Coastalblog

To my mild surprise, I came home one day last week to find one of my sons, who shall remain nameless, reading a copy of one of my chapbooks. "Hello Dad" he said, in an off-hand manner, before tossing it on the table. "Not really my sort of thing" I wasn't, I hasten to add, particularly offended by this; his thing is anime, and he's eleven. I don't recall being a particular fan of procedural poetry myself at that age, to be entirely honest with you, I was more a fan of really intently watching the opening titles of Baywatch . Indeed, as with so much of my life, writing poetry was just something I sort of fell into and it turned out I was alright enough at it to publish a bit and read a bit and...well, not much else really. And that's fine, I never had dreams of fame or success from writing, it was always just something I did.  To quote Homer Simpson: aim low kids, aim so low that nobody will realise if you fail. This isn't to say that I didn't...

This post will be about several things, but it won't be about The Queue. I don't need to explain  that any further, you know it the one I mean, the one that has dominated the national conversation to a perplexing degree over the last few days. I knew when HRH popped her little bejewelled clogs that I was going to be out of step with the majority if my fellow countrymen. Not so much due to my lack of support for the monarchy, though that's definitely a factor, but more due to my distaste for greetings card sentiment. And, dear me, but we've had that in spades. Grieving, I understand. Grief and I, as longer term readers may recall, are well acquainted. And I'm not so arrogant as to tell others how to grieve; but it does seem, from the perspective of one utterly unmoved by the death of someone I didn't know, that we as a country are...enjoying this a little too much? Wallowing a little? I do understand it, to a degree. Brenda represents one of the last links to whe...

Now, after typing it,  I realise that the title basically sounds like a racist AC/DC cover version, but before you cast your phone aside in disgust at my, now you come to think of it inevitable middle aged slide into reactionary politics, hold on a mo, for this is merely the news that, after a pleasurable couple of years of semi-retirement, your super soaraway Coastalblog is back on the stoves full-time. (I hadn't realised you weren't, you quite reasonably say, fair enough, so to recap...) When I took the pub over I reasoned that I was going to be to preoccupied with various bits and bobs that needed doing front of house, and wouldn't be able to give the kitchen the attention it deserved. I was right in this, to be fair, paperwork, repairs and renovations, navigating the uncertain waters of Covid, all of this took a lot of time up. So I handed the kitchen reins over to my sous chef, Lyndsey (who has, I should say, done an absolutely sterling job). That's me done, I thou...

I've been trying, I really have. I've been refraining as much as possible from commenting on the unedifying tussle to be our next entirely unelected PM. As Mark Drakeford so tartly and correctly observed, there's nothing I can say about them that they haven't already said about each other. Indeed, I've been trying to stay off the politics as much as possible,the increasing madness of the last few years has been overwhelming, and for the sake of one's sanity alone it's necessary to keep the whole fucking shambles at arms length. How else can one respond to Liz Truss contradicting her own press release of a few hours before? Or Sunak cosplaying as a dictator because he thinks that'snwhat the membership wants? But the problem is, you may want to avoid politics, but politics sure as hell doesn't want to avoid you. And at this shaky point in our history, as the economy teeters on the brink of recession, and the real-world impact of climate change becomes ...

Dizzy heights of fame for your humblish correspondent this week, as I and my esteemed boozer merit an article in none other than the Ormskirk Advertiser (to which I cannot link because, in the year of our Lord 2022, it mystifyingly doesn't have a website other than some convoluted accounts only thing which, frankly, I can't be arsed dealing with. So we'll do this the old fashioned way)  In a nutshell, I stuck a food bank collection point in the pub. That's pretty much the size of it. Must have been a slow news week (admittedly, every week in Ormskirk is a slow news week). What I found noteworthy about it (besides it being literally the only time I've ever been described as "kind-hearted") was how much of the article I've actually written. It's pulled together from a couple of quotes and various Facebook updates. Nowt wrong with that (though I was wondering whether I should invoice them, seeing as how I've effectively written half of it), I alwa...

