February 2012
5 posts
Pylons striding across Portobello. Walking companions of a sort.
They’re versatile instruments of self-assertion, dogs. They bite bits out of adults’ legs and children’s heads; they menace anyone with their bark and growl; they move at speed through public places. Best of all they dump their excrement everywhere. You wretched subs can’t go out on the street and shit, but your dogs can, and they do, don’t they, everywhere, with promiscuous abandon, and the...
“I’m very peachable if people know how to peach.”
– David Attenborough, responding to Kirsty Young saying he has an ‘unimpeachable quality’, on the 70th anniversary episode of Desert Island Discs.
In the Snack Bar
A cup capsizes along the formica, slithering with a dull clatter. A few heads turn in the crowded evening snack-bar. An old man is trying to get to his feet from the low round stool fixed to the floor. Slowly he levers himself up, his hands have no power. He is up as far as he can get. The dismal hump looming over him forces his head down. He stands in his stained beltless garberdine like a...
Pierce’s post just now reminded me: can anyone identity the beast from whence this came? Or at least if that’s a pelvis or part of a massive skull or something else altogether. (It is in a front garden down the road from me.)
January 2012
1 post
Well. I woke to find that, Chhinnamasta-like, my bulb had decapitated itself.
December 2011
3 posts
Landscape with Dog Shit Bin, 2010, George Shaw (who did not win the Turner Prize)
Let Us All Be Unhappy on Sunday: A lyric for...
I meant to post this at the weekend. Sound advice from Charles Neaves:
We zealots, made up of stiff clay, The sour-looking children of sorrow, While not over-jolly today, Resolve to be wretched tomorrow. We can’t for a certainty tell What mirth may molest us on Monday; But, at least, to begin the week well, Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.
(This is only the opening stanza, the rest can...
The Voyeur
what’s your favourite word dearie is it wee I hope it’s wee wee’s such a nice wee word like a wee hairy dog with two wee eyes such a nice wee word to play with dearie you can say it quickly with a wee smile and a wee glance to the side or you can say it slowly dearie with your mouth a wee bit open and a wee sigh dearie A wee sigh put your wee head on my shoulder dearie oh my a...
November 2011
6 posts
Landscape with One Figure
Shipyard cranes have come down again To drink at the river, turning their long necks And saying to their reflections on the Clyde, ‘How noble we are.’
Fields are waiting for them to come over. Trees gesticulating into the rain, The nerves of grasses quiver at their tips. Come over and join us in the wet grass!
The wings of gulls in the distance wave Like handkerchiefs after...
Today’s poem is by Janet Paisley and is incidentally titled ‘Sarah: Fed Up’:
See ma mammy, says eat yer dinner. Gies me cabbage. See ma granny. says the wean wullnae eat that, leave it hen. Gies me chocolit. See ma daddy, says ah’ve goatie clear ma plate. Dinnae like that greasy gravey, stane cauld tatties. See ma granda, says the bairn s’no goat a stummick like a...
November 2010:
November 2011:
I’m just going to give up on things for a while.
I hope to slowly pull this blog out of hibernation, but until I get a day off it’s going to default into a collection of my favourite poems by Scottish poets. First up is Norman MacCaig and a poem from Old Maps and New:
There are spaces still to be filled before the map is completed— though these days it’s only in the explored territories that men write, sadly Here live...
Business Girls
Things have turned somewhat to rust around here. I’m not sure this poem by John Betjeman will help much.
From the geyser ventilators Autumn winds are blowing down On a thousand business women Having baths in Camden Town Waste pipes chuckle into runnels, Steam’s escaping here and there, Morning trains through Camden cutting Shake the Crescent and the Square. Early nip of changeful...
Self-portrait with train delay.
October 2011
1 post
Lost in the Supermarket: A Compilation
(Bonus track)
September 2011
1 post
August 2011
12 posts
‘Probably the best’.
The kindredest of spirits assemble to watch a crane in action.
Lost property in the window of a watch repair shop yesterday.
IT’S NO ONE FOR FUN
People that eat pancakes with jam can't be...
