The One That Got Away

Had a great idea for a blog post last night.

But I've forgotten it.

Can't have been that good.

Somehow, I don't think Balzac had this problem.

Yeah

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Bricks and Mortar

One of my date destroying, oh is that the time, passions is urban architecture and how cities change over time.

I’ll explain.

Take a large corporate plc with many employees. Staff come and staff go. There is no such thing as ‘the staff’ over any period of time. There can only ever be a snapshot of employees at any given moment.

As Pocahontas said – I paraphrase – you never can put your hand in the same river, it is always flowing, always different. *

It is the same with urban architecture. Cities constantly change and the only thing that tricks us into thinking they do not is that bricks and mortar typically change more slowly than humans (or rivers) and so we don’t see it.

When I was eleven, I used to walk through a housing estate on my way to school. Every day I would pass a house -  a house where a rather large extension was being built. Day after day, I would trudge past with my briefcase and French horn and for a few months, this state of incompleteness was my experience of this house and this journey. Now, of course, the extension has been built for thirty odd years and has taken on a look of permanence. But I remember a time when it wasn’t there and a time when it was incomplete. My ‘snapshot’ is different to most.

Stuff in transition is more interesting than in a resting state.

Battersea Power Station 2016. Yep, just one chimney, not four. It now has three. Before having four again. Transition. Photo TR

Old pictures of Rochdale, Brighton or London, for example, excite my interest. I found a picture once of the Houses of Parliament being built in the 1850’s with Big Ben only partially constructed. How the Londoners must have marvelled and how that incomplete tower must have been their reality for months, if not years. History literally in the making.

So urban architecture in transition is always of interest to me and if I see something being built or changed I try to snap a picture and record that moment of transition between one solid state and another. Capture the ephemeral nature of the built environment.

Unsurprisingly given the above, I did a master’s degree in portfolio management in the 90’s and, as part of it, authored many theoretical projects to develop the South London and Brighton built environment. This was an interesting period – right after the property crash of the early 90’s – and there were many underused or derelict sites lying undeveloped, in places we would now see as property hotspots.

A partially built i360 in Brighton late 2015. Photo TR

I especially remember the site at the bottom of Edward Street opposite The Royal Pavilion in Brighton. It had been a derelict shell for years and was being used as a temporary car park.  My limited proposal was to build a hall of residence for the polytechnic (Brighton University now) as you couldn’t give away flats or office space in those days. But what’s most interesting now to remember, is that this site – right in the heart of historic Brighton – lay abandoned for years. It’s hard to imagine now, but cities ebb and flow with the years; we, who live in them, just don’t recognise this.

Long ago. Things were different.

An interesting aside to this period in my life was that I was in charge of real estate for American Express Corporate Travel - the division with the largest portfolio of space in the UK. When the lease of the HQ building in the Haymarket ran out, I was tasked with acquiring the replacement. I found it the time-honoured way by walking around the then unfashionable district of Southwark - south of Blackfriars Bridge. This was the real old London experience where you could still imagine the Ripper stalking through the narrow streets of tall warehouses, wielding his knife on unsuspecting late night revellers.

I acquired a building on Blackfriars Road that was – in Amex terms – incredibly cheap. At that point the Jubilee Line extension hadn’t been completed and Southwark tube station – just yards from my building – wasn’t yet complete, let alone open. Today the area, with great tube links, is a thriving commercial part of London but when I was in the market, it was a backwater, and - as some eminent real estate professor at my university told me - like the perennial late night black cab driver - no-one wants to go South of the River!

Walking past ‘my’ building these days, I experience several emotions. Firstly, pride in my accomplishment, of course. Then, reflections about how this decision influenced hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. People met people, people left people, new jobs, new connections. Oh, the power! Yes, the beginnings of my nascent God complex…

But what strikes me now - as I walk around - is the contrast with my first impressions of this central London area, next to the Thames, that – 20 years ago - had no tube, no intrusive glass towers and no high rise and unoccupied apartment blocks. No wanky baristas in small batch coffee shops. Back then, the area was covered with post-war Corbusier-inspired brutalism, but also, some rather marvellous backstreet pubs filled with growling cockneys and cigarette smoke. All gone now.

It’s not just buildings that change the character of cities!

