291204

having a house guest for a few days so will be cutting myself off from my daemon that is the room housing all my books and computer, in the name of friendship.


light a candle and pray for nerves of steel for me.

281204

for half price sale, read license to treat books like empties down at the bottle bank.

pun not intended.

241204

ho ho ho

211204

I had a customer today who, in order to better help me recognise the book after which she was enquiring, said; 'It's got a binding down the side.'

201204

it's incredible how the minutiae of life can take on epic proportions by missing an hours sleep.

how difficult is it to just say goodmorning back to me when i say goodmorning to you. leave the comments about your runny nose til later. OBviously i'm gripped by your rhinitis but just say goodmorning. it's a vital part of the fabric of society.

191204

Having been requested to show body parts on my blog, I went googling for suitably ludicrous tattoo images i could comically pretend to be me.

all i'm saying is google 'tattoo monkey' and the the 4th one in. not me, not anyone i know, not anyone i hope to meet. ye gods!!!! a novel use for a belly button.

personal tattoo revelation will have to wait for now.....hee hee hee.

171204

today my t-shirt said 'trigger happy' just so no-one could say they weren't warned.

tomorrow will be the busiest day of the year. someone has already handed in their notice and refuses to work out their week.

if only i had a t-shirt that said 'it's the season of good will so mess with me at your fkn peril'

the day after yesterday

what a splednid eenign quaffing chapmpagne. yess.

131204

Is there any greater happiness than recovering your lost purse with all the christmas money in it?

(ahem, down the hall in a bag i'd forgotten i was using)

121204

today i got my christmas present early! have spent the afternoon adjusting the screws for a better stance and admiring the steel edges.

111204

is it normal to be off sick and then to coincidentally have prospective employers ring you up out of the blue offering you work?

just a question.

101204

there's something about buying clothes that brings on the existential angst in me.
how many hours did it take to earn the new top from oasis? was it worth it? does it matter if it's worth it? is anything worth anything? what is enjoyment after all? it's only "fun". who needs fun. we're all going to DIE anyway. new top or no new top.
>>sigh<<
it matches the new eyeshadow though so all is not lost.

091204

back by popular apathy!!


today i did not kill anyone. i only laughed in the face of one customer (they asked for the Eenead by Omer). I only had to leave my section once due to the overpowering stench of a recently filled nappy. I didn't slam books down saying 'why the fk can't you put the book back where you found it' in front of minors.

Now here's the irony. Who would have imagined having an argument about religion with someone called Kristian? (sorry pal, you're wrong, deal with it)

You're glad you called by my blog again now aren't ya? :)

031204

my life is one long stream of unabated glamour.

today i put books on shelves in my kids section. i put stickers on promotional books. i feigned interest in dozens of customers. i made the significant decision to make my top zigzag shelf of audio a multi-author space. i'm sorry if that intimidates you! maybe you should just try and keep up with me. i work hard, i play hard. i get the results i want. don't be jealous that i've made it to these heights. the position of responsibility i hold isn't something to be taken up lightly, on a whim as it were. oh no. so go BACK to your job, ASSESS where you're going wrong, DO some HARD thinking, make some INTELLIGENT choices and THEN, only THEN you may come here, to my blog, raise a finger of criticism at the WAY I STACK MY SHELVES. DO YOU HEAR??

paula  

paula radcliffe 

kumquat's blog

i finished.

i'm still alive.

261104

Tonight I went researching working class pleasures.

...and the haaaaaaaaaare is running...........

did i make anything? not a penny.

251104

Less than 7K to go.

Won't life be dull when I'm back to eight hours sleep a night?

231104

There's no easy way of breaking the news. Today I had my most embarassing moment, ever. Ever.

Picture the scene - me on the shopfloor with a large pile of books.

I take up my best manual handling stance for putting books onto a low table when I am bothered by a disconcerting noise and a disconcerting sensation.

The noise: the seat of my pants ripping wide open.
The sensation: a cooling breeze around the nethers.

I am one classy chick and no mistake.

211104

the thrill of being covered in fibreglass is wearing thin.

201104

i'm having somebody else's identity crisis.

181104

abandoned nano for a drive in some sudden snow. twas remarkably pleasant.

171104(b)

just started browsing palimpsest.

look danon, if you ever come across j.s for heaven's sake muscle him to the ground and hold him there til i arrive.

