February 29th;
3-coffee
day. I jangle like a bunch of keys.
February 28th;
Miklos
mentions civil unrest in Slovakia.
February 27th;
Don't these Johnson
solids look lovely?
February 26th;
Wonderful bug
invasion timeline.
February 25th;
Ryan explains some career plans.
February 24th;
After dinner with
Mihaly
and another detailed discussion of his
beetle
collection,
Mariann takes me to the converted attic complex of Balazs, Gyula,
Miroslav. Jens & Margo were also there. After tabletop Santa-Sumo between Balazs &
Gyula's 3-inch-high clockwork Father Christmases, we get down to playing
Memoria with
rather odd Hungarian folklore cards (the tale of the bellringing peach definitely
worth checking out), followed by pick-up-sticks and quick bursts of
'Grease'
and Napalm Death
on video before M & I left. Excellent
craic.
'Grease' recalled Harriet & Jessica's curious ritual
evenings Cressida told of years ago.
February 23rd;
First class went reasonably well.
February 22nd;
Didn't get much done today.
February 21st;
Cappuccino with Mariann
at cakeshop round corner. Thrilling tale of mewling but unharmed kitten lost in space
at bottom of liftshaft for 24 hours.
February 20th;
Popping into IBS,
I meet two delightful teachers. Glittering winter
sunshine everywhere.
February 19th;
After an early breakfast in the petrol station where we slept, the fuel line bursts
a few miles before the border into Austria.
Robin fixes it as brilliant sunlight bounces
off melting snow and trucks welly past. Later, within sight of the border in Hungary,
we get a puncture and Robin is again struggling while I stand around being a bit
useless. Something stops him getting the old wheel off to change the tyre. After an
hour of banging with brooms and hammers, he fixes this too. Back in Budapest for a
cup of tea by half-past eight.
February 18th;
Slept in the car somewhere near the
German-Austrian border
across the front seats.
Got some kip between 1 and 3.
February 17th;
Robin picks me up from Nigel's in Catford and we hit the South Circular,
driving down through Kent by 8am.
Nuel &
Christian's in Cologne decorated for this week's
Carnival. Nuel shows us more of
Johannes
Schlichting's drawings. No news of
WolfGirl.
Nuel, Robin & I watch
'The Taking of Pelham 123'
on television dubbed into German.
Of course, when the
NY subway
cop negotiator Walter Matthau says "Gezundheit" in
German over the intercom to the
hijacker who keeps sneezing
(Mr Green?),
the dubbers left it in German in the German-language version. I was waiting for them to make
Walter
say "Bless you" in English.
February 16th;
Foyles
has the best stock in London.
While
these people
didn't have the French book I wanted, were very keen on closing time,
and had an odd system where customers find prices off photocopied lists
on the wall arranged by code and publisher [lacking the publishers of lots of books
in their stock]. Just putting prices on each book would be too much like hard work, would
it? Like so many things 'European', their books are mainly French, plus
Spanish & German material. French staff, quelle surprise. At least eight European
languages with ten-million+
speakers represented by no more than a couple of grammars each. Perhaps change the pompous name?
Grant
& Cutler much better.
February 15th;
Fiona & Nigel back from
Valentine.
February 14th;
Listened to music by 'Normal'.
February 13th;
In the mood to read a copy of
McVicar by himself lying
around. Striking to see the three sections, each written at different times and
each shorter than the one before. The first, a taut, wirily written tale of action
and emotion, the second far more introspective but still angry, the third wearier and
wiser as he slowly gains more distance from his lifelong nightmare and builds his new
self through books. The first part [his first two escapes from prison] shows his
shrewd, clear intelligence, but the later parts, as one-time thug McVicar moves deeper
into academic sociology, shows remarkable self-understanding and painful honesty.
Intelligence tested. Apart from the obvious and thought-provoking points about crime
and prison, I immediately wondered how many of us strip away our own illusions as
methodically and coolly as McVicar the longterm convict eventually did. Quite
early he identifies machismo and male defiance as a kind of culture of
self-delusion which makes criminals more criminal the more they are isolated. Step
by step he unpicks his own misunderstandings about his father, mother, and sister and
how he hid from himself the suffering he caused them. He spots the weaknesses and
self-deceptions of prisoners and warders, and then applies this analytical lens to
himself. The effect of a small prison riot at Durham, where inmates occupy an
office and read their own files, is particularly interesting. Although McVicar comes
over as an already reflective and sharp-minded prisoner, it is hard not to see this
as a turning point: bland, inaccurate, shallow assessments
in their decade-old records amaze him. Realising he is a mystery to the penal system seems
to start him wondering if he is a mystery to himself.
Oddly, this made me want to read some of Nigel's Greek epics and myths: is
McVicar someone who somehow finds his way back out of the cage of male pride
and rage to help heal our own anger? He sees his son's mother's
part in leading him out of his emotional labyrinth. He praises
Laurie Taylor,
[he of Radio 4's 1970s 'Stop the Week' discussions] as
a good sociology teacher.
February 12th;
Book shopping. Later, Rigo & Fiona join us for vodka.
February 11th;
On a mission of mercy Nigel takes me to
Bromley
by bus, where we drink two coffees
each at Nero's
as darkness falls. Later Danny Fletcher comes round - first
meeting in a decade. The 3 of us go for a noodle meal.
February 10th;
Juno gets two walks in one day. By day, two small boys in the park ask me if Juno is a
Staffordshire
something dog [she is half
Rottweiler, half
Great Dane, but friendlier
than that sounds]. By night, Nigel & I take Juno on a big walk through some south London
suburbs as far as
Honor Oak.
We go up a hill through a churchyard, rest on a
bench, look out over the city lights, and share some vodka.
February 9th;
Nigel & I visit the
supermarket.
February 8th;
Nigel kindly invites Fiona & me out for a curry at the quiet, crisply-table-clothed
Sri Lankan
restaurant
'Taste
of Eelam',
whose italic blue neon sign looks from outside
on Lewisham
High Street a lot like 'Taste of Edam'. Fiona cheerily asks us what we
boys actually did with our weekend.
February 7th;
Nigel brings back some
Saturday
papers - slightly better than the Sunday
papers I bought last week. As many as 5 or 6 quite readable articles.
February 6th;
Coach journey down from north to south, into those postal districts packed
like wheat. A brisk walk after dark from
Victoria
to Charing Cross across some kind
of royal park. Train from
Charing Cross
to Nigel's in Catford. I sat across carriage
from two criminal-looking males chatting quietly in Polish.
February 5th;
Train to
Bradford to buy
coach ticket.
Walk with mother outdoors.
February 4th;
Shopping in
Halifax
in the rain. Doodled indoors.
February 3rd;
That drink
in the Shoulder of Mutton with
Ed
a few days ago was relaxing. Perhaps
my talent is about to be
'captured'?
February 2nd;
I find her
a
book by Harold Bloom she'll enjoy.
February 1st;
I buy Mama four Sunday
n
e
w
s
papers, complete with vast supplements on houses, holidays etc.
The full-page 1950s Punch
cartoon about there being nothing in the papers swims
eerily to mind, because now there really isn't. Not a joke any more. One quite good
article about stem-cell research, two funny television reviews, and a couple
of mildly interesting book reviews, and that really is all that 4 'quality' broadsheets
have to show for themselves out of a total of at least two hundred pages. ?
-
Mark Griffith, site administrator /
contact at otherlanguages.org
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