Coastalblog

You'd think I'd have learnt by now, wouldn't you. I've had a decade of things looking exceedingly bleak and then turning around rapidly. So it shouldn't come as a shock to me when it occurs. Only last week I was fretting over whether or not I could afford a variety of things, particularly with a large loan sat in my bank account like a big fat frog of potential disastrous debt. I was also swearing a lot at my new phone and it's irritatingly teenage interface (no, I have no desire to have big brother chat with like minded teens. I'm 29. And grumpy. I wish simply to MAKE AND ANSWER PHONE CALLS. No I do not wish to download that song where that gramatically-challenged bint bangs on about finding a place where she can boogie because "I needs me to party" and "I'm up in the party" and then have it as my bastard ring-tone. Parties are rubbish. I wish simply to MAKE AND ANSWER PHONE CALLS). Presto chango, I'm offered another lecture this

So I was reading an article about how golly gosh Lee Evans is appearing in proper theatre rather than just that Norman Wisdom thing he does that the proles like and goodness me he's actually quite good even though he lives in Essex (Evan's being marvellous is no news to those of us who've seen the little known British film Funny Bones , I won't go on about its wonderfulness but you really ought to see it, should you get the chance). And whilst I snorted at the notion of his ability coming as a surprise to anyone (he's done Becket for god's sake) I got to thinking about the little ways we define ourselves. Ever since I was a small child I wanted to be a writer. Well, actually I wanted to be a footballer but due to my staggering physical ineptitude from a very young age I was fully cognisant that this wasn't going to happen, being last picked every single lunchtime will soon drive those dreams of Wembley right out of your head. For a brief period in my teens I

One would imagine that in posting to a weblog there is a pact between writer and (potential) audience that there will be engaging content. Clearly there is only any point in posting when you have something interesting to say. This imperative, sadly, is outweighed by the feelings of guilt at having a blog and not posting to it for a while. So if we have a given value of g (for guilt) and divide it by a given value of of p (for potential interest engendered within the breast of the long-suffering reader) then crucially we still don't have anything that will stand up in court.

Sigh. I was arguing about OuLiPo over on I Love Books and it reminded me of the time I used to regularly read vaguely highbrow stuff... Okay, that's slightly misleading. I've got Harry Mathews, Slavoj Zizek and the new Pynchon on my reading pile at the moment. I still find time to read, just as I still somehow fnd time to write. Just not enough. But when I'm lying in bed at the end of a bone-shattering night then my brain is a little too fried to cope with it. Your friend, at this juncture, is genre fiction. Specifically (for me) crime fiction. Fantasy and sci-fi have their adherents (and I'm partial to a spot of Iain Banks from time to time) but really, when I just want to relax and I'm not up to anything overly taxing, you can't beat a brutal murder or nine. Which is why I, seventeen years late, am catching up on Ian Rankin's Rebus novels. And they're great, the prose can be a little clunky, and the use of ellipses somewhat baffling, but the character

Two recent visitors have got here via google searches for "Lynx advert and culture", and, even more entertainingly "Kingmaker shirt" for which i am proud to note that I am number ONE on google. Higher than Kingmaker themselves. In your face early nineties indie! Even more entertainingly the tories have scrambled to hail some page three girl or other as an "Environmental heroine" after she posed with her tits painted green. Yes, to highlight green issues. In your face Al Gore. I'd make a joke but they practically write themselves.

Those of you who know me will hve a pretty good idea as to why posts have been non-existent recently. Suffice it to say screaming hot pans, knives, hordes of drunks, tinsel. It wasn't fun. And let that be an end to it. But whilst on the subject of catering I am given to understand that the french restaurant industry is in crisis, with restaurants closing at a rate of knots. Furthermore on the subject of catering I was recently harangued by a drunk guy who, when he discovered I was a chef decided to blame me for the high prices he'd recently been charged at another establishment, spitting slightly in my face as he made his point. I wonder if there were some way I could link these two pieces of information together? Why, of course! The french restaurant industry has been struggling for a while now. Some blame the overbearing hegemonic pressure of Monsieur Michelin, others the insidious influence of Le Big Mac. Those with half an eye on the glossy food supplements may opine that i