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Friday 29 September 2006

Thanks A Fucking Bundle...

......Mister La-di-da-Gunner-Fifty-Fucking-Thousandth-Fucking-Visitor:

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Fuck off back to the Euro-Fucking-Pean Uni-Fucking-on-Arseing-Co-Fucking-Mission, alright with your nought-fucking seconds-cunting-page-shitting-twat-view....

Cunt.

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Tuesday 26 September 2006

This Is The Modern World...

7:40 a.m., Amyand Park Road, walking alongside the perimeter of St. Margarets Station. Ahead of me, a drab suited office type, a black flecked, charcoal grey rucksack suspended halfway down his back, but looking as if it is an extension of him, not an addendum, weighing him down like a cooled lump of magma, a rocky outcrop. I draw closer, passing through the exotic haze emanating from him, trying to clock his profile as I draw level - it's drooping, baggy, lugubrious, not sharp, hipster or cool. I see it then, pincered between thumb and forefinger,tucked back into the cup of his closed palm, concealed and vaguely shifty, not carefree but sheltering from the wind - a 3 cm. reefer.

Must be all the pressure.


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Monday 25 September 2006

Ian Dury Memorial Bench - An Appeal...

I know I've put posts like this up before as pisstakes, but for once I'm not mucking about.

Howesey posted on the comments for the last item that the solar-powerered Ian Dury memorial bench in Richmond Park (I know, it really *does* sound like a spoof, but what can I do?? Click the link if you don't believe me....) has fallen into some disrepair. Howesey tried to find out who was responsible for the upkeep of what - I'm sure many readers will agree - is that rare thing: a suitable and moving tribute to a much-loved public figure that you aren't filled with the urge to urinate on or inscribe with the phrase "new Labour tit-wank" or similar.

The bench is supposed to enable visitors to the spot to listen to tracks by and an interview with the great man and, although it was a while since since he says he last visited and found the seat in less than pukka condition and not in working order, call me a world weary old cynic but something tells me that Howesey would probably find the same to be the case if he went back there today. This might not be the case, so obviously if anybody has been there recently and can comment on the state of the bench, I'd be most grateful.

But if there is indeed a problem, I for one feel we should do whatever we can to redress the situation. Howesey said he'd been unable to establish who was reponsible for the memmorial and the BBC piece I've linked here doesn't offer much help. There's this on Ian's website, again, there's not a huge amount of info other than that it was a donation by Warner Chappell Music - so I suppose they may be worth a punt. Also, I found this link to Pavilion, the company set up by the designer of the bench, Mil Stricevic. So they may be worth contacting if need be.

I know a lot of people who read this thing and with whom I've discussed music are massive Ian Dury fans - indeed, he seems to be a rare constant. I'd be really grateful if anyone out there can help to establish either of the points above. If there is something that needs to be done, I really feel we should do all we can to do sure that someone who looms large in so many of our musical lives is remembered as he should be. I am more than happy to chase it up, but it would be nice to go there with a few more voices of support behind me, if for no other reason than to show how much we care for Ian's legacy.

Many thanks,

Bob

*****************UPDATE********************

Ro-Mo went all Esther Rantzen and:

The slightly tired sounding young man at Richmond Park main office sounded slightly baffled that anyone actually cared but said that he would call the subcontractors straight away and get them to fix it within the week. I'll go and check it at the weekend. Pity them if it's not working! I was a bit naughty and said that I was there last week and after months of trying I was very upset to dsicover that it was still not working. I reckon its 50/50 as to whether anything will get done....

So, fingers crossed. GO RO-MO!!



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Kandi Darling...

My, what a weekend of cultural treasures!

Friday: I schlepp home early and get stuck at the Jolly Wagoners roundabout for three quarters of an hour, nodding off into the pages of Yellow Dog. Later, we catch up with the Stiff at the Beeb stuff we recorded from last week. Nick Lowe and Brinsley Schwartz singing Surrender to the rhythm is the highlight - a young Lowe looking like a bizarre amalgam of British pop legends - part Bowie, part Terry Hall, with Joe Brown's haircut.

Saturday, I meet Val (Man U), Jim (Spurs) and their young Gooner lad, Calvin at the Auld Triangle, before young C & I take our seats at the Emirates to watch The Arsenal record their first ever league win at the new ground - a 3-0 romp against a workmanlike Sheffield United. Reuniting Cal with his folks at the A.T., Val asks Cal if he's learned any new chants today. Cal furrows brow in consternated recall, then his face lights up as it did when he first took his seat and beheld the splendid rectangle of green baize before him. "..Stand up if you hate Tottenham..." he sings with full throat. I can't look at Jim....

Sunday: To the Tate Modern for Kandinsky: the Path to Abstraction. A blissful collection of early works outlining the development of the artist from Fauvist fellow traveller to genuinely radical pioneer of abstract art. There's a greedy hedonism in his use of colour that I really love, and that seems to give way to a more measured, graphic style around 1921, the point at which this exhibition ends. I'm reminded of the way that Eno thought of music as aural painting - Kandinsky taking the reverse route, painting as composition, the canvass a stave for his explosions of colour and form. But there's another story here, one senses - that of artist and muse. The sensuality of so many of the paintings seems to fuel the narrative of the already married Kandinsky's attraction to his fellow-painter mistress - each brushstroke seemingly an unanswered (to us, at least, in the absence of any of her work on display) plea to the love of his life, Gabrielle Munter, his muse waiting patiently for him to escape the shackles of convention and unite with him in art and love.

Mind you, you'd want to get rid of a surname like that, wouldn't you?*

* Punchline courtesy of S. You know the drill...


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Wednesday 20 September 2006

Life Versus Art...

Well, who'd have thought, eh? Post 501. Well, well, well. Won't they have crinkly mouths at the Grauniad....?

When I was younger and an aspiring pop star/songwriter etc. I always used to see a very pronounced division between life and art. Indeed, in those days, life was merely fuel for the art - the thing you wrote about; a bizarrely unfolding sequence of days that formed the tarmac on which the white lines of one's art dreams would unfold. Well, the dreams unfolded alright. And here we are.

Because life crashes in all the time, doesn't it? As it has for poor old Tim out in Thailand. One minute you're writing stimulating critical appraisals of Baudrillard and Radiohead, the next the tanks are outside your door. C'est la vie.

So without the usual drama queening and johnny-jack flouncery, life has kind of crashed in a bit of late and I need to take a breather for a wee while. I'll be back [massed groans....] but in the meantime, please keep on with post 500 below. Most of you probably saw it as blatant egotism, but I was hoping it might also be seen as what I'd intended - a chance for my readers to storm the citadel of Bob and show the world what have always been the best and funniest things about this blogging lark....




.....THE BLOODY COMMENTS!!



