment in rock. The apogee as it turned out. Hendrix hit London. Nothing that happened since has even come close. And poor old Mal. He goes and gets shot several years later by coppers in Los Angeles.

The Beat Hotel.

2009-08-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Harold Chapman was a young photographer who found himself in Paris in the early sixties. He stayed at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur, a cheap hotel that later became famous as the Beat Hotel. Here are some of Harold's photos... and here's the trailer for a movie by Alan Governar... The 'hep cats' have long gone. The Beat Hotel is now a 4 star "hôtel de charme". Times change.

Lily Allen strikes again.

2009-07-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

22... When she was 22 the future looked bright But she's nearly 30 now and she's out every night I see that look in her face she's got that look in her eye She's thinking how did I get here and wondering why It's sad but it's true how society says Her life is already over There's nothing to do and there's nothing to say Til the man of her dreams comes along picks her up and puts her over his shoulder It seems so unlikely in this day and age She's got an alright job but it's not a career Wherever she thinks about it, it brings her to tears Cause all she wants is a boyfriend She gets one-night stands She's thinking how did I get here I'm doing all that I can It's sad but it's true how society says Her life is already over There's nothing to do and there's nothing to say Til the man of her dreams comes along picks her up and puts her over his shoulder It seems so unlikely in this day and age

How to make rock videos.

2009-07-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

Hey kids! Ever thought of making your own rock video? I bet you have. Here are some tips. Remember...it's all about being yourself and just having fun... An interesting find by skakykaiser You don't even need a lot of fancy props...

Next year in Rio.

2009-07-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is the sort of thing that annoys me about the media. Obama and Sarkozy are clearly making sure the young delegate from Brazil negotiates a rather high step safely and the press makes a big deal about it.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

2009-07-07T06:43:00.001-07:00

Warning: May contain chronological inconsistencies. Simon has moved into more spacious accommodation in Ladbroke Grove. He’s still living at floor level like everybody else these days but there’s more of it. The bed-sitter was like a cheap hotel room. The new place is more like a large ash-tray. Arthur comes up to London occasionally and usually ends up spending the night. A typical conversation might go something like this…. ‘Nice boots.’ Says Arthur. ‘Thanks. Annello & Davide.’ ‘Where’s that? Carnaby Street?’” Simon snorts. Arthur really doesn’t have a clue. ‘You’re joking Arthur. Carnaby Street is for tourists and proles. I get my gear mostly from Blade’s and Mr. Fish.’ In fact left to his own devices Simon probably wouldn’t bother with his appearance too much. Samantha should get most of the credit for Simon’s current sartorial splendour. While Arthur has been piddling around with the Mars bars and the Old Holborn, the Crunchies and the Woodbines in his shop, Simon has been busy carving out a niche for himself in the London Pop Music scene. Monty got him to write a few things for Tin Pan Times and one thing lead to another. He now has a weekly column. There’s talk of him becoming an editor. He likes seeing his name in print even if it does get misspelled. The generous check comes in handy too. Arthur. Such an old-fashioned name. It sounds like a bloke who’s been sweeping a factory floor for fifty years. Got a spare fag Arthur? Good old Arthur. Makes a nice cup of tea does Arthur. I suppose I shouldn’t be so hard on him. He is genuinely confused. He says it’s like being two separate people. And they’re both arguing all the time inside his head. Divorced parents will do that. ‘I just got back from America.’ Says Simon. ‘Oh, how was that?’ ‘Bloody amazing. I went with the Stones. It was non-stop craziness. The Americans loved us.’ ‘Us?’ ‘The tour. The Yanks went crazy. It was as if we’d taken over the whole country.’ This was not strictly true. The tour had been badly organized. Many mistakes had been made. Also, what Simon wasn’t quite ready to talk about, was Altamont. He was still digesting that night of dust and mindless violence. To be only a few feet away while somebody was getting beaten with pool cues had been an unsettling experience. ‘How did you get that job?’ ‘Monty. Samantha’s dad. He needed an under-assistant West Coast promotions man.’ The joke, if that’s what it was, went right over Arthur’s head. California had been crazy all right. No need for hyperbole. All those people driving on freeways, hanging out by swimming pools had struck Simon as quite bizarre. The tired palm trees, the stucco, the smog, the unchanging weather. There they were sitting on the edge of the Western world, with a fault line running through the middle. But in a strange way it worked. And it wasn’t all crass materialism. There was a definite spiritual side to it too. They were searching but for what? And what about that Leary character at Laguna Beach? Mr. Turn on, tune in, drop out. He certainly seemed to know what’s happenin'...or was he just another salesman? ‘What do you do exactly then?’ Arthur asks in a transparent attempt to keep the dialogue going. ‘I do rock writing.’ Says Simon. ‘What’s that?’ Simon explains. “It’s easy. All you have to do is say how much fun you had at so and so’s concert and what a great band they are.” ‘So what’s the point?’ ‘Well the money’s good that’s one thing. And it’s exciting being on the cutting edge. Not to mention the crumpet of course. Lot’s of girls around. It’s not exactly literature but….’ ‘I know,’ says Arthur, ‘it’s only rock and roll but you like it.’ ‘Hey that’s a good line Arthur. Excuse me a sec…I need to write that down.’ ‘I could try my hand at writing I suppose…but what could I write about?’ ‘Anything. You hitchhiked to India…write about that. Or why not write about being a tobacconist? You could be the next Harold Pinter. The times they are a changing Arthur. You need to get with it. Loosen up. Have a go. Just jump and the safety net will appear…you might want to think about changing your name to something…er… groovier. Arthur sounds a bit square.’ Arthur looks confused. He’s never liked his name much but he didn’t realize it was square. ‘I’m not really into music.’ ‘What about politics? Where do you stand politically?’ ‘Well I don’t like fascists. And anarchists scare me. Communists want to own things. I’m somewhere in the middle I suppose.’ ‘Look at this.’ Simon produces what looks like a sheet of pink blotting paper. Arthur notices that it has been divided into half-inch squares. ‘LSD’, says Simon, ‘Owsley White Lightning to be precise. Want to try?’ Arthur has heard about this stuff. He’s in two minds. The moment of truth has arrived.

Fitness tips...

2009-06-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

Striving to stay irrelevant....

Also dead....

