Coastalblog

So a new KP started a little while back, and I was sure I knew his face from somewhere. It annoyed me for several days until I forgot about it. Then this afternoon the KP (a guy in his late thirties, I get the impression this dishwashing gig is the last chance saloon for him) asked me where I was from. I told him and he smiled. "Oh yeah, I lived in Cornwall for a while, worked at this pastie shop in Tintagel" "Tintagel?" I enquired, intrigued, given that I myself used to work in a pastie shop in Tintagel. Can you guess where this is headed? Yep, thirteen years ago he and I worked together as bakers in teeny tiny Tintagel, Cornwall, and now we work at the same restaurant in little old Ormksirk, Lancashire. So that's where I knew him from. Cripes.

You may recall earlier this year I decided to keep a list of the books I read this year (with the vague intention of reaching fifty by the end of it). Well, I've polished off eighteen of the buggers so far, and this increased rate of bibliovorousness has led to some interesting discoveries. I won't gush about Murakami, largely because I find myself empathising to a degree which is, if not significant, then at least an irritant. As such I'd be unable to objectively comment (and there's always the attendant fear that rave reviews can bite you in the arse when you re-read, and what struck you at first as dazzling intellectual conceits seem suddenly hackneyed), so no gushing.But suffice to say that I'm rationing them. It having been many years since I read much in the way of genre fiction it was engaging to get stuck into Dashiell Hammett's novels, I got through Red Harvest in a couple of days. The flat and cynical prose is addictive, though not, I suspect as artle...

Sandbar At low tide, lying flat between two spurs of rock it avoids it’s own extravagances, what am I I am a sandbar a conglomerate what is this poem other than an outpouring what is outpouring but lack of control. Yes but it’s nonsense what is listening but waiting for a pause what is structure but attempting to discern a meaning what is appreciation but the hope of reciprocal flattery what is anger but a tool for getting attention what is a sandbar but the agglomeration of eroded particles what is your point. What is the lying quiet sat on sandbar with notebook. What is the omission of indefinite articles what is. What is the hegemony of adjectives what is what. Obviously two flat planes sky sea must I keep repeating myself there has only ever been one poem written and it is about two big blocks of colour and the contrast between them, all the rest is editing. What is editing but simple compression what is compression but distillation what is what is what is. Out on the sandbar it’s ...

As Philippa Forrester once said (asininely) imagine a completely interactive world! Right, now I'm aware that I don't have a huge amount of traffic passing through my particular corner of the web, but I'm giving those of you (we happy few, we band of buggers) a chance to stake a claim in the outcome of one of the weeks most important decisions. The decision is this, it's been an absolute car-crash of a week, and this evening my spirits are to be revived by a collaborative cooking effort between myself, les freres MacKenzie and esteemed housemate Jim (and anyone else who fancies coming along). The putative plan is to cook up a large mezze or tapas with a whole bunch of dishes. I've already decided on a couple, and doubtless the boys are planning away as I type but wee need your assistance. So coastalblog readers: what should Matt eat tonight to cheer himself up? Remember dishes are to be small and relatively simple, it's all about the cumulative whole. Over to yo...

The process of cataloguing and categorisation continues apace, and a very strange feeling it is too. Reading through old work the writer is often put in the puzzling position of trying to work out what s/he is driving at. I call this ISIATT (It seemed important at the time). What is clear from going back through my dissertation is that a disk with a large amount of writing on it has very definitely gone walkabout, so the manual slog of typing them in again from hard copy is paramount at the moment (I never know when I'm going to feel this organised again). Work is, as ever, an enormous amount of fun (yet another member of staff walked out after a ruck with the manager, who, I fear, is insane). Busy is good, however. Simple common sense, if you walk into a quiet restaurant, you have to ask yourself: how long has the stock been hanging around the fridge then? At least when we're busy we sell out of things, something I always find satisfying on some sad and anal level. The sight o...

Hello. Now This hasn't been laziness on my part, I swer, I've actually been very jollly active recently, and there have been lots of exciting and stimulating events which I've yearned to mull over with you all. However the net's knackered. Ask Jim, he'll tell you. I've managed to get one of those rare windows of opportunities where the damn thing's running fine. A time devoid of internet is a strange thing indeed. You start reading newspapers a lot more closely. Ceefax becomes your boon companion. Your shoulders slope less, you stand straighter and realise that you don't actually care a great deal about the current arguments and obsessions raging the web ( I have yet to go back to ILE to test this theory out). It's been constructive though I have embarked on (and completed) the task of indexing every poem I can ever recall writing (and writing onto the computer those old ones I've only got hard copy of or discovered thast disk is bust / corrupted...

