I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at.
We cannot deny that we have now arrived at that ugly saturation point of fame, so presciently identified by Andy Warhol, and, agonising as it is to be presented with ceaseless hours of – is the term Z-list celebrity any longer valid? Aren’t they all now so devalued by their ubiquity that they are (we … Continue reading 17th Oct – we’ll catch a runt and put him in a punt, and then we’ll let him go.
This news is current as I read the novel, We (Мы). Written by Yevgeny Zamyatin in Soviet era Russia in 1924, it is the least read of the Russian classics. It’s a dystopian novel describing an oppressive totalitarian state, in which its subjects are made the joyless tools of industry and the state machine. Sound familiar? George Orwell was commissioned to write a review of a smuggled copy in the 1940s, and within six months of doing that, guess what? Yes, that’s right, he was inspired to begin work on “his” novel, 1984. What a coincidence, eh? And even more spooky, the few good bits of his awful book, were identical to those in already set out in We.
Africa, Africу, Africeт, Africeм, Africeтe, Africют.
Nobody has done more than me to bring down the career of falsely modest, secretly self-regarding, Richard-everyman-Osman than me. And see how I have succeeded? His second novel is officially the fastest selling work of literature ever. Ever. In the entire history of UK literature. Worse though, is the reaction of his fans, who have … Continue reading October 6th – Some bright morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away.
Stav Danaos was reading the weather today. Reading. Not telling. He’s a bit proprietorial about it all isn’t he? Perhaps he takes his job title, weather forecaster, a bit too liderally*. It doesn’t come from a magic well into which only he can see, you know. For my part I prefer the pagaillique* approach of the ITV-casters, with the exception, obviously, of that woman who rides the donkey as a route to fame – she who posits herself as a specialist forecaster of weather at horse racing venues. Her colleagues though, are good because the know that they’re common and act like the weather’s something that has just happened to them. Which, of course, it has. It may sound harsh to put it that way, but I’m allowed, I was once a trainee pig-iron trader.
I haven’t seen Nomadland yet, but perhaps with (temporary) access to funds and some paid employment I’m not so much homeless as camping?
The Longfellow furrowed a brow and looked at him quizzically, ‘I mean it’s crap,’ said Cum-Bot.
This must be how it feels to live in a totalitarian state. To be a victim of ever declining standards where there is not a single person of discernment and authority to whom you can appeal.
This notion has gained such traction with me that I am starting to think that my father may not have been that bad after all; persuading myself to look at him and his sort like exhibits in a museum from whom I have evolved.
Dickie White's Diary 