September 30, 2003
Coffee cleared in chemical court - that's a relief then. I shall continue having coffee during the tea break...
I've just bought a new bike. It matches my trainers. Silver and black. This definitely means: a) penury b) extreme expenditure guilt It probably means: a) a sore arse b) fewer busTop pictures It might mean: a) exercise b) fitness...
September 29, 2003
A single pic, for M, who has now left after creating his usual maelstrom. A lovely person, witty, clever, kind to a fault, but with the intuition, sensitivity and insight of... well... a rather insensitive thing. This is the person...
September 28, 2003
One of the people who makes me laugh most in the world sent me an e-mail some time ago which made mention of the fact that if he'd taken up every kind offer he received to enlarge the part he...
September 27, 2003
Another look at yesterday's tiles The cyber/meat worlds are showing signs of overlapping. My friend Swiss M (hereinafter referred to as simply "M") is staying for a few days while over in London for work. I showed him some...
September 26, 2003
I'm finding it really difficult to stop taking pictures. I have a teetering stack of busTop snaps awaiting mounting and display. More would overbalance the tenuous equilibrium. So this morning on my usual journey to work I made sure my...
September 25, 2003
Yet more views from 14 feet up. The traffic was very slow this morning so there was a greater than usual number of stationary photo-ops. I'm really pleased the first one came out - the battery in the camera died...
The smell of the sea is in my memory, she sighed, as she pulled her cat coats closer around her shoulders, tortoishell tails nestling along her prominent clavicle. It must be something about me, perhaps my empathetic explanation, my lyric...
Everything has been a bit much recently. I suppose it might be slightly like bipolar people feel like on the up cycle. Suddenly, and quite without prior calculation, I was catapulted from the safety of desk-bound routine out to a...
September 24, 2003
He folds the bedding with such scrupulous attention to detail. First the blanket. In half lengthways, smoothing out every crinkle. Reaches with long arms, brushes with stroking hands. Makes sure the edges are precisely aligned. Then the more exacting task...
Moments of permanent present. First spam comment. Hair products. *small pieces of various vegetables preserved in a hot yellow sauce....
September 23, 2003
I travelled on no less than three different buses today. The weather conditions made me notice windows, so here's a (rather large, sorry to dial-uppers) selection of London windows. Mad angles throughout. But before the pictures, I met a fascinating...
September 22, 2003
It's Banned Books Week, in the US at least. It reminds me of one of my favourite posters. It was designed by Zimbabwean artist Chaz Maviyane-Davies for the British Council Library. I put it on the wall by b1's bed...
Acute difficulty with reason, purpose. Trite, derivative, ill-informed. So why bother. Why indeed. Just that it's itching and chafing and won't go away. When I went to the oft-mentioned seminar about blogging there was a man there in a wheel...
September 19, 2003
Liberia's still there, if anyone is interested, but only just: Charles Taylor, for six years the warlord president of Liberia, stole or diverted nearly $100 million of his country's wealth, leaving it the poorest nation on earth, a review of...
Here is a wonderful poem (two, in fact) by Tom Leonard, over at Languagehat. The rest of this post won't make much sense unless you read at least the first poem. Yesterday I was talking with a colleague about the...
September 18, 2003
There was an up-side to my otherwise disheartening "wither blogging" experience. The experience too was withering, come to think of it. Anyway. Firstly I took an entirely different bus, new to me, to get there, one which came south down...
Now I think I understand why people are sometimes described as being “centred”. The closer you are to the axis of spin of the maelstrom the less the danger of random bits flying off, beyond control. If you’re lucky I...
September 17, 2003
I'm increasingly frustrated by my inability to write anything. There's no time left. Home-work-home-bed and still exhausted. Added to which I went after work today to a seminar about blogging. Which I read about over at plasticbag and I assume...
September 16, 2003
There's a new addition to the drunks' bench. Prim. Knees and ankles neatly held together, skirt - cheap but smart, clean, pleated, incongruously cheerful deep cherry red - smoothed down over her knees, handbag parallel parked next to the plastic...
September 14, 2003
I do, I really do. The brush with flood danger has passed. This morning, while I was snoring like a hog who went to bed in the early hours, B approached the affected sanitary appliance, rolled up his sleeve, took...
At least one person has mentioned the lack of autobus organisation. So I've made a proper gallery (and look at the time... this is ridiculous). It's also reachable by the rather handsome bus picture in the sidebar over to the...
September 13, 2003
I suspect WeWantYourSoul is a very clever marketing ploy. You don't get the hype unless you persist - I did, and then began wondering if it was also an ingenious information harvester. (My soul, by the way, is worth £14000...
September 12, 2003
This is how it happened. b2 had a pee, in his usual trainee-firefighter mode, inaccuracy exacerbated by the fact that he has to stand on tip-toes to have any chance of his equipment even reaching the rim. In an effort...
September 11, 2003
What does a (recovering?) depressive, an0rexic, working mother of two need like the proverbial botched trepannation? A new au pair with a severe case of compu1sive eating and bulim1a. (I have to disguise those three words since already the bulk...
This is shocking and sad: Swedish minister dies after stabbing. Her death has shocked a nation that has long prided itself on the accessibility of its politicians. Like many officials, Lindh did not use a bodyguard. An active politician since...
September 10, 2003
I thought this would be an existing term, a companion to "chick lit" and "chick flick". To describe the posse of fictional female detectives, sleuths, private eyes and other investigators. Not to mention all those male investigators conjured up by...
Have a quick trip here: Global Rich List...
Yes, it’s actress and bishop time. The subject at hand is the firm and delicious flesh of the cucumber, or, as it is known in Hungarian, uborka. Here are my five favourite cucalicious lines: A cucumber stays hard even when...
September 09, 2003
On the bus the woman held her compact in one hand, peered into the mirror and dabbed her face with colour. Her mobile, into which she chattered ceaselessly, was hunched in place with one shoulder. A carefully highlighted curtain of...
September 08, 2003
This, to me, is very disturbing. A whole head of hair extensions, complete with pony-tail band, laid out on the front garden wall of a suburban house. Who was attached to it? How and why did they become detached...
September 04, 2003
I saw a woman today having a quick fag while waiting at the bus stop, in her sixties probably, and she had a badge on her raincoat lapel which simply had the word "DEAF" in white letters on a dark...
September 03, 2003
Time for another busTop, I thought. I'm struggling to resist the urge to comment on them, so all I shall say is that the one with the black horse (presumably an old "logo" for Lloyds bank) has golden bees round...
September 01, 2003
Since it was fond thoughts about my friend H which prompted this venture, his cloth is first. This is a hand tie-dyed length of cotton from Gambia, in the standard "wrapper" size of about six feet by three-and-a-half feet....
I'm a great fan of the metaphor of weaving, or of fabric. It's nothing new of course, quite the reverse. In a randomised scratching of the web some choice flakes emerged, such as this essay which gives a fascinating insight...