Friday 25th April 2003
To the theatre last night for the first time in ages, to see Pretending to be me before it closes (on Saturday). It was excellent - completely engaging. Tom Courtney's acting was infallible and I was fooled at times into thinking there was, at least a version of, Philip Larkin on stage. As someone who first enjoyed (if that is the right word) Larkin's poetry when studying it for A-Levels, it was a chance to stretch back to the time when I did actually read poetry - as opposed to the more common self-improving ordeal I put myself through these days when feeling especially self-righteous. This involves picking up an un-thumbed copy of works by a poet I don't like (purchased while at University to make my bookshelves look more impressive) and, with sweaty palms and a creased brow, attempting to finish a long poem without panicking or completely losing the thread. I left the theatre last night with a renewed poetic vigour, determined only to re-discover reading poetry for enjoyment. After all, I recently finished reading Possession by A.S. Byatt, a novel containing pages of long and fairly self-indulgent poems imitating Victorian poetry (in between an intriguing story - I'd recommend the book if only for the last 150 pages) and, after reading four or five of these poems, I decided simply to skip them, a nice bit of dumbing down that left me simpler and happier.
Speaking of how one reads poetry, I like Larkin's comment about 'extra-curricular knowledge', repeated in the play last night - He condemns "Poetry that can't be understood without footnotes: "See the picture 'A dog buried in the sand' among the Black Paintings of Goya in the Prado." Why the fucking hell should I?" He's got a point.
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Al sent me a the link to this news story about children - under 16s being kept in Camp X Ray by the Americans. If the children detained are anything like the little bastards who hang around my estate it's the best place for them, if you ask me.
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Tuesday 22nd April 2003
On the 10th April I said I had trouble believing a certain web page was genuine. That's because it isn't - thanks to Tom Watson MP for gently putting me straight:
" "WATSON, Tom" wrote:
It's a spoof. Relax. Not even an MP could do something as dire as my teens section with a straight face.
Tom "
Ah well, once again I fall victim to my own naivety (see my belief in the Law hoaxes below). Having a quick browse around the rest of Tom's site, despite any rash generalisations about MPs I may choose to make in the future, I found it very engaging and picked up a link for this news story debating who has the best beard. While it intrigues me that the Beard Liberation Front appear to go for beards of the ginger variety I think some consideration should have gone to Brian Blessed, surely a candidate, along with Rasputin and Moses, for Best Beard Wearer of all time. However the BLF have given extra marks for being an anti-war beard wearer, and I have no idea of Mr Blessed's politics in that respect.
If your beard curiosity is not sated by learning about the BLF, this quiz is a good challenge for the first day back after Easter. Well, it beats struggling with EC Merger Control Regulations anyway.
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Monday 21st April 2003
Disaster! Paramount appear to have stopped showing Seinfeld every day at 9:30pm. I am at a loss at what to do - would you believe that often I would spend the whole day looking forward to that 30 minute window in my life? I don't think even the repeats of This Life on BBC2 can make up for this. The Simpsons is always on before I get back from work, and watching anything else is, much of the time, akin to repeatedly stabbing a rusty compass in my eyes. I may be forced to do what those unwashed children always suggested in the Why Don't You? theme tune (surprisingly I can't find a single link to that show)- meanwhile, however, I'll be encouraging others to sign the Seinfeld online petition.
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Friday 11th April 2003
As, like most pages on the internet which serve no purpose, this little corner of Paste is an egotistical and self-centred (stop me if I'm being tautologous) exercise, I propose to start building up a little gallery of people with my name (yes, this idea is completely unoriginal and passe, but godammit, so am I most of the time). The first guy is a dead US general from the Civil War.
He was born in 1811 and died in 1886. He fought in the Mexican War and then was a Union quartermaster in the American Civil War, apparently.
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