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Tuesday 19 September 2006

Bob's Five Hundredth Post...

{..sorry to intrude on all the fun, but Bobcast21 is up now.......oh, and JDACast3...)



...well, this is starting to realise a long cherished ambition of mine* - I've always thought the comments were funnier than the posts (especially other people's on mine)....and now, here we are - The Comments Are The Post...**

I was rather hoping that La-di-da-Grauniad-Column-Writing-Gunner-Footman would have picked up on my Situationist-style inversion of the classical blog form - you know, beneath the pavement the beach/above the blog, the comments - sort of thing.....but he's obviously too busy having a real life.

Well, look on the bright side - at least there's less of my pointless whittering on this one...

* ...and starting to look like a very sad Record Breakers style attempt to become the longest blog post in history. Do you think it'd get me on the telly?

** Yes, I know - it's all set up for some clever swot to come up with a Post-Comments Are The Post movement...but let me carry on deluding myself I'm with the avant garde for a moment, wouldya??

To recap, I'd asked people to post me comments in a Bob Swipe stylee.....

So, here are the Swipesters whose comments could be making history as we speak:


  • A. RADIOGRAPHERSTER
  • said:

    I know who I-Pimp-For-Hobbits is...

    Walk away Stray, while you still can.....

  • THE BAGGIEBIRDSTER!
  • said:

    OK i'm crap at this. I don't think I could do a whole post. The only thing I can think to say is

    Well they've done it those *cunts* they've sacked the manager, i mean what do we do now....

    I hope that will do I know it's very rushed but i'm off on holiday tomorrow and what with my dad deciding to have a heart attack (albiet a mild one) a couple of weeks back i'm really not sure whether i'm on my arse or my elbow here. I did however manage to get your * little stars* in along with the c word, that should merit at least a point for trying


    Best yet BB. After Mollsters. And Dick's. And Betty's....

    (I'm too honest for my own good - that's my trouble. But if a point will help you in your quest for a return to the Premiership.....it would be mean not to award one, wouldn't it?

    Seriously, I hope your Dad's OK. And enjoy the hols...


  • THE BECKYSTER

  • THE 'BERTASTER
  • Said:

    Hi Bob. That Billy seems like a nice fellow - you wouldn't happen to have his phone number would you?

    xxxx

    'Berta


    Honestly, I don't know where she gets it from - you wouldn't find *me* getting up to stuff like that!


  • THE BETTSTER!!!!
  • said:

    It would be virtually impossible to get *all* the Bobster-That-Is-The-Swipester-That-Is-The Bobster style tics and idiosyncracies in, surely?

    Even a Swipe-pissed-at-one-in-the-morning comment with all the typos in would be beyond me. So it looks as if I'll have to be "purged" with syrup and figs then.


    Then:

    Oh, alright, I can't do a whole post but I can bung in an old standby ...

    "I'm speechless! You conniving, randy, bogus, oriental old queen! Your record sleeves are better than your songs!"

    Bobcasts are now available on iTunes!!

    click here to hear our regular Bobcasts!!

    Subscribe to The Robert Swipe Show!!

    Vote for the Robert Swipe Show in the annual Twickenham Blogging Awards!!

    The full range of Robert Swipe Show Thermal Undies is available online now!!

    Buy The Robert Swipe Autobiography - available from all BHF shops at an introductory offer of £12.99 now!!!

    etc, etc ... anything to escape from being purged ...


    "Old standby"???....


    .....she knows me so well...


  • THE BILLSTER
  • said:

    What about bringing back Roberta?

    Typical bloke, Billster - and I thought you were different but you're cosi fan tutti after all...

  • THE BLIND FLANEURSTER

  • THE BLUE WOLFESSTER

  • THE BRISTER (R.I.P.?)


  • THE CERISTER
  • said:

    Quite a post. Keep 'em coming and here's to the next 500.

    I think I'll be stuck on this one for a wee while yet, Leighton. btw - are you and Ceridewn Devi distinct, autonomous individuals - or am I missing summat? Thanks anyway - however many of you there are....


  • THE CERISTER'S JAZZ BLOG

  • THE CLEAVESTER IN CANADA

  • THE CYBERAMIGASTER

  • THE DICKSTER
  • said:

    I just can't do it anymore....no seriously....I really mean it this time. This is it. I'm not kidding. It's taking up too much of my life. It's affecting my work, my family, my friends. I'm not eating properly, the dog isn't getting any excercise and I get funny looks from the neighbours. So it is with great regret that I am obliged to pull, finally and irrevocably the old cyber plug. Sorry folks but it has to be done. No more. Finito. Bye...love y'all ... feel free to comment... Bob


    Are you sure I didn't mail that to you Dickster??

    Uncanny, huh?

    He then hit me with this:

    Oh so I'm a plagiarist now am I? I keep records you know. It may be loosely based on an e-mail I got from some bloke called John who purported to be going up the wall what with being under-appreciated and all. Very embarassing so I deleted it smartish. Dick

    John???? Shurely shome mishtake....before obscurely adding:

    Motown. Smokey, Marvin and the Funk Brothers.

    Yep, James Jamerson, Earl van Dyke, Benjy Benjamin et al.....Cripes that rum's strong....

    ....then, filled with remorse for giving the game away in a GWAOTM stylee:

    Just joking Robert. I have to type quick before the warden gets back. Dick.

    It's OK, Dickster - I can live with the truth. Was the Funk Brothers thing your way of asking me to cast some Motown?? A terrible admission, I'll admit. I'm onto it...

    ....and then, after expressing *even* more remorse:

    Jamerson only ever used one finger you know.

    Yes. He referred to it as "The Hook", apparently Dickster.



  • THE FLUFFY ECONOMISTSTER

  • THE FOOD OF GOATSTER
  • said:

    (apologies for missing this and posting a later post first, Richard...)

    It's just not working, is it. I thought as much. I gave it my best shot but there comes a time in real life that you realise that (maybe, just maybe) your mum and dad weren't trying to fuck you up and that (maybe, just maybe) their suggestion of a career in quantity surveying was best.

    So that's it then. Bobcast 732 will be the final one. I've given up the audio; the novel is being shelved and the rubber gear's going back as we found that was the cause of the nob-rot. No more Cuntiad, it's the Express for me from now on. No more fretting over reads or wondering if the producer from the Archers is reading and is going to give me that break. The Bobster's off to night school in Roehampton to learn to count. Numbers are truth. I tried, I really tried but the words have fucked me up.

    Right, farewell Swipesters...


    Ropehampton? Well, it's only down the road, I suppose....

    Oh yes, well done on the 500 thing.

    Cheers Rich. (I think he means the posts, folks - I'm not *that* old....)

  • THE FRAUDSTER!

