'We were worn haggard with unsolicited autobiographies'

sunday

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:18:39 GMT

more of the same:

http://lafosta.livejournal.com

thursday

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:38:59 GMT

Happy Birthday Eamonn

tuesday

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:24:29 GMT

ON BOARD THE CHEERFUL LIZZIE
Central Hall, Renshaw Street, 1926.

monday

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:46:34 GMT

monday

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:02:10 GMT

The Glorious Fourteenth of June, 2008

wednesday

Wed, 21 May 2008 22:12:48 GMT

Jesus. As if it wasn't hard enough to find friends on this damned website, now I have to audition to stay afloat? I suppose I wouldn't want the sort of friends who value their own presence so highly that it has to be scissioned. Enough of this confounded self-promotion, says I. Here's to the glory days of a Livejournal that nobody reads.

sunday

Mon, 19 May 2008 01:08:27 GMT

Why is it that no matter what hour or which day of the week you simply never get a train seat to yourself? Liverpool is the end of the line and I'm always complacent thinking I'll have my pick of chairs all the way back to Sheffield. Always mistaken. My best bet was a spot up at the front slumped down beside some young lad in a little pair of shorts and a football jersey. Overhearing the prattle of two guitar-clutching students nearby ("that French film's gid. . . yeah have you seen that one. . . it's really gid. . . oh there's this other good one you should see, well gid") I thanked my lucky stars that I had escaped the obligation to talk.

Then fantasy was punctured by my little companion through a serious of hints that he intended some breed of conversation.

There was a great almighty exhalation followed by a loud harrumph followed by an endless desultory fidgeting with the window. "Bloody cold!" he announced, grandly.

I looked up and there we had it. He wasted no time getting the juice. What was I reading, where was I going, did I smoke and had I a boyfriend. I could feel his elbow edging towards mine with every query, his plea for a ciggy radiating a desperate heat against my arm, that temperature seldom experienced outside of a cinema during puberty.

I returned timidly to my book, did my best to extricate my arm from his blood vessels.

"How old are you?" he wondered.

"Tw-twenty."

The child flinched, its eyes ghastly agog.

"What!"

"I do get ID'd quite often," I quavered.

"No way! I'd'a thought you were my age! Younger!"

"How old are you then?"

"I'm sixteen." He wasn't. He was a fawn, a big-eyed baby-faced fawn. His voice lumped out unevenly, his legs were bald, his umbilical cord was trailing out a yard behind him. He wasn't in the least bit sixteen.

"Here's your stop," the lad attempted in his manliest baritone as Sheffield came gloriously into view.

I thanked him, wished him luck getting cigarettes and left the train with the slightly sick feeling in my stomach of one who has been making lambs' eyes in a crèche.

saturday

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:13:50 GMT

monday

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:29:34 GMT

sunday

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:25:02 GMT

And so:

Rat over ere

Hoorah!

Sadly, it was the only beverage available.

thursday

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:51:32 GMT

sunday

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 23:14:12 GMT

saturday

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 17:43:57 GMT

sunday

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:31:56 GMT

sunday

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:13:59 GMT

INSTRUCTIONS OF THE FOOD:

1. TO SEIZE A TRAY AND TO PASS FOR THE BAR

2. TO CHOOSE 1 FIRST AND ALSO 1 1 COME SECOND

3. TO CHOOSE DRINK, BEER, WATER, REFRESHMENT

4. FINALLY TO CHOOSE DESSERT: CARAMEL, GLASS OF CHOCOLATE WITH ~~SCUM~~ CREAM

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

sunday

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:21:30 GMT

tuesday

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:23:32 GMT

saturday

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:52:58 GMT

I think more than anything Brocco should be remembered for its cleanliness. One foot out of line, one inkspot, one bracelet brushed against the chalky white paint, and you tasted the bill as you gritted your teeth, the money burning straight out of your pocket.

It was not a place that invited parties, breakages, debauchery, or high spirits of any variety, since each block had been cleverly constructed to minimise your chances of encountering other people. There was no courtyard area to oversee kitchen-sink dramas through the windows of others, to whisper sweet nothings over stagnant binbags, to make eye contact with potential kindred spirits in the lift. Even if you did nothing would ever coax a smile from this particular fount of youth. An upturned nose at best.

And so with bitter regret it soon became apparent I would never walk to lectures with my neighbours, never waltz around their handbags, never exchange "sew gid"s on the staircase. In All Fairness, To Be Fair, it seemed To Be Honest that I was never going to befriend anyone, At The End of The Day. Probably not even by the end of the year.

Of course, we immediately had a resident kitchen gang, the glorious six; two of whom lived with us, the other four self-elected residents. The kind who would come hammering on the front door until a harassed Kayleigh opened it in a towel, then smirking, announce "Mind if I come bother you for a bit like?"

