if nobody speaks (of remarkable things)...

then i won't also. Okay, okay, only two pages in, but already I want to burn this book (where's the Taleban when you need them?). That's got to be the worst start to a book I've come across in a long while. It may get better (can't get much worse); it may even turn out to be a great book, but the beginning is pure and utter crap. In the beginning was...mud.I guess one has to be grateful..it's not often one comes across such purity.Not even Lorrie Moore's gate-stairs or whatever it's called sucks this much.

The city, it sings. Do me a favour.

Stacked...hang on, that sounds a bit familiar...very Larkinesque.Okay, then the whole structure...isn't that a rip-off of Dylan Thomas? If the dougal was reading this she would say two things: you haven't fucking read Thomas and yes, it is a rip off.

Hackled and crackles and clip-clop. Come on dude, I could say that...the clip-clop of the rag-and-bone man's horse, just before he snuffed it. Ah, the particular and the universal.

Listen.

Please, for Christ's sake.

Listen, and there is more to hear.

Yes, unfortunately so.

~~~

Kahneman: peak effect.

~~~

Was driving past the uni the other day when a car in front of me was crawling at 15 miles an hour, blocking my way. Eventually got past him and was about to give him the old stare when I noticed that he was a very, very old man, his hands locked on to the steering wheel, his incredible bony hands fragile and elegant at the same time whilst he seemed to be staring out into eternity. It was two in the afternoon and a brilliant sunny day and yet he had the windscreen wipers on (full speed and all, the crazy punk). I'm not sure if he was dead or not but the whole thing was spooky, let me tell you. It was like some sort of death crawl, a ghost ship in what people mistakenly call 'the real world'.

~~~