In that period – mid 90’s - I couldn’t give away office space in Argyll Street or New Bond Street. Can you imagine that? I’d go up from Brighton to meet the agents – in Brook Street no doubt - who’d tell me how my space, right opposite the Argyll Theatre, amongst all the high-end fashion shops, was difficult to shift.*** That I’d have to lower the price and give rent free periods. Them was different days! This was before the internet really got going and everyone became their own start-up.

Property – in particular commercial property – exists in periods of feast or famine. Under supply and over demand lead to oversupply and under demand. And the cycle repeats itself. It’s like some visible manifestation of capitalism.

Here in Clapham I walk the same route up and down Lavender Hill / Wandsworth Road twice a day. I get to see the urban environment incrementally change. Scaffolding erected, demolitions, gangs of labourers, white vans. For instance, the nearly complete new Premier Inn off Cedars Road. The whole of the last year this old temple / church has been patiently restored and extended. Even the derelict Victoria pub next door has been spruced up for a new leasee. It looks good. **

And the point? For me, it’s stories, it’s backdrop. Someone once said that it’s almost impossible to write a history of an event because history is not neatly divided. There’s always a back story and there’s always consequences afterwards. The same applies with the built environment. And so it reveals to me stories. Streets challenge complacency, they show progress (or regression). But the urban environment is never still, never complete.

By this time, my date has left and I’m left with the bottle and the sock. T’was ever thus.

 

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Notes:-

* The wisdom of Disney. I use the best and I use the rest.

Dating Advice from Theodosius II

Close your eyes. Picture this…

Tim arrives for a date. (Girls; linger on this image for a while. Take your time. Go on - indulge yourselves. You’re worth it!)

So, I’m showered and smelling of - I dunno - David Beckham deodorant and Obsession. Wearing jeans and jacket. Smart shoes. You lucky girl whoever you are! We do the get-a-drink thing and sit down. We talk about our day, how we got here, some random observations about the bar we're in (for it will be a bar). And then. And then.

Well apparently, there's websites out there that supply approved first date questions. If you run dry of conversation, you're supposed to throw one of these into your date to get things going. For example: -

·       Who is the biggest influence on your life?

·       What was your favourite movie / song of all time?

·       Who is your best friend and why?

·       What were you like growing up?

·       What's your goal in life right now?*

·       What's your bucket list of places to go to?

·       Blah - fucking - blah

It's rehearsed spontaneity, the wisdom of a parrot, the 'I'm mad me' humour of the unfunny. In other words, nothing - nothing would turn me off more than some lady asking me to discuss the greatest influence on my life. **

Of course, I accept that someone who reeled off some bollox question has probably put some thought into our date which in itself is charming. Or an indication that she goes on a lot of dates and is on auto-pilot. Or boring.

The point stands for blokes though too. Boring bastards with no wit but tall enough to get some girl to agree to a date. If you then rely on pre-scripted bon mots, well I’d have to put you to the sword like Stilicho in Ravenna. No mercy ladies.

This somewhat reminds me of the ‘Chechnya’ scene in Brigitte Jones where Brigitte – in order to impress upon Hugh Grant her seriousness – intones ‘But what about Chechnya’ and he responds ‘I couldn’t give a fuck’ and asks her to talk about her lesbian experiences (or just make shit up).

And the purpose of this curmudgeonly ramble? Advice to a perspective girlfriend? Advice to nervous dates that they just be themselves and let the god of wine be your guide? Perhaps, snidey bitching from life’s sidelines? Yeah, that’ll be it.

So, let me leave you with some real advice:-

No-one regrets what they did. They regret what they didn’t.

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NOTES

*Seriously – what’s my goal right now? On a date? Er, let’s think… Ooh, it’s on the tip of my tongue (like you will be in half an hour).

Was that crude? I apologise. But weakly.

** The greatest influence on my life? I would, of course, answer ‘drink’. I mean, like, doh! Exit pursued by a bear.

*** The Monday night find a husband / running club is humongous tonight. Lots of ladies. They completely outnumber the nerds trying to (get laid) get fit. If I wasn’t double their age, I’d seriously consider donning the lycra myself.

And Theodosius II? Well, he was ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire in the early 5th Century. When asked about what qualities he wanted in his future wife, he replied, "Well as long as she's good to look at." And so, that's what he got, a good-looking wife. A simple story but effectively rendered, I feel. 

Tim's Sapphic Misadventures

Are there more lesbians these days or is it just my fevered imagination?