171104

unmask the identity of wildsheep then lose him to wolves. damn.

shall happily fall back on yoghurt (in fruit coloured clothes)

161104

mmm lovely day off working on the ole pressure sores.

151104

"do you have a list of all the books written for 5-8 year olds?"


(yes madam i'll just hit 'print' and if you'd like to come back in the new year...)

141104

I have a drum kit in my loft that I didn't think would be there when I got up this morning. Interesting!

Reached 19,000 words tonight.

Ernest & Julio have earned their place in heaven.

121104

apologies for the shoddy commitment to this wonderous site. yesterday i was out til half one getting drunk round soho and china town ( as i recall )

i was hung over all day at work and now i'm home desperately trying to hit the 16K mark on my writing and drinking more red wine and feeling scared of another day of headache and strauss waltzes piped directly into my BRAIN from the speakers.

still laughing about how i pounded down the platform at st pancras with the doors beeping and threw myself headlong onto the floor of the carriage before the doors shut.

73 words to 16,000.
half a glass more til i'm anyone's (again)

101104

It's Wednesday
There's no need to be afraid
On Wednesday
We let in quiet and we let out ***** (insert name of colleague)
And in this shop of plenty
We spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around your books
on Wednesday.

But say a prayer
Pray for the other days
There are four more working days just out there
And they're days of dread and fear
Where the only words are flowing
are the bitter words of fear
Well today thank fck he's home
instead of heeeeere

Feed my ears
Let them know it's quiet time
Feed my ears
Let them know it's quiet time...... etc

091104

"Eats shoots and Leaves?
I think it's about punctuations."

081104

OUCH.

some nasty beggar posted this on my other blog:

Where is the creativity, the inspiration... the message? What do you want to say to me, as a reader. Where is the substance? Your word choicage is distasteful, your descriptions uncoordinated and unclear. It lacks the subtle grace, that literary mood that pours us into the subject, forces us to embrace it.

Your presence as a writer is as a hopeful mid-teen girl (perhaps 17? 16?)

Am feeling surprisingly hurt.

I replied:

May i remind you of my inital post which said:

THE EXCUSES
Clearly this place is going to be awash with lifeless prose from time to time but that's partly due to the fact that NaNo is trying to get me to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The other reasons are obvious!


I am taking part in a project designed to get us to write 50,000 words in one month. There is no time for revision.

I was 15 very many years ago and frankly, I find your choice of words (rather than the cumbersome 'word choicage') distasteful.

I notice you remain anonymous.


OUCH. I'm going to bed.

071104

given the option 'keep or chuck', 9/10 i will opt for chuck. And so i have spent a happy afternoon emptying my loft of bicycle chains, stuffed toys from 30 years ago, old curtains and what can only be described as miscellaneous non-descript items.

don't tell anyone but it's being boarded out for a big christmas day drum kit surprise for mini-me.

061104 (b)

yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!

061104

(post to be read with a Blackadderesque German accent)


I am ringing from Germany.
I have a fantastic Elvis book.
I would like to talk to someone about importing.
I have been given your number.
I was told you are central to the company.

me, shamelessly laughing down the phone: oh you were, were you?!

I hope this is true?

041104

an american friend tells me that the newly appointed senator (that still just sounds star wars, sorry) for south carolina wants to see all homosexuals and women who have had children out of wedlock, out of their jobs on moral grounds. this seems like a moderate, well thought out plan and we should all congratulate them on their broad minded insightful opinions.

rule britannia.

021104

two days into NaNo and i'm number obsessed already. 1700 words a day. every break today was throwing down words onto scrap paper and i have another 1000 to write before bed if i'm going to keep to target.

keep the comments coming here please. remind me of sanity.

011104

Who is the mystery Danon and where is the elusive Lotuseater? These are the questions that have taunted me today as I have wandered the tortured walks of Milton Keynes shopping centre abating my existential angst with remarkably large chocolate chip muffins and filter coffee.

tick followed tock followed tick

It seems pointless waiting til midnight but midnight it must be.

I thought a panicky thread would be a good place to start while i while away another 80 minutes and then crash into bed being too knackered and grouchy to bother writing anything.

Of course I have no plans beyond it's about a girl who writes something strange in the end of year book then dies so what she writes takes on prophetic proportions and ends up unravelling the lives of everyone around her. That should secure me half a page. Now where to find 50K words??