  • THE FREDSTER(S)


  • THE GEOFFSTER
  • said:

    I can't do it, Bob - either the Bobalike post or the Podcast. I'm just happy to be part of the gang after so many years of isolation and I don't want to be kicked out for a lack of application. I don't want to be the first of the gang to die, like silly old Hector.

    Just listened to the cod cast which has inspired me to do a Judge Dredd post. Much maligned, Judge Dredd, but did you know he was a big influence on the Rude Bude Rudeboy label, the filthy Cornish rival to Two Tone? Jethro's Big Portion album would have been massive if it wasn't for Red Wedge.


    Well Geoff, all I can say is you've never been in love until you've seen the stars reflected in the reservoirs, obviously...

    Looking forward to the Dread post - a request? A Rude Bude Rudeboy post too - I am in complete ignorance and it sounnds fascinating...

    Your contribution is fine as it is Geoffster, as always. Shame about the cast - I reckon it would have been fab...



  • THE GRAND UNIONSTER

  • THE HANNSTER

  • THE HEATHSTER (PHWOOOOAAARR!!)

  • THE HEIKESTER

  • THE HOWES-STER
  • said:

    What the world needs now is a chance to hear Kenny Lynch's marvelous cover of Misery. Maybe then we stand a chance of understanding our fellow man and living together in peace and harmony. That HAS to be the reason that the Lynchster recorded it doesn't it? I certainly cant't think of any other purpose behind it. The man is a diplomatic genius, have you ever seen him and Kofi Annan in the same room at the same time? Thought not. Hmmmmmm, makes you wonder...
    Regards and Rrrreinemachefrau,
    Howesy


    In honour of my old benefactor, I'll put it on the next Bobcast, Mr. H. - that or Bernie Cribbins doing When I'm 64....

    ....in fact....I feel a themed cast coming on.....

    Yummers!

    ..all of which evidently put the fear of God into the handsome young Boulevardier:

    "i feel a themed bobcast coming on". omigod, what have i done?!?!

    As Geoff will no doubt attest, heavy is the heart that has inspired a Bobcast - just thank your lucky stars* it's a Beatles covers one, and not cod bleeding reggae....

    *Vince Hill, e.g.

  • IFAMYSTER

  • THE INK SLINGSTER

  • ISTSTER THE TWISTER THE HASTA LA VISTA
  • said:

    I don't mind being purged, Bob...no, *really* I don't.

    It can't be any worse than having to read about Ziggy Woodblum's groopie stories.

    Click here to subscribe to my own ego.


    Has Ziggy published his sex romp kiss and tell memoirs then? That's handy - we need a new doorstop...

    ...and then the Bobcast requests started rolling in:

    Bob - if you're gonna do a themed Beatles covers podcast thing, don't forget to include "Tomorrow Never Knows" by Living Colour.

    Dave Gregory did a fantastic spot on cover of "Strawberry Fields Forever", which is nearly indistinquishable from the original.


    I don't know: not satisfied with stealing all me listeners - now he wants to *sequence* the bloody thing....

    I'll have to download it Istster the Twister The Hasta la Vista (sorry folks, I just love saying that...) as I don't have any Living Colour albums, for my sins...CSM was a big fan, wasn't he? Anything else you'd like? Peter & Gordon? Ike Hayes 2 hour version of 'Something'?

  • THE JIFDUMPSTER
  • said:

    sorry 'bout the non contributo, didn't have a bloody clue mate! couldn't think of anything witty to say, just to let you know....I hope to be sending an mp3 your way sometime tonight..hope it works? JDA...

    OOOOOHHHHH!! An MP3!!! Cheers Jifster!

    Also, gave me an excuse to link you at last - huzzah!!

    I'll listen to a Jifcast asap - just not been able to get on the laptop this week.

  • THE JOOLSTER
  • said:

    Bob how could anyone ever impersonate you? You are an original, a one off, a veritable receptacle of uniqueness, I wouldn't dare to try (plus I'm probably not barmy enough)...does going phwoarrr Heathster count?

    Obviously not as far as The Heathster is concerned. She doesn't write, she doesn't phone....You got the cheque alright, I see...

    Might work for you though Jools. I will try to listen to your pooh wotsit thingy tonight - sorry I haven't already. The laptop and I are "on a break..."


  • THE KONICHISTER


  • Oh yes!! There's a nastiness and meanness of spirit here I could *never* hope to match, but a sterling effort nonetheless K.!!!

    How can I ever thank you?

    K. then compounded the insult thus:

    "Rrrreinemachefrau" - I love it when I hear an obscure comic reference from someone I've never met!

    Swipemeister, this is the funniest post you've had in a good while. Does that tell you anything?


    Yes, K. It tells me you're a cunt. And that Howesey is not only better looking than me, but also funnier than I am. Tell me - short of suicide - what do I have to do to crawl out from under his shadder???


  • LOGANOCSTER SLAGGING OFF STUFF

  • THE LP1STER

  • THE LUCIEN DE LA PESTESTER

  • THE LYDSTER

  • THE MARCSTER

  • THE MIKE DA HATSTER

  • THE MOLLSTER (With her laughing eyes,
    And her suitboot dress)
  • said:

    Here is my Bob-post for your blog Bobster:

    Well I'd like to say that all of my fifteen readers are commenting up posts for my 500th post..but the bastards are all over the place, plotting to steal computers and well..that is just *not* right. They'll be hopping off to The Grauniad next.

    I'd have hoped that Tanya Beckett could have legged it over here in her leathers but she's gone off with Sophie for some mayonnaise licking sessions in the toilets. Well, what I'd *pay* to see that.

    Meanwhile, back at ver Swipe lodge, I was drinking my Buie Breezers when I thought..I know..I'll do a Podcast. I'll play Roxy and then I'll play The Shangri-la la las. That might get Sophie and Tanya up from their mayonnaise splattered orgy and over here for some good old salad cream induced rioting. Phwoarrrr!

    And then I sat back in my arm-chair. I reached for my Martin Amis. I sipped my Breezer and Twickenham fine ale. I planned my next meeting with RoMo in the BHF with her tights round her ankles. I thought, oh bugger to Tanya and Sophie...there are much better things on offer.

    I wondered what you would buy me for my 500th Podcast. Would it be a signed photograph of Shriver? Or just a packet of Sophie's stained Marigolds. Well...you know...I do like a bit of the old washing up now and then. Shriver can do my dishes any time.

    Well...after all that...I think I'll go and have a veggie tikka. 'Scuse the tummy rumbles. I have terrible indigestion. Love on ya! Bobsterxxx

    Subscribe to the Robert Swipe show here.

    (Love always, Mollyxxx)


    Then, aroused by the thought of a leatherclad Tanya Beckett....:

    This is just the best ever post. I love it. Wonderful stuff. I might have to *steal* the idea!!! Damn...I'm not supposed to be coming back...I might *have* to just to steal this wonderful idea. Wonderful...truly wonderful. Can I say wonderful again? Really...can I? Oh good. Wonderful.

