Coastalblog

BUILD SOME FLATS: What to do? What to do? The cry has reverberated from boardroom to shop floor at the corporate juggernaut that IS West Lancashire District Council. What to do with what, you ask? Why, the creation of a large amount of town centre real estate. Since the bulldozing of the site the questions have flown around like large bats, large bats with cartoon questions marks attached to their heads. Something for the kids, perhaps? The Militant Action Group of the Ormskirk Model Boating Society doubtless favours a large boating lake with 24-hour Duck Sniper on-site. OUr own humble proposal for a sculputre park featuring Ormskirk's more Goombah works of public Art (The Sword in the Anvil, anyone? EIGHT FUCKING METRES TALL BRONZE GLOWING SEED-PODS anyone?) has fallen on deaf ears. The Question has been put to the public and the public have responded bafflingly by being largely in favour of a development of luxury flats. Rumours that this bizarre decision on the part of the publ...

To good a quote to let slide by..(half-inched from Cricinfo) "I must admit that when I put my arm around him the exact words I used were 'It's 1-1 you Aussie bastard'." As if ... Andrew Flintoff jokes about what he really said to Brett Lee at the end of the Edgbaston Test.

To the reader from Sunnyvale, Ca. You are our two thousandth visitor. Congratulations! Have a prize! (N.B. I was going to stick a picture of a trophy there or something, but once I saw that picture I just couldn't resist it).

If you had told me six months ago that I was going to spend a significant proportion of last Monday teaching the finer points of haiku writing to a bunch of undergrads I would have looked you sternly in the eye and demanded that you stop hogging the drugs,you selfish bastard. The first intimations that this was actually going to happen, and wasn't just something I'd thought might be entertaining in an idle moment came when I stood in the english corridor, looking at the information board as I'd failed to do so many times as an undergrad myself, and there it was. A list of names and at the top, Tutor: Matt Fallaize. Blimey, I thought, this looks like actually being the case then, doesn't it? Hmm. Best hit the books. Not only did I do it, I actually enjoyed it. Now, I don't want to go jumping in two-footed here but I could rather get used to this, it beats getting whined at by middle-aged women in far-too-revealing frocks for a living. I'm writing this now after a...

Because I haven't given it enough praise as yet. When the delightful Mrs Coastaltown bought a great big meat grinder for christmas I was, indeed, delighted, but divined an ulterior moptive on her part. Mrs C doesn't eat red meat, and a big culinary sticking point in our house has been my point blank refusal to use chicken or turkey mince in anything (on the thoroughly reasonable grounds that as far as I'm concerned it's not actually food). However, with this grinder I could get prime chicken breasts and make ethically okay mince with them, yes? Well, I suppose so, and in fact I have done so, for some frankly awesome chicken crocquettes I whacked up on New Year's day. But this still doesn't get to the heart of our disagreement, the fact that I won't make any tomatoey pasta sauces or chilli with the aforementioned white meats on account of it's JUST PLAIN WRONG. The solution? oh my dear sweet Lord. Chilli con Carne. Made with Duck. Using my sharpest, small...

So I shall shortly be starting work at my alma mater, attempting to inculcate some notion of poetry writing into a group of people who (using myself at that age as an example) will think that either a) I don't know what I'm doing, and that they could do much better themselves on account of being eighteen and therefore knowing everything or b) have zero desire to be there and will repond with mulish silence to everything I try and teach them. So shortly, in fact, that's it's NEXT FUCKING MONDAY. Nervous? You betcha. Logically I know it will all work out fine, I know my stuff, I've prepared as much as is humanly possible. But since when did logic have anything to do with nerves? I'm excited, obviously, it's the first time I've done this (guest spots before were in the guise of "visiting writer" i.e. not structured, I didn't have to do any marking and they didn't expect RESULTS), yet another career change (if you can call a short-term, on...

Off to Liverpool book shopping today. Not my least favourite way to pass the time. Alas Pere (meaning well) had bought Waterstone's vouchers, so I had lowish expectations. Imagine, then, my surprise and delight at discovering a copy of Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet Or don't, it's entirely up to you. Anyway, a turn up for the books. Picked up the sainted Elizabeth David's Provincial French Cooking also, so expect plenty of exceedingly French cookery (i.e. OFFAL and CARCASSES) round at Coastal Towers before too much longer huzzah. All of this is, however, distracting me from the work in hand, which is to get ready for being a teacher (of sorts) within a couple of weeks. The course itself looks relatively straightforward (just as well, really), and I'm beavering away on some systematic stuff for a part where I need to get my arse in to gear and provide some material. Poor kids won't know what hit them.