I'm thinking that I am actually allowed to think about plot as I go along and it doesn't matter *overly* if it's not all planned with teutonic precision and written out in triplicate by midnight.

Really, if you plan badly and want to stick an extra chapter in at the wrong place, just do it - call it postmodern or a lost manuscript unearthed by a secondary character.

311004(b)

Tonight I went to an early all souls service to commemorate the life of a close relative. Weirdly, who should I run into but the same french teacher that i met earlier in the week. Nothing for years then twice in one week. Spooky. Also had to smile darkly at the fact that I was snooping round a grave yard, tending a grave in the pitch black except for eery golden flood lighting on a medieval abbey on Halloween.

311004(a)

boo

301004

"It's either called 'we you and them' or 'me them and us' or 'him you and me' something like that. Do you have it in?"

291004

customer: (holding a book he's just picked up) " do you stock this book?"

me: "well we stock that one!"

customer: "yes" (unnerving maniacal laughter)

me: (look of anxious bemusement)

281004

my old french teacher from school turned up at work today. still found myself bowing and scraping in an effort to compensate the years of attitude i gave her.

tonight i rode for an hour in the pelting rain and driving winds... "which was nice".

half term lunch out with mini me.

not bad for a thursday :o)

271004

"have you got the book with the blue flower on the front?"

261004

it's great having someone confide in you. cool time with company tonight.

my ebay entry now has 4 bids. my first ever. it's so exciting!

current fav quote

"there are no intervals and one is what one has thought and done"

251004

today went fast and i came home pleased. does that mean anything??
caught myself having this conversation:

new colleague: wow it's all changing here, new boss, new people, refurbishment, you must get pretty tired of all this change

me: no actually the more change the better

her: really?

me: yeah. it's sad and shallow but i get bored very quickly and the new desk downstairs will keep me going for a week thinking 'oh yeah it's ok here'

>>hears the distant sounds of warning bells ringing but pushes the ear plugs in a little further<<

241004

http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/cjaycontent/index.php?id=2

tempting.

bugone 

froggat's edge 

froggat's 

231004

a merry jaunt northwards via sheffield, stannage edge, calver, hathersage, bakewell and froggat's edge.

threw it down with rain all day but it was Madeleine's first drive out and we had fun.

froggat's edge 

bluebug - not the one but you get the idea 

221004

newcartomorrownewcartomorrownewcartomorrow

:D :D :D :D :D

211004

County Council School Admissions Handbook. Section E. Part ii.

I quote.

"Some schools give a higher priority to 'looked after' a children. But this does not guarantee a place."

My points.

a) The first sentence is devoid of any hint of meaning.
b) Sentences ought never to begin with the word 'but'.
c) Which school did the author of this booklet attend because I would like to request my child does not go there for his education.

201004

! a thousand spiders in your bed tonight mr angry parcel delivery man !

191004

what is it about personal hygiene that so many members of the general public find impossible to grasp?

181004

high drama today as the street was cordoned off, all the emergency services converging outside our doors and the shop being shut for a woman running across the roof and threatening to jump. really weird sensation seeing someone on the roof, drunk, abusive, out of control and grief stricken.

171004

do all football games have to end in either the pub or a&e?

161004

...and today she bought the kitten a teddy which i had to name so long as it went with 'mic'. now we have mic and angelo.

151004

she told me he wanted to call him 'Mike'. she told me she didn't want him to be called mike. i told her he should be called Mike so long as it was short for microphone. seems i twisted her arm. the new long haired kit is mic.

141004

pity the poor fool who tries to buy anything off my display at work after i've spent 3 days making it perfect

131004

todays t-shirt would say "that was a private conversation about prawns, do you mind not interrupting?"

121004

if only moral dilemmas were a bit easier to sort out. i can do the right thing but i can't do it graciously.

river festival 

tulip 

coelho

anyone who thinks the alchemist is an amazing piece of literature should be put in solitary confinement with some real literature til they have no further appetite for the pseudo-philosophical sentimental clap trap spawned by mr c.

111004

so the prawn mayonnaise fell on the floor and we all laughed at his grossed out humour when he said he'd eat the bits that weren't touching the ground. we soon stopped when he got down on hands and knees with a fork and started eating directly off the staff room floor. is it more shocking when the man's in his 50's?

091004

can i blame my grouchiness on some kind of agoraphobia i wonder?

081004

another day. another few air miles out of here earned.