Maybe it's where I go (Brighton / Battersea). Or maybe it's my rugged good looks attracting the waverers.  Or maybe it's more socially acceptable in 2017. Who knows.

But this march of the sisters doesn't upset me. Well, apart from one thing... 

Three times in the last month, sat at my table, tapping away, looking both authorial and yet approachable, I've been smiled at by single attractive women. Now, being eyed up by women is pretty usual for me - I am a basic pleasure model after all - but even-so, their interest tweaked my own. Maybe, smile back? Offer a drink? I'm a machine; turn me on and I deliver results.*

And then. And then their girlfriend turns up and they start to kiss. And not in a peck on the cheek kinda way. Tongues involved. One particularly attractive couple of ladies next to me on the train a couple of months ago were snogging and feeling each other up all the way from East Croydon to Burgess Hill. It was like I'd stepped into some porno movie. But with no part for me. I mulled about this - overly long - when I got home. Too long.

Okay, so maybe I view all of human life through the lens of my own single status (why not?) but it's a cruel trick ladies. A cruel trick I fall for time and again. Which means I'm increasingly getting paranoid, afraid of hitting on a lesbian by mistake. I respect people's lifestyle. So now, I don't do anything. I look away when a single, attractive girl smiles at me. Read more Roman history.

Yeah. That would it Tim. Lesbians. Why you're single. Yeah.

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* The bullshit is strong in this one tonight.

The Bottle and The Sock

My blogging has been somewhat sporadic of late. You've noticed? You may not believe it, but I write much more than I publish. Whilst there's many a slip t'wix cup and lip, there's many a dodgy blogpost that gathers cyber dust in this site's Draft folder - ruthlessly rejected from a public airing.

So, I reserve the more outre ramblings and website bootlegs for my short stories. You see my short stories are 'literary' and as such all manner of solipsistic navel gazing is permissible. Demanded, in fact.

Standard Tim Robson short story:-

Single 40 something professional (optionally short and bald) meets some quirky, and yet attractive, lady in, say, Battersea Arts Centre. They drink. They joke. They laugh. They may or may not end up together. The world turns and scratches its arse. The end.

Between you and me, I think I've entertained us all enough with this particular plot line.  Which is a shame because I've just churned out another in my Henry Ford production line of short stories. This new opus has all the plot features listed above plus the added, and experimental, bonus, that the action takes place in two bars, not just Battersea Arts Centre. Fuck off James Joyce, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough! I feel I'm growing as a writer, you know; exploring ideas, running with creative concepts, challenging myself. Screwing with that envelope.

Yeah, whatever Balzac.

Anyway, The Bottle and The Sock will be the last in this particular series of what some are already calling (me mainly) my Clapham short stories. I feel I've outgrown the medium. I'll still enter these unfertilised children into competitions. My stuff may be samey but it's good. Production line Tim Robson is better than niche anyone else.* Watch the list of stories published grow like a national debt under a Labour government. Or indeed, the bloody Tories. Doubled? 

So if I'm not writing short stories what will I be doing with my undoubted - if little recognised - literary talents.* Poetry? Perhaps - but part of me thinks this is like the UK concentrating on minority sports at the Olympics and winning loads of gold in, say, pistol shooting. Or Canoeing. Or sailing. Who gives a fuck? We'd all prefer a 800m win like the Brighton god that is Steve Ovett. Or Seb Coe in the 1500m. Twice. Alan Swells. 

Of course I mean a novel. There's a great state of the nation, the times we live in, epoch defining novel in me. It's what the world needs right now (well, about 2018 as opuses take a while to write a classic. In an attic. Cause I'm an addict.). And without revealing too much of the plot, I think it will hit the zeitgeist of now like a whingeing fucking lefty bitching about losing another election.

So - without revealing the plot too much - what will this American Psycho for the second decade of the 21st century be like?

Well I thought it might be interesting to follow the activities of a mid 40's professional guy, divorced, short, bald, and his attempts to come to terms with his life via meaningless dates. I think I might set it in - I dunno - Sussex and Clapham. Or Brighton. And Clapham. Lots of ideas. Many possibilities but I think I've got the core of my story.

What do you think? A page turner, no?

In my left hand is rock. In my right is roll.

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Notes

* Hyperbolic boast not backed up by fact.

January Thoughts

“Blow, blow thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thy art not seen
Although thy breath be rude.”

How can you tell it's January?