The festive season is upon us, and it is incumbent upon everyone (apparently - I had a threatening email this morning from some group calling themselves the Konsistently Khristmas Kommitee informing me that if I failed to mark the season in any way then my life was forfeit. They also mentioned a couple of you by name and made B-movie throat-slitting gestures, so, y'know, I'm doing this for all of you) to force an end of year round-up upon the unwilling public. So, upon pain of ice-pick, here it is: JANUARY Slept, mostly. FEBRUARY: Attempted to snowboard, realised quickly that I am by design a home-loving bookworm for a REASON MARCH: Hmm, anyone remember March? APRIL: The Shower broke, other more sub judice things occurred. All good clean fun. MAY: See March, though with added wondering as to whether "occurred" is really how you spell "occurred". I know it is, but it just doesn't feel right. I said hi to London, London waved a vague hand in response. JUNE...

Some of you may recall that at the start of this year I indicated that I intended reading fifty books this year. I would link to the fifty book challenge, or the relevant I Love Books thread, but frankly I'm too drunk tired to do so. Anyway, the challenge was completed at about half past four this afternoon. Those of you who are perceptive enough to notice a preponderance of light fiction towards the end of it will correctly deduce something of a sprint finish on my part, but also you must be aware that I've had one day off in the last three weeks and it's all I'm bloody capable of. So you can take your well-thumbed copies of the gulag archipelago and shove them up your time-rich arses. The great thing about looking back over the list is that each book on it reminds me of something, be it location, state of mind, weather, quality of light....it's hard to say. It's been a pretty good read, I was particularly thrilled by Dashiel Hammett (and therefore it's ki...

You know what's great? Winning money by knowing stuff. Particularly when pub denizens growl "Smartarse" at you and you reply "that's mr sixty pounds richer smartarse to you." Made particularly great by doubting teammates being convinced I wouldn't know the answer. We still came fucking second, though, damn those old people who have had more time to learn incidental bollocks than us. You know what's even greater? Two seperate people have found coastalblog by googling "Ormskirk seed pods." If only they'd googled EIGHT FUCKING METRES TALL BRONZE GLOWING SEED PODS that would have been even greater. Welcome, come one come all to the web's number one ormsirk resource (I get a load of googlers for the Arriba, too, god only knows what impression they get. But this one's just for them: THE ARRIBA IS WHERE YOU GO WHEN YOU HAVEN'T EVEN GOT ENOUGH SELF RESPECT TO PAY FOR WHORES YOU RIDICULOUS BASTARDS. THE ARRIBA IS WHERE YOU GO WHEN YO...

Hello all. My repeated apologies for the paucity of posts, I've been working every day for the last two weeks and am generally too shattered at the end of the day. My computer time is largely limited to phd and teaching related matters at the moment. this state of affairs probably won't continue (I'm making sure I take some time off over the next couple of weeks, as well as most of january). What work, you cry? Well, I'm currently helping a couple of places out by sorting out their waiting on staff, tidying up the bar / putting various managerial stuff in order / organising booking procedures / training staff / that sort of thing. A short term solution, but an effective one. It's rather enjoyable, if I'm being honest. You all know how boringly evangelical I can get about standards of service, quality of stock and all round enjoyment of the dining experience, so it's good to get the opportunity to put some of these theories into practice with a free hand (whi...

Gentle reader, I beg your forgiveness for the scarcity of updates as currently stands. This is due to working myself in the ground in order to buy presents to celebrate the festival of a deity I have no interest in. I'm not entirely sure how I fell for it but needs must etc etc. I have, however found a few scant seconds away from the coalface to enlighten you as to the ongoing saga surrounding the proposed EIGHT FUCKING METRES TALL BRONZE GLOWING SEED PODS that WLDC propose to plant at the top end of Aughton street ("The Gateway To Aughton"). Well, sad to report, but our council's far-seeing, nay, visionary proposal have met with naught but beefy disdain from the town's ruddy-cheeked traders. As one they have turned their broad, materialistic backs upon the mystical vision whch even now haunts my dreams. Yea, even the mighty Scott's butchers, which in its policy of selling as much game as is humanly possible I have hitherto regarded as a beacon of sanity in an...