    Seriously...the comments on this are brilliant aren't they? Just shows how everyone loves you so much.

    Can we have another post about Tanya Beckett as well please? C'mon...you must be able to dig out more pics. You must have a veritable feast of a folder somewhere on your computer. Look...I tell you what...if you do a Tanya Beckett post and can find her wearing leathers...I'll most definitely do a *come* back....ok?


    To quote Jarvis Cocker, Molls - "I'll see what I can do..."



  • THE MOSTER OF RO
  • said:

    Bob - working on it - just to let you know have finally gotten around to sticking stuff up on recovered notebook. Laters xx

    Atta girl! (Readers: note the Swipe-esque plug for the Recovered notebook site...shame she forgot to put the link in...)

    ....then defended the link ommission thus:

    Er..Bob - that's because I don't actually know how to make links within comments. I know! I have the wherewithall to work out how to poohpod but I can't do something as menial as putting a link into a comment box. Is it because I is weird like?

    (walks away 'buie breezer abandone to the gutter outside the BHF shop and tights snagging round the ankles).


    You all think I'm joking about the tights...

    And then she had a proper go:

    Hello Bob Swipe here again me old mucky muckers. Just thought I'd drop another shameless plug for the Julie Christie lookalike has-been that is the Moster of all things Roster. She's finally managed to pull herself away from the 13th Breezer of the day and hoick up the tights. Mind you - I prefer them round the ankles meself - phwoarr - yes - *I would*. Anyway, the cock is still rotting and the calliper's giving me gip as usual but nothing like a good 'Buie Breezer Twicky Ale cockrot-tail won't cure. I'm settling in for a Morrison's salmon paste sandwich and a good old foray through The Romo For Real 7* - apparently she's done a track especially for Geoffster. Not 'alf - *I would*. Anyway don't forget to

    click to itunes for more Bobcast now available!

    click here for regular 'Buie rubs

    click here for more rotting cocks and

    most of all click here for more shameless plugs for Bob!

    Love on ya kidders!


    * Note to readers:- *I* added the link. She may be the Janice Long of the Podcast, but Ro-Mo knows feck all about self-promotion. I don't know - you try to give 'em a start, but *do* they listen?

    Bob

    .....but then this happened:

    You'll be pleased to know that someone just googled "tanya beckett stockings" and arrived at the comments section of my blog. I'm sure they were bitterly disappointed the perverts!

    Disappointed, Ro-Mo? I was *well* fecking gutted!!!


  • THE MURMURISTSTER

  • THE NOT DEAD YETSTER

  • THE POOTSTER

  • THE REALDOCSTER
  • said:

    "Meanwhile, to my female readers, I definately would! Especially Spins and Heather.
    Phoawarrrrr."


    Thanks for that, 'Docster - I'm glad *one* of my female readers has such good taste!!

    (Read the complete post here.....)

  • THE ROBSTER

  • THE SCARY DUCKSTER

  • THE SEANSTER

  • THE SHADES OF GREYSTER

  • THE SHYLSTER

  • THE SID SMITHSTER

  • THE SLOTHSTER

  • THE LOVELY SONSTER

  • THE SPINSTER
  • said:

    Realdoc, Molly and Betty - these are the BEST COMMENTS EVER.

    (I am not clever (or drunk) enough to join in.)


    Spinny gets me just perfectly, doesn't she? Apart from the sobriety, obviously....

    and continued:

    Hello, I'm still too drunk to be making sensiblish comments on Comment is Free, but not nearly drunk enough to BE Bob.

    Or even Roberta.

    Anyhow, did you put that wrack/rack mistake in just to goad me??


    No, I just can't spell Spin. Nerveracking, aren't I?


  • THE TIMSTER
  • said:

    I was browsing in the BHF shop the other day and was delighted to find a mint first edition of Charlie George's autobiography All Spurs Fans Are Gay And Smelly.

    It made me so happy, I almost forgot the seeping mulch of ghastliness that is my cock.

    That Clare Balding, eh? I would.


    To which the Basra Basher responded:

    Yes. Whatever happened to Charlie George?

    He used to run the Arsenal Museum, BB - not sure what he's doing now...

    Then Tim got all serious and bloody well got published in the Grauniad, ferchrissakes - has he *no* shame?????


  • THE TODDSTER

  • THE TROUSER QUANDARY RESOLUTIONSTER

  • THE U.N.STERS

  • THE UNDERPANTSTER


  • THE WHALESTER
  • said:

    Hi. I'm Robert Swipe. I'm In The Mood Again.

    (A few Elvis Costello minutes later...)

    There's a bit of a theme to Bobcast 200 today because (..slurp...) 'scuse me, the throat's been a bit sore lately, (...cough...) think I've a cold coming on and the heating's a bit dodgy in Swipe Towers but anyway, I was on my way home from retrieving a great haul from that charity shop I mentioned once, I think the Mollster was envious at all my finds even though ha, ha ha I haven't got round to reading most of them, anyway I was thinking about how many times I've threatened to stop blogging but still get drawn back to it and you know how it is..when, when (higher pitch now) you've been trying to avoid another Bowie bobcast or the Stones, I thought maybe I'd have a Bobcast about leaving home, or maybe coming home i'm not sure which it's turned out to be actually but anyway, here's a great song, i think it might even have two titles, Naive Melody or Home, This Must Be The Place, anyway, to all you who keep reading, the Talking Heads..."


    Cheers W. If I hadn't been incapacitated and incapable of typing such a long sentence (RSI...) I'd have sworn it really *was* me...


    Finally:

    S. said:

    I'm the funny one!


    Love on y'all and thanks for reading,

    Bob


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    The Next Post....

    ....will be number 500.

    And I haven't got a *clue* what to do.

    Anyone got any ideas??

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    Tanya Beckett & Sophie Raworth are *Still* Waiting for Godot...



    TB: .....here, Soph. Can I ask you something?



    SR: Mmm hmm.



    TB: You know when you did the online shop?




    SR: ...Mmm hmm...



    TB: Did you remember the salad cream?

    SR: Look, Tans, you *know* I prefer mayonaise. Salad cream's common...

    TB: .....So you didn't get any??




    SR: Apparently not. You'll just have to go without, won't you?

    TB: ....So just because you've got a stuck up, pompous opinion of my favourite lunchtime condiment, I have to go without - is that it?....

    SR: Well, we have to maintain our standards, don't we... anyway, what's wrong with mayo?



    TB: I just don't like the taste, Soph...if it's all the same to you... how about you, Desiree - do you prefer salad cream or mayo?

    Desiree: Gotta be mayo, sister...salad cream's chav city, innit?

    TB: Thanks for nothing, D.