2009-06-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

Soliloquy

2009-06-20T06:55:00.001-07:00

YES BECAUSE HE NEVER DID A THING LIKE THAT BEFORE AS ASK TO get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathing-suits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope I'll never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at the choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain the day I wore that dress Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones she could find at the bottom of the basket anything at all to get into a mans bedroom with her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying on account of her to never see thy face again though he looked more like a man with his beard a bit grown in the bed father was the same besides I hate bandaging and dosing when he cut his toe with the razor paring his corns afraid hed get blood poisoning but if it was a thing I was sick then wed see what attention only of course the woman hides it not to give all the trouble they do yes he came somewhere Im sure by his appetite anyway love its not or hed be off his feed thinking of her so either it was one of those night women if it was down there he was really and the hotel story he made up a pack of lies to hide it planning it Hynes kept me who did I meet ah yes I met do you remember Menton and who else who let me see that big babbyface I saw him and he not long married flirting with a young girl at Pooles Myriorama and turned my back on him when he slinked out looking quite conscious what harm but he had the impudence to make up to me one time well done to him mouth almighty and his boiled eyes of all the big stupoes I ever met and thats called a solicitor only for I hate having a long wrangle in bed or else if its not that its some little bitch or other he got in with somewhere or picked up on the sly if they only knew him as well as I do yes because the day before yesterday he was scribbling something a letter when I came into the front room for the matches to show him Dignams death in the paper as if something told me and he covered it up with the blottingpaper pretending to be thinking about business so very probably that was it to somebody who thinks she has a softy in him because all men get a bit like that at his age especially getting on to forty he is now so as to wheedle any money she can out of him no fool like an old fool and then the usual kissing my bottom was to hide it not that I care two straws who he does it with or knew before that way though Id like to find out so long as I dont have the two of them under my nose all the time like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him bad enough to get the smell of those painted women off him once or twice I had a suspicion by getting him to come near me when I found the long hair on his coat without that one when I went into the kitchen pretending he was drinking water I woman is not enough for them it was all his fault of course ruining servants then proposing that she could eat at our table on Christmas if you please O no thank you not in my house stealing my potatoes and the oysters 2/6 per doz going out to see her aunt if you please common robbery so it was but I was sure he had something on with that one it takes me to find out a thing like that he said you have no proof it was her proof O yes her aunt was very fond of oysters but I told her what I thought of her suggesting me to go out to be alone with her I wouldnt lower myself to spy on them the garters I found in her room the Friday she was out that was enough for me a little bit too much I saw too that her face swelled up on her with temper when I gave her her weeks notice better do without them altogether do out the rooms myself quicker only for the damn cooking and throwing out the dirt I gave it to him anyhow either she or me leaves the house I couldnt even touch him if I thought he was with a dirty barefaced liar and sloven like that one denying it up to my face and singing about the place in the W C too because she knew she was too well off yes because he couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there steals another I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back singing the young May Moon shes beaming love because he has an idea about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out and going to the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the satisfaction in any case God knows hes change in a way not to be always and ever wearing the same old hat unless] paid some nicelooking boy to do it since I cant do it myself a young boy would like me Id confuse him a little alone with him if we were Id let him see my garters the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I know what boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging drawing out the thing by the hour question and answer would you do this that and the other with the coalman yes with a bishop yes I would because I told him about some Dean or Bishop was sitting beside me in the jews Temples gardens when I was knitting that woollen thing a stranger to Dublin what place was it and so on about the monuments and he tired me out with statues encouraging him making him worse than he is who is in your mind now tell me who are you thinking of who is it tell me his name who tell me who the German Emperor is it yes imagine Im him think of him can you feel him trying to make a whore of me what he never will he ought to give it up now at this age of his life simply ruination for any woman and no satisfaction in it pretending to like it till ( he comes and then finish it off myself anyway and it makes your lips pale anyhow its done now once and for all with all the talk of the world about it people make its only the first time after that its just the ordinary do it and think no more about it why cant you kiss a man without going and marrying him first you sometimes love to wildly when you feel that way so nice all over you you cant help yourself I wish some man or other would take me sometime when hes there and kiss me in his arms theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your soul almost paralyses you then I hate that confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did where and I said on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your person my child on the leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was it where you sit down yes O Lord couldnt he say bottom right out and have done with it what has that got to do with it and did you whatever way he put it I forget no father and I always think of the real father what did he want to know for when I already confessed it to God he had a nice fat hand the palm moist always I wouldnt mind feeling it neither would he Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he know me in the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of course hed never turn or let on still his eyes were red when his father died theyre lost for a woman of course must be terrible when a man cries let alone them Id like to be embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of incense off him like the pope besides theres no danger with a priest if youre married hes too careful about himself then give something to H H the pope for a penance I wonder was he satisfied with me one thing I didnt like his slapping me behind going away so familiarly in the hall though I laughed Im not a horse or an ass am I I suppose he was thinking of his father I wonder is he awake thinking of me or dreaming am I in it who gave him that flower he said he bought he smelt of some kind of drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweety kind of paste they stick their bills up with some liquor Id like to sip those richlooking green and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor johnnies drink with the opera hats I tasted one with my finger dipped out of that American that had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he could do to keep himself from falling asleep after the last time we took the port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste yes because I felt lovely and tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I popped straight into bed till that thunder woke me up as if the world was coming to an end God be merciful to us I thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish when I blessed myself and said a Hail Mary like those awful thunderbolts in Gibraltar and they come and tell you theres no God what could you do if it was running and rushing about nothing only make an act of contrition the candle I lit that evening in Whitefriars street chapel for the month of May see it brought its luck though hed scoff if he heard because he never goes to church mass or meeting he says your soul you have no soul inside only grey matter because he doesnt know what it is to have one yes when I lit the lamp yes because he must have come 3 or 4 times with that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst though his nose is not so big after I took off all my things with the blinds down after my hours dressing and perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen he was in great singing voice no I never in all my life felt anyone had one the size of that to make you feel full up he must have eaten a whole sheep after whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the middle of us like a Stallion driving it up into you because thats all they want out of you with that determined vicious look in his eye I had to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt such a tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull it out and do it on me considering how big it is so much the better in case any of it wasnt washed out properly the last time I let him finish it in me nice invention they made for women for him to get all the pleasure but if someone gave them a touch of it themselves theyd know what I went through with Milly nobody would believe cutting her teeth too and Mina Purefoys husband give us a swing out of your whiskers filling her up with a child or twins once a year as regular as the clock always with a smell of children off her the one they called budgers or something like a nigger with a shock of hair on it Jesusjack the child is a black the last time I was there a squad of them falling over one another and bawling you couldnt hear your ear supposed to be healthy not satisfied till they have us swollen out like elephants or I dont know what supposing I risked having another not off him though still if he was married I m sure hed have a fine strong child but I dont know Poldy has more spunk in him yes thatd be awfully jolly I suppose it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about me and Boylan set him off well he can think what he likes now if thatll do him any good I know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene he was dancing and sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpsons housewarming and then he wanted to ram it down my neck on account of not liking to see her a wallflower that was why we had the standup row over politics he began it not me when he said about Our Lord being a carpenter at last he made me cry of course a woman is so sensitive about everything I was fuming with myself after for giving in only for I knew he was gone on me and the first socialist he said He was he annoyed me so much I couldnt put him into a temper still he knows a lot of mixed up things especially about the body and the insides I often wanted to study up that myself what we have inside us in that family physician I could always hear his voice talking when the room was crowded and watch him after that I pretended I had on a coolness with her over him because he used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever he asked who are you going to and I aid over to Floey and he made me the present of lord Byrons poems and the three pairs of gloves so that finished that I could quite easily get him to make it up any time I know how Id even supposing he got in with her again and was going out to see her somewhere Id know if he refused to eat the onions I know plenty of ways ask him to tuck down the collar of my blouse or touch him with my veil and gloves on going out 1 kiss then would send them all spinning however alright well seen then let him go to her she of course would only be too delighted to pretend shes mad in love with him that I wouldnt so much mind Id just go to her and ask her do you love him and look her square in the eyes she couldnt fool me but he might imagine he was and make a declaration with his plabbery kind of a manner to her like he did to me though I had the devils own job to get it out of him though I liked him for that it showed he could hold in and wasnt to be got for the asking he was on the pop of asking me too the night in the kitchen I was rolling the potato cake theres something I want to say to you only for I put him off letting on I was in a temper with my hands and arms full of pasty flour in any case I let out too much the night before talking of dreams so I didnt want to let him know more than was good for him she used to be always embracing me Josie whenever he was there meaning him of course glauming me over and when I said I washed up and down as far as possible asking me did you wash possible the women are always egging on to that putting it on thick when hes there they know by his sly eye blinking a bit putting on the indifferent when they come out with something the kind he is what spoils him I dont wonder in the least because he was very handsome at that time trying to look like lord Byron I said I liked though he was too beautiful for a man and he was a little before we got engaged afterwards though she didnt like it so much the day I was in fits of laughing with the giggles I couldnt stop about all my hairpins falling one after another with the mass of hair I had youre always in great humour she said yes because it grigged her because she knew what it meant because I used to tell her a good bit of what went on between us not all but just enough to make her mouth water but that wasnt my fault she didnt darken the door much after we were married I wonder what shes got like now after living with that dotty husband of hers she had her face beginning to look drawn and run down the last time I saw her she must have been just after a row with him because I saw on the moment she was edging to draw down a conversation about husbands and talk about him to run him down what was it she told me O yes that sometimes he used to go to bed with his muddy boots on when the maggot takes him just imagine having to get into bed with a thing like that that might murder you any moment what a man well its not the one way everyone goes mad Poldy anyway whatever he does always wipes his feet on the mat when he comes in wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he always takes off his hat when he comes up in the street like that and now hes going about in his slippers to look for #10000 for a postcard up up O Sweetheart May wouldnt a thing like that simply bore you stiff to extinction actually too stupid even to take his boots off now what could you make of a man like that Id rather die 20 times over than marry another of their sex of course hed never find another woman like me to put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes and he knows that too at the bottom of his heart take that Mrs Maybrick that poisoned her husband for what I wonder in love with some other man yet it was found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and do a thing like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating drive you mad and always the worst word in the world what do they ask us to marry them for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because they cant get on without us white Arsenic she put in his tea off flypaper wasnt it I wonder why they call it that if I asked him hed say its from the Greek leave us as wise as we were before she must have been madly in love with the other fellow to run the chance of being hanged O she didnt care if that was her nature what could she do besides theyre not brutes enough to go and hang a woman surely are they theyre all so different Boylan talking about the shape of my foot he noticed at once even before he was introduced when I was in the D B C with Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling my foot we both ordered 2 teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking with his two old maids of sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it was what do I care with it dropping out of me and that black closed breeches he made me buy takes you half an hour to let them down wetting all myself always with some brandnew fad every other week such a long one I did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind that I never got after some robber of a woman and he wanted me to put it in the Irish Times lost in the ladies lavatory D B C Dame street finder return to Mrs Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet going out through the turning door he was looking when I looked back and I went there for tea 2 days after in the hope but he wasnt now how did that excite him because I was crossing them when we were in the other room first he meant the shoes that are too tight to walk in my hand is nice like that if I only had a ring with the stone for my month a nice aquamarine Ill stick him for one and a gold bracelet I dont like my foot so much still I made him spend once with my foot the night after Goodwins botchup of a concert so cold and windy it was well we had that rum in the house to mull and the fire wasnt black out when he asked to take off my stockings lying on the hearthrug in Lombard street well and another time it was my muddy boots hed like me to walk in all the horses dung I could find but of course hes not natural like the rest of the world that I what did he say I could give 9 points in 10 to Katty Lanner and beat her what does that mean I asked him I forget what he said because the stoppress edition just passed and the man with the curly hair in the Lucan dairy thats so polite I think I saw his face before somewhere I noticed him when I was tasting the butter so I took my time Bartell dArcy too that he used to make fun of when he commenced kissing me on the choir stairs after I sang Gounods Ave Maria what are we waiting for O my heart kiss me straight on the brow and part which is my brown part he was pretty hot for all his tinny voice too my low notes he was always raving about if you can believe him I liked the way he used his mouth singing then he said wasnt it terrible to do that there in a place like that I dont see anything so terrible about it Ill tell him about that some day not now and surprise him ay and Ill take him there and show him the very place too we did it so now there you are like it or lump it he thinks nothing can happen without him knowing he hadnt an idea about my mother till we were engaged otherwise hed never have got me so cheap as he did he was 10 times worse himself anyhow begging me to give him a tiny bit cut off my drawers that was the evening coming along Kenilworth square he kissed me in the eye of my glove and I had to take it off asking me questions is it permitted to inquire the shape of my bedroom so I let him keep it as if I forgot it to think of me when I saw him slip it into his pocket of course hes mad on the subject of drawers thats plain to be seen always skeezing at those brazenfaced things on the bicycles with their skirts blowing up to their navels even when Milly and I were out with him at the open air fete that one in the cream muslin standing right against the sun so he could see every atom she had on when he saw me from behind following in the rain I saw him before he saw me however standing at the corner of the Harolds cross road with a new raincoat on him with the muffler in the Zingari colours to show off his complexion-and the brown hat looking slyboots as usual what was he doing there where hed no business they can go and get whatever they like from anything at all with a skirt on it and were not to ask any questions but they want to know where were you where are you going I could feel him coming along skulking after me his eyes on my neck he had been keeping away from the house he felt it was getting too warm for him so I half turned and stopped then he pestered me to say yes till I took off my glove slowly watching him he said my openwork sleeves were too cold for the rain anything for an excuse to put his hand anear me drawers drawers the whole blessed time till I promised to give him the pair off my doll to carry about in his waistcoat pocket O Maria santissima he did look a big fool dreeping in the rain splendid set of teeth he had made me hungry to look at them and beseeched of me to lift the orange petticoat I had on with sunray pleats that there was nobody he Said hed kneel down in the wet if I didnt so persevering he would too and ruin his new raincoat you never know what freak theyd take alone with you theyre so savage for it if anyone was passing so I lifted them a bit and touched his trousers outside the way I used to Gardner after with my ring hand to keep him from doing worse where it was too public I was dying to find out was he circumcised he was shaking like a jelly all over they want to do everything too quick take all the pleasure out if it and father waiting all the time for his dinner he told me to say I left my purse in the butchers and had to go back for it what a Deceiver then he wrote me that letter with all those words in it how could he have the face to any woman after his company manners making it so awkward after when we met asking me have I offended you with my eyelids down of course he saw I wasnt he had a few brains not like that other fool Henry Doyle he was always breaking or tearing something in the charades I hate an unlucky man and if I knew what it meant of course I had to say no for form sake dont understand you I said and wasnt it natural so it is of course it used to be written up with a picture of a womans on that wall in Gibraltar with that word I couldnt find anywhere only for children seeing it too young then writing a letter every morning sometimes twice a day I liked the way he made love then he