2008 in a sentence

A good year for festive lights on trees, especially just outside of Hackney town hall.

Harold Pinter- a moment's pause

It's always a bit of a mystery what work will endure the tests of time, as they say. I suspect Pinter will be one of those artists who endures. For the best part of fifty years Harold Pinter has been one of the outstanding talents in British theatre, a platform where other writers have come and been forgotten but he has remained. The only playwright still living to have enjoyed, perhaps not enjoyed, this kind of longevity is David Hare, who I would expect to be largely forgotten within a couple of decades. Whereas Hare is working within current issues Pinter engaged in something much more existential and what could perhaps be described, when referring to certain plays, as timeless. Throughout his body of work there is a constant struggle between human conventionalism and the truth- it is somehow knowable and understandable but is lost-hidden-dizzied through cliche, courtesies, straight bullshitting (think along the lines of Tony Blair), failure to communicate, oppression... ad nauseam. It is of course all very well written, which is perhaps its best advocate to the future.
As a man I admired him quite greatly and found his Nobel speech to express a level of integrity, honesty and courage posessed by very few and articulated well by less. Judging from the films I have seen him in he was also a very fine actor with a superb comedic timing- as well you could probably imagine if familiar with his work.
There will be a slight ache in the worlds of literature and intelligent thoughtful discussion, and me, for a fair while.

Season special

My childhood..

Confrontation; a play

Confrontation.

THUG. What the fuck you looking at, prick??

HUMMER. Nothing.

THUG. Oh right, is it nice?

HUMMER. It fucking better be, pussy.

Metabus

Whilst sat on a coach the other day reading I caught glimpse of what my fellow passenger was watching on his laptop, raising the question Just what does Phillip Roth think of the Adam and Joe show?

Burning a million quid

Makes for pretty dull viewing.

Found Art

A pedestal for all those under appreciated word artists.

"On October 24th....The SAW shall be GASMED"
Sex and death, pleasure and pain are some of the key binaries explored within GoRnKyDuDe's message board based poetry.
"Personally I think it's one of the best films 1980s... Ever."
Notions of time are questioned and era consumption critiqued in Pruane2Forever's all too prescient reappraisal of The Terminator.
"And just when you think that the fever pitch cannot possibly get any higher, that the hight of Rock and Roll decadence has been reached- there it is- Iggy's manhood in all its fabled glory"
Marion Gardner on Iggy pop getting his cock out.

Tabloid Journalism

For page three stunners and Madeleine McCann
WE LOVE IT
The Sun.

The rise and recline of America; 3 short crass political poems by Sam Kastin.

New, young Labour
It's easier to be debtor
Than work for Nike
Ticking their Sweater
Taiwanese children stitching Gap
Wish the wages were better

The Real Thing
American CEO’s become high rollers
While Latin workers stay poor
Always Coca Cola
Ever more, ever more

Superpowers
I drink my coffee, lounging
Lay-z-boy recliner,
Redwhiteblue beaker
It isn’t fine China