So Nanowrimo is completed for another year. thank fuck, I can have some kind of existence back I'm reasonably happy with this year's effort, though it will of necessity take quite a lot of polishing . Still, done. In other news, rumours that Joey Barton is to appear in Mike Myer's new film "So my brother's an axe murderer" are completely unfounded.

What with the weather being cold but dry, your intrepid correspondent spent yesterday hiking across many a field in the interests of healthy exercise. The effect of which was rather ruined by the pubs visited at along the route. However, in the interests of research much was gained by the consumption of a different beer at each pub, the results of which are here presented for your edification. Pub 1 The Robin Hood, Mawdesley Sensibly, we decided to get the majority of the walking out of the way before the first pub was visited. So a brisk hike hour and a half along the Leeds/Liverpool canal from Burscough took us to Rufford, where we struck out across desolate fields for a further hour or so. The original plan had been to skip the Robin Hood first up, returning to it later on. By the time we arrived, however we were cold, and one of the party had a decidedly mutinous knee. Cue the first pint (and a medicinal Lagavulin, to warm up), which was Phoenix Brewery's Thirsty Moon. Jolly ni...

Well, it's been an interesting couple of months since I made the momentous decision to jack my job in. I got a few odd looks at the time but on balance I think it was the right thing to do. The only problem is the ruinous damage it's done to my bank balance It's just been so wonderful to have the time to sit down and think about things that a few months ago I was too flat out to bother about, i.e. my future, what I want to do with it and so forth. it's been just as wonderful to get some writing done and to reconnect with the creative side of myself. Lo and behold once I started writing again my mood lifted immeasurably (I wouldn't bandy loaded words like depression about, but I was certainly getting in some foul tempers). The most wonderful thing of all has been falling in love with my girlfriend all over again. Not that I was ever out of love with her, but before I was tired, or she was tired, and on the rare days off we shared the pressure would always be to do so...

Off to the bosom of Mrs Coastaltown's family for the weekend as it's her birthday. Normal service resumes next week (including Ormskirk's glowing seed pods - the town centre traders strike back). Cheerio.

I'm learning quite a lot at the moment. This is mostly coming from this years NaNo attempt. On the plus side I'm learning how much easier it is to write when you have a plan to work to, on the minus I'm learning that I really should stick to first person perspective, as my thrd is very weak indeed. However, it's proving to be enormous fun to write, and several ideas are spinning out from the central themes. I do love the sensation of a story mutating before my very eyes. The other fun thing was sitting in today on the stuff that I'm going to be teaching next semester. It's been a few years since I've been in formal education, and the most striking thing about it was how fresh it all felt; specifically the sensation of learing things for the first time. The best example I can think of is that, as I was reading through the course bumf on haiku writing a haiku suddenly seemed like a refeshing idea. I've written god knows how many in the past, years ago when...

Some of you may recall that quite a long time ago I blogged about a Lincolnshire schoolboy, Alan Penell, who was imprisoned for stabbing a schoolmate to death with a lock knife. What he did, I argued, was reprehensible but not all that surprising. For a small group of people school is unmitigating hell, a weird place with shifting, indefinable rule-sets where the unfortunate can find themselves ostracised and humiliated to the point of absolute desperation. The only surprise is that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often. Guess what? . The ineivitability of this is as depressing as the actuality, and the root of the problem lies in the parent's response. "The bullying was blown completely out of proportion." Yeah, maybe to you it was, maybe to all his contemporaries who took such delight in it it was just a bit of fun, but to Tommy Kimpton it was a constant source of misery, a prison from which he saw no form of release. I'm not being an apologist for his ac...

What with Nano and what have you, I've let things slide here. Most remiss of me (the Nano itself is going pretty well, better than I expected anyway). So anyway, I am back in the world of paid employment after my (much needed and much enjoyed) month and a bit off. I am being a barman again, in a pub (which is short term measure, exciting things should be happening in the New Year but I don't want to put the mockers on them by banging on about them now). Now pub bartending is v. v. different from restaurant bartending, the upside being that you don't have to be anywhere near as polite. The down side beng old men who've sat at the same stool for forty years, have "their glass", and assume that you telepathically know their order (such as yesterdays FIRST SHIFT where and old guy wandered up and grunted "usual" at me, to which my response was a fairly understandable "wtf you've never seen me before in your life, nor I you, how on earth do I know...

And in a further improvement to my already pretty good day, I've just been informed that two of poems will be appearing in a forthcoming issue of FIRE magazine . this being the first concrete result from my decision to jack catering in and work on the writing for a while it's given me a significant boost. And so off to lunch.