knew the way to take a woman when he sent me the 8 big poppies because mine was the 8th then I wrote the night he kissed my heart at Dolphins barn I couldnt describe it simply it makes you feel like nothing on earth but he never knew how to embrace well like Gardner I hope hell come on Monday as he said at the same time four I hate people who come at all hours answer the door you think its the vegetables then its somebody and you all undressed or the door of the filthy sloppy kitchen blows open the day old frostyface Goodwin called about the concert in Lombard street and I just after dinner all flushed and tossed with boiling old stew dont look at me professor I had to say Im a fright yes but he was a real old gent in his way it was impossible to be more respectful nobody to say youre out you have to peep out through the blind like the messengerboy today I thought it was a putoff first him sending the port and the peaches first and I was just beginning to yawn with nerves thinking he was trying to make a fool of me when I knew his tattarrattat at the door he must have been a bit late because it was 1/4 after 3 when I saw the 2 Dedalus girls coming from school I never know the time even that watch he gave me never seems to go properly Id want to get it looked after when I threw the penny to that lame sailor for England home and beauty when I was whistling there is a charming girl I love and I hadnt even put on my clean shift or powdered myself or a thing then this day week were to go to Belfast just as well he has to go to Ennis his fathers anniversary the 27th it wouldnt be pleasant if he did suppose our rooms at the hotel were beside each other and any fooling went on in the new bed I couldnt tell him to stop and not bother me with him in the next room or perhaps some protestant clergyman with a cough knocking on the wall then he wouldnt believe next day we didnt do something its all very well a husband but you cant fool a lover after me telling him we never did anything of course he didnt believe me no its better hes going where he is besides something always happens with him the time going to the Mallow Concert at Maryborough ordering boiling soup for the two of us then the bell rang out he walks down the platform with the soup splashing about taking spoonfuls of it hadnt he the nerve and the waiter after him making a holy show of us screeching and confusion for the engine to start but he wouldnt pay till he finished it the two gentlemen in the 3rd class Carriage said he was quite right so he was too hes so pigheaded sometimes when he gets a thing into his head a good job he was able to open the carriage door with his knife or theyd have taken us on to Cork I suppose that was done out of revenge on him O I love jaunting in a train or a car with lovely soft cushions I wonder will he take a 1st class for me he might want to do it in the train by tipping the guard well O I suppose therell be the usual idiots of men gaping at us with their eyes as stupid as ever they can possibly be that was an exceptional man that common workman that left us alone in the carriage that day going to Howth Id like to find out something about him 1 or 2 tunnels perhaps then you have to look out of the window all the nicer then coming back suppose I never came back what would they say eloped with him that gets you on on the stage the last concert I sang at where its over a year ago when was it St Teresas hall Clarendon St little chits of missies they have now singing Kathleen Kearney and her like on account of father being in the army and my singing the absentminded beggar and wearing a brooch for lord Roberts when I had the map of it all and Poldy not Irish enough was it him managed it this time I wouldnt put it past him like he got me on to sing in the Stabat Mater by going around saying he was putting Lead Kindly Light to music I put him up to that till the jesuits found out he was a freemason thumping the piano lead Thou me on copied from some old opera yes and he was going about with some of them Sinner Fein lately or whatever they call themselves talking his usual trash and nonsense he says that little man he showed me without the neck is very intelligent the coming man Griffith is he well he doesnt look it thats all I can say still it must have been him he knew there was a boycott I hate the mention of politics after the war that Pretoria and Ladysmith and Bloemfontein where Gardner Lieut Stanley G 8th Bn 2nd East Lancs Rgt of enteric fever he was a lovely fellow in khaki and just the right height over me Im sure he was brave too he said I was lovely the evening we kissed goodbye at the canal lock my Irish beauty he was pale with excitement about going away or wed be seen from the road he couldnt stand properly and I so hot as I never felt they could have made their peace in the beginning or old oom Paul and the rest of the old Krugers go and fight it out between them instead of dragging on for years killing any finelooking men there were with their fever if he was even decently shot it wouldnt have been so bad I love to see a regiment pass in review the first time I saw the Spanish cavalry at La Roque it was lovely after looking across the bay from Algeciras all the lights of the rock like fireflies or those sham battles on the 15 acres the Black Watch with their kilts in time at the march past the 10th hussars the prince of Wales own or the lancers O the lancers theyre grand or the Dublins that won Tugela his father made his money over selling the horses for the cavalry well he could buy me a nice present up in Belfast after what I gave theyve lovely linen up there or one of those nice kimono things I must buy a mothball like I had before to keep in the drawer with them it would be exciting going around with him shopping buying those things in a new city better leave this ring behind want to keep turning and turning to get it over the knuckle there or they might bell it round the town in their papers or tell the police on me but theyd think were married O let them all go and smother themselves for the fat lot I care he has plenty of money and hes not a marrying man so somebody better get it out of him if I could find out whether he likes me I looked a bit washy of course when I looked close in the handglass powdering a mirror never gives you the expression besides scrooching down on me like that all the time with his big hipbones hes heavy too with his hairy chest for this heat always having to lie down for them better for him put it into me from behind the way Mrs Mastiansky told me her husband made her like the dogs do it and stick out her tongue as far as ever she could and he so quiet and mild with his tingating either can you ever be up to men the way it takes them lovely stuff in that blue suit he had on and stylish tie and socks with the skyblue silk things on them hes certainly welloff I know by the cut his clothes have and his heavy watch but he was like a perfect devil for a few minutes after he came back with the stop press tearing up the tickets and swearing blazes because he lost 20 quid he said he lost over that outsider that won and half he put on for me on account of Lenehans tip cursing him to the lowest pits that sponger he was making free with me after the Glencree dinner coming back that long joult over the featherbed mountain after the lord Mayor looking at me with his dirty eyes Val Dillon that big heathen I first noticed him at dessert when I was cracking the nuts with my teeth I wished I could have picked every morsel of that chicken out of my fingers it was so tasty and browned and as tender as anything only for I didnt want to eat everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were hallmarked silver too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple into my muff when I was playing with them then always hanging out of them for money in a restaurant for the bit you put down your throat we have to be thankful for our mangy cup of tea itself as a great compliment to be noticed the way the world is divided in any case if its going to go on I want at least two other good chemises for one thing and but I dont know what kind of drawers he likes none at all I think didnt he say yes and half the girls in Gibraltar never wore them either naked as God made them that Andalusian singing her Manola she didnt make much secret of what she hadnt yes and the second pair of silkette stockings is laddered after one days wear I could have brought them back to Lewers this morning and kick up a row and made that one change them only not to upset myself and run the risk of walking into him and ruining the whole thing and one of those kidfitting corsets Id want advertised cheap in the Gentlewoman with elastic gores on the hips he saved the one I have but thats no good what did they say they give a delightful figure line 11/6 obviating that unsightly broad appearance across the lower back to reduce flesh my belly is a bit too big Ill have to knock off the stout at dinner or am I getting too fond of it the last they sent from ORourkes was as flat as a pancake he makes his money easy Larry they call him the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a cottage cake and a bottle of hogwash he tried to palm off as claret that he couldnt get anyone to drink God spare his spit for fear hed die of the drouth or I must do a few breathing exercises I wonder is that antifat any good might overdo it thin ones are not so much the fashion now garters that much I have the violet pair I wore today thats all he bought me out of the cheque he got on the first O no there was the face lotion I finished the last of yesterday that made my skin like new I told him over and over again get that made up in the same place and dont forget it God only knows whether he did after all I said to him Ill know by the bottle anyway if not I suppose Ill only have to wash in my piss like beeftea or chickensoup with some of that opoponax and violet I thought it was beginning to look coarse or old a bit the skin underneath is much finer where it peeled off there on my finger after the burn its a pity it isnt all like that and the four paltry handkerchiefs about 6/- in all sure you cant get on in this world without style all going in food and rent when I get it Ill lash it around I tell you in fine style I always want to throw a handful of tea into the pot measuring and mincing if I buy a pair of old brogues itself do you like those new shoes yes how much were they Ive no clothes at all the brown costume and the skirt and jacket and the one at the cleaners 3 whats that for any woman cutting up this old hat and patching up the other the men wont look at you and women try to walk on you because they know youve no man then with all the things getting dearer every day for the 4 years more I have of life up to 35 no Im what am I at all Ill be 33 in September will I what O well look at that Mrs Galbraith shes much older than me I saw her when I was out last week her beautys on the wane she was a lovely woman magnificent head of hair on her down to her waist tossing it back like that like Kitty OShea in Grantham street 1st thing I did every morning to look across see her combing it as if she loved it and was full of it pity I only got to know her the day before we left and that Mrs Langtry the Jersey Lily the prince of Wales was in love with I suppose hes like the first man going the roads only for the name of a king theyre all made the one way only a black mans Id like to try a beauty up to what was she 45 there was some funny story about the jealous old husband what was it all and an oyster knife he went no he made her wear a kind of a tin thing around her and the prince of Wales yes he had the oyster knife cant be true a thing like that like some of those books he brings me the works of Master Francois somebody supposed to be a priest about a child born out of her ear because her bumgut fell out a nice word for any priest to write and her a-e as if any fool wouldnt know what that meant I hate that pretending of all things with the old blackguards face on him anybody can see its not true and that Ruby and Fair Tyrants he brought me that twice I remember when I came to page 50 the part about where she hangs him up out of a hook with a cord flagellate sure theres nothing for a woman in that all invention made up about he drinking the champagne out of her slipper after the ball was over like the infant Jesus In the crib at Inchicore in the Blessed Virgins arms sure no woman could have a child that big taken out of her and I thought first it came out of her side because how could she go to the chamber when she wanted to and she a rich lady of course she felt honoured H. R. H. he was in Gibraltar the year I gas born I bet he found lilies there too where he planted the tree he planted more than that in his time he might have planted me too if hed come a bit sooner then I wouldnt be here as I am he ought to chuck that Freeman with the paltry few shillings he knocks out of it and go into an office or something where hed get regular pay or a bank where they could put him up on a throne to count the money all the day of course he prefers plottering about the house so you cant stir with him any side whats your programme today I wish hed even smoke a pipe like father to get the smell of a man or pretending to be mooching about for advertisements when he could have been in Mr Cuffes still only for what he did then sending me to try and patch it up I could have got him promoted there to be the manager he gave me a great mirada once or twice first he was as stiff as the mischief really and truly Mrs Bloom only I felt rotten simply with the old rubbishy dress that I lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but theyre coming into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it was no good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Burns as I said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a lot of trash I hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me altogether only he thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and cooking mathering everything he can scour off the shelves into it if I went by his advices every blessed hat I put on does that suit me yes take that thats alright the one like a wedding cake standing up miles off my head he said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my backside on pins and needles about the shop girl in that place in Grafton street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as insolent as ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you too much trouble whats she there for but I stared it out of her yes he was awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second time he looked Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but I could see him looking very hard at my chest when he stood up to open the door for me it was nice of him to show me out in any case Im extremely sorry Mrs Bloom believe me without making it too marked the first time after him being insulted and me being supposed to be his wife I just half smiled I know my chest was out that way at the door when he said Im extremely sorry and Im sure you were yes I think he made them a bit firmer sucking them like that so long be made me thirsty titties he calls them I had to laugh yes this one anyhow stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get him to keep that up and Ill take those eggs beaten up with marsala fatten them out for him what are all those veins and things curious the way its made 2 the same in case of twins theyre supposed to represent beauty placed up there like those statues in the museum one of them pretending to hide it with her hand are they so beautiful of course compared with what a man looks like with his two bags full and his other thing hanging down out of him or sticking up at you like a hatrack no wonder they hide it with a cabbageleaf the woman is beauty of course thats admitted when he said I could pose for a picture naked to some rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the job in Helys and I was selling the clothes and strumming in the coffee palace would I be like that bath of the nymph with my hair down yes only shes younger or Im a little like that dirty bitch in that Spanish photo he has the nymphs used they go about like that I asked him that disgusting Cameron highlander behind the meat market or that other wretch with the red head behind the tree where the statue of the fish used to be when I was passing pretending he was pissing standing out for me to see it with his babyclothes up to one side the Queens own they were a nice lot its well the Surreys relieved them theyre always trying to show it to you every time nearly I passed outside the mens greenhouse near the Harcourt street station just to try some fellow or other trying to catch my eye or if it was 1 of the 7 wonders of the world O and the stink of those rotten places the night coming home with Poldy after the Comerfords party oranges and lemonade to make you feel nice and watery I went into 1 of them it was so biting cold I couldnt keep it when was that 93 the canal was frozen yes it was a few months after a pity a couple of the Camerons werent there to see me squatting in the mens place meadero I tried to draw a picture of it before I tore it up like a sausage or something I wonder theyre not afraid going about of getting a kick or a bang or something there and that word met something with hoses in it and he came out with some jawbreakers about the incarnation he never can explain a thing simply the way a body can understand then he goes and burns the bottom out of the pan all for his Kidney this one not so much theres the mark of his teeth still where he tried to bite the nipple I had to scream out arent they fearful trying to hurt you I had a great breast of milk with Milly enough for two what was the reason of that he said I could have got a pound a week as a wet nurse all swelled out the morning that delicate looking student that stopped in No 28 with the Citrons Penrose nearly caught me washing through the window only for I snapped up the towel to my face that was his studenting hurt me they used to weaning her till he got doctor Brady to give me the Belladonna prescription I had to get him to suck them they were so hard he said it was sweeter and thicker than cows then he wanted to milk me into the tea well hes beyond everything I declare somebody ought to put him in the budget if I only could remember the one half of the things and write a book out of it the works of Master Poldy yes and its so much smoother the skin much an hour he was at them Im sure by the clock like some kind of a big infant I had at me they want everything in their mouth all the pleasure those men get out of a woman I can feel his mouth O Lord I must stretch myself I wished he was here or somebody to let myself go with and come again like that I feel all fire inside me or if I could dream it when he made me spend the 2nd time tickling me behind with his finger I was coming for about 5 minutes with my legs round him I had to hug him after O Lord I wanted to shout out all sorts of things fuck or shit or anything at all only not to look ugly or those lines from the strain who knows the way hed take it you want to feel your way with a man theyre not all like him thank God some of them want you to be so nice about it I noticed the contrast he does it and doesnt talk I gave my eyes that look with my hair a bit loose from the tumbling and my tongue between my lips up to him the savage brute Thursday Friday one Saturday two Sunday three O Lord I cant wait till Monday frseeeeeeeefronnnng train somewhere whistling the strength those engines have in them like big giants and the water rolling all over and out of them all sides like the end of Loves old sweet synnnng the poor men that have to be out all the night from their wives and families in those roasting engines stifling it was today Im glad I burned the half of those old Freemans and Photo bits leaving things like that lying around hes getting very careless and threw the rest of them up in the W C Ill get him to cut them tomorrow for me instead of having them there for the next year to get a few pence for them have him asking wheres last Januarys paper and all those old overcoats I bundled out of the hall making the place hotter than it is the rain was lovely just after my beauty sleep I thought it was going to get like Gibraltar my goodness the heat there before the levanter came on black as night and the glare of the rock standing up in it like a big giant compared with their 3 Rock mountain they think is so great with the red sentries here and there the poplars and they all whitehot and the mosquito nets and the smell of the rainwater in those tanks watching the sun all the time weltering down on you faded all that lovely frock fathers friend Mrs Stanhope sent me from the B Marche Paris what a shame my dearest Doggerina she wrote on what she was very nice whats this her other name was just a P C to tell you I sent the little present have just had a jolly warm bath and feel a very clean dog now enjoyed it wogger she called him wogger wd give anything to be back in Gib and hear you sing in old Madrid or Waiting Concone is the name of those exercises he bought me one of those new some word Icouldn't make out shawls amusing things but tear for the least thing still theyre lovely I think dont you will always think of the lovely teas we had together scrumptious currant scones and raspberry wafers I adore well now dearest Doggerina be sure and write soon kind she left out regards to your father also Captain Grove with love yrs affly x x x x x she didnt look a bit married just like a girl he was years older than her wogger he was awfully fond of me when he held down the wire with his foot for me to step over at the bullfight at La Linea when that matador Gomez was given the bulls ear clothes we have to wear whoever invented them expecting you to walk up Killiney hill then for example at that picnic all staysed up you cant do a blessed thing in them in a crowd run or jump out of the way thats why I was afraid when that other ferocious old Bull began to charge the banderillos with the sashes and the 2 things in their hats and the brutes of men shouting bravo toro sure the women were as bad in their nice white mantillas ripping