Quotepoem

It is a truth universally acknowledged

That it was the best of times, and the

Worst of times and there was

Much ado about nothing.

Nobody knew whether to be

Or not and all children grew up, except one.

Happily Ever After Daisy

Despite her best efforts, for her entire life, everything had been just perfect. Daisy was painfully happy. 

For as long as she could remember, she'd felt this powerful niggle in the back of her stomach- kill the joy it said, do your best, kill the joy. 

She started small. At the age of four she scribbled all over Mum’s brand new white sofa with a metallic purple felt-tipped blow-pen. She’d hated that the living room looked so sickeningly pristine. White walls. Cream carpet. Luxurious. Inviting. And ohsosoft.

At ten she tried to put the cat in the washing machine. Of course, she didn’t know how the washing machine worked. But when she asked Mum, Mum said, “Really precious, that’s not for you to worry about. If you need something washing just give it to Vanessa, the Filipino.”

Aged fourteen she at last managed to set the house on fire. The crème brulee blow torch finally came in handy. Her parents sobbed and the fire engines howled. But then the insurance money came in and they moved from the suburbs to the city. Everything there was even more luxurious. Pristine. More inviting and ohsosoft than it had been before.

17 and a half she learnt to drive and tried to run away. She drove all the way to Bude in the rain and took a room in a dodgy downtrodden motel. The morning after she arrived she received an envelope full of money in the post. Love ma & pa, have a safe trip. She ripped it to shreds and drove straight back home.

When she moved out it was to go to college in the States. Harvard, of course- she had won a full scholarship. She tried to fail every assignment, but her attempts to do so were labelled ingenious and creative.

She started dating Paul. Paul was wealthiest and most attractive in a string of attractive and wealthy boyfriends. He was training to become a heart surgeon. And she started to love him. She tried not to, for she knew that love brought happiness. But she couldn't help herself. She loved him truly. Dearly. And he truly loved her back. For the first time in her life, she decided to accept her good luck.

He passed his exams and they moved to London together. They had a passion for good food and good music and they ate in gastropubs every Sunday. They took weekend trips to Kent and Cornwall. He proposed. She said yes. Mum cried at the wedding. Soon she was pregnant.

She was so very very happy. Seriously and deliriously happy. Happier than the puppy for Christmas, the Saturday lie-ins, the nightly orgasms. Happier even than the warm chocolate brownie with salted caramel sauce. She was so. Fucking. Happy.

It had to stop.

Her attempts to sabotage her adult life proved initially no more successful than her childish assays. First, she slept with her boss at The Times. She told Paul. He said he understood, it was a mistake, he still loved her and forgave her instantly. Even though she’d contracted chlamydia.

So she pushed him in front of a bus. He broke two ribs and there was some internal bruising, but within a few months he was essentially fine.

The baby was born. She was beautiful, they called her Rose and Daisy was so happy. 

So one glorious summer day she brewed herself a bubbling vat of champagne and mixed in a handful of sleeping pills and some bleach for good measure. She was dead before dusk. Finally, gloriously, gone.

"Let Them Cant About Decorum, Who Have Characters To Lose" -Robert Burns

With the Commonwealth Games underway in Glasgow and the independence poll creeping upon us, I've been thinking a lot about my Scottish roots of late. For purely selfish reasons I'll be sad if Scotland leaves. Even though nothing here in London will really change, I think we'll all feel a certain loneliness knowing that our dialectically-challenged neighbours don't want to play happy families with us anymore. Sure, it's fun to call the Scots a bit shit and yes, the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony fell significantly short of the Olympic ceremony in London (SuBo forgetting her lines and John Barroman prancing about in a tartan suit can hardly compete with the Queen jumping out of an airplane), but that was always to be expected and there is a lot to love about the country.

So without further ado, I present a list (who doesn't love a list?) of some of my favourite things about Scotland...

(Rod (the bod) Stewart. Phwoar.)

(Irvine Walsh's gloriously disgusting creations)

(Highland Coos)

(Malcolm Tucker)

(Susan Boyle - because who cares if she doesn't know the words to 'Mull of Kintyre'- what does that even mean anyway?)

(My grandpa- yes, he's reading Fifty Shades of Grey)

Victorians on a hike… stylish whatever the weather

THRILLER! Thriller night!

Thanks Retronaut! 