- Some nob in lycra shorts, a beanie and carrying a collapsible bike panted into the seat next to me on the train this morning. Naturally he was about 45 years old. Red faced with misplaced virtuousness, slimy with sweat. Out of his trendy back pack he produced a 'power shake' and made a show of drinking it loudly with many manly gulps. The green goo probably had berries in it and some spinach or kale or whatever. Tosser. He'll be depressed and fat by March wondering where his wife’s gone and why his kids hate him. Seen it a million times.

- The car park of the local leisure centre is overflowing with wall to wall Renault Espaces as the obese attend their obligatory January health classes (that cost twelve months of subscription). In the gym, they will walk slowly on running machines and do two sets of 1.5K weights, all the time talking loudly to similarly obese friends. Before having a Mars bar, coke and cigarette to celebrate having not showered. Luckily, the car park will be clear again mid February.

- Here in Battersea Arts Centre, the Monday night runners club is swelling more than an adolescent boy's trousers spying on the female changing room. Being all around 28-32 they should just hang signs around their necks 'I want to get married'. Some might wear 'and have babies' too for good measure. Given their age and fitful nature, the group will be half the size by March. Still, lots of weddings to attend summer 2018. 

- The world is full of people doing a ‘dry’ January. Frankly this is about as exciting as getting a hand job when drunk from a bored transvestite in torn fishnets at the end of a long shift. Or so my mate Dan tells me. The radical thing - the cool thing - is to have a 'Get pissed in January' January. That's what the clever people do.

You can tell it’s January because the cold is never as cold as it should be, the snow is never that thick, the money never lasts, the resolutions fail, ennui tears at your soul and good intentions whither.

You can tell it’s January because January is just like any other damn month.

Happy New Year.

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Loose Ends

The Ancient Roman general Sulla twice turned his armies on Rome. Caesar just the once. Later. But who remembers Sulla? Crossing the Rubicon trumps The Battle of the Colline Gate in our collective memory. Which just goes to show that posterity goes to the those that write things down (Caesar) against those that don't (Sulla).

Yeah, a new year hasn't blunted the edge of my pretentiousness. If anything the Xmas break has sharpened it. When not overeating or drinking, I used the time to read up on the decline of the Roman Republic whilst simultaneously ploughing through the decline of the Empire four hundred years later.

I think it's called having depth. Polymathic. Or being single. Whatever.*

Which is I guess a somewhat irrelevant introduction to the real purpose of this blog - tying up loose ends. And what loose ends are these, Tim? Well, the loose ends that I left on this blog at the end of 2016. And no, by loose ends, I don't mean the lady in Quench Bar in Burgess Hill a couple of weeks ago who I never called. **

What I mean is - yawn - Christmas songs. 

Briskly - 

- Best crooner type - Frank Sinatra - The Christmas Waltz

- Best cheesy Xmas song - Last Christmas (RIP George)

- Best carol - Can't choose. I like all five. Like a contemporary school sports day - you're all winners. ***

And lo! we become 2017. Saturnalia is over, the Xmas tree packed away, novelty Santa egg cup awaiting the chill festivities yet to come. 

Let me leave you with an intimate view of Mick and Keef being surprisingly good in 2016.

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Notes (why?)

* Polymathic. Whacked it in. No spell check appeared so I guess the word exists!

** Literally cannot turn it off.

*** "Ever feel you've been cheated?"

Christmas Cheese

I wish it could be Xmas everyday, and here it is, Merry Christmas, I'll be lonely this Christmas, Stepping into Christmas, Stop the Cavalry, they said it would snow blah blah blah.

We all know the hey-day of this genre - the 70's and 80's. It's probably the most ubiquitous of my Christmas song categories but also, my least favourite. But - culturally - these cheesy types of festive songs evoke Christmases past, slow dances with girls long forgot in venues either burned down for the insurance money or long converted into flats.

And the nominations for best cheesy Christmas song go to:-

1. 2000 Miles - The Pretenders
2. All I want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey
3. Last Christmas - Wham, Cascada, Taylor Swift
4. Wrapped in Red - Kelly Clarkson
5. One More Sleep - Leona Lewis

Yeah - I added a couple of more modern ones as I think the genre kinda died in the 80's but these last two are pretty decent reinventions (I've posted Kelly Clarkson's song here already).

Sorry for the multi artist nomination for Last Christmas but I like Cascada's version and Taylor Swift's Holiday EP is pretty awesome and her Last Christmas, countrified, is a great interpretation. 