    SR: See, it's reduced fat and everything. If you'd taken my advice, you wouldn't be busting out of your stockings, pinging the elastic again - I don't know - honestly. Those hold-ups'll be round your ankles in no time..

    TB: Oh Pee!



    SR: Well, you will smear that disgusting stuff over everything. I mean, I can understand it with a salad...but puddings....??

    TB: So you wouldn't even let me have some...even if I gave you flowers.....??

    SR: Oh Tans, they're lovely! Where did you get them?



    TB: Sally Army again. Had to distract the Sergeant Major type though by fiddling with my bra until he disappeared to the conveniences - I'll do anything for a dollop - can't you understand a woman with a craving??

    SR: Thanks Tans - Well I'll go stick them in some water and think about it. Honestly, if it wasn't for that Godot I'm sure we wouldn't row so much....Oh well, suppose I'd better stick the kettle on......minty choc drinks all round girls??

    ALL: Mmmm hmmmm!!



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    Friday 15 September 2006

    Bob's God Sod Pod Cod Reggae....Whatever ...Cast...

    ".... I STILL don't know what the 'cod' stands for in 'cod reggae'...Why doesn't someone do a Cod Past Pod Cast? - 45 minutes of shite."

    Be careful what you wish for, Geoff...

    The Sod/Pod/Bob/Cod Reggae cast is now available here...

    Blame Geoff, is all I'll say...


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    Ro-Mo For Real #6...

    I'm probably preaching to the converted here, but do have a listen to Rock Mother's latest double whammy of podcasts. You'll need tissues for #5 (...no, not for that...) It's very moving at the end. But genuine sadness aside, there's everything you could wish for - Prog pomp, racist cod reggae, Jools speaks! (Possibly Betty speaks too??) - who needs the wireless??

    Still waiting for the first Bettycast - although *are* those her dulcet tones on Ro-Mo 5?? I think we should be told.

    And I seem to be having trouble getting through more than 10 minutes of Croydon's finest's latest assault on the senses...Doesn't help that he's slagging me off in *Spanish* now either.....still, I'm a dull old cunt who likes soul music and owns a record by Sailor, so what the hell does my opinion count?? It's very loud and very rude and the Spanish bits are great. I'll try to listen to the next ten minutes later tonight, when the battery for my aid has recharged.....what's that you say? Is his van streaky?...

    I'll post up links to any others that people have put up - just haven't been able to "do the rounds" this morning as I couldn't get in to Blogger.

    I'd love to hear a Spinnycast, wouldn't you??

    ********UPDATE**********

    And Billy's on #4 now - I'll try and listen tonight Billster - keep it up!


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    Thursday 14 September 2006

    Previous Post - The Report of The Working Party Blah Blah Blah...

    Thanks to all those of you who responded - as we're edging towards 50,000 (yes, that's 50,000) visits, I think it's a reasonable guess that as many of you refrained from commenting, as did so - fair enough - but I thought as there were so many (unusually) on topic comments, I'd post a few of them up here and respond in post, if that's OK. I can remove anything the authors don't want to be put up for greater scrutiny by my global audience (...I'm laughing as I type that, I hope you all realise...)

    So, Spinny wrote:

    So what you're saying is that Real Life is just decoration, while our blogging personas are the *real* us?

    It was a bad metaphor really Spin - just didn't want to go all Hemingway and use the iceberg one. But I think we all do have aspects to our lives that are more suited to the written word than to normal conversation. Anyone who's had the misfortune to meet or speak to me in "real life" will be able to tell you that I am nowhere near as eloquent in the saloon bar as I am here - so that's *really* not very eloquent at all. Some people save the cherry til last - others savour the filling - some like the icing, perhaps - at the risk of extending a very bad metaphor into an even worse one. Bring back David Lodge's Metonyms, I say...

    JDA writted:

    I faithfully check the mailbox daily! how sad is that?

    Not nearly as sad as checking your people counter every half an hour, I'd say.....

    ....which some people do, apparently...

    Molly lilted:

    Bobster...sometimes we seek this place as an outlet. Sometimes we seek it as a place to rejoice. Sometimes we come here when we are sad, sometimes happy and dancing.

    I wondered what all the racket was...

    {Minion} {notice how I always put the fancy parenthesis in as a mark opf respect to the great one..??):

    anyway blogs/internet to me is loads more fun that [sic]* the facking tv.

    Yes, and I think that - without getting too socio-political - that is an important aspect to the phenomenon. In "the good old days" we could (e.g.) all meet up in a pub with our mates and chat about last night's telly etc. That was where our human contact and community resided. Things are a lot more fractured now, we work weirder hours, there's more *stuff* than ever to wade through, so perhaps we find our kindred spirits through this random blog world of ours. I know I've come across people I would have got on really well with in the era of my youth - possibly even to the point of incredibly debauched bonkery involving a variety of see-through lingerie items. But I shouldn't give away too may of Istvanski's secrets now, should I?


    Betty writes:

    Blogging is like *real life* magnified to the power of ten. If you come to blogging hoping to escape real life problems, then you've got the wrong attitude. Rather like those people who move away from home to start a "new life" your old problems will only resurface in your new home. Heh heh.

    Yes, I think it is a bit of a goldfish bowl and it's like real life to the power of ten only without the nuances that can stop a deadpan comment sounding like a jibe.

    dh:

    I think blogging makes a lot of sense for people who have something to sell or some specific agenda. For me it's just a pastime, a place to unload some thoughts, sometimes fun, sometimes a drag. I think it's a bad idea to take it too seriously.

    I think it *is* important that when something like the blog world comes up there are people who use it for more human, communicative, gentler ends than making a few bob. I'd love, obviously, to be noticed as a writer or comedienne or whatever and to be paid to do something like what I do here (yeah, right!) but I would never change the way this blog works because the whole reason for doing it is that I know I have attracted a few people here who seem to like my stuff for what it is (and because, I assume) they don't feel they are being scammed. Maybe I just make them laugh sometimes - I dunno. But I prefer the sound of free laughter, is all. I think the culture *needs* a spot of altruism here and there, don't you?

    Ister the Twister the hasta la vista writted:

    So...you're saying that we're all schitzos now, are we Bob?

    Yes. And you can both fuck off...

    (That's an old gag, but I knew you'd love it Ist - I don't really want you to fuck off at all)

    Geoffster saided:

    I've had enough socialising for a lifetime and I get more of a laugh blogging than being in a pub full of fucking and cunting locals.

    Sorry, but how could I not put swearing *that* good up for the general public, eh?

    Jools:

    I just use my blog to unload, really is my 'virtual' diary. Here I can be whoever I want to be and maybe I'm more real here than I'm 'allowed' to be in real life and quite frankly I often prefer here to real life...

