Take Yer Pick

Is this:



better than this?

William Shakespeare - Sonnet #29

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


It's hard to tell, and it really isn't that important.

Christ on a Bike

I'm marrying a mad Welsh bint who couldn't even be bothered to have breast enlargements.

What can you do? It's 20 years too late, but we've been making up for lost time. There is no pre nuptial agreement in place: instead we have agreed to add a codicil to our respective wills to ensure that if either of are run over by a bus this shall be played at our funeral:



It's a tough life, unless you weaken.

Peurility Unbound

I would be churlish of me not to note the 30th anniversary of the juvenile and excessively poo oriented VIZ.

Therefore this:



and this:



I don't know why I'm glory holing this pathetic Beano inspired twaddle as it's not as funny as it used to be and Pa Broon has nipped off a brown trout and landed us all in the urinal.

Hanoi Rocks

When madame is not present I find myself an irresistible target for lovely young scooter riding Vietnamese ladies offering "boom, boom". I decline, they smile politely and trundle off in pursuit of more lucrative prospects. Unfortunately none of them have, as yet , offered to "love you long time five dollar". I imagine the phrase would have been commonplace in Saigon in 1966, which is ample illustration of the effects of inflation and the inevitability of a debauched currency.

I'm liking this flaneur business. It beats working and I have developed an addiction to pho. You have to give it to the Frenchies, they may have been colonialist bastards enforcing their rule with the guillotine but they did bequeath a certain elegance in architecture and cuisine. Eating freshly baked baguettes in Indo China seems somewhat incongruous, but I'm not complaining.

Arrivals and Departures

Long distance relationships are simultaneously a good and bad idea. The good lies in the anticipation and the joy of meeting; that intensity of union that you just can't find after sitting on the sofa of an evening inhaling Pringles, vin rouge, and watching crap on TV.

The bad is the drift that comes from being apart, and it's dangers. I can't trust Jane and she can't trust me. We are equals in our wariness having been in this place before but are, for the time being at least, airline junkies meeting and parting everywhere from London to Toulouse to Saigon.

It makes a change from the railway terminals of yesteryear and the views are better. We are circling each other, sure and yet unsure that so much undone can be remade.

I think Plato had it right with his Theory of Forms. I'm not sure if I have, but it is possible to be bamboozled twice by a girl with a Philosophy Degree and a keen appreciation of the absurdity of the human condition.

Believe me, they don't come much more absurd than us. We're stepping in the same river twice, which is impossible. Except it's not the same river, and the water's lovely.

Cindy Incidentally

Off the peg or some decent tailoring?

It's a quandary when funds are adequate and unexpected possibilities disport themselves and demand to be satisfied. Being of an age were I've worn every God awful fashion from 1980 to 1999 I have no desire to be dragged screaming and kicking into the fag end of the Noughties. No, I'm not wearing that.

I'm a Tens man myself. Ten packs of Embassy Regal and not a hint of a six pack. Which makes me Seventies. Except I'm not.

I'm sick to death of decades, and the desire to define ourselves by them. I think we should be thinking more in terms of epochs and eras. Not that that will make much difference as we'll still divide them by ten.

I was at Woodstock by the way. Not only that, I saw the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club (or was it the Marquee?), witnessed the Smiths at Moles Club Bath before they were famous, and punched John Squire at the Stone Roses Spike Island shambles.

Then I retired Rip Van Winkle style to pursue my muse. Fat lot of good it did me; I'm still stuck in 1936 and 1968:



I am a singleton when it comes to decades. Give me years and I'm a serial monogamist.

Blogging Purdah

French Exchange

Tracey emigrates:



Carla immigrates:



This may be the perfect heterosexual male fantasy, the one where you wake up to Carla Bruni serenading you with the Gallic version of 'Sweet Home Alabama' played on your trombone.

Personally I'm not convinced. Maybe it's the face like a melted welly, the bosomy Turkish Cypriot chest, or the obsession with Margate (or seaside resorts generally) that appeals.

Tracey doesn't want to pay 50% tax on her earnings that exceed £150,000 per annum (since she got successful and stopped stealing toilet rolls). Nothing wrong with that, neither would I. It could be a rash decision though. As my mate Alex marooned in Toulouse says, and I quote: "French women all have fucking rods up their arses; to look at them you'd think that smiling was undignified".

She teaches English as a Foreign Language.

Someone has to.