Monthly Archives: January 2014

My Birthday

Tomorrow (6 January) is my birthday. I must admit to being 31 again …! It being difficult to meet up with friends during the week, we got together on Saturday evening in my favourite local, The Railway Bell, http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/11/11712/Railway_Bell/Crystal_Palace. The Bell is a lovely traditional pub with pictures of old trains on the wall, an aquarium full of tropical fish and an open fire which is wonderful on a cold winter’s evening. Despite the absence of a blazing log fire yesterday (I love it when my guide dog Trigger stretches out in front of it as there is something very homely about the sceene) my friends and I spent a convivial few hours in the Bell. Incidentally the reference to Sunday roast on The Beer In The Evening site is, sadly inaccurate as no roasts have been served in the pub for several years. The Bell does, however offer a selection of delicious rolls (freshly made, not pre-packed) to which I have often succumbed. I am particularly partial to ham and tomato on fresh bread.

Yesterday we all resisted the temptation of freshly made sandwitches, moving on to The Palace Spice for a delicious Indian meal and a bottle of house red, http://www.palacespiceindian.co.uk/restaurantinformation.aspx?restaurant=1. The Spice is a regular haunt for my friends and I. Talking to my friend Brian we estimated that we spend (together with other guests we take there) over £1000 a year which is a testament to the quality of the food!

Tomorrow I will have a lazy day which will no doubt encompass a trip to the Bell at some juncture.

Kevin

Grafton Street

1 Reply

Listening To The Rain

5 Replies

Listening to the rain. Safe inside, no fear of the midnight knock on the door. I am at peace free to think my own thoughts. No pyres of burning books, no sound of jackboots coming over the hill. Only the noise of the comforting rain wild and free.

The Magic Of A Story – Guest Post By Cupitonians

8 Replies

Many thanks to Cupitonians (http://cupitonians.wordpress.com/) for the below post. Anju has a wonderful blog which I would encourage you to visit.

My love for literature began when I was a toddler and my dad would enact Tom Sawyer or Oliver Twist before bedtime. I would squeal and jump about with glee, trying to imitate him every night. This was often accompanied by my English Teacher mom correcting my dad’s horrendous pronunciation of names (“It’s Shar-Lut not Char-lut-eh!”) and shaking her head in disbelief. Mum would tell different tales, lores from the various places she had lived as a travelling family, folk tales she’d heard from her friends from around the world, stories she ripped off from Chinua Achebe books. We grew up as a family with a lust for things that captured our imaginations.

It came as quite a surprise to my teachers that I was so passionate about my English Literature classes. Everyone else hated it and for good reason. I studied in an all-girls convent school that was formerly a British hospital turned to a school for British-only students. Later, they opened the doors to Indians as well (I have since found out that my grandmother was among the first Indian students to set foot in that school). This brought in a lot of changes but the one thing that didn’t change was the syllabus. A huge part of our curriculum included all the famous British authors, including our beloved friend, William “Bard of Avon” Shakespeare.

While my classmates moaned and whined about how they wished “these damn writers would die” (“Erm, but, they are dead. That is sort of their claim to fame”) or the examination board would burn down and we would be free from these wretched exams, I would make jokes about opium eaters and how England is my soul country and how if you pricked us, would we not bleed? One particular teacher really resented me for correcting what I thought was her half-baked knowledge on my artists. And they were all MY writers, spinning stories just for me. To prove that my theories on her ignorance was right, for my final project where we were meant to write a story on based on a proverb, I copied word for a word a story from Nicholas Nickleby. She gave me a 100 on 100. Hence proved!

By the age of 15 (when I passed out from Indian high school) I had devoured every “masterpiece” that was on the top “to read” lists. I was reading Tolstoy & Nietzsche, James Joyce & Virginia Woolf, The Bronte Sisters & Jane Austen, Mark Twain & Ernest Hemingway. I came across a list of books that the school had banned, and being the rebel that I claimed I was, I read the Harry Potter books. When I went to University, I was studying (purely for the pleasure of it) American Literature, Indian Writing in English, Commonwealth Literature and well, I could go on. There also comes a certain arrogance from reading books such as the ones I was hooked on to – only a select group of “intellectual” people could read and discuss them. After a while, conversation with them would seem contrived because I wasn’t reading for form and the grammar. I was reading it for the story, for all the things unsaid and shining through in between the lines, for the places that only a great book could transport you to. I do have a wanderlust to quench after all.

I still try to tick off book lists, that’s just me. I’m 21 down on the top 50 banned books and steadily making my way through the 100 greatest books of all time. But picking books isn’t as deliberate anymore. Sometimes I go to my favourite used book store and pick up a book whose title has caught my attention. Sometimes I open the front of these books and then buy them for the unique message someone had written to someone. If I have one flaw, it would be that I don’t like going by popular opinions, I need to form them myself. This has led me to losing 5 days of my life reading the Twilight series (which I have to say is a masterpiece compared to 50 shades, which I also read) and gaining so much more from reading the Hunger Games Trilogy. Like everything in life, there is a chance of a hit and miss but one thing’s for certain, there will always be the thrill of learning something, anything and the chance that you will come upon magic.

