2 October 2007

A mere whisp of the Big Smoke

'Where the devil have you been?', I hear you cry en masse. 'What the Dickens have you been getting up to?', you add as an afterthought.

Well, I'll tell you what I haven't been doing. And that is watching 'Neighbours'. Alas, my intellect has been called for elsewhere. And it certainly is necessary for all brain cells to be present in order to get off at the right bus stop, dodge raindrops effectively, and use all their strength for keeping my arm affixed to my body when lugging bloody great literary tomes around. That 'Riverside Chaucer' will be the death of me. On the plus side, I'm starting to resemble Popeye after the spinach magic. Only in one arm though.

Disregarding the loss of 'Neighbours' (I softly sob in sweet lament of this afternoon delight) I am attuning to the quirks and quaintness of our fine capital.
I shall give a taster of the observations I have made of late.
The library is organised in a nuts fashion. One could get lost in a dusty corner and never experience natural light again. Or, indeed, a common sense approach to alphebetisation.
Jeremy Bentham has his own pub. Which is marvellously cosy but a little overpriced. Now, is that the most happiness for the most people? At £5 for a large glass of wine, I think not. Though it is pleasing to see his brightly coloured features leering down at one from the pub sign.
Tutors all have their bizarre oddities. They are either named after Greek lute players, have disturbingly long fingernails for a middle aged man in corduroy, have a penchant, or even a fetish, for dashes in text, resemble Miss Cackle from 'The Worst Witch', or have fascinatingly lyrical names like Dr Ardis Butterfield.
The bus seems to be the place to be when the 'Dad gene' kicks in and I stare at people gormlessly without realising it. Totally captivating.
Large stacks of mattresses are transported from lorry to building in the middle of the street. Mattresses that I shall, in time, be laying my head on. Atleast I can see that they're doing something to my soon-to-be abode. I'll have a bed of sorts at any rate.
I actually have to read for the English course. A lot.

There are a billion other things too. But I can't recall off the top of my head. The cranial matter needs a rest. That is what 'Neighbours' is for.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dashes as punctuation are a mark of loose writing - a poor substitute for the magisterial semi-colon - as Lynne Truss says in her book. They are sometimes used as an easy way out from a (parenthetical) comma, and you should abjure them.

Time for a new campaign - down with dashes.

Anonymous said...

Are you being a smartarse Mike? She hasn't used dashes - I always think they add to the flow and drive the narrative forward

Anonymous said...

Guys, I think you have missed the whole point of this post. That being that 'Neighbours' is being sacrificed. More important issues than dashes are at stake here y'know. Jeez, get with the programme.
Despite whole books (which dad has naturally read) being devoted to the dash.

Anonymous said...

Interestingly, no-one has watched Neighbours since you left, I had forgotten about it completely. What's happening on it I wonder? Maybe there is a blog that updates you?

Anonymous said...

i watch neighbours!

Nick

Anonymous said...

Do you? When, you never get home from the Sele till tea time!

Anonymous said...

Kids today, eh? You never would get that kind of nonsense going down in Ramsey street...

Anonymous said...

But then, Neighbours isn't real life, and it's in Australia where it's different.....