071004

nothing beats stapling your colleagues carrier bag shut while they're not looking to brighten up an otherwise dull tea break.

061004

"so what ya sitting down for?"

me to the boss after he's told me another 50 boxes have been delivered since the 100 box consignment. mwahahahaaaa

tally ho 

051004

i have made pumpkin soup from scratch. bows my stomach and life feel uncannily full from having completed this rite of passage.

031004

there's a reason i bothered getting out of bed this morning but i'm still (at gone midnight) trying to put my finger on what it might be...

021004

dear jamie oliver, please note that the rather nice chicken in a parcel recipe requires the chicken to be cooked for rather longer than 40 minutes otherwise you have to yank the chicken off your guests plates, microwave it til it's as rubbery as a toy from the chicken run set and fret all evening about salmonella. other than that, pukka! ;)

011004

wasn't expecting a call from him in my lunch hour!!!!

300904

pizza = guilt

wine = memory loss

pizza + wine = perfect evening in with friends

300904

pizza = guilt

wine = memory loss

pizza + wine = perfect evening in with friends

290904

did i outstay my welcome??

280904

kumquat's blog

i'm on a reading binge. a literary growth spurt.

270904

spent the evening with the lovely A&J, quaffing free wine and loudly discussing the finer things of life. sorry, the one line approach to my blog will have to be waived for this entry. some really memorable moments. A's sentence beginning: 'i only tell this to people i really like...' J's close range look that just made me laugh and smile and feel like a million dollars. A's gift that would mean little to anyone else but made me feel like i'd been given a diamond. J's parting gesture.
One of life's highlights.

250904

spiffing evening up the pub, what ho, but one must save oneself for the mayfair party tomorrow night.

240904

douglas coupland is a demi-god.

storm porch 

230904

i made my daily achievement too early today (cooking a really quite splendid apple crumble) and now i shall have to eke out the rest of the lonely day reading books, drinking coffee and thinking smugly about my colleagues at work.

220904

eliot measured out his life in coffee spoons. he should have tried being a C21st female measuring out his (her?) life in grams of fat per 100g.

210904

javascript:HaloScan('108839287871246229');

210904

i have a stinking cold.

190904

today i have achieved: not falling off a horse, omitting to reach a place of worship and failing to throw a piece of poor art work into the bin.

a/j/j@311 

jw@311 

170904

Oh to be in Barbados now that September's here. (Sorry Robert)

shameless propaganda 

160904

flippin' telesales on my day off.

120904

fell from a horse today.

san lorenzo 

100904

Falafel for lunch.
Baked beans for tea.

MOG 

Louis  

070904

Last night, noble mog Louis shuffled off his mortal coil and joined the choirs eternal. Sadly missed by his humans. Corporate sigh of relief to all the other alpha male cats in the neighbourhood. He was one kickass puddy.

050904

nothing like an imminent guest for getting the house clean.

040904

too tired to fight them all off

noctural snapshot 

putsborough 

me at putsborough, near croyde, north devon. 

cheddar gorge 

030904

some stroppy woman objected at work today that her book wasn't downstairs waiting for her so she could run straight in and straight out. do i think 'yeah fine' or do i think 'how lazy is that'. you work it out! but i'm over it, not bitter!! silly moo.

man sometimes i really wish i didn't have a job that worked saturdays.

but then it pays me enough pocket money to send me off doing some groovy stuff on holidays.

A Kumquat for John Keats by Tony Harrison

Today I found the right fruit for my prime,
not orange, not tangelo, and not lime,
nor moon-like globes of grapefruit that now hang
outside our bedroom, nor tart lemon's tang
(though last year full of bile and self-defeat
I wanted to believe no life was sweet)
nor the tangible sunshine of the tangerine,
and no incongruous citrus ever seen
at greengrocers' in Newcastle or Leeds
mis-spelt by the spuds and mud-caked swedes,
a fruit an older poet might substitute
for the grape John Keats thought fit to be Joy's fruit,
when, two years before he died, he tried to write
how Melancholy dwelled inside Delight,
and if he'd known the citrus that I mean
that's not orange, lemon, lime, or tangerine,
I'm pretty sure that Keats, though he had heard
'of candied apple, quince and plum and gourd'
instead of 'grape against the palate fine'
would have, if he'd known it, plumped for mine,
this Eastern citrus scarcely cherry size
he'd bite just once and then apostrophize
and pen one stanza how the fruit had all
the qualities of fruit before the Fall,
but in the next few lines be forced to write
how Eve's apple tasted at the second bite,
and if John Keats had only lived to be,
because of extra years, in need like me,
at 42 he'd help me celebrate
that Micanopy kumquat that I ate
whole, straight off the tree, sweet pulp and sour skin-
or was it sweet outside, and sour within?
For however many kumquats that I eat
I'm not sure if it's flesh or rind that's sweet,
and being a man of doubt at life's mid-way
I'd offer Keats some kumquats and I'd say:

You'll find that one part's sweet and one part's tart:
say where the sweetness or the sourness start.