    All of which suggests that there *is* something a bit more than a virtual diary going on. The "being whoever [one] wants to be" part implies an element of fantasy rather than straightforward journal keeping. I certainly relish the freedom of it - being and saying whatever you want. We need, I think, to test all these meally mouthed concepts (freedom, liberty, democracy) that are being tossed at us while our real freedom and liberty is being eroded daily. It's a small rebellion - but a necessary one, I feel. And fun. At this point, I think Mollster would urge me to put in a good word for Billy. He's a smashing cove Jools. That's all I'm saying...


    dh again:

    I like this introspective stuff (in moderation of course) and Robert gives good blog.

    [...well, I don't often get much praise, do I?...]


    Billy (you know, the lovely cove...):

    ...but what is interesting is that this exaggeration affects me in real life, which then affects my blogging person.

    And so the cycle continues.


    Yes, I think one's "real-life" self can be broadened by the contact on here - sure. I've really opened up emotionally doing this (and especially the Bobcasts - plug there...) I can access a lot of stuff readily that I used to "bottle". And I think the blog's changed because of that, perhaps.

    Ro-Mo drivelled on for an hour** then said:

    ...but what DOES amaze me about the little circles of bloggers that tend to congregate around certain sites like this one for example is the rapport even though I haven't got a clue what any of you look like.

    Yes, there is a rapport, isn't there? Or is it just us who think that? I do feel enormous fondnedd for anyone who comes here and leaves a note. I can't think of many who still visit that have been anything other than encouraging, generous and constructive. Ta for that.

    Leighton Cooke dayeth:

    I prefer to see bloggers as an anarchic pool of dissenters like the ranters.

    That's a lovely thought Leighton - and if I knew as much as I shouyld about the dissenting tradition, I'd probably agree with you. Ignorance, unfortunately, prevails. We certainly get our fair share of ranters, mind...

    realdoc proscribeth:

    I feel you can be more honest with blogging than in real life because ultimately it doesn't matter what your virtual pals think of you but I find it refreshing that so many people are just really nice and supportive and interesting. Restores your faith in human nature a bit.

    A nice note to end on, I think.

    Thanks all - your all "tops in your bag"!!


    * Sorry, I shouldn't be pedantic after misusing the word queue recently, but I can't help meself...

    **I'm only joking Ro!

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    Tuesday 12 September 2006

    The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger...

    I'm sure someone else has used this title, but I think it bears repeating. It is a lonely pursuit, I think - or it is fuelled by a sense of loneliness; a need to connect. The best blogs seem to make a virtue of this - mentioning no names*. But there are a lot of us in relationships who, to varying degrees, divide our lives up between what we have here and what we (laughably, or otherwise) call our "real" lives. You don't have to be single to be lonely, (or vice versa) and it seems to me that there's a sort of iceberg thing going on with the blogging life. The visible peak (our day to days - work, family, friends etc.) is like the rouged cherry atop the submerged Mr. Kipling cake of our *private* stuff. To those who commit to them (and I think it *is* a committment rather like a signing up to a job or a marriage - something that's great fun at first but soon can become a tiresome, sapping routine) blogs are our hinterland, our back history. It's a bit like surveying one of those epic John Ford Western style panoramic landscapes from the safety of a four-wheel drive (marvellous to behold, but you wouldn't necessarily want to be stuck there in the dark, miles from anywhere with no route home). And it can feel a bit like that sometimes, when you come up for air after several hours communing with poeple you don't really know, only to find that the four-wheel drive you were relying on to get you home is low on gas. And has a puncture. And the air conditioning doesn't work. Because you were too busy taking in the view to worry about your passage home.

    There's something both emancipating and enslaving about these weird new "virtual" relationships that our blogs open up for us. You could argue that the same is true of most "normal" relationships, but I do think that there is an element of nuance that banter in - for example - a pub will have that can go missing in the rather more sterile, cerebral, words-floating-in-the-ether realm of the comments box. How many of us, for instance, have come away from comments boxes feeling slighted or annoyed or just generally peeved, only to find out that there have just been crossed wires(or that you were posting pissed?)

    Just an unprovoked ramble here, there's no agenda or deeper point, but I'd just be interested to hear how other people feel about the way that their blog life intersects with their "real" one.

    I just sometimes feel as if I have two, that's all. Lives, that is.

    *Spinny, obviously.



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    Last Night's Eastenders...

    If you wanted an object lesson in the disorienting and alienating effect on those of us who were brought up with proper public service broadcasting that today's television can have, last night's Eastenders would be hard to better. The first 10 minutes or so droned on in familiar airbus engine fashion. First, the bizarrely-brow tinted Pat Butcher* (Pam St. Orange-Juice-with-a-splash-of-lemon) telling the first ever baby-wielding Balkan beggar I've ever seen on 'Enders (surely there's more than one in the *real* Eastend??) with, as Jeeves would describe it, some depth of feeling, "No thanks, love" as she tried out her brooding pan-handling routine in the hope that some emotionally retarded bovver boy who'd just found out his baby was Downes Syndrome would hand her forty sobs. Cue** Billy Mitchell - the one man pre-Olympic warning as to what lies in wait for would-be visitors (assuming we ever get any of the facilities built) planning to come and watch the Games in 2012.

    Then, already 40 notes to the bad, Billy heads off to find his wife has scarpered from hospital, leaving only a standard-issue, "sorry, I've just fecked off for the hell of it because I can't hack having a baby with a disability" card propped up on her bedside table. So begins Billy's long 20 minutes on a stationary tube of the soul. This was looking as if it was going to turn out to be the most compelling 20 minutes of British prime time TV since the last episode of Second City Firsts in 1979 (or whenever it was..) There it was, staring out at us, an oasis in the midst of the desert of TV dreck - the astonishing sight of......well, nothing much happening at all, really. Possibly because there'd been no script written, or perhaps because whoever was dictating his lines into Billy's earphone had been rushed off for an urgent hernia op. and the rest of the backroom staff were too busy buffing Pat Butcher's earrings to be able to stand in, this continued for quite sometime - Billy stalking the confines of his (for once) almost accurate in its ethnic mix tube carriage like a caged former member of the BNP who can't reconcile his former views with the massive stonker he gets from all those Beyonce posters for her new LP (Bidet? What sort of a title's that, btw...?)

    Eventually, now reconciled to the fact that pointlessly slamming the tube carriage windows will only sustain the interest of the great British viewing public for *so* long, Billy and the stocky, besuited type opposite begin to engage in what seems - as near as dammit - in what can only be described as "improv". And it's gripping stuff. The scenario is taut and awkward - Billy spitting out grief-provoked barbs about the ethnically and socially transformed face of the EE, to the extent that the poker faced hijab wearing lady next to him feels she has to move seats (note to TV editors - see, it is possible to suggest that there are awkwardnesses between cultures without inviting armageddon...) The suit has back story, we just know it, but nothing is telegraphed. In fact, it's almost like proper drama - insinuating, exploratory, an interrogation of the characters.