But of course they never did mind, because they were the Kitchen Gang, and woe betide if you attempted to use the stove during the course of one of their illuminating conversations about theme-parks, cars, A Levels, how Daddy was going to reshuffle the business once Little Chappy himself was old enough to run it: for the glorious six were better than you chaff. After all, the glorious six came together in conjugal harmony the first night that Sheffield began, inpenetrable ever after. It seemed they would share a crypt.

They had parties, from time to time, but parties of a sedate and cliquey nature; lovingly crafted dinners followed by coquettish card games and verbal dalliances. Actually the gang's parties were just like their mealtimes, only Viki would be dressed a bit prettier, a bit poutier, taking more and more pleasure in each delicious masculine putdown. She certainly wouldn't acknowledge me or Lorna then. And despite Elliot's having ordered an entire squadron of Kopparberg from IKEA, we plebs would never be invited to have some.

Oh, it stung, not being allowed any of that Kopparberg, but I suppose sometimes I rather exaggerated my stance. I suppose the strain of being chained to our bedroom walls, gnawing our shoulders and drinking our own urine rather than go out and face the darlings sometimes drove Lorna and I to malicious extremes. At approximately eleven pm when they'd left to go to Gatecrasher we would collapse heaving from our doors to gulp in the kitchen air, make tea and complain endlessly about our Brocco existence.

And what sort of upstart complains about having a toilet two feet from their bed, or a de-luxe kitchen simply because it is too long? Well, it was too long. There was nothing central in it; the large table shunted roughly to one side and this was where the greasy plates lived. The staffroom chairs next to the window we barely felt we could sit on. The TV bracket minus the promised TV. The exorbitant cost of accommodation we hadn't even applied to live in. My bottle of Robinsons' orange juice Viki seemingly had confiscated. My, what couldn't we find to complain about. And sometimes my gripes made it too far afield, to my downfall: walking up the hill once, after the eleventh crane or so, a friend remarked,

"so, Viki, is that the bitch?"

whilst a metre in front, highlighted hair glinting neon in the sunlight deflected off his dark glasses, stood Boring Ian in his little Fred Perry costume with his ears pricked up.

Extravagantly, screechingly, I gasped,

"Bitch? There is no bitch!!"

so at least Ian KNEW that his ignoring me was justified. I'm sorry, boyo. I'm a nasty piece of work.

But there wasn't any bitch. It was the sort of exclusion you could never put your finger on; they weren't consciously being unkind, they just couldn't seem to detect me or Lorna standing there. And sometimes you just have to admit that intimacy cannot be forced. Even Kayleigh, friendly, witty and approachable as she was, had signed her way into the faustian dealio and so was off limits to us. That's the way some things are.

Anyhow, the point I was making was about the lack of debauchery. Yes, there would be crumbs afterwards, yes there would be discarded cans of cider. The next day, in between essays, Viki would clear it all diligently away. And that was as febrile as things got.

At least until Salty.

Salty. Salty, the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. Surely every decent boyhood is characterised by a Salty. The greatest regret of my own boyhood is that I never got to meet him until now. You know, the Salty figure. "Salty jumped off the roof today" "Salty gave aar Baz a chinese burn" "We went the park and Salty was trapping wasps in his penis".

Well, as it turns out Salty was the missing ingredient with which to transform Brocco into authentic student accommodation. After valiant endeavours on Cribley's part to get us kicked out for arson, it all came down to Salty. Salty, Salty. It was all so simple; why did none of us think of it before? Hire Salty in, get him to set your friend's leg on fire and burn a good deal of the carpet, wait with said friend in A&E til seven in the morning, et voila! you're a fully certified bloody reckless student.

So that's Brocco, the building itself. We're still waiting on the bill, by means of apology for sullying its pristine condition. Sorry, Brocco.

Now, the surroundings! this place will be unrecognisable next year on account of the never-ending construction of palacial edifices for the de-luxe modern student - so here are some valuable details for posterity.

Edward Street Flats were once the residential focus of Edward Street. I know nothing about them except apparently a few years ago somebody got murdered there. Fear not, that could never happen to a student, Daddy would kick up hell. As it is Daddy has nothing to complain about but the prostitution, which remains the most enchanting feature of this barren land.

Heck, I know how my loan's getting covered. I've had as many offers as anything else female from Brocco, twenty-two in total, my favourite being the one where the man lunged for my arm as I was going up some steps, but I think I've got all the mileage out of that story since it is the red light district after all.

It's the prostitutes you felt bad for, standing bare-legged in the rain. I didn't have many close encounters with them, one shouted "Bitch!" once as I was on my way out, and there are blurred memories of another thanking Zoë vigorously for a cigarette after Corp. Still, you couldn't miss 'em. Every night they'd be yelling things to each other, for hours on end. Things like "WHERE'S HE GONE NOW?", "I'VE BEEN WAITING AGES!", and memorably, "BRIGID, WHERE'S ME FUCKIN' SKIRT?!!"