I find I can't, as if one couldn't say
exactly where the night became the day,
which makes for me the kumquat taken whole
best fruit, and metaphor, to fit the soul
of one in Florida at 42 with Keats
crunching kumquats, thinking, as he eats
the flesh, the juice, the pith, the pips, the peel,
that this is how a full life ought to feel,
its perishable relish prick the tongue,
when the man who savours life 's no longer young,
the fruits that were his futures far behind.
Then it's the kumquat fruit expresses best
how days have darkness round them like a rind,
life has a skin of death that keeps its zest.

History, a life, the heart, the brain
flow to the taste buds and flow back again.
That decade or more past Keats's span
makes me an older not a wiser man,
who knows that it's too late for dying young,
but since youth leaves some sweetnesses unsung,
he's granted days and kumquats to express
Man's Being ripened by his Nothingness.
And it isn't just the gap of sixteen years,
a bigger crop of terrors, hopes and fears,
but a century of history on this earth
between John Keats's death and my own birth-
years like an open crater, gory, grim,
with bloody bubbles leering at the rim;
a thing no bigger than an urn explodes
and ravishes all silence, and all odes,
Flora asphyxiated by foul air
unknown to either Keats or Lemprière,
dehydrated Naiads, Dryad amputees
dragging themselves through slagscapes with no trees,
a shirt of Nessus fire that gnaws and eats
children half the age of dying Keats . . .

Now were you twenty five or six years old
when that fevered brow at last grew cold?
I've got no books to hand to check the dates.
My grudging but glad spirit celebrates
that all I've got to hand 's the kumquats, John,
the fruit I'd love to have your verdict on,
but dead men don't eat kumquats, or drink wine,
they shiver in the arms of Prosperine,
not warm in bed beside their Fanny Brawne,
nor watch her pick ripe grapefruit in the dawn
as I did, waking, when I saw her twist,
with one deft movement of a sunburnt wrist,
the moon, that feebly lit our last night's walk
past alligator swampland, off its stalk.
I thought of moon-juice juleps when I saw,
as if I'd never seen the moon before,
the planet glow among the fruit, and its pale light
make each citrus on the tree its satellite.

Each evening when I reach to draw the blind
stars seem the light zest squeezed through night's black rind;
the night's peeled fruit the sun, juiced of its rays,
first stains, then streaks, then floods the world with days,
days, when the very sunlight made me weep,
days, spent like the nights in deep, drugged sleep,
days in Newcastle by my daughter's bed,
wondering if she, or I, weren't better dead,
days in Leeds, grey days, my first dark suit,
my mother's wreaths stacked next to Christmas fruit,
and days, like this in Micanopy. Days!

As strong sun burns away the dawn's grey haze
I pick a kumquat and the branches spray
cold dew in my face to start the day.
The dawn's molasses make the citrus gleam
still in the orchards of the groves of dream.

The limes, like Galway after weeks of rain,
glow with a greenness that is close to pain,
the dew-cooled surfaces of fruit that spent
all last night flaming in the firmament.
The new day dawns. O days! My spirit greets
the kumquat with the spirit of John Keats.
O kumquat, comfort for not dying young,
both sweet and bitter, bless the poet's tongue!
I burst the whole fruit chilled by morning dew
against my palate. Fine, for 42!

I search for buzzards as the air grows clear
and see them ride fresh thermals overhead.
Their bleak cries were the first sound I could hear
when I stepped at the start of sunrise out of doors,
and a noise like last night's bedsprings on our bed
from Mr Fowler sharpening farmers' saws.

introductions

i'm in the u.k trying to spend as much time reading books and ignoring the outside world and the constraints of grammar and punctuation as is realistically possible. please leave a name and location if you wander past just to placate and humour me. fanks.