So the plane didn't take off, but it doesn't matter, because it's a wedge issue. God help us, this is how these people think. Somewhat abstruse, as opening lines go, but then, the whole situation is. And it has got me despairing even more than usual as to what's become of us as a nation. I shall clarify, the flight, of course, was Priti Patel's brainchild, the rendition of asylum seekers to Rwanda. I'm not going into that any further. If you feel anything but repugnance towards this racist, morally bankrupt, unworkable and ludicrously expensive pipe dream then, I beg of you, fuck off. Then fuck off some more. No, this piece isn't to comment on the policy, it's nor even one of those "slow descent into fascism" bits which people are so fond of now, there's no point. It's self-evident. No, what this piece is about is the motivation, revealed in hindsight, of the racist, abhorrent, imbecilic and embarrassing piece of shit idea about putting...

As regular readers will know, I'm prone to starting the odd post or two with faux-modest, but in reality self-aggrandising observations about how often I find myself at odds with my fellow citizens. I don't really mean to, but there you have it. Opposition is very much the name of the Coastalblog game. And so it is with the state of my garden. Or rather, the pub's. I am blessed in my gaff with a very pleasant garden, which, when the weather's nice, pretty much guarantees me a busy day ( I know, hard old life, isn't it?). But what could I possibly find to argue with the general public with here? Dear reader: mowing. Now, I don't let it run completely wild (much as I'd like to), arsey though I am, I'm aware that it's helpful for people to be able to get the nice benches I spent so long building. But I don't share the English obsession with a tidy lawn, indeed, I'm positively anti it. I did no mow May, and was pleased with the riot of daisies an...

Last week, I had one of the more head-scratching encounters of my professional career. Not so much the encounter itself, more the aftermath. Working in hospitality as I have for more years than I care to remember, I've accrued a lengthy back catalogue of weird complaints. Anyone in my line of work has, industry vets will trade them like playing cards: the gazpacho that was cold, the waitress that tossed her hair "sarcastically", the medium steak being medium rare, while his medium-rare was medium, the table that refused to believe that you couldn't fit a table of ten in on a fully booked New Year's Eve and turned up anyway. So, when a worried-looking member of floor staff popped in and said that a table had complained about the sausages on the kids menu not being "child-friendly" I sighed, did a little eye-rolling and said don't worry, I'll pop out and talk to them. And this I did, I had thought there might be some issue with the plating, maybe t...

At the risk of harping on old themes, the writing has fallen by the wayside a bit in recent times, after a couple of years where I felt I was vaguely on top of things, and able to carve out a routine whereby I could make time to write, this year threw everything up in the air again. As is nearly always the case, there isn't any one particular cause, a variety of calls on one's time make the process of sitting down to put something down in writing harder, and before you know it, it's been so long that you almost can't imagine starting again. It certainly doesn't help things that this year has taken a turn for the seriously dark, and I'm not sure the world needs my opinions on things we all know to be awful. (Though I would observe that it makes a cruel mockery of all those people posting cheery facebook statuses at the end of the last couple of years about hooray that year's over, things can't get any worse! Stop it. Just stop it. You're all the equiv...

The government have made me hate myself. Even more than usual. I've poddled along most of my existence with the same healthy level of self-loathing of your average middle-class failure, but the last ten years have ramped it up to levels which no mortal man can stand for long without requiring some form of recreational outlet. I felt it happening again, when the news of their utterly batshit, ridiculously cynical, completely unworkable, massively illegal and completely and utterly morally reprehensible "send all the refugees to Rwanda" wheeze broke. Despite  all my best intentions to the contrary, I couldn't help but get swept up in the denunciations. I'm sorry. I tried hard not to. There is a very long list of charges which can be laid at the door of this current administration, and I'll be the first to admit that this particular complaint is a long way down the list, but I must recognise that they truly have turned me into an out and out bore, the sort of blo...

