January 2010
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A Saturday night long ago
The Flying Wild, at the RSA last night, were the biggest load of shit I ever saw. And the dance manager had a go at P and me for sitting on the floor, then I got pulled up for going backstage without permission.
When all the gear was packed up we split to a flat in Forth Street — the High and Dry, the Watchdog, the Feeling and the Hammer. There were already hundreds of footballers,...
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If you know what year these albums came out
… we are probably in sync, dear reader
I had all of them and still love them!
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Some books that have stayed with me over the years
that I have reread, bought again, sought again etc
(not definitive)
1 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Carroll)
2 Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
3 The Fatal Shore (Robert Hughes)
4 The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
5 Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe (Bill Bryson)
6 The Hound of the Baskervilles (Conan Doyle)
7 A Town Like Alice...
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No 16 on my list of 15 favourite towns and cities
PARIS
I formed a poor impression of it long ago, mostly the result of pictures looked at, books read and the sheer fear of trying to make myself understood on their terms, in their language. That is so entrenched that it can still surface at times, temporarily obliterating my real experience of the city in 2001, which was quite special.
~ ~ ~
My high school knowledge of French wasn’t too...
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Paris for the musically curious
You’re right, those who commented to me, Paris should be on the list! A few years ago, in late September, I spent a week there that was dominated by autumn (there’s a cliche), walks, the Left Bank and music. Count four cliches — but I want to mention the music here, because I associate Paris more with sound than the “sights”, and there is a place worth visiting...
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Cities and towns I have loved
In no order except as they occurred to me …
1 Venice
2 London
3 Zagreb
4 Santa Barbara
5 Wellington, New Zealand
6 Kuala Lumpur
7 Jerusalem (old city)
8 Vancouver
9 Banff
10 Corfu
11 Bayreuth
12 Bern
13 San Antonio
14 Savanna
15 Sydney
16 Quebec (old city)
17 Philadelphia
18 Ubud, Bali
I wanted to limit the list to 15 but couldn’t get it down without dumping a...
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Faces, ugly and beautiful →
I have this book of larger than life-size portaits by Martin Schoeller, most of them of celebrities and politicians.
All well-known faces, though it took me a few moments to place some as they are never seen as starkly as this elsewhere — with the camera square-on to them and forbidden to smile or perform!
It is striking to me that even the most conventionally beautiful faces can...
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Shattered ideals →
Found via a link on the NY Review of Books Tumblr blog
Tony Judt tells his story of the Sixties, dominated by the idealism of a left-wing kibbutz he joined and shattered eventually by a growing feeling
of separateness.
Deep, and beautifully written.
… with the army on the Golan Heights after the Six-Day War … I discovered that most Israelis were not transplanted latter-day...
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Ask me anything -- and indicate whether you want a... →
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Fact and fantasy in Cloggo's Bloggo →
Dear Readers
In spite of what Uncle Cloggo implies about “his” Kahlila in that delightful story, the facts are these:
She had a traumatic experience of whalebones early in life, which unfortunately I can’t elaborate on, as it would embarrass someone very close.
You will just have to take me at my word that that, combined with a rebellion against the straights in general,...
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“On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off ...”
– Frank Zappa
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