all the whole insides out of those poor horses I never heard of such a thing in all my life yes he used to break his heart at me taking off the dog barking in bell lane poor brute and it sick what became of them ever I suppose theyre dead long ago the 2 of them its like all through a mist makes you feel so old I made the scones of course I had everything all to myself then a girl Hester we used to compare our hair mine was thicker than hers she showed me how to settle it at the back when I put it up and whats this else how to make a knot on a thread with the one hand we were like cousins what age was I then the night of the storm I slept in her bed she had her arms round me then we were fighting in the morning with the pillow what fun he was watching me whenever he got an opportunity at the band on the Alameda esplanade when I was with father and Captain Grove I looked up at the church first and then at the windows then down and our eyes met I felt something go through me like all needles my eyes were dancing I remember after when I looked at myself in the glass hardly recognised myself the change I had a splendid skin from the sun and the excitement like a rose I didn't get a wink of sleep it wouldnt have been nice on account of her but I could have stopped it in time she gave me the Moonstone to read that was the first I read of Wilkie Collins East Lynne I read and the shadow of Ashlydyat Mrs Henry Wood Henry Dunbar by that other woman I lent him afterwards with Mulveys photo in it so as he see I wasnt without and Lord Lytton Eugene Aram Molly bawn she gave me by Mrs Hungerford on account of the name I dont like books with a Molly in them like that one he brought me about the one from Flanders a whore always shoplifting anything she could cloth and stuff and yards of it this blanket is too heavy on me thats better I havent even one decent nightdress this thing gets all rolled up under me besides him and his fooling thats better I used to be weltering then in the heat my shift drenched with the sweat stuck in the cheeks of my bottom on the chair when I stood up they were so fattish and firm when I got up on the sofa cushions to see with my clothes up and the bugs tons of them at night and the mosquito nets I couldnt read a line Lord how long ago it seems centuries of course they never come back and she didnt put her address right on it either she may have noticed her wogger people were always going away and we never I remember that day with the waves and the boats with their high heads rocking and the swell of the ship those Officers uniforms on shore leave made me seasick he didnt say anything he was very serious I had the high buttoned boots on and my skirt was blowing she kissed me six or seven times didnt I cry yes I believe I did or near it my lips were taittering when I said goodbye she had a Gorgeous wrap of some special kind of blue colour on her for the voyage made very peculiarly to one side like and it was extremely pretty it got as dull as the devil after they went I was almost planning to run away mad out of it somewhere were never easy where we are father or aunt or marriage waiting always waiting to guiiiide him toooo me waiting nor speeeed his flying feet their damn guns bursting and booming all over the shop especially the Queens birthday and throwing everything down in all directions if you didnt open the windows when general Ulysses Grant whoever he was or did supposed to be some great fellow landed off the ship and old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the son then the same old reveille in the morning and drums rolling and the unfortunate poor devils of soldiers walking about with messtins smelling the place more than the old longbearded jews in their jellibees and levites assembly and sound clear and gunfire for the men to cross the lines and the warden marching with his keys to lock the gates and the bagpipes and only Captain Groves and father talking about Rorkes drift and Plevna and sir Garnet Wolseley and Gordon at Khartoum lighting their pipes for them everytime they went out drunken old devil with his grog on the windowsill catch him leaving any of it picking his nose trying to think of some other dirty story to tell up in a corner but he never forgot himself when I was there sending me out of the room on some blind excuse paying his compliments the Bushmills whisky talking of course but hed do the same to the next woman that came along I supposed he died of galloping drink ages ago the days like years not a letter from a living soul except the odd few I posted to myself with bits of paper in them so bored sometimes I could fight with my nails listening to that old Arab with the one eye and his heass of an instrument singing his heah heah aheah all my compriments on your hotchapotch of your heass as bad as now with the hands hanging off me looking out of the window if there was a nice fellow even in the opposite house that medical in Holles street the nurse was after when I put on my gloves and hat at the window to show I was going out not a notion what I meant arent they thick never understand what you say even youd want to print it up on a big poster for them not even if you shake hands twice with the left he didnt recognise me either when I half frowned at him outside Westland row chapel where does their great intelligence come in Id like to know grey matter they have it all in their tail if you ask me those country gougers up in the City Arms intelligence they had a damn sight less than the bulls and cows they were selling the meat and the coalmans bell that noisy bugger trying to swindle me with the wrong bill he took out of his hat what a pair of paws and pots and pans and kettles to mend any broken bottles for a poor man today and no visitors or post ever except his cheques or some advertisement like that wonderworker they sent him addressed dear Madam only his letter and the card from Milly this morning see she wrote a letter to him who did I get the last letter from O Mrs Dwenn now whatever possessed her to write after so many years to know the recipe I had for pisto madrileno Floey Dillon since she wrote to say she was married to a very rich architect if Im to believe all I hear with a villa and eight rooms her father was an awfully nice man he was near seventy always good humour well now Miss Tweedy or Miss Gillespie theres the pyannyer that was a solid silver coffee service he had too on the mahogany sideboard then dying so far away I hate people that have always their poor story to tell everybody has their own troubles that poor Nancy Blake died a month ago of acute pneumonia well I didnt know her so well as all that she was Floeys friend more than mine its a bother having to answer he always tells me the wrong things and no stops to say like making a speech your sad bereavement sympathy I always make that mistake and newphew with 2 double yous in I hope hell write me a longer letter the next time if its a thing he really likes me O thanks be to the great God I got somebody to give me what I badly wanted to put some heart up into me youve no chances at all in this place like you used long ago I wish somebody would write me a love-letter his wasnt much and I told him he could write what he liked yours ever Hugh Boylan in Old Madrid silly women believe love is sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered be some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life always something to think about every moment and see it all around you like a new world I could write the answer in bed to let him imagine me short just a few words not those long crossed letters Atty Dillon used to write to the fellow that was something in the four courts that jilted her after out of the ladies letterwriter when I told her to say a few simple words he could twist how he liked not acting with precipit precipitancy with equal candour the greatest earthly happiness answer to a gentlemans proposal affirmatively my goodness theres nothing else its all very fine for them but as for being a woman as soon as youre old they might as well throw you out in the bottom of the ash pit. Mulveys was the first when I was in bed that morning and Mrs Rubio brought it in with the coffee she stood there standing when I asked her to hand me and I pointing at them I couldnt think of the word a hairpin to open it with ah horquilla disobliging old thing and it staring her in the face with her switch of false hair on her and vain about her appearance ugly as she was near 80 or a 100 her face a mass of wrinkles with all her religion domineering because she never could get over the Atlantic fleet coming in half the ships of the world and the Union Jack flying with all her carabineros because 4 drunken English sailors took all the rock from them and because I didnt run into mass often enough in Santa Maria to please her with her shawl up on her except when there was a marriage on with all her miracles of the saints and her black blessed virgin with the silver dress and the sun dancing 3 times on Easter Sunday morning and when the priest was going by with the bell bringing the vatican to the dying blessing herself for his Majestad an admirer he signed it I near jumped out of my skin I wanted to pick him up when I saw him following me along the Calle Real in the shop window then he tipped me just in passing I never thought hed write making an appointment I had it inside my petticoat bodice all day reading it up in every hole and corner while father was up at the drill instructing to find out by the handwriting or the language of stamps singing I remember shall I wear a white rose and I wanted to put on the old stupid clock to near the time he was the first man kissed me under the Moorish wall my sweetheart when a boy it never entered my head what kissing meant till he put his tongue in my mouth his mouth was sweetlike young I put my knee up to him a few times to learn the way what did I tell him I was engaged for fun to the son of a Spanish nobleman named Don Miguel de la Flora and he believed that I was to be married to him in 3 years time theres many a true word spoken in jest there is a flower that bloometh a few things I told him true about myself just for him to be imagining the Spanish girls he didnt like I suppose one of them wouldnt have him I got him excited he crushed all the flowers on my bosom he brought me he couldnt count the pesetas and the perragordas till I taught him Cappoquin he came from he said on the Blackwater but it was too short then the day before he left May yes it was May when the infant king of Spain was born Im always like that in the spring Id like a new fellow every year up on the tiptop under the rockgun near OHaras tower I told him it was struck by lightning and all about the old Barbary apes they sent to Clapham without a tail careering all over the show on each others back Mrs Rubio said she was a regular old rock scorpion robbing the chickens out of Inces farm and throw stones at you if you went anear he was looking at me I had that white blouse on open at the front to encourage him as much as I could without too openly they were just beginning to be plump I said I was tired we lay over the firtree cove a wild place I suppose it must be the highest rock in existence the galleries and casemates and those frightful rocks and Saint Michaels cave with the icicles or whatever they call them hanging down and ladders all the mud plotching my boots Im sure thats the way down the monkeys go under the sea to Africa when they die the ships out far like chips that was the Malta boat passing Yes the sea and the sky you could do what you liked lie there for ever he caressed them outside they love doing that its the roundness there I was leaning over him with my white ricestraw hat to take the newness out of it the left side of my face the best my blouse open for his last day transparent kind of shirt he had I could see his chest pink he wanted to touch mine with his for a moment but I wouldn't let him he was awfully put out first for fear you never know consumption or leave me with a child embarazada that old servant Ines told me that one drop even if it got into you at all after I tried with the Banana but I was afraid it might break and get lost up in me somewhere yes because they once took something down out of a woman that was up there for years covered with limesalts theyre all mad to get in there where they come out of youd think they could never get far enough up and then theyre done with you in a way till the next time yes because theres a wonderful feeling there all the time so tender how did we finish it off yes O yes I pulled him off into my handkerchief pretending not to be excited but I opened my legs I wouldnt let him touch me inside my petticoat I had a skirt opening up the side I tortured the life out of him first tickling him I loved rousing that dog in the hotel rrrsssst awokwokawok his eyes shut and a bird flying below us he was shy all the same I liked him like that morning I made him blush a little when I got over him that way when I unbuttoned him and took his out and drew back the skin it had a kind of eye in it theyre all Buttons men down the middle on the wrong side of them Molly darling he called me what was his name Jack Joe Harry Mulvey was it yes I think a lieutenant he was rather fair he had a laughing kind of a voice so I went around to the whatyoucallit everything was whatyoucallit moustache had he he said hed come back Lord its just like yesterday to me and if I was married hed do it to me and I promised him yes faithfully Id let him block me now flying perhaps hes dead or killed or a Captain or admiral its nearly 20 years if I said firtree cove he would if he came up behind me and put his hands over my eyes to guess who I might recognise him hes young still about 40 perhaps hes married some girl on the black water and is quite changed they all do they havent half the character a woman has she little knows what I did with her beloved husband before he ever dreamt of her in broad daylight too in the sight of the whole world you might say they could have put an article about it in the Chronicle I was a bit wild after when I blew out the old bag the biscuits were in from Benady Bros and exploded it Lord what a bang all the woodcocks and pigeons screaming coming back the same way that we went over middle hill round by the old guardhouse and the jews burial place pretending to read out the Hebrew on them I wanted to fire his pistol he said he hadnt one he didnt know what to make of me with his peaked cap on that he always wore crooked as often as I settled it straight H M S Calypso swinging my hat that old Bishop that spoke off the altar his long preach about womans higher functions about girls now riding the bicycle and wearing peak caps and the new woman bloomers God send him sense and me more money I suppose theyre called after him I never thought that would be my name Bloom when I used to write it in print to see how it looked on a visiting card or practising for the butcher and oblige M Bloom youre looking blooming Josie used to say after I married him well its better than Breen or Briggs does brig or those awful names with bottom in them Mrs Ramsbottom or some other kind of a bottom Mulvey I wouldnt go mad about either or suppose I divorced him Mrs Boylan my mother whoever she was might have given me a nicer name the Lord knows after the lovely one she had Lunita Laredo the fun we had running along Willis road to Europa point twisting in and out all round the other side of Jersey they were shaking and dancing about in my blouse like Millys little ones now when she runs up the stairs I loved looking down at them I was jumping up at the pepper trees and the white poplars pulling the leaves off and throwing them at him he went to India he was to write the voyages those men have to make to the ends of the world and back its the least they might get a squeeze or two at a woman while they can going out to be drowned or blown up somewhere I went up windmill hill to the flats that Sunday morning with Captain Rubios that was dead spyglass like the sentry had he said hed have one or two from on board I wore that frock from the B Marche Paris and the coral necklace the straits shining I could see over to Morocco almost the bay of Tangierwhite and the At!as mountain with snow on it and the straits like a river so clear Harry Molly Darling I was thinking of him on the sea all the time after at mass when my petticoat began to slip down at the elevation weeks and weeks I kept the handkerchief under my pillow for the smell of him there was no decent perfume to be got in that Gibraltar only that cheap peau despagne that faded and left a stink on you more than anything else I wanted to give him a memento he gave me that clumsy Claddagh ring for luck that I gave Gardner going to South Africa where those Boers killed him with their war and fever but they were well beaten all the same as if it brought its bad luck with it like an opal or pearl must have been pure 16 carat gold because it was very heavy I can see his face clean shaven Frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefrong that train again weeping tone once in the dear deaead days beyond recall close my eyes breath my lips forward kiss sad look eyes open piano ere oer the world the mists began I hate that istsbeg comes loves sweet ssooooooong Ill let that out full when I get in front of the footlights again Kathleen Kearney and her lot of squealers Miss This Miss That Miss Theother lot of sparrowfarts skitting around talking about politics they know as much about as my backside anything in the world to make themselves someway interesting Irish homemade beauties soldiers daughter am ay and whose are you bootmakers and publicans I beg your pardon coach I thought you were a wheelbarrow theyd die down dead off their feet if ever they got a chance of walking down the Alameda on an officers arm like me on the bandnight my eyes flash my bust that they havent passion God help their poor head I knew more about men and life when I was 15 than theyll all know at 50 they dont know how to sing a song like that Gardner said no man could look at my mouth and teeth smiling like that end not think of it I was afraid he mightnt like my accent first he so English all father left me in spite of his stamps Ive my mothers eyes and figure anyhow he always said theyre so snotty about themselves some of those cads he wasnt a bit like that he was dead gone on my lips let them get a husband first thats fit to be looked at and a daughter like mine or see if they can excite a swell with money that can pick and choose whoever he wants like Boylan to do it 4 or 5 times locked in each others arms or the voice either I could have been a prima donna only I married him comes loooves old deep down chin back not too much make it double My Ladys Bower is too long for an encore about the moated grange at twilight and vaulted rooms yes Ill sing Winds that blow from the south that he gave after the choirstairs performance Ill change that lace on my black dress to show off my bubs and Ill yes by God Ill get that big fan mended make them burst with envy my hole is itching me always when I think of him I feel I want to I feel some wind in me better go easy not wake him have him at it again slobbering after washing every bit of myself back belly and sides if we had even a bath itself or my own room anyway I wish hed sleep in some bed by himself with his cold feet on me give us room even to let a fart God or do the least thing better yes hold them like that a bit on my side piano quietly sweeeee theres that train far away pianissimo eeeeeeee one more song that was a relief wherever you be let your wind go free who knows if that pork chop I took with my cup of tea after was quite good with the heat I couldnt smell anything off it Im sure that queerlooking man in the porkbutchers is a great rogue I hope that lamp is not smoking fill my nose up with smuts better than having him leaving the gas on all night I couldnt rest easy in my bed in Gibraltar even getting up to see why am I so damned nervous about that though I like it in the winter its more company O Lord it was rotten cold too that winter when I was only about ten was I yes I had the big doll with all the funny clothes dressing her up and undressing that icy wind skeeting across from those mountains the something Nevada sierra nevada standing at the fire with the little bit of a short shift I had up to heat myself I loved dancing about in it then make a race back into bed Im sure that fellow opposite used to be there the whole time watching with the lights out in the summer and I in my skin hopping around I used to love myself then stripped at the washstand dabbing and creaming only when it came to the chamber performance I put out the light too so then there were 2 of us Goodbye to my sleep for this night anyhow I hope hes not going to get in with those medicals leading him astray to imagine hes young again coming in at 4 in the morning it must be if not more still he had the manners not to wake me what do they find to gabber about all night squandering money and getting drunker and drunker couldnt they drink water then he starts giving us his orders for eggs and tea Findon haddy and hot buttered toast I suppose well have him sitting up like the king of the country pumping the wrong end of the spoon up and down in his egg wherever he learned that from and I love to hear him falling up the stairs of a morning with the cups rattling on the tray and then play with the cat she rubs up against you for her own sake I wonder has she fleas shes as bad as a woman always licking and lecking but I hate their claws I wonder do they see anything that we cant staring like that when she sits at the top of the stairs so long and listening as I wait always what a robber too that lovely fresh plaice I bought I think Ill get a bit of fish tomorrow or today is it Friday yes I will with some blancmange with black currant jam like long ago not those 2 lb pots of mixed plum and apple from the London and Newcastle Williams and Woods goes twice as far only for the bones I hate those eels cod yes Ill get a nice piece of cod Im always getting enough for 3 forgetting anyway Im sick of that everlasting butchers meat from Buckleys loin chops and leg beef and rib steak and scrag of mutton and calfs