Comments on SibLINGSHOT ON THE BLEACHERS: three from the tombs

Rodney, yeah. Can't make the dive, but I may h...

2011-08-11T09:51:01.271+01:00

Rodney, yeah. Can't make the dive, but I may have the same bumbling gait.

You get to be Rodney Dangerfield in Back To School...

2011-08-10T03:19:01.541+01:00

You get to be Rodney Dangerfield in Back To School!

jonder: The intention has been lurking for some t...

2011-08-09T19:30:56.451+01:00

jonder:

The intention has been lurking for some time, I confess. Somewhere between the back of my skull and the tip of my tongue. Furtive. Gnawing.

It was the fear of not doing which made me do it in the end. The act of unraveling the fuse only leads to still more anxieties, I find.

Maybe I am anxious as bird.

Maybe that is my natural state.

Anto:

Thanks for the Dublin props.

We have been watching London burn. All day, and all of the night. Well. Very nearly. This morning, at 1 AM, I was sorely tempted to unfurl the duvet in front of the tv. Just to get a handle on where the flames would lick up next.

We fell into bed sometime between Clapham Junction and the Sony distribution centre in Enfield. I experienced some alarm as the rioting spread to Chalk Farm. NW1. Like pouring petrol between the stripes on Abbey Road.

We seldom watch Sky News. Not having a dish. Most of our newsreel footage has filtered in through the BBC. All of it, in fact. The tone of it reminded me curiously me of the Quatermass Experiment meets Kids Rule OK from IPC comics in 1977. Oddly more quaint than Toxteth in 1981 - despite the very real threat to women and children at home in their beds above the rows of retail units - more staged, Kubrickesque, than eruptions in Brixton earlier that same year.

The hilarious thing, I think, was that it took Cameron and Boris so long to decide to cut their holidaying short. Priceless. Their determination to dismiss it all as juvenile delinquency overspilling Trumpton's bandstand.

Half man, half biscuit.

@eloh: A-holiness is all that I aspired to for lo...

2011-08-09T18:22:00.416+01:00

@eloh:

A-holiness is all that I aspired to for long enough. There ought to be a diploma in it, at the very least. A papal dispensation, even.

Now. Don't be alarmed; I find it hard to think of you as an a-hole. With anything other affection. Of the genuine order.

The real assholes are those who can't take a dump without hitting the shower as soon as the water hits the u-bend.

Go ahead and oogle, by all means.

As I type, Milo is blowing raspberries over my shoulder. In his playpen. Highly pleased with himself, I might add.

go for it ib. went back to college meself a few y...

2011-08-09T15:40:09.043+01:00

go for it ib. went back to college meself a few years back. i was bolloxed tired workign shift w/ 3 young kids in the gaff but the commited to it and if only for brain-stretching it was worth it. your writing is excellent.

a song from my next door neighbour when i were a lad:
http://vimeo.com/27401261

jesus, have you watched Sky news covering the 'riots'. fucking hilarious.

Good for you, Ib! Your writing is too good to be ...

2011-08-09T14:03:54.589+01:00

Good for you, Ib! Your writing is too good to be given away for nothing on this small (but stylish) venue. I have had many thoughts of going back to school. But as my sons get older, and their needs become more expensive, it's easy to find reasons (read: excuses) to put it off another year or three.

I have been an outright a-hole my whole life.... t...

2011-08-08T23:14:31.625+01:00

I have been an outright a-hole my whole life.... there are stories. Someone once said that being an a-hole is no accident, one must work at it. I have.

What you detect in my eloquent comment.... is my a-holey disappointment that I shall have no game. Being an a-hole it is always about ME in the end.

I'm going back to the baby picture (little Milo) and oogle it some more....

2011-08-08T21:25:12.249+01:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

I just hope you get what you want. Me too.

2011-08-08T20:33:59.289+01:00

I just hope you get what you want. Me too.

Well. It did occur to me at one point to put a kid...

2011-08-08T17:07:02.514+01:00

Well. It did occur to me at one point to put a kidney up for auction. Not sure if it would fetch much. In used car terms, my body resembles one of those cash only deals lurking in the dark end of the lot.