Of late there have been increased sightings of strange new players in the struggle for the town. Clad in grey, and nominally resembling trafic wardens I have encountered these footsoldiers of forces unknown all over the town. That they patrol often my own street has aroused my suspicion, but I am aware that it's not me that is being singled out, I have seeen them from the far eastern woodlands, to skirting the edge of the great moss to the west. Though we are clearly meant to believe that they are traffic wardens I cannot help but notethat they seem to spend most of their time taking photos with digital cameras, and not just of cars either. One bearded specimen seems very fond of taking photographs of walls. Why, I know not, but I do know this. If, as I suspect, they mark the emergence of yet another player in the struggle for Ormskirk's soul I wouldn't want to be those walls.

Well an entertaining time of things I've been having recently and no mistake. Some fairly serious unpleasantness at work, a brief lancastrian interlude with my beloved and the return of along missed friend being just some of the ingredients in the heady cocktail of the last week or so. The unpleasantness I have no wish to go into, other than to note this; isn't it odd that when something momentous or serious occurs the first reaction is one of disbelief, then the thought that someone responsible should be told like, say, an adult. Then finally the realisation that, hang on, you yourself are a responsible adult these days, and it's down to you to deal with. The lancastrian interlude was a brief three day break with Mrs Coastaltown to recover from a straight fortnight in work. There was a great deal of eating and sleeping, and not a great deal else. Absolutely perfect (well, not precisely, as I annoyed her to distraction by repeatedly chewing over the incident above, but I...

Hmm, funny how it comes back to you all of a sudden, isn't it? There you are, leading a relatively blameless, decidedly straightforward existence and then whammo, all it takes is one half baked simile creeping into your thoughts and suddenly it's delusions of grandeur time again, 1999 all over again; a triumph of hope over experience. Any road up, have some poems: Architecture in small English towns Best seen at up beyond window edge pitch of roof, slide of slates carvings with fleur-dy-lys your back in the way, spine like a rope. Silent, these roofs and sinful, there are murders behind them. In a room an absence there is weeping behind pebbledash. A great sweep of crescent, tree lined and decent. You played hopscotch, head back over shoulder sunshine such handsome, handsome houses, Great sheets of glass a mile wide, a building’s giant eye, keeping watch on the chevrons of paving pointing towards bargains bargains bargains. Patchwork, this town, stitched together, studded with ...

Right, kick self up arse time. The more alert among you may note that Coastalblog now links to the AA Independent press guide (present on the website of writer and artist Dee Rimbaud), this link has been reciprocated. Of course, the trouble with this is that Coastalblog has morphed slowly over the year it's been up and running into more of a rambling diary than anything to do with my writing, which was the original purpose of the whole thing. So from her on out it's going to get a bit more "writery". Normal infrequent service will continue, but I'll endeavour to make it all a bit more relevant by throwing in the odd bit of new work, or thoughts on process. Your commments would be most welcome (plus it means I have now stated publically that I'm going to be upping the ante creatively, so I'd better bloody well get on and do it).

Another day another not getting killed by a hatchet wielding weirdo. Gotta love small market towns. Hi, how are you all? Well I trust? Not decapitated? Jolly good. So things at work lurch from bad to worse, connoisseurs of poisonous atmospheres would do well to apply to me for a job pronto. They can have mine, if they like. In fact it's all pretty meh at the moment professionally, thugh I do have a reading in support of one of my heroes Allen Fisher coming up in April. I'll read a limited vocab piece which is constructed from one of his and see if he spots it.... Thank God my personal life is stable and happy. Who'd have thought? It does allow one to approach pretty much everything with calm and equanimity. And now I'm going to go and approach my lunch with calm and equanimity. Peace out y'all.

Now I'm as much of a fan of fresh fish as the next man, given that, geographically speaking, the next man is very often Jim. I'm significantly more of a fan of fresh fish than most others. And yet I find myself shunning the food I love. Turning my nose up at it, opting instead for piscatory-free dinners. Chowing down merrily on everything but. And why should this be? FUCKING MORRISONS, THAT'S WHY. Oh those fresh fish counters may look enticing, with their banks of crushed ice and multivarious breeds piled high, but I have a strong suspicion that no-one there has a clue what they're doing. The fish, on close inspection, is almost always three or four days old. They're actually proud to sell Skate and Cod "Caught wild in the North East Atlantic", even going so far as to make Cod their "Catch of the Day". It was a combination of the nautical tweeness of the tagline, and the wilful genocidal fucking irresponsibility of this which led to this post. An...