Anyway - results in a couple of weeks! Please enjoy The King looking (and sounding) his best in 1968 in his comeback special. And yes, it's Elvis on electric lead guitar.

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An Early Christmas Present!

Merry Christmas readers. Enjoy!

Tim Robson still rocking that cardigan. Hip cat. Play those blues, boy!

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Art or Arse?

I came home last night to find my author copy of Artificium 4 waiting on the mat. This book includes my story 'Second Thoughts'. 

I wrote this story this summer on many, many train journeys back and forth between London from Sussex. There's many disparate events, people, happenings pickled into just one little story about two people going on a date. On some journeys I would change just one word. Often I would spend half an hour editing one paragraph so the tone and the language were correct. What I wrote, what I submit these days is filtered like a fucking Bavarian beer.

Flicking through the printed version though I noticed a couple of things that jarred; stuff I didn't remember; asides, clarifications, extra bits I didn't pen. Now, admittedly last night I was coming down off a good meal (with G&T, wine and port with the cheese) at Gordon Ramsay's London House. So, it could have been just me. (It's often just me). But clearly something wasn't right.

I checked again this morning. Yep - they'd been some editing on my sacred words. How dare they! One especial 'addition' to my text comes right at the end, in the penultimate line. Now I'd deliberately changed tone in the story and so by the last page the theme is one of regret not bitterness. From regret comes salvation. You follow the lead character's thought processes until he gets to this epiphany. 

It's quite touching and if I hadn't written it, I'd think it was an excellent piece of writing.

But like a child with some felt tips 'improving' the Mona Lisa, some jocular words are added before my final, payoff line. It's art, dammit!!!

Fuck it. I got £50 which I spent on a few (two) bottles of wine in London. I have another 'book' to add to my growing collection of near misses and second prizes. 

I'm not precious.

Much. 

Tim

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The other Don

Top 25

I thought I'd take a look at what my i-tunes says are my top 25 tunes. My i-tunes takes input from the following:-

• The computer itself
• My i-phone
• My kids ipads
• The ipod in the car

So therefore my top 25 tunes are not purely my tastes. Luckily for me, my girls play - and then over play - a particular song, and then never play it again. I'm a bit more constant in my likes!

To get in my top 25, you have to have been played at least 106 times (Henry Purcell - Rondeau). To top the charts, you need 265 plays (Vivaldi - RV535 iV Allegro - concerto for 2 oboes). 

What do we find in the list Tim?

Vivaldi - 7 'tunes' or 28%

Lucie Silvas and Taylor Swift are the only other artists that appear more than once (2 each).

Classical - 11 tunes or 44% (as well Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Beethoven, Elgar and Debussy)

0 Beatles. In fact the nearest Beatles song has 'only' been played 46 times (their final rooftop, complete with police, going-down-fighting Get Back).

1 Stones (live Street Fighting Man 1971)

1 Coldplay (Viva La Vida - Tiberius? Constantine? Pilate?)

3 definitely from my girls (Taylor - Shake it Off and Blank Space, Iggy Azelea - Black Widow)

1 from Iceland - Yohanna Funny Thing Is

0 Elvis (The highest Elvis - at 32 plays - is the rather mawkish Don't Cry Daddy)

Randoms - Neil Diamond (Glory Road), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Save the Population), GRL (Lighthouse), Todd Rundgren (I Saw the Light)

Dance - Matrix & Futurebound - Control

Most recent addition - Shania Twaine - You're Still The One. Added in February 2016. 110 plays.

---

So what does any of this prove?

1. I'm commuting again. I tend to listen to classical and Vivaldi on trains
2. The top 25 played (apart from Elgar, Vivaldi and Lucie Silva - Breath In) doesn't match up with my self-defined favourite songs.
3. I'm self-amusing again. Sorry. Music is important to me!

More updates next year when I reveal the shocking news that Vivaldi totally takes over the top 25 list (and he might, looking at the many, many concerti bubbling just under the top 25).

Split pea soup for lunch.

Tim

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The Thoughts of Tim Robson (Saturday Afternoon Slight Return)

We are the stories we tell...

Apparently my new trick these days is to write random sentences, take a picture and expect to treated like Yoda, or something.

An afternoon in the pub produces many things. Not often does it produce great art. Three hours and all I got was the dodgy picture above and 'We are the stories we tell...". Well  thank you Aristotle.