It does. My flatmate gave it to me for my birthday.
It is a very basic introduction to Finnish cooking, and there are mostly recipes involving berries and soup, and in one case berry soup. Lots of herring also. Here is an easy recipe for lingonberry and cardamon cake*:
*I made the boring substitution of cranberries for lingonberries but it turned out nicely.
Straining the parallel between my actual and online residences even further, I have updated this blog’s banner (now much more tea-friendly) and avatar to reflect the current exhibition installed in my pantry.
Moving
I have moved real house and internet house. My blog is now located at trivialrecords.tumblr.com. Please feel free to follow me to the latter new address. (I’ll stay put this time, honest.)
At the Independent:
In an announcement which has left old Mohawks pogoing with bewilderment, it seems the spirit of ‘76 is alive and well and being preserved by the National Trust.
A new album produced by the heritage body entitled ‘Never Mind the Dovecotes’ features 18 tracks culled from the hey day of British punk.
[…]
“Over thirty years on, many of them now enjoy...
The Flaming Lips - Bad Days
Snarkmarket linked to a wonderful post on marginalia at The Millions. There’s been a lot written about marginalia in the past few months, as paper-based books continue to be supplanted by electronic ones in new and appalling ways. But nevermind about all that, just enjoy looking at some lovely scans of marginal notes in Madame Bovary and The Anthologist and, pictured above, Bleak House.
...
Polish beer and Chinese chequers in a Scottish garden.
July 2011
11 posts
“You are not thinking hard enough if you are sleeping well.”
– Simon Schama interviewed by Tim Adams in the Observer today.
I’ve made a playlist on Spotify, a mixed bag of summer moods and you can listen to it here. It’s called ‘One last Tunnock’s wafer’ because that’s what I’m about to eat. I hope you enjoy it as much as I will enjoy that biscuit. (Perhaps that’s setting the bar a bit high.)
Some wisdom from the fridge in my new flat.
I don’t see a more efficient way of doing this, so: thanks all you!
WatchI failed to mention that— I graduated! I am, officially, no longer an undergraduate, queasy or otherwise.
Maggie Cheung was awarded an honourary diploma at the ceremony. She was elegant and gracious and surprisingly funny.
What can I say. It was a stupidly perfect day and I can’t remember the last time I was so happy.
My neighbour's windowsill
September 2010 - July 2011
By the end of the Apprentice finale the winner* had £250,000 and I had the heel of what is turning out to be quite a nice wee sock. An evening of successes.
*Being discreet for fear of spoilering
WatchSummer dinner on my ‘terrace’ (roof of the bike repair shop below my flat). Implausibly good tunes last night though as you can see my frail old radio cut out every time a bus went past.
I love when Scots say ‘yous’ and I love naive morbidity so I was thrilled by this message to a recently engaged friend from her fiance’s seven-year-old-cousin.
Together forever till yous die.
Clarence Carter - Getting the Bills (But No...
June 2011
11 posts
The ability to inspire a coachload of teens to sing during long excursions will be a big point in favour of the successful candidate.
Christ. I’m casting a wide net for summer work but you’ve got to draw a line somewhere.
My mom and brother are taking a train up from London to Edinburgh today. They’ve never done the journey and are looking forward to taking in some British landscape over the five odd hours. A few minutes ago I get an email from my mom. ’So pleased I booked a window seat’ reads the subject line.
20 June 2011
Ferry from Adalar (Princes’ Islands) back to Istanbul.
And now as one person has shown casual interest I will feel licensed in tirelessly foisting my pylon spotting upon my entire dear unsuspecting readership.
(I actually have a physical photo album but we can get to that later.)
Can I recruit you into the Pylon Appreciation Society? I was given a membership as a very intuitive birthday present last year. It’s £15 for a lifetime of sanctioned pylon worship. And you get a BADGE!
(Penguin not included.)
Elbow - The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver
...
'Rooted in the creative success of over 30 years... →
I failed to mention it was 25° today.
25°!
I had a lot of running around to do and then in the evening collapsed on the Crags.