The Letter

5 Replies

Susie gazed out at the atlantic. Great waves crashed against the cliffs . A gust of wind caught the girl almost knocking her off her feet. She seemed not to notice, her eyes remained fixed on the wild sea. Unbidden the words came to her

“Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,

Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,

Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble

The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,

Here now in his triumph where all things falter,

Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,

As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,

Death lies dead.”

Susie’s salty tears mingled with the sea water which the ever increasing wind blew into her eyes.

“I’m not crying, it’s the sea water making my eyes sting” So what if I am crying? All this will pass and go. Long after I am dead this will remain, the uncaring ocean buffeting the cliffs as it has for millennia. Eventually the cliffs and the surrounding habitations will be claimed by the sea. Out of the sea life came and to the ocean humanity will return.

But I’m 20, I don’t want to die”.

All flesh is dust a mocking voice intoned. Susie whirled around. There was no one save for the gulls which wheeled and screeched overhead.

“Yes I will die but please god not yet. I have my whole life to look forward to” Susie said burying her face in her hands.

“Stupid girl” the voice, like some insidious demon crept into her brain.

“Shut up, shut up” the girl wept sticking her fingers into her ears attempting to silence the tormentor.

“Stupid slapper. Silly whore” the voice said undaunted by Susie’s attempts to silence it.

Doing her best to ignore whatever devil was taunting her Susie reached into her coat pocket. She felt the plain brown official envelope.

“I can’t, I won’t open it. I’ll throw it away. Better not to know”.

“Ignorance is bliss, little miss a coward is” the voice sneered.

“Fuck off, fuck off” Susie screamed. Her words where lost in the howling of the wind and the crashing of the waves. Susie became aware of the crumpled envelope in her hands. In her agitation she had screwed it into a ball. How easy it would be to rid herself of the thing. One flick of her wrist and the letter would be lost forever in the depths of the Atlantic.

“Coward, coward” the voice taunted.

With a supreme effort Susie unscrewed the envelope and with trembling hands opened it. Reluctantly the girl extracted a crumpled letter.

“I can’t read it, I can’t” Susie wept. “Why did I do it? God let it be good news. Please, oh Christ I can’t bare it”.

Susie’s mind went back 4 months. She was drunk. She had never been so drunk in her entire life. The thump, thump of the music transported the girl into a world where only she and the beat, beat of the bass existed. She danced wildly letting herself be taken by the music to another realm.

Susie didn’t remember him arriving. One moment she was dancing alone, the next Susie was spinning around in the arms of a total stranger. Later that evening Susie recalled having sex in a cubicle in the gents toilets. Susie thought that she had consented but she had been so drunk she wasn’t sure.

“Christ, no condom. How could I have been so bloody stupid. I went to a good school, got all the right exams and I’m now at uni. I should have known better”.

Susie had gon to the hospital on the following day and had been tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

“You have herpes but that can easily be dealt with by antibiotics” the nurse had said.

Susie breathed a sigh of relief.

“You will, however need to come back in 3 months time for a HIV test”.

“Can’t I have that today?”

“The HIV virus can take upto 3 months to manifest itself so any test conducted today would be extremely unlikely to show whether you are, or are not carrying the virus”.

Susie had thrown herself into her studies for the next 3 months. When not studying she partied hard. Alcohol helped her to forget for some of the time but, in the early hours of the morning she would wake up sweating.

“What if I am infected? Christ only knows how many other girls that bloke slept with before we had sex”.

Eventually the 3 months passed and Susie returned to the hospital for her HIV test.

“You can call in for your results in a few days time or, if you prefer just telephone the number on your card quoting your clinic number” the nurse said handing Susie a small slip of paper.

Susie had meant to call. She really had. However there always seemed to be something preventing her from making that call. There had been her friend’s wedding, her mum’s birthday and so, so many other things.

“Don’t make excuses. Of course you could have found a few minutes to make such an important telephone call” the insidious voice whispered in her ear.

“Yes, OK, I could. now fuck off back to whatever rock you crawled out from under” Susie shouted.

Slowly Susie raised the paper to her face.

“Dear Miss Armstrong,

I refer to your visit of 4 July and the test conducted on that date. We have, unsuccessfully attempted to contact you on several occasions. Having been unable to do so I am writing to inform you of the result of your test for HIV. I am pleased to advise that the test is negative (I.E. you are not HIV positive).

Should you have any queries regarding this letter please call the number above and quote your clinic number to the health adviser.

Yours Sincerely “.

Susie wondered idly why doctors signatures almost always resembled squashed spiders. For the first time in many hours she smiled.

“Thank you god. Thank you”.

The gulls screeched overhead, the icey wind buffeted the girl and the great waves continued to crash against the crumbling cliffs. Susie no longer cared. She embraced the storm for it represented nature of which she was an integral part. It felt good to be alive. Susie took deep breaths. The touch of the wind on her face was wonderful. She smiled as her long black hair blew wildly in the sea breeze.

“If you exist god, thank you, thank you” Susie said.

Got The T-Shirt

3 Replies

I have sought comfort in the masses and lost myself in crowds. Like an excited child at the fair I have sought ever greater speed, for speed kills thought. I have looked for excitement and found fleeting pleasures which turn to ashes come the morrow. I have played the cynic while caring deeply, laughed to hide the fact I care. I have been there, done that and got the t-shirt.