Paid my water bill online though.

It was overdue.

More tales from the edge soon.

Yoda

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Dating: The Truth

We were having a discussion in the pub last night. In Clapham. Balmy weather. Barmy people. Nice food, good conversation. Wine flowed. Will Young was in the corner. Thought about being a hero to my kids and asking for a selfie but, decided not to. He's got his own life and shouldn't he be asking me for my autograph anyway? Should be dancing.

The discussion turned to dating in 2016 and the benefits or not of online dating websites. It was a great discussion; wide ranging, robust, interesting. However, my natural tendency towards discretion and good manners means I won't be delving deeper into the view points raised and asserted at our table.

Well... Possibly I was pissed and the forgetfulness fairy sprinkled her 'no memory' dust over the evening. So I may have forgotten the ebb and flow, the nuances and the, no doubt, many good points I myself made in this vital discussion. But hey! Broad brush strokes are my thing, anyway. 

I have views about online dating; namely it is just like real life dating but, more restrictive. Whilst in person I might be able to - through my verbal fluidity and natural exuberance - convince a lady that Tim may just be the one, online, this isn't the case. We're all too picky and the internet's ability to filter potential partners against so many criteria works against philosopher/king/poets like myself. 

There may be a backlash however against the Corbusian brutalism of the internet... For example, if you read many female profiles on dating websites, especially those who have been online dating for a while, a great number spend an inordinate amount of time detailing exactly all the negative things about men they have been dating and how they don't want that experience again. For some it seems like a shopping list of negativity. "You mustn't be this, this, this, this. I hate this, this, this. Don't apply if you are this, this, this."

How very reductive of the human experience. I'm sure there really are plenty of crap men out there. My advice? Don't date them, then. Re-appraise your filters. If some good-looking guy meets up with you, flatters you, does the deed and never calls again, perhaps you should look to yourself as much as the man-whore. 

"How will I know?" as Dame Whitney of Wisdom once opined.

Dunno. Not my job. But, I sense that maybe, the old fashioned way of real life interactions, random, spontaneous, drink fuelled, using friends of friends, is not such a bad way after-all. Go out for a drink with someone all night and you'll get a pretty good idea of their personality. The good and the bad. And you can do a runner when you like.

Me? I can trace the arc of an evening's progress by the stories I tell, the points I make, the suggestions I think need to be explored. If it's ten o'clock then Tim is probably telling his Lisa Stansfield story. Or the Madonna story. Or the Will Young story. Some people like this. Some don't. But it's a good way of seeing who the hell I am.

There was some guy at an industry event last week. Chatting to everyone. Very serious. Boring in fact. Lots of wine was flowing. Mainly into my glass. But even I noticed he carried a glass of water. Calculating. Stay away from him girls. He plays with a mask. 

"Never trust any bastard who doesn't drink," as Bogart said. Before dying of alcoholism and cancer.

But it's a good general rule. Avoid getting pissed with someone and you miss out on the various stages of personality change a person goes through as they progress though the evening. You get to know a person. Potential partner. Light and shade. Humour and personality.  The whole nine and a half inches. I also do marriage counselling down the pub and couples therapy in a club. 

Surprisingly, I am - however - and given my advice above, on the diet/exercise/non drinking thing. Well, tomorrow.

"Lord, make me chaste - but not yet!"

I have no current online dating profile. It's a loss. But not a real loss. Just content yourself with my picture below. Will Young not pictured. Buy me a drink and take your chances.

Tim of Hippo

St.Tim of The Bobbin gives it that 'in person' fairy dust for the ladies of Clapham.

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Razor Toothed Soul

So; what's on the agenda for September? Which bon mots am I gonna scatter out into the internet for y'all to gather, cherish, repeat? Is this gonna be a safe month ("Is it safe?") or is it gonna be a cruel, bareback ride into the darker recesses of my mind?

Actually - I veto'd a post I wrote last night called 'So Wrong, It's Right.' Whatever you're thinking RIGHT NOW - was probably referred to. And then some more. Your sister was probably involved. Olive oil. Celebrity couples. Luckily my internal editor eschews such sensationalist ramblings and blocks them from being posted. Until I'm pissed...

Well, obvs I gonna post 'The Dead Pubs of Clapham'. 