pluck the very name is enough or a picnic suppose we all gave 5/- each and or let him pay and invite some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and drive out to the furry glen or the strawberry beds wed have him examining all the horses toenails first like he does with the letters no not with Boylan there yes with some cold veal and ham mixed sandwiches there are little houses down at the bottom of the banks there on purpose but its as hot as blazes he says not a bank holiday anyhow I hate those ruck of Mary Ann coalboxes out for the day Whit Monday is a cursed day too no wonder that bee bit him better the seaside but Id never again in this life get into a boat with him after him at Bray telling the boatmen he knew how to row if anyone asked could he ride the steeplechase for the gold cup hed say yes then it came on to get rough the old thing crookeding about and the weight all down my side telling me to pull the right reins now pull the left and the tide all swamping in floods in through through the bottom and his oar slipping out of the stirrupits a mercy we werent all drowned he can swim of course me no theres no danger whatsoever keep yourself calm in his flannel trousers Id like to have tattered them down off him before all the people and give him what that one calls flagellate till he was black and blue do him all the good in the world only for that longnosed chap I dont know who he is with that other beauty Burke out of the City Arms hotel was there spying around as usual on the slip always where he wasnt wanted if there was a row on you vomit a better face there was no love lost between us thats I consolation I wonder what kind is that book he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion some other Mr de Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about with his tube from one woman to another I couldnt even change my new white shoes all ruined with the saltwater and the hat I had with that feather all blowy and tossed on me how annoying and provoking because the smell of the sea excited me of course the sardines and the bream in Catalan bay round the back of the rock they were fine all silver in the fishermens baskets old Luigi near a hundred they said came from Genoa and the tall old chap with the earrings I dont like a man you have to climb up to go get at I suppose theyre all dead and rotten long ago besides I dont like being alone in this big barracks of a place at night I suppose Ill have to put up with it I never brought a bit of salt in even when we moved in the confusion musical academy he was going to make on the first floor drawingroom with a brassplate or Blooms private hotel he suggested go and ruin himself altogether the way his father did down in Ennis like all the things he told father he was going to do and me but I saw through him telling me all the lovely places we could go for the honeymoon Venice by moonlight with the gondolas and the lake of Como he had a picture cut out of some paper of and mandolines and lanterns O how nice I said whatever I liked he was going to do immediately if not sooner will you be my man will you carry my can he ought to get a leather medal with a putty rim for all the plans he invents then leaving us here all day you never know what old beggar at the door for a crust with his long story might be a tramp and put his foot in the way to prevent me shutting it like that picture of that hardened criminal he was called in Lloyds Weekly News 20 years in jail then he comes out and murders an old woman for her mofley imagine his poor wife or mother or whoever she is such a face youd run miles away from I couldnt rest easy till I bolted all the doors and windows to make sure but its worse again being locked up like in a prison or a madhouse they ought to be all shot or the cat of nine tails a big brute like that that would attack a poor old woman to murder her in her bed Id cut them off so I would not that hed be much use still better than nothing the night I was sure I heard burglars in the kitchen and he went down in his shirt with a candle and a poker as if he was looking for a mouse as white as a sheet frightened out of his wits making as much noise as he possibly could for the burglars benefit there isnt much to steal indeed the Lord knows still its the feeling especially now with Milly away such an idea for him to send the girl down there to learn to take photographs on account of his grandfather instead of sending her to Skerrys academy where shed have to learn not like me getting all at school only hed do a thing like that all the same on account of me and Boylan thats why he did it Im certain the way he plots and plans everything out I couldnt turn round with her in the place lately unless I bolted the door first gave me the fidgets coming in without knocking first when I put the chair against the door just as I was washing myself there below with the glove get on your nerves then doing the loglady all day put her in a glasscase with two at a time to look at her if he knew she broke off the hand off that little gimcrack statue with her roughness and carelessness before she left that I got that little Italian boy to mend so that you cant see the join for 2 shillings wouldnt even teem the potatoes for you of course shes right not to ruin her hands I noticed he was always talking to her lately at the table explaining things in the paper and she pretending to understand sly of course that comes from his side of the house and helping her into her coat but if there was anything wrong with her its me shed tell not him he Cant say I pretend things can he Im too honest as a matter of fact I suppose he thinks Im finished out and laid on the shelf well Im not no nor anything like it well see well see now shes well on for flirting too with Tom Devans two sons imitating me whistling with those romps of Murray girls calling for her can Milly come out please shes in great demand to pick what they can out of her round in Nelson street riding Harry Devans bicycle at night its as well he sent her where she is she was just getting out of bounds wanting to go on the skatingrink and smoking their cigarettes through their nose I smelt it off her dress when I was biting off the thread of the button I sewed on to the bottom of her jacket she couldnt hide much from me I tell you only I oughtnt to have stitched it and it on her it brings a parting and the last plumpudding too split in 2 halves see it comes out no matter what they say her tongue is a bit too long for my taste your blouse is open too low she says to me the pan calling the kettle blackbottom and I had to tell her no! to cock her legs up like that on show on the windowsill before all the people passing they all look at her like me when I was her age of course any old rag looks well on you then a great touchmenot too in her own way at the Only Way in the Theatre royal take your foot away out of that I hate people touching me afraid of her life Id crush her skirt with the pleats a lot of that touching must go on in theatres in the crush in the dark theyre always trying to wiggle up to you that fellow in the pit at the pit at the Gaiety for Beerbohm Tree in Trilby the last time Ill ever go there to be squashed like that for any Trilby or her barebum every two minutes tipping me there and looking away hes a bit daft I think I saw him after trying to get near two stylish dressed ladies outside Switzers window at the same little game I recognised him on the moment the face and everything but he didn't remember me and she didnt even want me to kiss her at the Broadstone going away well I hope shell get someone to dance attendance on her the way I did when she was down with the mumps her glands swollen wheres this and wheres that of course she cant feel anything deep yet I never came properly till I was what 22 or so it went into the wrong place always only the usual girls nonsense and giggling that Conny Connolly writing to her in white ink on black paper sealed with sealingwax though she clapped when the curtain came down because he looked so handsome then we had Martin Harvey for breakfast dinner and supper I thought to myself afterwards it must be real love if a man gives up his life for her that way for nothing I suppose there are few men like that left its hard to believe in it though unless it really happened to me the majority of them with not a particle of love in their natures to find two people like that nowadays full up of each other that would feel the same way as you do theyre usually a bit foolish in the head his father must have been a bit queer to go and poison himself after her still poor old man I suppose he felt lost always making love to my things too the few old rags I have wanting to put her hair up at 15 my powder too only ruin her skin on her shes time enough for that all her life after of course shes restless knowing shes pretty with her lips so red a pity they wont stay that way I was too but theres no use going to the fair with the thing answering me like a fishwoman when I asked to go for a half a stone of potatoes the day we met Mrs Joe Gallaher at the trottingmatches and she pretended not to see us in her trap with Friery the solicitor we werent grand enough till I gave her 2 damn fine cracks across the ear for herself take that now for answering me like that and that for your impudence she had me that exasperated of course contradicting I was badtempered too because how was it there was a weed in the tea or I didnt sleep the night before cheese I ate was it and I told her over and over again not to leave knives crossed like that because she has nobody to command her as she said herself well if he doesnt correct her faith I will that was the last time she turned on the teartap I was just like that myself they darent order me about the place its his fault of course having the two of us slaving here instead of getting in a woman long ago am I ever going to have a proper servant again of course then shed see him coming Id have to let her know or shed revenge it arent they a nuisance that old Mrs Fleming you have to be walking round after her putting the things into her hands sneezing and farting into the pots well of course shes old she cant help it a good job I found that rotten old smelly dishcloth that got lost behind the dresser I knew there was something and opened the window to let out the smell bringing in his friends to entertain them like the night he walked home with a dog if you please that might have been mad especially Simon Dedalus son his father such a criticiser with his glasses up with his tall hat on him at the cricket match and a great big hole in his sock one thing laughing at the other and his son that got all those prizes for whatever he won them in the intermediate imagine climbing over the railings if anybody saw him that knew us wonder he didnt tear a big hole in his grand funeral trousers as if the one nature gave wasnt enough for anybody hawking him down into the dirty old kitchen now is he right in his head I ask pity it wasn't washing day my old pair of drawers might have been hanging up too on the line on exhibition for all hed ever care with the ironmould mark the stupid old bundle burned on them he might think was something else and she never even rendered down the fat I told her and now shes going such as she was on account of her paralysed husband getting worse theres always something wrong with them disease or they have to go under an operation or if its not that its drink and he beats her Ill have to hunt around again for someone every day I get up theres some new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im stretched out dead in my grave I suppose Ill have some peace I want to get up a minute if Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on me yes now wouldnt that afflict you of course all the poking and rooting and ploughing he had up in me now what am I to do Friday Saturday Sunday wouldnt that pester the soul out of a body unless he likes it some men do God knows theres always something wrong with us 5 days every 3 or 4 weeks usual monthly auction isnt it simply sickening that night it came on me like that the one and only time we were in a box that Michael Gunn gave him to see Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety something he did about insurance for him Drimmies I was fit to be tied though I wouldnt give in with that gentleman of fashion staring down at me with his glasses and him the other side of me talking about Spinoza and his soul thats dead I suppose millions of years ago I smiled the best I could all in a swamp leaning forward as if I was interested having to sit it out then to the last tag I wont forget that wife of Scarli in a hurry supposed to be a fast play about adultery that idiot in the gallery hissing the woman adulteress he shouted I suppose he went and had a woman in the next lane running round all the back ways after to make up for it I wish he had what I had then hed boo I bet the cat itself is better off than us have we too much blood up in us or what O patience above its pouring out of me like the sea anyhow he didnt make me pregnant as big as he is I dont want to ruin the clean sheets the clean linen I wore brought it on too damn it damn it and they always want to see a stain on the bed to know youre a virgin for them all thats troubling them theyre such fools too you could be a widow or divorced 40 times over a daub of red ink would do or blackberry juice no thats too purply O Jamesy let me up out of this pooh sweets of sin whoever suggested that business for women what between clothes and cooking and children this damned old bed too jingling like the dickens I suppose they could hear us away over the other side of the park till I suggested to put the quilt on the floor with the pillow under my bottom I wonder is it nicer in the day I think it is easy I think Ill cut all this hair off me there scalding me I might look like a young girl wouldnt he get the great suckin the next time he turned up my clothes on me Id give anything to see his face wheres the chamber gone easy Ive a holy horror of its breaking under me after that old commode I wonder was I too heavy sitting on his knee I made him sit on the easychair purposely when I took off only my blouse and skirt first in the other room he was so busy where he oughtnt to be he never felt me I hope my breath was sweet after those kissing comfits easy God I remember one time I could scout it out straight whistling like a man almost easy O Lord how noisy I hope theyre bubbles on it for a wad of money from some fellow Ill have to perfume it in the morning dont forget I bet he never saw a better pair of thighs than that look how white they are the smoothest place is right there between this bit here how soft like a peach easy God I wouldnt mind being a man and get up on a lovely woman O Lord what a row youre making like the jersey lily easy O how the waters come down at Lahore who knows is there anything the matter with my insides or have I something growing in me getting that thing like that every week when was it last I Whit Monday yes its only about 3 weeks I ought to go to the doctor only it would be like before I married him when I had that white thing coming from me and Floey made me go to that dry old stick Dr Collins for womens diseases on Pembroke road your vagina he called it I suppose thats how he got all the gilt mirrors and carpets getting round those rich ones off Stephens green running up to him for every little fiddlefaddle her vagina and her cochinchina theyve money of course so theyre all right I wouldnt marry him not if he was the last man in the world besides there something queer about their children always smelling around those filthy bitches all sides asking me if what I did had an offensive odour what did he want me to do but the one thing gold maybe what a question if I smathered it all over his wrinkly old face for him with all my compriment I suppose hed know then and could you pass it easily pass what I thought he was talking about the rock of Gibraltar the way he puts it thats a very nice invention too by the way only I like letting myself down after in the hole as far as I can squeeze and pull the chain then to flush it nice cool pins and needles still theres something in it I suppose I always used to know by Millys when she was a child whether she had worms or not still all the same paying him for that how much is that doctor one guinea please and asking me had I frequent omissions where do those old fellows get all the words they have omissions with his shortsighted eyes on me cocked sideways I wouldnt trust him too far to give me chloroform or God knows what else still I liked him when he sat down to write the thing out frowning so severe his nose intelligent like that you be damned you lying strap O anything no matter who except an idiot he was clever enough to spot that of course that was all thinking of him and his mad crazy letters my Precious one everything connected with your glorious Body everything underlined that comes from it is a thing of beauty and of joy for ever something he got out of some nonsensical book that he had me always at myself 4 or 5 times a day sometimes and I said I hadnt are you sure O yes I said I am quite sure in a way that shut him up I knew what was coming next only natural weakness it was he excited me I dont know how the first night ever we met when I was living in Rehoboth terrace we stood staring at one another for about 10 minutes as if we met somewhere I suppose on account of my being jewess looking after my mother he used to amuse me the things he said with the half sloothering smile on him and all the Doyles said he was going to stand for a member of Parliament O wasnt I the born fool to believe all his blather about home rule and the land league sending me that long strool of a song out of the Huguenots to sing in French to be more classy O beau pays de la Touraine that I never even sang once explaining and rigmaroling about religion and persecution he wont let you enjoy anything naturally then might he as a great favour the very 1st opportunity he got a chance in Brighton square running into my bedroom pretending the ink got on his hands to wash it off with the Albion milk and sulphur soap I used to use and the gelatine still round it O I laughed myself sick at him that day Id better not make an all night sitting on this affair they ought to make chambers a natural size so that a woman could sit on it properly he kneels down to do it I suppose there isnt in all creation another man with the habits he has look at the way hes sleeping at the foot of the bed how can he without a hard bolster its well he doesnt kick or he might knock out all my teeth breathing with his hand on his nose like that Indian god he took me to show one wet Sunday in the museum in Kildare street all yellow in a pinafore lying on his side on his hand with his ten toes sticking out that he said was a bigger religion than the jews and Our Lords both put together all over Asia imitating him ashes always imitating everybody I suppose he used to sleep at the foot of the bed too with his big square feet up in his wifes mouth damn this stinking thing anyway wheres this those napkins are ah yes I know I hope the old press doesnt creak ah I knew it would hes sleeping hard had a good time somewhere still she must have given him great value for his money of course he has to pay for it from her O this nuisance of a thing I hope theyll have something better for us in the other world tying ourselves up God help us thats all right for tonight now the lumpy old jingly bed always reminds me of old Cohen I suppose he scratched himself in it often enough and he thinks father bought it from Lord Napier that I used to admire when I was a little girl because I told him easy piano O I like my bed God here we are as bad as ever after 16 years how many houses were we in at all Raymond Terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard street and Holles street and he goes about whistling every time were on the run again his huguenots or the frogs march pretending to help the men with our 4 sticks of furniture and then the City Arms hotel worse and worse says Warden Daly that charming place on the landing always somebody inside praying then leaving all their stinks after them always know who was in there last every time were just getting on right something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the Freemasons then well see if the little man he showed me dribbling along in the wet all by himself round by Coadys lane will give him much consolation that he says is so capable and sincerely Irish he is indeed judging by the sincerity of the trousers I saw on him wait theres Georges church bells wait 3 quarters the hour wait 2 oclock well thats a nice hour of the night for him to be coming home at to anybody climbing down into the area if anybody saw him Ill knock him off that little habit tomorrow first Ill look at his shirt to see or Ill see if he has that French letter still in his pocketbook I suppose he thinks I dont know deceitful men all their 20 pockets arent enough for their lies then why should we tell them even if its the truth they dont believe you then tucked up in bed like those babies in the Aristocrats Masterpiece he brought me another time as if we hadnt enough of that in real life without some old Aristocrat or whatever his name is disgusting you more with those rotten pictures children with two heads and no legs thats the kind of villainy theyre always dreaming about with not another thing in their empty heads they ought to get slow poison the half of them then tea and toast for him buttered on both sides and newlaid eggs I suppose Im nothing any more when I wouldnt let him lick me in Holles street one night man man tyrant as ever for the one thing he slept on the floor half the night naked the way the jews used when somebody dies belonged to them and wouldnt eat any breakfast or speak a word wanting to be petted so I thought I stood out enough for one time and let him he does it all wrong too thinking only of his own pleasure his tongue is too flat or I dont know what he forgets that we then I dont Ill make him do it again if he doesnt mind himself and lock him down to sleep in the coalcellar with the blackbeetles I wonder was it her Josie off her head with my castoffs