Five things that are making me happy right now: 1) The battle of Dixon's shoulder. The unseemly wrangling surrounding whether or not Mrs Dixon has been knocked back for her operation seven times, and whether or not Dr John Reid should stand in her living room awkwardly holding a teacup for the camera whilst she glares at him and cameras flash; have served to remind me of what good, down and dirty fun a nasty election is. Bring it on. 2) Spurs's Shrekalike manager, Martin Jol's unflappable phlegm in the face of the camera, and his ability to talk entirely in wacky Dutchisms without actually saying anything "Of corsh in fudball thish ish important, no?" What is, Martin? 3) Since giving up weed I have a life back, why did no one tell me of this "outside"? 4) Richard Branson's face. I mean it's fucking marvellous. Look at that thing! Like a weird grinning bearded baby bouncing around some airstrip somewhere in deepest bible belt for no readily appare...

So Hunter S Thompson has topped himself. You already knew that, naturally. Nevertheless, I kinda felt I ought to mention it. Normal service resumes shortly. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

So I'm off to Switzerland for a few days bickering with the lovely Mrs Coastaltown. I surmise that falling over a lot will be the order of the day. See you in a week, be lovely to each other.

So on my walk this evening I happened across a drunken young gentleman pissing against a wall whilst his friend stood gurning nearby. My shoulders stiffened and I wondered whether or not to cross the road. Not through fear of any confrontation, I've always felt that that particular threat is somewhat overstated, but more because I had no desire to acknowledge their existence. I didn't want to see this slackjawed drunk dangling his cock in the gutter, I didn't want to see his ape of a friend gazing aimlessly off. That they were smartly dressed in shirt and tie (albeit somewhat dishevelled) only heightened the absurdity of the spectacle. I know that it's a regular sight throughout the land every night, but it still never fails to suprise me (what the hell are you doing ? Oh, I see, oh). But I didn't cross the road, realising that I'd seen them too late, and crossing the road would only serve to highlight that I'd seen them, they'd seen me, and each would ...

Now, I have no objection to Haruki Murakami, in fact what I've read of his I've liked a great deal, which, as I came to the books determined to dislike them (when approval is so unanimous...come on, you used to be an indie kid, you know what I mean) came as a pleasant surprise. But I nearly didn't read the books at all. Now, I don't know about you, but when I walk into a bookshop I am in one of two modes. I either know already what I'm looking to buy or I'm browsing. Generally it's the former, our bookshop here tries manfully but factors of space discount the more arcane of my tastes, but on those occasions of the latter then I'm being subconsciously spurred on by a number of things; friend's half-remembered recommendations, aged reviews, my own vague recollections of the author or sometimes just plain curiosity. The one thing which does not spur me on, which in fact repulses me (as was the case with the Murakami), are the edited higlights of r...

Or rather, the fact that tonight I shall for the first time in living memory have a quiet night in with the mrs rocks my world. We may go to the cinema, we may not. We may have an early night, we may not. Don't know, don't care. all I know is that I'm not drinking and I'm not working, so that's just fine by me. The only certainty is the aforementioned moules, the peppers for which are roasting in a screamingly hot oven, their skin blackening and blistering, as I type this. No real point to this entry, more a sort of collation of thoughts and events to keep my brain ticking over. Out on the lash last night with work colleagues, which really was enormous fun, even if I did go to (whisper it) the Arriba, Ormskirk's poor excuse for a meat market (though I did spot a girl who the evening before had celebrated her 16th birthday in the restaurant tsk tsk), nice just to qo out without an agenda for once. I often wonder if the suspicion that one is supposed to be havi...

2005 so far seems to be turning out to be my year of reading, and I have one thing to thank for it. When younger I read voraciously and almost omnivorously, as happy hoovering up some pulp fantasy and sci-fi as ploughing through The Gulag Archipelago , an encyclopaedia of global migration or books of British Birds (Temminck's Stint, Jim; your go). I was a discerning reader in that I knew what I liked, and I liked a lot. Recent years have seen me go somewhat sour on the whole joy of reading deal, this state of affairs arrising due to an unholy conjunction of critical faculties developing late in the day, a desire to look cool in front of girls (so no books with "Dragons" in the title) and my own twin burgeoning careers in writing and catering leading me to read only "relevant" books (keeping up with what the poets and chefs are up to these days). Then our television broke at the start of December. Now, as regular Coastalblog readers will doubtless be awa...

First day back in the kitchen today. First day back of trying to cook ten things at once rather than just the one. First day of remembering that yes, when you're doing it for money you have to chop fast . First burn from hot saute pan. I enjoyed it all. Particularly inscribing "Matt is Ace" in the top of the apple crumble I made, hungover, first thing this morning before hurling it into the bowels of the oven. Cute newish waitress B3cky is unable to meet my eye after our contretemps at the start of yesterday's lunch shift when I'd been attempting to observe the three minute's silence for the tsunami victims (why, I don't rightly know, it salves my scarred conscience for some reason. And yes, I did donate some money, so now I can join in the national orgy of self-congratulation at us "big-hearted Brits" a clusterfuck of national compassion of a nauseating cast. By all means give some money, but there's no need to join the fucking Rotarians, a...