I think it's about time I raised my game and started waffling about history again. There's been a shortage of tortuous historical analogies around here. I know a post on Augustus was promised last month and escaped my non penetrating gaze. Yeah, well, fuck him. Everyone talks about Augustus. What about Aurelian? Septimius Severus? Diocletian? Julian? So, I'm going to be taking a face from the ancient gallery and dancing the scarlet maypoles.

(BTW - sat in a pretty empty Battersea Arts Centre Bar and yet everyone who is here comes and sits at an adjourning table. As I've mentioned previously, I can't turn it off. Even when working. Tempted to join in the conversation to my left about Jesus.)

Some high minded chat about the process of Brexit, perhaps? I'm a magnanimous winner as you have observed. Certainly not a mirror image of the losing side. However, some thoughts on this are probably overdue. 

An article on rock. As in RAWK!! A listette article on music I like, listen to, was influenced by. I've kind of ignored rock - mentioned the Zep, Who, Stones in passing. Well, that's gonna change.

Food. In the last few weeks I have cooked three great dishes. Really mind blowing. Tartiflette (with Reblochon cheese, of course.), Vietnamese beef salad, the most amazing Nachos with beef skirt and a deconstructed salsa verde. Yum!  I'm going to TESCO tonight for a Reblochon and I'm making a big mess of Tartiflette tonight. 

Some observational bollocks about September. School days. The ending of the year. Where did summer go? Avoid if you see this one coming down the tracks.

And I think it's about time I started addressing the dating issue. What dating issue, you ask? You're funny. Good looking. A catch. Well, thank you, that's all true but even despite all those things I find it hard to find a soul mate. Blind alleys. Back alleys. Love on the rocks. Ain't no surprise.

Neil Diamond. Top Five easily... Or Top Ten. Go on - list them now!

Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin/The Yardbirds, Simon and Garfunkel, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Neil Diamond. And others. Elvis. 

Yeah, and loads of new stuff. The Pierces. Er, Taylor Swift. First Aid Kit. I am, of course, achingly on trend. Loving this season's razor toothed sole, moccasins and ballet shoes. All over that. Heels are so August 2016. 

September. The best seventh month in ninth place. Like ever!

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"I had that Emile Zola in my cab, last week."

“It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” *
 

I think, like Sleeping Beauty, I must have pricked my finger towards the end of the 1990's and slept for nearly two decades. It was a strange sleep - I can remember where I was and what I did and events that happened. Outwardly I was the same - eating, drinking, working - but something key, something vital was missing. A spark had gone out.

I think I lost my natural curiosity. The ability to take an oblique view, to check - like some tosser French existentialist - all my assumptions, all my biases. But more than that, to grow inside, to nourish - yes I'll say it - the soul. Yes, I agree I sound like a nob. I'll bear that burden.

And it is only lately that I've rediscovered a sense of wonder, discovering how very little I know, that my knowledge is parochial and patchy. There's nothing brave about admitting ignorance but I do so. Which reminds me of one of my favourite Charles Bukowski quotes I've been saving up, waiting to use on this blog:-

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” 

So, what to do? Well, me being me, I won't be dyeing my hair green, putting on a dress and joining The Labour Party or any other crazy type of thing. Neither will I (probably.. dunno) get a leather jacket, a motorbike and drive too fast down Sussex country lanes. No, my moment of clarity comes in very Tim like ways:-

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- Fiction. There' so many authors I've never read. You have to make time for this. Commuting helps. Much more 19th Century French literature. Probably not Zola who - on my brief acquaintance with him - is unremittingly dour. Too dour. Much more Balzac. But also more Great American novelists. More Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe, Roth...

- History. I have a history degree. But that's a piece of paper (lost, I think). I've always kept an eye on my favourites - Rome, 20th Century American politics, Tudors but there's so many gaps in my knowledge. So, expect me to bore you about the Dark Ages following 476, Eastern European history, The English Civil War, Marlborough, The Seven Years War etc etc. As Silent Bob says to Jay in Chasing Amy:

Bitch, what you don't know about me I can just about squeeze in the Grand fucking Canyon.

In this instance I guess I'm 'Bitch' and Silent Bob is my lack of knowledge on history.

- Thought. Management speak bollox, self-help books, fads and contemporaneous SHOUTING mean nothing to me. There's a whole world of thought out there and we pretty much know what it is from Plato, to The Bible, to St Augustine of Hippo, to Luther, Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Goethe, the Enlightenment, blah, blah. From my (limited) reading I conclude, like Harold MacMillan, "Events, dear boy, events" tend to distract us from underlying issues. The state of the human condition / behaviour has always been the same, IPads and Facebook or no. I'm curious as to what the great thinkers of the past observed. I don't expect it to make me happy but like Marcus Aurelius counselled, disenchantment is a desirable - and stable - state.