hes such a born liar too no hed never have the courage with a married woman thats why he wants me and Boylan though as for her Denis as she calls him that forlornlooking spectacle you couldn't call him a husband yes its some little bitch hes got in with even when I was with him with Milly at the College races that Hornblower with the childs bonnet on the top on his nob let us into by the back way he was throwing his sheeps eyes at those two doing skirt duty up and down I tried to wink at him first no use of course and thats the way his money goes this is the fruits of Mr Paddy Dignam yes they were all in great style at the grand funeral in the paper Boylan brought in if they saw a real officers funeral thatd be something reversed arms muffled drums the poor horse walking behind in black L Bloom and Tom Kernan that drunken little barrelly man that bit his tongue off falling down the mens W C drunk in some place or other and Martin Cunningham and the two Dedaluses and Fanny MCoys husband white head of cabbage skinny thing with a turn in her eye trying to sing my songs shed want to be born all over again and her old green dress with the lowneck as she cant attract them any other way like dabbling on a rainy day I see it all now plainly and they call that friendship killing and then burying one another and they all with their wives and families at home more especially Jack Power keeping that barmaid he does of course his wife always sick or going to be sick or just getting better of it and hes a good-looking man still though hes getting a bit grey over the ears theyre a nice lot all of them well theyre not going to get my husband again into their clutches if I can help it making fun of him then behind his back I know well when he goes on with his idiotics because he has sense enough not to squander every penny piece he earns down their gullets and looks after his wife and family goodfornothings poor Paddy Dignam all the same Im sorry in a way for him what are his wife and 5 children going to do unless he was insured comical little teetotum always stuck up in some pub corner and her or her son waiting Bill Bailey wont you please come home her widows weeds wont improve her appearance theyre awfully becoming though if youre goodlooking what men wasn't he yes he was at the Glencree dinner and Ben Dollard base barreltone the night he borrowed the swallowtail to sing out of in Holles street squeezed and squashed into them and grinning all over his big Dolly face like a wellwhipped childs botty didnt he look a balmy ballocks sure enough that must have been a spectacle on the stage imagine paying 5/- in the preserved seats for that to see him and Simon Dedalus too he was always turning up half screwed singing the second verse first the old love is the new was one of his so sweetly sang the maiden on the hawthorn bough he was always on for flirtyfying too when I sang Maritana with him at Freddy Mayers private opera he had a delicious glorious voice Phoebe dearest goodbye sweetheart he always sang it not like Bartell dArcy sweet tart goodbye of course he had the gift of the voice so there was no art in it all over you like a warm showerbath O Maritana wildwood flower we sang splendidly though it was a bit too high for my register even transposed and he was married at the time to May Goulding but then hed say or do something to knock the good out of it hes a widower now I wonder what sort is his son he says hes an author and going to be a university professor of Italian and Im to take lessons what is he driving at now showing him my photo its not good of me I ought to have got it taken in drapery that never looks out of fashion still I look young in it I wonder he didnt make him a present of it altogether and me too after all why not I saw him driving down to the Kingsbridge station with his father and mother I was in mourning thats 11 years ago now yes hed be 11 though what was the good in going into mourning for what was neither one thing nor the other of course he insisted hed go into mourning for the cat I suppose hes a man now by this time he was an innocent boy then and a darling little fellow in his lord Fauntleroy suit and curly hair like a prince on the stage when I saw him at Mat Dillons he liked me too I remember they all do wait by God yes wait yes hold on he was on the cards this morning when I laid out the deck union with a young stranger neither dark nor fair you met before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken nor a stranger either besides my face was turned the other way what was the 7th card after that the 10 of spaces for a Journey by land then there was a letter on its way and scandals too the 3 queens and the 8 of diamonds for a rise in society yes wait it all came out and 2 red 8s for new garments look at that and didnt I dream something too yes there was something about poetry in it I hope he hasnt long greasy hair hanging into his eyes or standing up like a red Indian what do they go about like that for only getting themselves and their poetry laughed at I always liked poetry when I was a girl first I thought he was a poet like Byron and not an ounce of it in his composition I thought he was quite different I wonder is he too young hes about wait 88 I was married 88 Milly is 15 yesterday 89 what age was he then at Dillons 5 or 6 about 88 I suppose hes 20 or more Im not too old for him if hes 23 or 24 I hope hes not that stuck up university student sort no otherwise he wouldnt go sitting down in the old kitchen with him taking Eppss cocoa and taking of course he pretended to understand it all probably he told him he was out of Trinity college hes very young to be a professor I hope hes not a professor like Goodwin was he was a patent professor of John Jameson they all write about some woman in their poetry well I suppose he wont find many like me where softly sighs of love the light guitar where poetry is in the air the blue sea and the moon shining so beautifully coming back on the nightboat from Tarifa the lighthouse at Europa point the guitar that fellow played was so expressive will I never go back there again all new faces two glancing eyes a lattice hid Ill sing that for him theyre my eyes if hes anything of a poet two eyes as darkly bright as loves own star arent those beautiful words as loves young star itll be a change the Lord knows to have an intelligent person to talk to about yourself not always listening to him and Billy Prescotts ad and Keyess ad and Tom the Devils ad then, if anything goes wrong in their business we have to suffer Im sure hes very distinguished Id like to meet a man like that God not those other ruck besides hes young those fine young men I could see down in Margate strand bathing place from the side of the rock standing up in the sun naked like a God or something and then plunging into the sea with them why arent all men like that thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely little statue he bought I could look at him all-day long curly head and his shoulders his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and poetry for you I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his lovely young cock there so simply I wouldnt mind taking him in my mouth if nobody was looking as if it was asking you to suck it so clean and white he looked with his boyish face I would too in 1/2 a minute even if some of it went down what its only like gruel or the dew theres no danger besides hed be so clean compared with those pigs of men I suppose never dream of washing it from 1 years end to the other the most of them only thats what gives the women the moustaches Im sure itll be grand if I can only get in with a handsome young poet at my age Ill throw them the 1st thing in the morning till I see if the wishcard comes out or Ill try pairing the lady herself and see if he comes out Ill read and study all I can find or learn a bit off by heart if I knew who he likes so he wont think me stupid if he thinks all women are the same and I can teach him the other part Ill make him feel all over him till he half faints under me then hell write about me lover and mistress publicly too with our 2 photographs in all the papers when he becomes famous O but then what am I going to do about him though no thats no way for him has he no manners nor no refinement nor no nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on my bottom because I didn't call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt know poetry from a cabbage thats what you get for notkeeping them in their proper place pulling off his shoes and trousers there on the chair before me so barefaced without even asking permission and standing out that vulgar way in the half of a shirt they wear to be admired like a priest or a butcher or those old hypocrites in the time of Julius Caesar of course hes right enough in his way to pass the time as a joke sure you might as well be in bed with what with a lion God Im sure hed have something better to say for himself an old Lion would O well I suppose its because they were so plump and tempting in my short petticoat he couldnt resist they excite myself sometimes its well for men all the amount of pleasure they get off a womans body were so round and white for them always I wished I was one myself for a change just to try with that thing they have swelling upon you so hard and at the same time so soft when you touch it my uncle John has a thing long I heard those cornerboys saying passing the corner of Marrowbone lane my aunt Mary has a thing hairy because it was dark and they knew a girl was passing it didnt make me blush why should it either its only nature and he puts his thing long into my aunt Marys hairy etcetera and turns out to be you put the handle in a sweepingbrush men again all over they can pick and choose what they please a married woman or a fast widow or a girl for their different tastes like those houses round behind Irish street no but were to be always chained up theyre not going to be chaining me up no damn fear once I start I tell you for stupid husbands jealousy why cant we all remain friends over it instead of quarrelling her husband found it out what they did together well naturally and if he did can he undo it hes coronado anyway whatever he does and then he going to the other mad extreme about the wife in Fair Tyrants of course the man never even casts a 2nd thought on the husband or wife either its the woman he wants and he gets her what else were we given all those desires for Id like to know I cant help it if Im young still can I its a wonder Im not an old shrivelled hag before my time living with him so cold never embracing me except sometimes when hes asleep the wrong end of me not knowing I suppose who he has any man thatd kiss a womans bottom Id throw my hat at him after that hed kiss anything unnatural where we havent 1 atom of any kind of expression in us all of us the same 2 lumps of lard before ever I do that to a man pfooh the dirty brutes the mere thought is enough I kiss the feet of you senorita theres some sense in that didnt he kiss our halldoor yes he did what a madman nobody understands his cracked ideas but me still of course a woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day almost to make her look young no matter by who so long as to be in love or loved by somebody if the fellow you want isnt there sometimes by the Lord God I was thinking would I go around by the quays there some dark evening where nobodyd know me and pick up a sailor off the sea thatd be hot on for it and not care a pin whose I was only to do it off up in a gate somewhere or one of those wildlooking gipsies in Rathfarnham had their camp pitched near the Bloomfield laundry to try and steal our things if they could I only sent mine there a few times for the name model laundry sending me back over and over some old ones old stockings that blackguardlooking fellow with the fine eyes peeling a switch attack me in the dark and ride me up against the wall without a word or a murderer anybody what they do themselves the fine gentlemen in their silk hats that K C lives up somewhere this way coming out of Hardwicke lane the night he gave us the fish supper on account of winning over the boxing match of course it was for me he gave it I knew him by his gaiters and the walk and when I turned round a minute after just to see there was a woman after coming out of it too some filthy prostitute then he goes home to his wife after that only I suppose the half of those sailors are rotten again with disease O move over your big carcass out of that for the love of Mike listen to him the winds that waft my sighs to thee so well he may sleep and sigh the great Suggester Don Poldo de la Flora if he knew how he came out on the cards this morning hed have something to sigh for a dark man in some perplexity between 2 7s too in prison for Lord knows what he does that I dont know and Im to be slooching around down in the kitchen to get his lordship his breakfast while hes rolled up like a mummy will I indeed did you ever see me running Id just like to see myself at it show them attention and they treat you like dirt I dont care what anybody says itd be much better for the world to be governed by the women in it you wouldnt see women going and killing one another and slaughtering when do you ever see women rolling around drunk like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on horses yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop sure they wouldn't be in the world at all only for us they dont know what it is to be a woman and a mother how could they where would they all of them be if they hadnt all a mother to look after them what I never had thats why I suppose hes running wild now out at night away from his books and studies and not living at home on account of the usual rowdy house I suppose well its a poor case that those that have a fine son like that theyre not satisfied and I none was he not able to make one it wasnt my fault we came together when I was watching the two dogs up in her behind in the middle of the naked street that disheartened me altogether I suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I knitted crying as was but give it to some poor child but I knew well Id never have another our 1st death too it was we were never the same since O Im not going to think myself into the glooms about that any more I wonder why he wouldnt stay the night I felt all the time it was somebody strange he brought in instead of roving around the city meeting God knows who nightwalkers and pickpockets his poor mother wouldnt like that if she was alive ruining himself for life perhaps still its a lovely hour so silent I used to love coming home after dances the air of the night they have friends they can talk to weve none either he wants what he wont get or its some woman ready to stick her knife in you I hate that in women no wonder they treat us the way they do we are a dreadful lot of bitches I suppose its all the troubles we have makes us so snappy Im not like that he could easy have slept in there on the sofa in the other room suppose he was as shy as a boy he being so young hardly 20 of me in the next room hed have heard me on the chamber arrah what harm Dedalus I wonder its like those names in Gibraltar Delapaz Delagracia they had the devils queer names there father Vial plana of Santa Maria that gave me the rosary Rosales y OReilly in the Calle las Siete Revueltas and Pisimbo and Mrs Opisso in Governor street O what a name Id go and drown myself in the first river if I had a name like her O my and all the bits of streets Paradise ramp and Bedlam ramp and Rodgers ramp and Crutchetts ramp and the devils gap steps well small blame to me if I am a harumscarum I know I am a bit I declare to God I dont feel a day older than then I wonder could I get my tongue round any of the Spanish como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted see I haven't forgotten it all I thought I had only for the grammar a noun is the name of any person place or thing pity I never tried to read that novel cantankerous Mrs Rubio lent me by Valera with the questions in it all upside down the two ways I always knew wed go away in the end I can tell him the Spanish and he tell me the Italian then hell see Im not so ignorant what a pity he didnt stay Im sure the poor fellow was dead tired and wanted a good sleep badly I could have brought him in his breakfast in bed with a bit of toast so long as I didnt do it on the knife for bad luck or if the woman was going her rounds with the watercress and something nice and tasty there are a few olives in the kitchen he might like I never could bear the look of them in Abrines I could do the criada the room looks all right since I changed it the other way you see something was telling me all the time Id have to introduce myself not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldnt it Im his wife or pretend we were in Spain with him half awake without a Gods notion where he is dos huevos estrellados senor Lord the cracked things come into my head sometimes itd be great fun supposing he stayed with us why not theres the room upstairs empty and Millys bed in the back room he could do his writing and studies at the table in there for all the scribbling he does at it and if he wants to read in bed in the morning like me as hes making the breakfast for I he can make it for 2 Im sure Im not going to take in lodgers off the street for him if he takes a gesabo of a house like this Id love to have a long talk with an intelligent well-educated person Id have to get a nice pair of red slippers like those Turks with the fez used to sell or yellow and a nice semitransparent morning gown that I badly want or a peachblossom dressing jacket like the one long ago in Walpoles only 8/6 or 18/6 Ill just give him one more chance Ill get up early in the morning Im sick of Cohens old bed in any case I might go over to the markets to see all the vegetables and cabbages and tomatoes and carrots and all kinds of splendid fruits all coming in lovely and fresh who knows whod be the 1st man Id meet theyre out looking for it in the morning Mamy Dillon used to say they are and the night too that was her massgoing Id love a big juicy pear now to melt in your mouth like when I used to be in the longing way then Ill throw him up his eggs and tea in the moustachecup she gave him to make his mouth bigger I suppose hed like my nice cream too I know what Ill do Ill go about rather gay not too much singing a bit now and then mi fa pieti Masetto then Ill start dressing myself to go out presto non son pill forte Ill put on my best shift and drawers let him have a good eyeful out of that to make his micky stand for him Ill let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is fucked yes and damn well fucked too up to my neck nearly not by him 5 or 6 times handrunning theres the mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I wouldnt bother to even iron it out that ought to satisfy him if you dont believe me feel my belly unless I made him stand there and put him into me Ive a mind to tell him every scrap and make him do it in front of me serve him right its all his own fault if I am an adulteress as the thing in the gallery said O much about it if thats all the harm ever we did in this vale of tears God knows its not much doesnt everybody only they hide it I suppose thats what a woman is supposed to be there for or He wouldnt have made us the way He did so attractive to men then if he wants to kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out in his face as large as life he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole as hes there my brown part then Ill tell him I want #1 or perhaps 30/- Ill tell him I want to buy underclothes then if he gives me that well he wont be too bad I dont want to soak it all out of him like other women do I could often have written out a fine cheque for myself and write his name on it for a couple of pounds a few times he forgot to lock it up besides he wont spend it Ill let him do it off on me behind provided he doesnt smear all my good drawers O I suppose that cant be helped Ill do the indifferent I or 2 questions Ill know by the answers when hes like that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill tighten my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or the first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest about yes O wait now sonny my turn is coming Ill be quite gay and friendly over it O but I was forgetting this bloody pest of a thing pfooh you wouldn't know which to laugh or cry were such a mixture of plum and apple no Ill have to wear the old things so much the better itll be more pointed hell never know whether he did it nor not there thats good enough for you any old thing at all then Ill wipe him off me just like a business his omission then Ill go out Ill have him eyeing up at the ceiling where is she gone now make him want me thats the only way a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus theyve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or two for his night office the alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering the brains out of itself let me see if I can dose off 1 2 3 4 5 what kind of flowers are those they invented like the stars the wallpaper in Lombard street was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that something only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and try again so as I can get up early Ill go to Lambes there beside Findlaters and get them to send us some flowers to put about the place in case he brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no Fridays an unlucky day first I want to do the place up someway the dust grows in it I think while Im asleep then we can have music and cigarettes I can accompany him first I must clean the keys of the piano with milk whatll I wear shall I wear a white rose or those fairy cakes in Liptons I love the smell of a rich big shop at 71/2d a lb or the other ones with the cherries in them and the pinky sugar lid a couple of lbs of course a nice plant for the middle of the table Id get that cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them not long ago I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharans and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. Trieste-Zürich-Paris, 1914--1921