And the last night in Sheffield, walking back at three or four past St Georges' church, part of an affable altercation between two hunched-over, black-clad males and the tallest, most recognisable, most emaciated of the prostitutes:

"I've eaten y'shit, I 'ave!"

"I know y'ave!"

"Well, then!"

Well, then. Brocco, you've been a doll. Sharrow Vale Road will seem boring as hell after you.

monday

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 02:33:02 GMT

Since starting university I've learnt nothing but this repertoire of scorchin' moves. And from the goodness of my palpitant heart, I've decided to release some in order that you too are entitled to beat it out whenever the music swings high, wide and gutbucket.

Fig. I: Adopting a benign, vaguely quizzical facial expression, proceed to juggle two imaginary weights, all the while fixating eyes upon your partner as though requesting their advice on a valuable business enterprise. Feet should paddle gently along the dancefloor, with the accompanying knees to ascend approximately ten centimetres at a time. If the atmosphere gets a-steamin' then don't hesitate to whirl your partner under your arm, but do it tenderly, courteously, with a sloping spinal column on your part.
Try it at home! Arcade Fire - No Cars Go

Fig. II: Here, the officious pointing gesture wins out. Whether or not you like the song, it's the haute couture in disdain these cats are after. Mouth should be thrown scornfully ajar, with the nether lip playing occasional host to a single tooth in heated moments. Indeed, under any remotely passionate circumstance, muscle energy may additionally be expended to the neck, which ought to jerk uncomfortably to the frisk-a-frisk beat. But remember: be discerning. The little numbers that please your companions are the little numbers you ought to sit out imperiously at the bar.
Try it at home! Something so OSSOME! you haven't heard it yet, and by the time you do it will have ceased to be OSSOME!.

Fig. III: This one is top of the props with a pair of novelty specs mandatory, although second rate hangers-on will be acquitted with a glowstick. The principal gesture is derived from bodybuilding, but bodybuilding with a hot-hosin' twist: do it with the one arm. Raise it high, raise it low, raise it horizontal but most of all raise it as though it's the heaviest iron weight you ever tripped across. And you gotta be scrawny. Muscles are a no-no, and legs too developed for needle-girth jeans will be laughed out of the house. For those of you still with us, however: accompany the motion with a monotone incantation of your choice - in Nottingham, "Network - network - network fuckin' rail" has proved popular.
Try it at home! Clarky Cat - Secret Society

Fig. IV: As a general rule this clambering motion is performed best by those in the medical profession, or those gearing helplessly towards it. A nurse, for instance, may reason that an arduous day administering pills to the feeble now warrants a little infirmity on her own terms. Fear not, radiant health won't set her back long, not with this prescription to contend with. Couple of hours and she'll be scuttling along after her liver as it foxtrots the floor. Least it's got moves.
Try it at home! Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

monday

Mon, 28 May 2007 21:43:36 GMT

and every day, stupider drawings.

sunday

Sun, 20 May 2007 16:58:28 GMT

Like the remembrance of a guest
That tarrieth but a day.

friday

Fri, 04 May 2007 14:10:27 GMT

monday

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 04:05:50 GMT

thursday

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 20:58:27 GMT

why am I wearing a dress with nowhere to go?

why do I live here?

why am I petrified of walking into my own kitchen?

why has my beloved orange squash disappeared?

why isn't six weeks long enough to write an abominable essay?

why is there a toilet in my bedroom?

why can I never withdraw a tenner out of the machine without saying "thank you"?

why are young folks all so preoccupied with the maintenance of justice -

- to whom exactly do they wish "to be fair"?

why am I hand in glove with people whose hobbies won't forseeably extend beyond "sex doggin" and beer?

why does this impress me more than any goddamn intellectuals?

why, now that I am studying English, do I scarcely read more than one book a month?

why does everyone on shared iTunes like the Fratellis?

why do I have so many stillborn friendships?

why, then, is it a relief to find that people are disposable?

why do people go on shit nights out if getting drunk is frowned upon?

why do I like Liverpool now I've moved away?

why am I jealous my cousin Molly is going there?

why was a man pissing up our block when I walked past?

why do I get up and dressed for 9am seminars then skip 'em anyway?

why does no one ask if I'm "working" any more?

why does my flatmate think two drinks is a night of hedonism?

why can't I have my cake and eat it?

wednesday

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:32:29 GMT

at least there are folk bands on trains.

I wish I had a digital camera still, and didn't have to pillage other peoples'. I also wish I had wackier flatmates, stamps, and an interest.