Poetry

Apart from Hardy, my knowledge of poetry is shocking. I could blame my state schooling for this. Oh okay, I will. See the video below of Peter Hitchens shaming a panel of leftie Neanderthals on Question Time. Watch it all as it tees up Hitchens nicely. It almost makes you weep the way his erudite knowledge, respected finally, is gradually slipping away from us all. Well no more around this parish! Also - I want to start committing some to memory because a) you carry it around with you b) it gives my ageing brain a workout!

Music

- Classical and more classical! Playing lots of Beethoven right now. Just downloaded his 7th. There was a programme (on the radio on the TV, dunno) which had the third movement as its theme music in the 70's. I did think it was the Galloping Gourmet (remember that!) but now I think it's just the Horse of the Year Show. So like Alex in The Clockwork Orange, plenty of Ludwig van. But also Handel, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Bach. I've no desire for dissonance. I work with the grain of my tastes.

I'll leave you with Prince Hal's soliloquy from Henry IV (Part 1). My O Level play. I always liked this speech. It speaks to me now more so than it did when I was a 15 year old.

I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyok'd humour of your idleness. 
Yet herein will I imitate the Sun, 
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world, 
That, when he please again to be himself, 
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at, 
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. 
If all the year were playing holidays, 
To sport would be as tedious as to work; 
But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come, 
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. 
So when this loose behaviour I throw off, 
And pay the debt I never promised, 
By how much better than my word I am, 
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes; 
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground, 
My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault, 
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off. 
I'll so offend to make offense a skill, 
Redeeming time when men think least I will. 

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* Luke 15:32 KJV

The Grasshopper and the Cow. A modern guide to dating.

“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.” *

One of the problems of dating in Brighton - if you hold what some might classify as right-wing views - is that your potential date will be, with a 90% level of certainty, a virtue-signalling leftie. You're stuck with a choice - to stay quiet and fail gracefully to get sex or to reveal your politics and be damn certain not to.

Saying you voted Brexit perhaps, or admire Nigel Farage, is literally like turning up to the wine bar dressed in full Gestapo uniform with a copy of The Final Solution in your top pocket. There again... The hard left these days seem to love a bit of anti-semitism. Can't get enough of it.

Saying you support low taxes, a small state, free trade and capitalism is usually - and disingenuously - met with hysterical guilt-by-association accusations. That's because, to a leftie, holding a few non leftie views means you must subscribe to a whole set of others too. So, I say, Brexit for democratic reasons, they say racist; I say low taxes and they say I want to burn the poor. Maybe piss on them first. 

Therefore, on a date, it's easier to take the cowardly, pragmatic approach. When your leftie date jabbers on about some social justice outrage de jour, just smile and take the conversation off at a tangent. Lefties generally - and especially in their natural environment within Brighton - tend not to meet people who disagree with them out loud.  Silence is taken as assent.  So she'll not spot the evasion but will take the change of subject as affirmation of her point of view - a point so obvious it should be, like, the law or something. The science is settled, the debate is over, the platform is not open, safe spaces are not going to be invaded. 

It's a bit like Facebook (of which I'm not longer a member). The busy grasshoppers chirp noisily  all over the timeline whilst the bovine Brexit / Tory supporting multitudes stay suspiciously quiet. Hence the outrage when these special snowflakes actually lose (see my article on 1992 election and the narcism of the self-righteous). They literally cannot comprehend it. Everyone agrees with them.

But - Edmund Burke fans - in looney-tunes Brighton, the fucking grasshoppers are in charge of the town and rigidly boss the poor cows about. 

Does that mean I'm a cow? Hell no, I'm a bull me. El torre! Just a rather quiet one.

So where does that leave the nominal right-winger (libertarian actually, thanks) in his quest to bed the leftie date? Well, about in the same position as with a right wing date. Or a liberal date. Or a date with woman of no political views.  

Politics, I've found, aren't actually the primary driver in the dating scene. Other, more corporeal attributes, claim that sovereignty.

It's possible I may return to this subject.

Tim

* A rather good, and prescient quote from Edmund Burke. Beware the mob!

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