Coastalblog

I think, pretty sure it happened, hands have slightly more cuts and burns than usual so it seems like that Decemeber's occurred all over me, nice. What, I don't say hi for months and then it's some mumbling nonsense about December, I look back to more cogent and lucid dissections of the hell of christmas from a catering perspective and weep bitter, bitter tears. Well, I'm saying hi now. Incidentally, I managed to get some poems published over at the rather marvellous railroad poetry project, hooray for me; http://issuu.com/railroadpoetryproject/docs/issue2/1 Furthermore, to my deep shame, I now do twitter, possibly some humble pie needs eating; should you wish to, I suspect you'll find me fairly easily. And that's that, enough mea culpas and hand wringing, poor old coastalblog got kicked down the priority list a bit, with wives kids and businesses this sort of thing tends to happen. That said, I have a sneaking suspicion you may be seeing a bit more of me sooner

goosed, just..goosed i'm still devoid of shift keys, hence the raworth-esque feel of the post, and this minor problem is still enough to keep me away from the keyboard which is a shame, for there are many interesting things occurring, be they coastalblog's crust-earning enterprise source [again, lack of shift precludes html, google it, completism-fans] kicking up a quality food ruckus at bickerstock this weekend, or highlighting brewdog's equity for punks plan, or expounding at length on the joys of a week or so in darkest devon, or fretting a touch about how the sw sucks the ambition from people, or noting various sad and imminent anniversaries i'm dying to post about how george osborne shouldn't be trusted with a quid to go and buy milk with, or how erbacce are putting some really interesting stuff out. i was recently gifted the worst, i mean simply the worst, poetry you have ever read, but how can one deconstruct effectively without simple access to caps, or ques

Hello, a brief check in to direct those who may be interested in the general direction of a couple of ongoing bits and bobs by associates of coastalblog, should you be a of a creative bent you may find them handy http://www.nicolereneepantano.com/#!portfolio-2 http://holdfirepress.wordpress.com/ there we go, dissemination gives one a warm glow, does it not. more considered and lengthier posts to follow shortly, but i'm a bit shy of typing at the mo, the shift key on my keyboard's knackered, so kiss goodbye to parentheses, question or exclamation marks, obviously i CAN CAPITALISE but caps lock on and off every time one wishes to use the upper case is a massive pain the arse, unless one is WRITING A LETTER TO THE DAILY MAIL ABOUT EVIL GYPSY WOGS, obv. such is life.

I mean seriously, that is getting on for half a year. All reason dictates that clearly I have a bit too much going on to keep going with dear old wheezing Coastalblog, with its bouncy 1.0 look and utter disregard for any development in web-based technology of the last, ohh seven years. Probably should knock it on the head, to be honest. I barely have time for a facebook status update, let alone an honest to goodness considered blog post. I have to do actual things. Like make stuff. And talk to people. And look after small people. Hmm, unnecessarily snotty, I suspect, but I ask you, this evening I waited around for a table of four people. Whole place was deserted, when these four friends buggered off I could go home. They kept me an hour and a half, and in that time not one of them spoke to another, each was giving it some internet on one device or another, which begs the question why go out and ruin my evening in the first bloody place? And so, irony of ironies, I am talking about bein

I've just finished reading Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor (a mere 17 years after starting it, giving up and bunging it on a shelf, 16 year old me clearly had less patience); it was, as Ackroyd nearly always is, dense, verging on the mystical and practically damp with the Thames' winter mist rising from the page. I mention it purely because as I was reading it, as so often seems to happen, one of the central themes started to chime with a notion which has been bouncing around my head these past few days. I shan't test your patience by outlining the plot in any great detail but suffice it to say that in Hawksmoor the future is in part an echo of the past, the details repeat, the characters exist down generations. Now, there's a more extensive (and probably more interesting) point to be made here about Hawksmoor being in an oblique sense a comment upon palimpsest, or on archetype, template, the workhorses of literature (which, given that Ackroyd is famous for rewriting his

In these days of austerity and pulling through together, it is beholden upon us to audit ourselves at every moment, to see if there's any more WE could be doing for the cause. So, depite it being only Jan 2nd here are my achievements so far: I have snarled at a cash-machine on the off chance that it attempts to guilt trip me into gving to charity. I have learned how a thermocouple works, and am a little wiser about the workings of boilers. Ta for that, winter. I have played at the penny arcade on the end of a pier. In Southport, obv. I have become cognisant of the concept of "discount fudge" (see above). I have had beer whilst telling myself that all I'm doing is clearing out the leftovers from Christmas BEFORE a fresh start. I have watched Monsters. Inc with my son a total of two and a half times. I have spoken to disappointingly few members of my family, and must try harder. We are, after all, all in this together

In much the same way as it's cliched to be cynical about Chrstmas, it is something of a bore to be snarky about new years resolutions. That said, it is to my mind a trifle dull to be banging on about new year at all, so hoist by my own petard really. Heigh ho. Temporally speaking I suppose it makes sense to use Jan 1 to demarcate your past self from your present, and by extension future selves. It's an incredibly human trait, feeding as it does off our innate blind optimism (and, dare I say it, solipsism), to draw a line in the sand and say right, from here on out it's different. Physically speaking, too. A whole new calndar on the kitchen wall, as yet unsullied with doctor's appointments, errands to run, demands to be met. Fresh starts all round. I may sound like I'm being somewhat patronising about the whole embracing of the new year. Nothing could be further from the truth. 2010 will go down in my personal annals as being the worst year of my life, bar none, for