    And then, just as it looks as if there's going to be a bit of a barney and the useful-if-he-has-to-be lump in the suit looks to be on the brink of landing one on whimpy wuss-face Mitchell, the former crumples his face just shy of a blub, brandishes his 9/11 remembrance edition of the Standard at the oblivious Billy and ruins it all: "don't you know what day it izzz???"

    A shame, because I was really beginning to think that this might usher in a new era of Steptoe-like grittiness in the TV soap drama. Instead, I'd let my 9/11 guard right down and they'd suckered me. Shameful really, because if 9/11 has taught us anything it's precisely that - don't let your guard down.


    * Join her fan club here...

    ** Not "queue" as I originally posted - thanks to Spinny for the heads up. It's a class thing - us working class scum just can't spell is all..


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    Monday 11 September 2006

    Library Thing...

    Well, after all the rave write ups from Timster, Spinster & Mollster, I had to have a look, and they are of course absolutely right - it's compulsively brilliant. So much so that I suspect I'll never be able to drag myself away from cataloguing my vast collection of books in order to post here. So, a double whammy then! And everyone's happy!! Frabjous day, kallooo kallay etc.

    Anyone of a bookish turn of mind can see what lines the shelves of the vast Bibliotheque chez Swipe by clicking here...

    (I've only just started, so it may take a while to reflect the true scale of my book horde. I have, of course, started with the erotica.

    Right, I must away to catalogue....


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    Sunday 10 September 2006

    Saturday 9 September 2006

    Bob's Books...



    Apologies if this a little too self-revelatory, but I found this




    in the BHF shop this morning. That's right, a beautiful condition copy of Lionel's Shriver's Double Fault ("as read by the Rock Mother", it says on the blurby bit - any good Roster of Moster?) As well as having this rather super, leg revealing portrait of the Lionster (I *well* wouldn't half)




    it is indeed, as the sticker on the front proclaims, a signed copy:





    Unfortunately, it appears to have been signed not by Lionel, but by someone called Phil Kni. Still, I'm sure that won't spoil my enjoyment of it any. I'll probably just be looking at the pictures, anyroad.

    btw - if you're reading this Lionel - the offer's still open. An entanglement-free weekend of Drambuie-based cocktail-and-scanty-lingerie-fuelled sex at an expensive London hotel of your choice. Just bring yourself, and I'll take care of the chocolate assortment. (Well, now I'm wedged up, why not push the boat out a little, eh?) The email address is somewhere on Spinny's comments. You'll find it.


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    Friday 8 September 2006

    Last Night I Dreamed of Scary Duck...

    He was quite avuncular, actually, not at all as you'd imagine him. A bit like Mal Evans, the former Beatles roadie gunned down by LA police in the mid 70s. Biggish bloke - the sort you'd call a gentle giant. Anyway, in the dream, I went up to Scary Duck and said, "can I just say, I think you're absolutely brilliant. I wish I could say I read your blog every day, but I don't - I'd give up my own blog if I did", at which he just sort of smiled, as if that was something that people were *always* coming up to him and saying. (It's also true - I do avoid reading him because he tends to make me want to give up blogging - but that's by the bypass...) Funnily enough, he seemed to know who *I* was too - although, obviously being a dream, it's entirely plausible that he did, I suppose.

    Anyway, that was about it really. I sort of gushed on about how good he was and he smiled indulgently, like Mal Evans indulging someone who was gushing about how good he was and then, just as I was about to offer to buy him a pint at the pub over the road, Scary Duck said, "now, if you'll excuse me, I have a team meeting in Watford and I'm running a little late..." and with that, he was gone into the cold night air.

    Nice bloke.*

    * I was going to put "And then I woke up" there, but Tim tells me I'll lose my prosaic license if I keep doing that. So there you go..


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    The spinster's moon...

    She is woken by the sound of two foxes fucking. Beneath the dry moon, abalone on Azurri blue, their shrill, alien shrieks reverberate off the cold night roofs in a brutish cacophony; a frenzy of despair. They sound as if they are being burned alive from the inside.

    This is the sound of unfulfillable desire, she thinks, still half asleep but something familiarly wakeful resuming in her mind like some dull production line routine. The mystery of love revealed. This is what compels us - our hearts' song laid bare. A timeless, endless yelp we can't control. That is all I'm missing, she thinks.

    As the foxes noisesome coupling resumes, her thoughts turn once more to him - the one who should be hers but is with someone else; a white rose stem held firmly in his bite. She conjures him up with a lazy wristed castanet click and they commune, the three of them, howling as they burn on in their slow hell.


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    Wednesday 6 September 2006

    Product Warning...

    After Tim's recent handwringing concerning the imminent annexation of the blogosphere by the suits in marketing, we strike a blow back for the common consumer....

    Whatever you do, don't use *this* stuff:



    It's like smearing plaster of Paris mixed with milk of magnesium over yourself - fine for an imaginative and taboo-breaking romp in the bedroom, granted - but hardly desirable if you don't want to look like a pillock on the sands of Monte Carlo. If you absolutely *must* use it, do so sparingly. Unless, of course, you want to look like this:



    Don't go near the stuff...


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    Tuesday 5 September 2006

    In His Own Write...




    I just love the layout of the 1960s Lennon books.

    In case you can't enlarge the image, the text runs:

    Good Dog Nigel

    Arf, Arf, he goes, a merry sight,

    Our little hairy friend,

    Arf, Arf, upon the lampost bright

    Arfing round the bend.

    Nice dog! Goo boy,

    Waggie tail and beg,

    Clever Nigel, jump for joy

    Because we're putting you to sleep at three of the clock, Nigel.



    This poem in particular - as well as being a "larf" - is just so ostentatious with the white spaces. It seems indicative of the spaciousness of the era that produced the books and the songs, relative to our own. Imagine, for instance, a cost-obsessed contemporary publisher letting Alex Patrides or whoever waste so much paper to such seemingly puny effect....*




    *His Grauniad column aside, obviously...

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    Sunday 3 September 2006

    Bobcast17...

    ....is up now - here.

    Amis *and* Dylan in the Obs.

    *Phwoar*!!

    Have a good weekened all - I'm on shore leave next week, so apologies if the posts are even more erratic than usual...



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    Saturday 2 September 2006

    Bob's Book Club...



