Reading Ogden Nash on the number 38

2 Poems- part inspired by Hackney (Well, Victoria to Clapton Pond).

Reflections...
Knife crime
is fine
But a gun
Get's it done.

The DJ
The idea of music on a bus
Does not put me into a fuss
Actually, I like it in theory
But reality, alas, is dreary;

Sounds from phone speakers,
It doesn't get much bleaker
Predominantly dance and rap
And more predominantly crap

So please prevent my under-duress, stress headache
Put in a pair of headphones, thanks, for fuck's 'ake.

The Cynic

A pound for a pint makes the whole world drunk

Actually it's ninety nine pence for either a pint of IPA or a bottle of San Miguel at Wetherspoons.
News which fills me with a happiness that I haven't felt in a very long time. Not since finishing off the Brandy with breakfast.

One of the lads

Whether or not Harry is a racist is about as significant as the royal family themselves. (If you believe the British monarchy to be significant you need to get yourself a sense of perspective- columns in newspapers are irrelevant, as you know). An Eton boy feeling ethnically superior to all kinds of men who are not white, upper class, or male should not be, and isn't, very surprising. Because of his high status Harry, in spite of being a ridiculous ignorant pomp much like his father (the one with the red hair rather than big ears), is taking the brunt for a much wider issue. And whereas he has rightly, sincerely or not, apologised for his racism the army has not. It is the armies' institutionalised racism which is significant.
"Our little paki friend" and not just Prince Harry's.

It's spooky

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.