'One Careful Owner' is stretching credulity. Not even good lighting would convince a prospective buyer otherwise.

However the cards fall, I'll continue hitting on the keys regardless. Bending the letters to my will. As one doctor at least recently observed: 'London's Burning' (Again). Nero had his lyre. The lira may be in short supply, but the itch demands to be scratched.

There is no more good money. It's all fucked u...

2011-08-08T16:09:39.005+01:00

There is no more good money. It's all fucked up now. Take all you can get and never forget, the kids find out what you did to them when you had the reins completely, it has to be good or they will torture you when you become old, feeble and at their mercy. I'm hoping you get to go sneak around Oxford and post all the dirt. Try to think of it as hustling, not begging. Best of luck, man.

@eloh: I've been rattling the bars for so lon...

2011-08-07T22:03:52.293+01:00

@eloh:

I've been rattling the bars for so long now, it amazes me that anyone is still listening. Desperation. Plain and simple. Agitating to make my voice heard.

Pissing all over myself from one post to the next.

Harvard ? Yale ? I am outrageously flattered. And jaundiced enough to fear that you might be gently mocking.

I hope not. I don't think so. I respect you too much.

Holly: Thanks. I never believed I might be going ...

2011-08-07T20:45:54.638+01:00

Holly:

Thanks. I never believed I might be going back to school. I don't think the kudzu has strangled the ivy as yet. I could be wrong. My grasp of horticulture is severely limited.

The potential for anything beyond merely jamming my toe in the door long enough to matriculate remains some way off.

I'll pass on your compliments regards the photos to Rosa.

Brushback: Brando, huh ? Well. We have a weight i...

2011-08-07T20:17:56.666+01:00

Brushback:

Brando, huh ? Well. We have a weight issue in common. And I admit, the shot does appear a little staged. Very possibly, I had just ran out of cigarettes.

RossK:

Thanks, man. I'll gather up the luck which is tossed my way at this late stage.

It was your last offering that had me contemplatin...

2011-08-07T02:18:33.253+01:00

It was your last offering that had me contemplating, not just my awe in a reply, but a challenge. Met or not, with hot or cold.

I had come to the firm belief that no one, such as you had presented yourself, could possibly write with such eloquence and wisdom.... but wait... the subjects you broach must be lived to be expressed so deeply.

What a paradox.

Anonymous, yes... but only to a degree. Those who read and devour your writing know you well.

SO the challenge... Not who is Ib, but the path that brought Ib to such scholarly heights.

I thought I could talk you into giving me 10 chances to discover at which University you had been a Professor of Philosophy... and the philosophy of what.

I ruled out Harvard... contemplated Yale (I have a friend who did his graduate studies in Physics at Yale) but ultimately ruled it out. No, you were somewhere else...

My first guess... London, Professor of Psychological Philosophy. Followed quickly by the University of Glasgow... all a moot point now.

Yes Ib, we will take a backseat to whatever takes your time. People need to be taught to think and you need to take your rightful place in the world. If that is teaching or getting yourself published.... do it.

So now I know who you are and the path you walked, sometimes crawled....

Ib the Baron of Glasgow..............

and don't think for a minute that this has made me forget about those baby pictures!

P.S. I'd tell you what a handsome man you are... but comments like that from old ladies...just gross.

You, sir, definitely belong in academe. The kudzu...

2011-08-06T23:01:28.616+01:00

You, sir, definitely belong in academe. The kudzu & the ivy need pruning, and other, older Milos need to profit from your mentorship.
Fingers crossed!

PS - great photos ;-)

Just remember one thing. Well, two, actually.... ...

2011-08-06T21:13:38.846+01:00

Just remember one thing.

Well, two, actually....

The trusts love the begging.

And.

Once one of them bites all the others get jealous.

Best of luck!

(and if you have to steer some wordstream their way that slows some of the flow here for awhile, do it. We can handle some slack water for awhile).

.

Yeah, that first picture is sorta flattering - ki...

2011-08-06T21:04:28.201+01:00

Yeah, that first picture is sorta flattering - kind of Brando-ish.

I've never been near a building as it was being demolished, I don't think.

cool

2011-08-06T21:03:20.447+01:00

cool