    This isn't quite as much fun as it sounds, unfortunately. Basically, having as I do more money than sense, I've got into the habit of buying a lot of second hand books very cheaply from the British Heart Foundation Shop in Twickenham (they often seem to have a smattering of the grittier recent fiction - I've bought Amis, Pelecanos, Leonard and Hornby there (all in h/back , mind) in amongst the ubiquitous and barely thumbed copies of White Teeth and Bridget Jones Dairy (see The Spinster on this - excellent post...). All well and good you'd say, and yes, they do look lovely in the cabinets in the new home, thank you very much. But unfortunately, being A Very Busy Man and (sod it, I might as well own up to to it) A Bit Of a Dimwitted Thug, deep down, the chances of me ever reading any of these lovely books is pretty slender, bordering on the wafer thin.

    Which is where you lot come in. As I have - and I'll not try to spare your blushes here - a charming, erudite and enormously well-read readership, I thought I'd go for the "standing on the shoulders of giants" approach and ask *you lot* to give a potted account of the books each week, or recommend salient chapters/sections within the text that could function as a part for whole/metonomymic kind of deal - or just advise me to steer well clear (in fact, the latter could save everyone a whole heap of trouble now I come to think of it... Bob's Don't Read This Book Club, anyone??)

    So, whaddaya say? I thought it might be quite fun and I'm sure that the next time I'm in the company of People Who Read a Lot (some time around 2046, I would imagine...) I'm sure they will be so impressed by my Swipesters-cribbed loquacity and intensity of mental rigour, that they won't even begin to dream of what a clueless retard they're clinking their glass of el-cheapo, cash and carry chardy with.

    So, first up, as I've blogged on him of late, I thought I'd finally splash out on The One Martin Amis Novel That I Haven't Already Read:



    So, let's be having you with your "Oi'll give it foive"s....


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    Dad's Old Tartan Ready Reckoner




    To this day, I couldn't really tell you what it was (....something to do with calculating your stakes and winnings from a bet on the gee-gees in "old" money and then converting to "new", I think. Yes, I know.)

    Whatever, it was common for dad* to spend entire evenings frowning and grimacing at its inscrutable hieroglyphs...




    ...or maybe he was just staring blankly at the illustrations



    and wishing he was down the pub...?




    [S. is singing "I'm a Widow of Blog" to the tune of "Walking the Dog" as I type....]


    *She's* the funny one...

    *I typed 'dead', not dad there at first. Bloody Freud.

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    Friday 1 September 2006

    Of All The Blogs In All The World...

    Domain Name iam.net.ma ? (Morocco)
    IP Address 196.206.203.# (ADSL subscriber - Rabat and north morocoo)
    ISP Office National des Postes et Telecommunications
    Location Continent : Africa
    Country : Morocco (Facts)
    State/Region : Casablanca
    City : Casablanca
    Lat/Long : 33.5931, -7.6164 (Map)

    Language French
    fr
    Operating System Microsoft WinXP
    Browser Firefox
    Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr; rv:1.8.0.6) Gecko/20060728 Firefox/1.5.0.6
    Javascript version 1.5
    Monitor Resolution : 1280 x 960
    Color Depth : 32 bits

    Time of Visit Sep 1 2006 7:49:21 pm
    Last Page View Sep 1 2006 7:49:21 pm
    Visit Length 0 seconds
    Page Views 1
    Referring URL http://images.google...nid=i7tlL1RRNZOMVM:&
    Visit Entry Page http://rswipe.blogsp..._rswipe_archive.html
    Visit Exit Page http://rswipe.blogsp..._rswipe_archive.html
    Out Click
    Time Zone UTC-1:00
    Visitor's Time Sep 1 2006 11:49:21 pm
    Visit Number 43,921


    ...This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!!!


    [Visit Length 0 seconds....maybe *not*..]


    .....And on that note.....Goodbye






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    Mr. Amis' Dental Windows...

    Amis*, eh?

    You hate him when he spoilt-brat-gobshites throwaways like this:

    My face did not so much resemble that of Albert Steptoe, the senior - the resoundingly senior - ragman in the early proletarian TV soap, 'Steptoe & Son'....

    "Proletarian soap opera"? *Clunk* (You did watch a few episodes I take it Mardey???)

    But then, just when the Kingsley's-wastrel-son-knuckles-down-and-through-sheer-hard-work-and-talent-alone-gets-a-really-big-break-reviewing-books-for-the-(wait for it, wait for it.....)-TLS-schtick gets almost *so* grating that you want to heimlich manouevre the silver spoon out of his mouth, you have to dust off the chip from each shoulder and just marvel at the insight and the prose....(and the sheer, blissful "male turkeycocking"** of it all...)

    From Experience:

    Someone - Horacio Martinez, most probably - has sent me an article from "The Bulletin of the History of Dentistry" called 'James Joyce's Ulysses and Dentistry' by Horacio Martinez. It's subheads are, in order, Joyce Appreciated Dental Health, Joyce Abhorred Dental Disease, Joyce Advocated Prevention, Joyce Valued Dental Treatment and Joyce Observed Dental Habits......he says things like "it is high time to extend Joyce's readership among members of the dental profession" and "there is much in this book that transcends the purely dental"....

    Or this, on my favourite current hobby horse (well apart from the obvious) - The Age Of Mediation....:

    The present phase of Western literature is inescapably one of 'higher autobiography'...'What can you reveal about me?', Saul Bellow once asked a prospective biographer, 'that I haven't already revealed about myself?' One of the assumptions behind HA, I think, went as follows: in a world becoming more and more this and more and more that, but above all becoming more and more *mediated*, the direct line to your own experience was the only thing you could trust. So the focus moved inward with that slow zoom a writer feels when he switches from the third person to the first.

    Blogging, innit?

    There's a great bit too, where he's walking along in Batswater or somewhere and gets slowed down behind an old lady and some big burly black guy with a white girlfriend hurls him out of the way and as they speed ahead of him, the girl turns to her boyfriend and says "'he's shit nisself"

    On balance, I'd still say "Mardey rools..."

    Yay!







    *That's Mardey, *not* Kingsley.....

    **A.S. Byatt - to name but three...

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    Silly, Pissed Poem...

    She knows, I think
    That every word that's uttered
    Is for her.

    That when I speak,
    I speak from heart direct
    To like of her's.

    And every time
    Her name floats up my spirit
    Does the same

    And feels that cloud
    Of pixels reassemb-
    Ling fuel its flame.

    She knows, I think
    The pleasure and the pain
    That strew our path

    She knows, I think
    What flames today The Mo-
    Rrow lines the hearth.




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    click here to hear our regular Bobcasts!!

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    © 2006 Swipe Enterprises

    Bobcast16...

    ...is really shit, but....click here if you want to be really hardcore Bobsters....

    You'll probably need to whack the volume up for The Obligatory Roxy Music Track. If you want slick and professional, you're probably better off with Istvanski...



    Bobcasts now available at iTunes!!

    click here to hear our regular Bobcasts!!

    Subscribe to The Robert Swipe Show




    © 2006 Swipe Enterprises