international times

2009-06-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

Look what zimmy found. Back when young people were really revolting.

Comic corner.

2009-06-08T07:19:00.000-07:00

Well I thought it was a little lame to be honest. And this one's not much better... Or perhaps I'm just feeling shitty today for no particular reason. A slight improvement...

Lily for momentary madness.

2009-06-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

Lily goes country but Capitol won't let me embed the link. It's not fair. Oh, he treats me with respect, He says he loves me all the time, He calls me 15 times a day, He likes to make sure that im fine, You know I've never met a man, Whose made me feel quite so secure, He's not like all them other boys, They're so dumb and immature. There's just one thing, That's getting in the way, When we go up to bed your just no good, its such a shame! I look into your eyes, I want to get to know you, And then you make this noise, its apparent its all over Its not fair, And i think your really mean, I think your really mean, I think your really mean. Oh your supposed to care, But you never make me scream, You never make me scream, Oh it's not fair, And it's really not ok, It's really not ok, It's really not ok, Oh your supposed to care, But all you do is take, yea all you do is take Yewell I lie here in the wet patch in the middle of the bed I'm feeling pretty hard done by, I spent ages giving head then I remember all the nice things that you've ever said to me maybe I'm just overreacting, maybe your the one for me there's just one thing that's getting in the way when we go up to bed you're just not good it's such a shame I look into your eyes I want to get to know you and then you make this noise and its apparent it's all over it's not fair and I think your really mean I think your really mean I think your really mean oh your supposed to care but you never make me scream you never make me scream oh it's not fair and it's really not ok it's really not ok it's really not ok oh your supposed to care but all you do is take all you do is take there's just one thing that's getting in the way when we go up to bed you're just not good it's such a shame I look into your eyes I want to get to know you and then you make this noise and its apparent it's all over it's not fair and I think your really mean I think your really mean I think your really mean oh your supposed to care but you never make me scream you never make me scream oh it's not fair and it's really not ok it's really not ok it's really not ok oh your supposed to care but all you do is take all you do is take

Bagels and bubblegum.

2009-06-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

Everybody’s hustlin’, Just to have a little scene... Donovan. Simon enjoys writing for the underground press. OZ are receptive and Miles takes everything he writes for International Times. Editorial policies tend to be lax and Simon finds he can adapt easily to whatever is required. You want radical? Power to the people, legalize pot, smash the system, free everything. Right on man! OK how about something on Che? The fiery piece on Michael X he wrote for Black Dwarf will come to be regarded as a classic of the genre. It’s still used in journalism courses today. But there’s no money in it. Tariq Ali just hands him a bundle of magazines and tells him to go out and flog them. Keep half he says. He discusses all this with Samantha. She is very encouraging and has some ideas for articles. She also has connections in the publishing business. Not least her own father, Monty. Samantha takes Simon to meet Monty in his Denmark Street office. The office isn’t very large but it’s a hive of activity. A woman is typing. A small man in a gangster suit is playing an upright piano in the corner. Phones are ringing. There are pictures of Frankie Vaughan and Petula Clarke and other people on the walls…people Simon normally can’t get excited about but he’s too polite to mention it. The focal point is a large desk covered in sheet music, contracts, 45s…even some 78s. Behind the desk sits Monty, who it transpires, is a figure of some substance in the world of popular music. He publishes sheet music, makes records, acts as agent for various artistes and produces Tin Pan Times, a weekly publication for people who like to keep up with the music business. ‘Things move fast in this business,’ says Monty between, and during, bites of bagel, ‘if you’d told me last year I’d be doing promotion for a bunch of scruffy scousers I’d have laughed you out of the office. And now look. Top of the hit parade. Money rolling in. Nice boys they are too. That Paul’s a real charmer. So you’re the boyfriend I’ve been hearing about? Sam tells me you’re a writer?’ ‘I try to be,’ says Simon which is pretty much what he tells Arthur when he sees him. ‘How about you? What are you up to?’ ‘Oh you know,’ says Arthur, ‘running the shop. Reading a bit. Watching telly.’ ‘That’s it?’ ‘Pretty much. I know what you’re thinking. Why doesn’t he sell the shop? We’ve talked about it…but what would we do?’ ‘Sounds as if you quite like the security and routine.’ ‘In a way I do.’ And, in a way, he does. He’s a father now. Alice spends a lot of time with baby Cynthia. The shop takes all his time. Newspapers keep coming, headlines keep blaring…’CLAY BEATS LISTON!’, ‘BEATLES INVADE AMERICA!!’, ‘TEXAS SNIPER KILLS 12!!!’, ‘MINI-SKIRTS ARE IN!!!!’ They all have to be sorted. Shelves have to be stocked. Inventories kept. It’s irritating too the way the sales reps keep coming round with new products. The problem is finding enough counter space. And it’s not easy to predict what the children will go for. Things like Mars Bars and Smarties are always popular but some of the newer confections just seem to sit on the counter for weeks. Nobody even wants to try them. Flying saucers, sherbert dips, gobstoppers, glow worms, jelly fish, black jacks, cherry lips, sugar mice, spearmint chews, jazzies, mintoes, teacakes, fizzwizz, Pontefract cakes, aniseed balls, bulls eyes, licorice torpedos...where is he supposed to put all the stuff? Too high and they can’t see it…too low and the little buggers just help themselves. All the cardboard promotional material that comes with them just seems to add to the confusion. The cut-out displays aren’t always easy to assemble. And what to do with all the old cardboard boxes? It occurs to Arthur that recycling might be the way of the future.

The grateful dead.

2009-05-28T06:13:00.000-07:00

Life goes on downunder. Want to take it with you? Perhaps the Reincarnation Bank is for you...

Poets gone wild.

2009-05-26T17:28:00.000-07:00

When Derek was at Harvard, Or so the story goes, He fancied a bit of the other, Now everybody knows. Ruth put it on the internet you see, So Derek’s been exposed. She didn’t want to divide the university of course, Or tread on anybody’s toes, But when sex, race, gender and poetry get mixed up, That’s the way it goes.

