Was it not Baudelaire who said...
One should always be drunk? In fact it was, but the fact is that no-one around here knows that. I have been musing on the possibility of beginning every other sentence with the words "was it not Baudelaire who said..." and then filling the blank with the first bit of nonsense that comes into my head, "...the spreadsheet is but the whispered geometry of Hades," for example.
Taking the train to work has given me the opportunity to read once again; unfortunately I remain convinced that nothing of any value has been put into print since the nineteen-thirties and, besides, we unloaded almost our entire library to the hospice charity shop on Lewes High Street some six months ago, leaving me with but a clutch of cookery books, philosophical tracts and reference manuals that I felt it would have been over-zealous to dispense with. And because it's hardly seemly to produce a Nigella Lawson hardback on the 7.14 from Goose Hollow, I've been forced back on the aforementioned tracts and therefore upon the painful remembrance of the infinite depravity of my own nonchalance, the vertiginous chasm of unfulfilled possibility and - in general - the absurd folly of existence. Indeed, everything a man should remain ignorant of until the age of 45 when I believe such considerations are de-rigueur. I have to say it's a less than inspiring start to a day to be spent distracting oneself from the urgent inevitability of one's own demise with innumerable reams of pointless activity and general bad faith.
My boss has returned from a recent stint in the Far East to a mix of relief, dismay and - for me at least - general hilarity. A sincere, capable and (to my mind at least) oddly driven individual, he commented on my delight at having received a Nintendo Gamecube for Christmas with, "A Gamecube? But that's not aimed at your demographic!"
Today finds us frozen into our house! The upper air being somewhat warmer than that at ground level, rain fell from the sky and froze where it landed, depositing sheet ice on every surface. As today's high was -2C, it's not going anywhere and the city has been advised not to leave the house. Fairly wise, as I decided I was not capable of making it as far as the hot-tub without risking mortal injury. Of course the news is a litany of those who dared venture forth and met with mishap, both serious and comical. As I write however, the house is filled with the hypnotic rhythms of Donkey Konga, I have a bottle of Port beside me and my darling Conker is lying to my right - there really is no reason to leave the house.
Rachel plays Donkey Konga
Interesting that as one ages one becomes more aware of one's physicality. To be sure, even at an early age I knew that there were limitations to my mortal being: I was never going to run a four minute mile, for example, let alone fly as if unhindered by the shackles of gravity. But for the most part, my body did what I told it in such a way as I could pretty much ignore the fact it was there. No doubt my knees dangled before me then as they do today, but could I care less? Perhaps one is never really aware of anything until one is painfully aware of it. Indeed, was it not Baudelaire who said...
Taking the train to work has given me the opportunity to read once again; unfortunately I remain convinced that nothing of any value has been put into print since the nineteen-thirties and, besides, we unloaded almost our entire library to the hospice charity shop on Lewes High Street some six months ago, leaving me with but a clutch of cookery books, philosophical tracts and reference manuals that I felt it would have been over-zealous to dispense with. And because it's hardly seemly to produce a Nigella Lawson hardback on the 7.14 from Goose Hollow, I've been forced back on the aforementioned tracts and therefore upon the painful remembrance of the infinite depravity of my own nonchalance, the vertiginous chasm of unfulfilled possibility and - in general - the absurd folly of existence. Indeed, everything a man should remain ignorant of until the age of 45 when I believe such considerations are de-rigueur. I have to say it's a less than inspiring start to a day to be spent distracting oneself from the urgent inevitability of one's own demise with innumerable reams of pointless activity and general bad faith.
My boss has returned from a recent stint in the Far East to a mix of relief, dismay and - for me at least - general hilarity. A sincere, capable and (to my mind at least) oddly driven individual, he commented on my delight at having received a Nintendo Gamecube for Christmas with, "A Gamecube? But that's not aimed at your demographic!"
Today finds us frozen into our house! The upper air being somewhat warmer than that at ground level, rain fell from the sky and froze where it landed, depositing sheet ice on every surface. As today's high was -2C, it's not going anywhere and the city has been advised not to leave the house. Fairly wise, as I decided I was not capable of making it as far as the hot-tub without risking mortal injury. Of course the news is a litany of those who dared venture forth and met with mishap, both serious and comical. As I write however, the house is filled with the hypnotic rhythms of Donkey Konga, I have a bottle of Port beside me and my darling Conker is lying to my right - there really is no reason to leave the house.
Rachel plays Donkey Konga
Interesting that as one ages one becomes more aware of one's physicality. To be sure, even at an early age I knew that there were limitations to my mortal being: I was never going to run a four minute mile, for example, let alone fly as if unhindered by the shackles of gravity. But for the most part, my body did what I told it in such a way as I could pretty much ignore the fact it was there. No doubt my knees dangled before me then as they do today, but could I care less? Perhaps one is never really aware of anything until one is painfully aware of it. Indeed, was it not Baudelaire who said...
posted by Richard Tammar at 6:45 PM
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