It's crunch time: how Golden Wonder won me over

For many years I used to confuse Cheese & Onion with Salt & Vinegar. I would walk into newsagents, grab blue, then weep silently outside the shop, upon discovering the contents were not salty and delicious, but cheesy and awful. Recently, I had a revelation: GOLDEN WONDER. As I sat minding my own business on the tube, my train was boarded by a massive walking packet of green Cheese & Onion Golden Wonder crisps. The lively packet explained to me that back in the days before Walkers ruled, Cheese & Onion had always been green, and Salt & Vinegar, blue. Golden Wonder were on a mission to return crisps all over the world to the right coloured packets. They encouraged me to sign their online petition (evidently a crafty way to obtain my email address for future marketing ploys... nevermind) and to engage in their social media campaign wittily entitled, 'It's Crunch Time'.

I thought this was all absolute genius. The campaign absolutely caught my imagination and ingeniously relaunched Golden Wonder as a brand that can and should rival Walkers' place in the hierarchy of crispdom. Hoorah for Golden Wonder. Sign up here: http://www.crunch-time.co/comments.asp

Types of writing by Grant Snider

More lovely comics here: http://www.incidentalcomics.com

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

- Albert Einstein

How to get up a row with your wife...

Bizarre article from 1849 giving lighthearted tips on how to bother your wife...

"Since I don’t smoke, I decided to grow a mustache - it is better for the health. However, I always carried a jewel-studded cigarette case in which, instead of tobacco, were carefully placed several mustaches, Adolphe Menjou style. I offered them politely to my friends: “Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?” Nobody dared to touch them. This was my test regarding the sacred aspect of mustaches."

History of the English language animation

It pays to be polite...

A selection of exceptional Yiddish curses you should memorise

1. Finstere leyd zol nor di mama oyf im zen.
Black sorrow is all that his mother should see of him.

2. Khasene hobn zol er mit di malekh hamoves tokhter.

May he marry the daughter of the Angel of Death.

3. Shteyner zol zi hobn, nit kayn kinder.

May she have stones instead of children.

4. Fransn zol esn zayn layb.

Venereal disease should consume his body.

5. Vifil yor er iz gegangn oyf di fis zol er geyn af di hent un di iberike zol er zikh sharn oyf di hintn.

As many years as he’s walked on his feet, let him walk on his hands, and for the rest of the time let him crawl on his ass.

6. A groys gesheft zol er hobn mit shroyre: vus er hot, zol men bay im nit fregn, un vos men fregt zol er nisht hobn.

He should have a large store, and whatever people ask for he shouldn’t have, and what he does have shouldn’t be requested.

7. Ale tseyn zoln bay im aroysfaln, not eyner zol im blaybn oyf tsonveytung.

May all your teeth fall out except one, and from that may you have eternal toothache.

8. Vaksn zolstu vi a tsibele mitn kop in dr'erd!

May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground.

9. Ayin Kafin Yan

Go shit in the ocean. 

10. "Lign in drerd un bakn beygl!" 

May you lie in the ground, and bake bagels.

Larry the narwhal

Liz Climo is an animator who works on The Simpsons. But she also posts these adorable comic strips on her tumblr account. This one is my favourite. I love narwhals. Check out more here.

Neal Cassidy and his Great Sex Letter

Neal Cassady was the real person behind Dean Moriarty in Kerouac's masterpiece On The Road. I just Google image searched him and found the above... a bit of a hotty if you ask me.

I find Dean's wilfulness in On The Road weirdly attractive. Even though he is clearly a terribly selfish person whom, in real life, I would avoid like the plague.

Anyway, I came across a letter (on Letters of Note, one of my favourite websites). It was written by Neal to Kerouac back in the days of 1947, and it describes two sexual encounters. Apparently Kerouac latter dubbed it "The Great Sex Letter".

Neal is really callous, but I'm a sucker for a Byronic hero. And I love the idea of falling in love with somebody for just an afternoon. It's painfully romantic, and wholly ridiculous all at the same time.