There's a street near me which was, until quite recently, something of a bugbear amongst the easily irritated types who inhabit local community facebook forums. The road in question had, at the start of the pandemic, been blocked off half way along with planters, ostensibly to help with social distancing. I was unsure about the rationale, but pretty happy with the result. As a sort of mini low-traffic neighbourhood, the road suddenly became much more pleasant to walk down, and, as it was on my way to the shops, it's de facto pedestrianisation improved my quality of life to a degree. It had been something of a rat run to a Lidl, now it wasn't. All to the good. My view, it is reasonable to say, was not the only one. And while I'm aware that one shouldn't look to Facebook to be an arena for calm and reasoned debate, the level of bile directed at these few humble planters was little short of astonishing. I quietly resigned myself to their being removed amid such vocal l...

 *clears throat* Afternoon. Yes, I know, been a bit quiet of late round here, hasn't it? There are reasons for this, some of them pretty good ones. But the most overarching one would be that I simply fell out of the habit. Terribly sorry. Long time observers of these pages (and believe it or not, they do exist) will be aware of the usual run of things with Coastalblog, radio silence in December as the day job takes over, followed by a burst of activity in the New Year as I promise myself that this this is the year I'll make time to write which then tails off disappointingly. Well, disappointingly for me at least. Possibly a profound relief for everybody else. True to form, I managed the radio silence in December bit with aplomb, but the rest? Not so much. Part of the reason, I'm sort of pleased to say, is work; life at the pub has kept me surprisingly busy during January and February. Traditionally the quietest months of the year, they've taken us all aback with their l...

 Oh thank Christ, the sun's come out. Yes, it's been a pretty grim few days at Coastalblog Towers, as we shield the world from our pathogen riddled selves. For, gentle reader, we have the 'Rona. And a nasty little bugger it is too (as you undoubtedly know). I know! It's all over apparently! How can we have it? Spoiler: it is not. We first discovered this last week, when we had to cut a holiday short and high-tail it back to our Northern fastness, as Mrs Coastaltown had copped a dose off someone at school, this being the case, it was only a matter of time before yours truly tested positive, and this I duly did a couple of days later. Bugger. Neither of us were symptomatic at the time of our positives, a particularly wizard wheeze on covid's part, as it allows you a minute or two of false hope before you start with the coughs, the temperatures, the weird feeling in your ears, all that godawful jazz. I should, at this point, mention that for me it's no worse (at th...

Stop all the clocks and what have you, for there are no more Nigels. Nigels are extinct. Yes, it's that time of year again, when The Office for National Statistics  releases the list  of baby names from the previous year, and there was apparently not a single* Nigel born. 64 boys called Cai, 189 Kylos, not a Nigel to be seen anywhere. There were no fewer than 747 iterations of the name Kaden / Kaiden / Caydon / Cadan, etc, but of Nigels there was nary a hint.  Now, the name Nigel is, I grant you, one of the less-storied monickers, having been dragged through the muck recently by the odious Farage. And it's an interesting question as to how the old frog-mouthed racist might have put off a few havering over their baby names. But to men of my generation, A Nigel could at least point to the charm of Havers, the sporting prowess of Mansell, and while chess grandmaster Short perhaps played up to the Nigel stereotype a little too closely, Nigels of an indie-rock bent could at le...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that starting pieces with the phrase "it is a truth universally acknowledged.." is tired, hackneyed and bad writing. It's also fairly widely acknowledged that one of the most overused, and misused words in the tiring, tear-inducing forever war that dominates online political is "Orwellian." Generally by someone who a) is unaware of the the low-wattage of their personal intelligence and b) has never actually read any Orwell. Something something vaccines? Orwellian. Something something right to protest? Orwellian. Disagree with something the state has done? Orwellian Outraged that the state hasn't done something you wish it to do? Orwellian. I'm not much of a one for both-sidesing arguments, generally being of the opinion that there is a right side to most issues, but both sides sling the O word about with gay abandon, and generally entirely wrongly. Well, I have read a bit of Orwell (and I am entirely in concurrence ...