Electric friendship generator.

2009-05-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

Exiles on main street...

2009-05-18T17:59:00.001-07:00

Robert Greenfield did such a good job with ‘STP’, an account of the Stones '72 US tour, that it’s hard not to be disappointed with his latest effort. Granted it can’t be easy to come up with a new angle on the Stones. Greenfield focuses on the making of ‘Exile On Main Street’ but he doesn’t focus very hard and the result, to put it kindly, is not outstanding. Which is a pity because the subject has a lot of potential. It’s not a bad read but it isn’t clear if Greenfield was actually at Nellcote himself. He gives the impression he was. He certainly talked to some people who were and he borrows extensively from other peoples’ memoirs and interviews. There’s a comprehensive list of sources at the end of the book. One step ahead of the British taxman, who wanted 83% of their earnings, the Stones descended on the same part of France that appealed so much to Somerset Maugham. They rented a house called Nellcote on St. Jean Cap Ferrat and tried to sort themselves out. The house itself had a lot of character. It was a sort of Napoleonic extravaganza with chandeliers etc. and it’s well described in the book. Lots of people came and went and there was no shortage of drama, mostly supplied by Anita Pallenberg. If you weren’t invited you didn’t get in. Once in you soon found out there was a loose hierarchy, a pyramid with Keith and Anita at the top. It was no place for the paranoid. There was even a stuffy basement room they used for a studio that may or may not have been a Gestapo torture chamber. Good story anyway. And great for the legend. Greenfield works hard to convey his concept of the Nellcote atmosphere. He’s at his best when he describes the various supporting roles played by visitors like Tommy Weber, ‘Stash’ Klossowski, Olivier Boelen and the ubiquitous Marshall Chess. Were they more than just court-jesters we wonder? So do they probably. The Stones attracted a lot of people who couldn’t keep up the pace. Normal rules didn’t apply and a big part of the book deals with the hangers-on especially the ones like Madeleine d’Arcy, Michele Breton and more famously Gram Parsons who went on to become casualties. There was also a constant stream of drug dealers passing through, ‘les cowboys’, supplying pharmaceutical refreshment and with Keith’s own personal purveyor, the nefarious Spanish Tony lurking about the sense of dis-ease (Tropical Disease was the original title) must have been palpable. We also learn a few things about Keith Richards’ heroine habit and Anita Pallenberg’s healthy sexual appetite. But we never discover how they dealt with their contradictory urges. Was Manuel Stimulation involved? It’s not really any of our business...but still. Greenfield’s basic take on Keith is that is he doesn’t give a shit. Richards has seen it all, done all the drugs and met enough ‘important’ people to know that most of them are pretentious idiots. All he cares about is his guitars. Well maybe. Greenfield is obviously a fan but he may be projecting his own fantasies just a little bit here. Clearly the Stones’ arrogance attracts him but when he tries it himself he comes across as an arsehole. There are passages in the book for instance where Greenfield tries to settle some scores with other writers, Stephen Davis and A.E. Hotchner for two. He does it in a Stonesy kind of way but without Jagger’s panache and ends up making himself look snarky. Which probably doesn’t bother him too much. Greenfield doesn’t talk much about the music or the song-writing process, ‘this sort of travail being the bailiwick of rock critics as opposed to rock writers’ he says, though he does have an irritating way of co-opting Stones song titles and lines to make a point between the buttons. That stuff has all been done to death. As fiction the purple prose works well enough but the reader gets the sense that he’s trying to make it all appear more gonzo than it probably was. Total chaos is difficult to maintain over extended periods. As drug scene veterans well know there’s a lot of sitting around staring into space involved. There’s an interesting bit where Keith freaks out and gets in a punch-up with the local harbour-master making good use of his famous heavy silver skull ring (copies available from Messrs. Courts & Hackett of Hatton Garden). I’d put Greenfield slightly ahead of Victor Bockris in the rock-writing stakes, behind Stanley Booth and neck-and neck with Nick Kent. He tries hard but he just can’t out-Bang Lester. There are some unforgivable factual errors too. ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ is NOT on Sticky Fingers and Altamont took place 3 1/2 months after Woodstock not 14. Greenfield throws the usual Jagger/Richards friction into the mix (Richards disappears in the bathroom for hours, Jagger has to get an album together, cope with the chaos and keep his new pregnant wife Bianca happy) and we’re left wondering how anything got done. But it did. Which is another reason for thinking the Stones may have been more together than Greenfield likes to suggest. The finished album is one of their worst, or most authentic, depending who you talk to. Everybody left Nellcote in a hurry. Were the Stones consciously making rock history or did it all just happen? Was it, as Mick Taylor says, just a bunch of stoned musicians cooped up in a basement or was something else going on there, some kind of alchemy with an agenda of its own? Take your pick. Greenfield’s book doesn’t shine a lot of light. If you need another point of view you may want to try ‘Even When It Was Bad It Was Good’ by June Shelley. She was at Nellcote and she went on to become an executive at RKO. She was also the wife of Ramblin’ Jack Elliot at one time which was good enough credentials for the Stones. Pictures of Villa Nellcote.

Strap them kids in...time for a little Choctaw Bingo.

2009-05-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

Sing along now y'all... Strap them kids in Give 'em a little bit of vodka in a cherry coke We're going to Oklahoma to the family reunion for the first time in years It's up at uncle Slayton's cause he's getting on in years You know he no longer travels but he's still pretty spry He's not much on talking and he's just too mean to die And they'll be comin' down from Kansas and from west Arkansaw It'll be one great big old party like you never saw Uncle Slayton's got his Texan pride Back in the thickets with his Asian bride He's got a Airstream trailer and a Holstein cow He still makes whiskey 'cause he still knows how He plays that Choctaw bingo every Friday night You know he had to leave Texas but he won't say why He owns a quarter section up by Lake Eufala Caught a great big ol' blue cat on a driftin' jug line Sells his hardwood timber to the shipping mill Cooks that crystal meth because the shine don't sell He cooks that crystal meth because the shine don't sell You know he likes his money he don't mind the smell My cousin Roscoe, Slayton's oldest boy from his second marriage up in Illinois He was raised in East St. Louis by his momma's people Where they do things different Thought he'd just come on down He was going to Dallas Texas in a semi truck called from that big McDonald's You know the one they built up on that great big ol' bridge Across the Will Rogers Turnpike Took the Big Cabin exit stopped and bought a carton of cigarettes At that Indian Smoke Shop with the big neon smoke rings In the Cherokee Nation hit Muskogee late that night Somebody ran a stoplight at the Shawnee Bypass Roscoe tried to miss 'em but he didn't quite Bob and Mae come up from some little town Way down by lake Texoma where he coaches football They were two A champions now for two years running But he says they won't be this year no they won't be this year And he stopped off in Tushka at that "Pop's Knife and Gun" place Bought a SKS rifle and a couple a full cases of that steel core ammo With the Berdan primers from some East bloc nation that no longer needs 'em And a Desert Eagle that's one great big ol' pistol I mean .50 caliber made by badass Hebrews And some surplus tracers for that old BAR of Slayton's Soon as it gets dark we're gonna have us a time We're gonna have us a time Ruth Ann and Lynn come down from Baxter Springs That's one hell raisin' town way up in Southeastern Kansas Got a biker bar next to the lingerie store That's got them Rolling Stones lips up there in bright big neon Right downtown where everyone can see 'em And they burn all night you know they burn all night you know they burn all night Ruth Ann and Lynn they wear them cut off britches and those skinny little halters And they're second cousins to me Man I don't care I want to get between 'em With a great big ol' hard on like a old Bois d' Arc fence post You could hang a pipe rail gait from Do some twisted sisters 'til the cows come home And we'd be havin' us a time Uncle Slayton's got his Texan pride Back in the thickets with his Asian bride He's cut that corner pasture into acre lots` He sells 'em owner financed Strictly to them that's got no kind of credit 'Cause he knows they're slackers When they miss that payment Then he takes it back He plays that Choctaw Bingo every Friday night Drinks that Johnny Walker at that Club 69 We're gonna strap them kids in give 'em a little bit o' Benadryl And a cherry coke we're goin' to Oklahoma Gonna have us a time, have us a time...

Conspiracy theories...

2009-05-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

Pretty things.

2009-05-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

We last saw Simon in the Mountain Grill. He’s doing fine. He’s figured out that writing is the place to be. It’s just a question of getting a foot in the door. When he needs money he takes odd jobs from Manpower. The money is lousy but it pays the rent. What about Arthur then? Did he get back from India OK? Well yes but it’s all a bit depressing. He’s back in England but he’s drifting already. Events have overwhelmed him. His parents have decided not to live together anymore. Alice is pregnant and he thinks he’ll have to marry her. Much to his mother’s disgust. She finds Alice rather common. His father says nothing. Bert, Alice’s father who lost a leg at the Battle of Jarama, is dying in hospital so somebody has to take care of the tobacconist shop. Which is why we find Arthur now sorting through boxes of Mars Bars and Golden Virginia. India is already fading into memory…yes Simon? I just wanted to say something about those days Dick if I may? Be my guest. You make it sound so…I don’t know…cut and dried. He did this, she said that. The reality was much more organic. Sorry about that. I do tend to rush it sometimes. I’ll try to slow it down. Thank you. I write myself so I notice these things. No problem. I’ll give Arthur a whole chapter later how’s that? Sounds good. England was certainly changing fast in the early sixties what with Beatlemania and all that. It was hard to keep up with all the changes. There was lots going on in London. Simon went to parties, dances, pubs. Meeting people was easy. There was something in the air. One night Simon found himself at Royal College of Art where the Pretty Things were playing. They didn’t look very pretty but they got people dancing. The dance floor was crowded. Simon met some girls from St. Martins and danced with one of them. Her name was Samantha. She had blonde shoulder length hair and a fringe and looked not unlike Pattie Boyd in ‘A Hard day’s Night’. She didn’t seem comfortable getting pushed and shoved by pulsating art students so they stood by the stage and watched the lead singer. Mark my words said someone…this band is the real thing, those Rolling Stones will never get anywhere. Samantha lived in a flat in Fulham with some other girls. They took a bus to Simon’s bed sitter in Ladbroke Grove. Arthur was waiting outside. He was finishing off a cup of hot chocolate recently purchased from the Automat on Westbourne Grove. He had phoned earlier he said but nobody had answered. Nobody ever does said Simon. The phone is in the hallway and people just let it ring. It was an awkward situation. Simon and Samantha tried not to make too much noise on the bed but youthful hormones could not be denied. Arthur, in a sleeping bag on the floor, pretended not to notice. Everybody went to sleep eventually. It was raining in the morning. The three of them walked to Notting Hill Gate and had coffee in the Golden Egg. Arthur had to leave for Victoria. The espresso machine, a pump-driven Gaggia, hissed and gurgled. What does Arthur do? He’s a tobacconist. Really? Yes. We hitchhiked to India together. My dad’s in the music business. He knows Tommy Steele and Alma Cogan. Oh. I’m more interested in Blues and R&B. Bo Diddley and people like that. Do you ever go to the Marquee? Thursday nights is the best. Alexis Korner and John Baldry play there. Cyril Davies too but he died. I met a couple of the Beatles. In dad’s office. Mostly I like going to galleries. I love David Hockney. He’s a homo but so what? I don’t know much about painting. That’s OK. Do you like Dylan? I can get tickets. What? For the Albert Hall! Too much! I’m glad I met you. Me too. Can I give you a call? That would be nice. See you later then.

You can't always get what you want.

2009-04-26T05:39:00.000-07:00

I saw her today at the reception Fibulator in her hand I asked her what she was doing She said she still cared about the band You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want But if you try sometimes you might find Sustained erectile dysfunction. So I went down to the proctologist’s office To get my prostate checked She said something a bit disturbing About a hard-boiled egg. Keeping fit is important The key to eternal youth Exercise regularly Avoid substance abuse. She asked how the kids were doing (Grand kids I presume she meant.) OK, I said, feel like a quicky? Best not, she said, it’s Lent. I went down to the Chelsea drugstore To get my prescription filled I was standing in line with Mr. Pfizer And man, did he look ill Blocked artery it looked like His face was cherry red I sung my song to Mr. Pfizer He just smiled and said... Sing it now... You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want But if you try sometimes you might find A good book works instead.

R.I.P J.G.

2009-04-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

I must say goodbye to Jim Ballard. He's given me a lot of reading pleasure over the years. And, as E@L points out, he did get the Martin Amis seal of approval. Ballard at home in Shepperton, in 1988. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty A more fitting obituary by Michael Moorcock. Some quotes and an interview with Claire Walsh... "I think the enemy of creativity in the world today is that so much thinking is done for you." "Success, an even more demanding challenge than failure." "People want to save the whale and the seal because they know that sooner or later the human being is probably going to be next on the list." "My advice to anyone in any field is to be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker." "Sex times technology equals the future." "The most prudent and effective method of dealing with the world around us is to assume that it is a complete fiction." "You can do all the housework in five minutes if you don't make a fetish of it." "Women have always been suppressed, and never given the chance to flourish intellectually. When the first female Darwin or Freud appears it will have an astonishingly liberating force, and could change the world in an almost religious way. Perhaps this is the messiah we're unconsciously waiting for." "Two subjects have always fascinated me: women and the bizarre."