Dear Jack:

I am sitting in a bar on Market St. I am drunk, well, not quite, but I soon will be. I am here for 2 reasons; I must wait 5 hours for the bus to Denver & lastly but, most importantly, I'm here (drinking) because, of course, because of a woman, & what a woman! To be chronological about it:

I was sitting on the bus when it took on more passengers at Indianapolis, Indiana - a perfectly proportioned, beautiful, intellectual, passionate, personification of Venus De Milo asked me if the seat beside me was taken!!! I gulped, (I'm drunk) gargled & stammered NO! (Paradox of expression, after all, how can one stammer NO!!?) She sat - I sweated - She started to speak, I knew it would be generalities, so to tempt her I remained silent.

She (her name Patricia) got on the bus at 8 PM (Dark!) I didn't speak until 10 PM - in the intervening 2 hours I not only of course, determined to make her, but, how to DO IT. I naturally can't quote the conversation verbally, however, I shall attempt to give you the gist of it from 10 PM to 2 AM.

Without the slightest preliminaries of objective remarks (what's your name? where are you going? etc.) I plunged into a completely knowing, completely subjective, personal & so to speak "penetrating her core" way of speech; to be shorter (since I'm getting unable to write) by 2 AM I had her swearing eternal love, complete subjectivity to me & immediate satisfaction. I, anticipating even more pleasure, wouldn't allow her to blow me on the bus, instead we played, as they say, with each other.

Knowing her supremely perfect being was completely mine (when I'm more coherent, I'll tell you her complete story & psychological reason for loving me) I could conceive of no obstacle to my satisfaction, well, "the best laid plans of mice & men go astray" and my nemesis was her sister, the bitch.

Pat had told me her reason for going to St. Louis was to see her sister; she had wired her to meet her at the depot. So, to get rid of the sister, we peeked around the depot when we arrived at St. Louis at 4 AM to see if she (her sister) was present. If not, Pat would claim her suitcase, change clothes in the rest room & she and I proceed to a hotel room for a night (years?) of perfect bliss. The sister was not in sight, so She (note the capital) claimed her bag & retired to the toilet to change --- long dash ---

This next paragraph must, of necessity, be written completely objectively --

Edith (her sister) & Patricia (my love) walked out of the pisshouse hand in hand (I shan't describe my emotions). It seems Edith (bah) arrived at the bus depot early & while waiting for Patricia, feeling sleepy, retired to the head to sleep on a sofa. That's why Pat & I didn't see her.

My desperate efforts to free Pat from Edith failed, even Pat's terror and slave-like feeling toward her rebelled enough to state she must see "someone" & would meet Edith later, all failed. Edith was wise; she saw what was happening between Pat & I.

Well, to summarize: Pat; I stood in the depot (in plain sight of the sister) & pushing up to one another, vowed never to love again & then I took the bus to Kansas City & Pat went home, meekly, with her dominating sister. Alas, alas ---

In complete (try & share my feeling) dejection, I sat, as the bus progressed toward Kansas City. At Columbia, Mo. a young (19) completely passive (my meat) virgin got on & shared my seat ... In my dejection over losing Pat, the perfect, I decided to sit on the bus (behind the driver) in broad daylight & seduce her, from 10.30 AM to 2.30 PM I talked. When I was done, she (confused, her entire life upset, metaphysically amazed at me, passionate in her immaturity) called her folks in Kansas City & went with me to a park (it was just getting dark) & I banged her, I screwed her as never before; all my pent up emotion finding release in this young virgin (& she was) who is, by the way, a school teacher! Imagine, she's had 2 years of Mo. St. Teacher's College & now teaches Jr. High School. (I'm beyond thinking straightly).

I'm going to stop writing. Oh, yes, to free myself for a moment from my emotions, you must read "Dead Souls" parts of it (in which Gogol shows his insight) are quite like you.

I'll elaborate further later (probably?) but at the moment I'm drunk and happy (after all, I'm free of Patricia already, due to the young virgin. I have no name for her. At the happy not of Les Young's "jumping at Mesners" (which I'm hearing) I close til later.

To my Brother Carry On! N.L. Cassady.

P.S. I forgot to mention Patricia's parents live in Ozone Park & of course, Lague being her last name, she's French Canadian just as you.

I'll write soon, Neal.

P.P.S. Please read this illegible letter as a continuous chain of undisciplined thought, thank you. N.

P.P.P.S. Postponed, postponed, postponed script, keep working hard, finish your novel & find, thru knowledge, strength in solitude instead of despair. Incidentally I'm starting on a novel also, "believe it or not". Goodbye.