An exercise in composition:

Dear Sir/Madame,

You have been brought to the attention of our team as an excellent candidate for our internship programme. As you may know, places on our programme are highly sought after by motivated individuals interested in taking the next step towards a range of diverse and highly rewarding challenges. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that we cordially invite you to attend our next induction event, where the selection process will be fully outlined and a light lunch provided. The event will take place at my vagina at 6.30pm on Thursday 29th January 2009. Please wear appropriate clothing and bring all relevant documentation with you. If you are unable to attend this event, but are interested in finding out more about the benefits of our internship experience, please do not hesitate to contact us at the address provided below.

Best wishes,
The Management

Leering at Mister Pip.

(On a positive triphop experience.)

The gaunt curly boys and the girls
with overbites
and the stunted swarthy men
and
the
writhing women with rhythm and
yeast infections
and the blue black light
in my wide wide eyes.

The Others.

A teensy bit banishéd, strangers are making 'there's an excrescence in an orifice and it's Hilarious' noises in my bed. I rather like them. And they know the canny way into a coconut, that's for sure.

Sad Salad

Nobody's looking - go now go!
Camera phone snaps; allow me to summarise:

1 Natasha's breasts (clad).
2 Natasha with monocle.
3 Uncle on motorbike outside Edinburgh castle embarking on charity coastal tour.
4 Mr Griffiths' brief but fabulous moustache.
5 A boy in a bandana with a hot potato.
6 Another walking down the street with a bin bag of clothes balanced on head.
7 Rusty hook in public toilet.
8 Graffito of half a face.
9 Piece of driftwood with a face on a wall.
10 'The Popular Restaurant', Dundee.
11 Girl's face with blue banana bread in tin foil.
12 The view of the ceiling from my bathtub.
13 Sign: 'Hawkman Services Ltd.: Abseilers Working Overhead'.
14 Romanesco broccoli: fibonacci sequence.
15 Squashed frog on pavement - one leg extended.
16 Haul of reclaimed food.
17 One torn thumb, pus, blood, filth.



Things I have not photographed lately:
1 Night walking, when everything is black and white and orange, because everything is black and white and orange.
2 Teeth tasting like dirty keys, because this is a taste.
3 Slugfoot revulsion.
4 'Reading' Finnegans Wake, because I can only do it arched across an easy chair with a pencil clenched between my teeth.

Undesirable developments.

1 Guffawing over atrocious comic books.
2 Eating raw garlic.
3 Nursing a squirmish crush on Buster Keaton.
4 Paying for everything in five pence pieces.
5 Plotting my escape.

Fishywishy.

In the Middle Ages there are three kinds of proof; from Reason, from Authority, and from Experience. We establish a geometrical truth by Reason; a historical truth, by Authority, by auctours. We learn by experience that oysters do or do not agree with us.
(C.S.Lewis)



The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head--
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
(Lewis Carroll)

The Origin of German Tragic Drama

'There were tensions between father and son, and inflation raged.'
[Steiner's introduction]