 Coastalblog is 18! Yes, in a quite surprising turn of events, I note that this wheezing, hoary, web 1.0 dinosaur has reached the age of majority. Older than my kids, older than my marriage, it's outlasted countless jobs, one whole business and the entirety of what one could laughingly refer to as my academic career. It is also, I can't help but note, considerably older than faceboko and twitter, meaning I get to shake my head wisely and sadly at the excitable behaviour of these upstarts (I am too old to even acknowledge the existence of tiktok, believing firmly that there's nothing worse than adults trying to muscle in on the kids stuff, and the less said about snapchat, the better*). While the world has changed considerably since then, with a much more widely varied and exciting menus of threats to bring about the end of humanity, some things have remained much of a muchness. The  very first  post here asked what the point of it was, so I probably wasn't off to a flie...

There comes a moment in every national emergency/crisis/brouhaha/mild inconvenience/storm in a teacup that someone, somewhere in the offices of a national newspaper will float that idea that it's time for the Army to be sent in to sort out the floods/pandemic/lack of toilet roll/desperate shortage of Peanut Butter Kitkats. The idea is generally most loudly trumpeted/suggested/threatened by the sorts of papers that still haven't quite got over the fact that WW2 is no, longer happening, viz. most of them, and is often enthusiastically taken up by the sort of junior minister who has ambition which, shall we say, over-matches their actual ability. Send in the troops, that'll sort out whatever this  is. And so, with crushing inevitability, there are calls for the army to plug the gap left by the shortage of HGV drivers, because there is no policy failure which can't be instantly solved by the arrival of the boys in camouflage gear. I've never understood this. Requiring t...

I had a little innocent fun on twitter last night, inspired by a tweet from a writer who said he was going to dunk on some literary sacred cows for traction and clout. The idea amused me, after all, social media can sometimes seem like no more than wilful controversy for clicks (how else to explain some of the more outre positions taken by Daily Mail columnists? Outrage sells, baby). I enjoyed the implied suggestion that he didn't believe a word he was saying, and in that spirit suggested he rip into Thomas Pynchon, not because I think Pynchon's a bad writer, I don't, I love his stuff, but more because I thought he'd be the most likely to have an easily riled portion of his fanbase. He was thinking of going for Alice Munro, a bold choice; she's difficult to lay a glove on, being to my mind, a fairly supreme prose stylist, not showy, maybe you could make some jokes about only ever writing about Canada. After all, if you want to invent a beef, there's always an ex...

There is no such thing as cancel culture. This is bad news for columnists, who need to find new things to be angry at on a weekly basis to justify their pay, but it's good news for the rest of us, who'd quite like to get through to the weekend without anybody else shouting at us, thanks very much. There's been a lot of earnest debate in the last few years devoted to the subject; long story short someone says or does somethingn problematic, or is found to have done so inn the past, and "The Internet" (whoever they are) deem them to be "cancelled" that is to say, no longer a thing, don't watch / read /buy /enjoy their stuff, they are persona non grata. The only problem is, it doesn't actually happen. Take, for example, Cristiano Ronaldo, a man who has essentially admitted that he's a rapist. Back at Utd with nary a mumur, watched approvingly by domestic abuse enthusiast, Ryan Giggs. No cancelling there. Likewise JK Rowling's sales have bare...

I don't remember precisely when I worked that I was a mediocrity. I think the realisation slowly crept up on me over the course of a few years, much in the same way as one turns round at forty and wonders where the body of the twenty eight year old went. Christ it was a relief, though As I've probably mentioned countless tedious times, I was fairly high-achieving at school in some areas, mostly English, and spent a lot of time being told how brilliant I was (I wasn't, I was good at seeming brilliant), when all I really wanted was to be good at football so girls would like me (I wasn't, they didn't). Still, due to my sporting ineptitude, I eventually learned to be proud of the fact that writing-wise, I was quite The Thing, the solipsism of youth meaning I lacked the perspective that this was a pretty small sample size at my tiny Cornish comp (we punched above our weight though, a good smattering of high achievers among my contemporaries, maybe it was something in the...