Friday, July 30, 2004
More fucking idiots
Watched Elephant last night, fantastic film, so low-key and ruminatively shot (the autumnal New England colours are wondrous, green grass, bright red trees, yellow fallen leaves, empty azure skies), plus John Robinson is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen (Emma still prefers Scarlet Johansson, but says they look alike – their babies would either be the most beautiful things ever or else nasty angular alien spawn with enormo-lips and cheekbones like jet-engines). Anyway, I thoroughly recommend it.
The fair is on in Dawlish, and every year on the Thursday of the week it’s here the people who run it put on a fireworks display, sealing the beach and firing rockets from Boat Cove. As I was driving back from my girlfriend’s house at about ten past ten, a couple of thousand people, locals, grockels, kids, pensioners, chavs (not keen on this word, but everyone seems to know what it means), indie kids, doctors, smack addicts, chipshop owners, dieticians, alcoholics, tee-totalers (actually, in Dawlish, there probably were no tee-totalers – this is a BIG drinking town); basically all of human kind, with the exception of blacks, gays, Asians, stylish people and foreigners in general, were walking away from the beach, arcane display of gunpowder trickery over and done with, and heading back to their homes/caravans/squats/etcetera. But pissed locals + pissed grockels = aggro. In fact, the pissed grockels don’t even need to be there; pissed locals + fireworks + crowds + stormy weather (it’s cleared this morning into a beautiful day in Dawlish AND MY OFFICE HAS NO NATURAL LGIHT OR AIR DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL but still I’d rather be here than sweaty, stinky, toxic Lahndahn today) = violence, and as I drove past the chipshop by the seafront and the crazy golf, there was a scuffle involving a group of local kids whom I vaguely recognised from around town. At a guess I’d put them at 18-20. One bloke (bloke? – kid) had his finger in some girl’s face, effing and blinding at her, and she seemed happy to stand there and be indignant and aggravational back at him, just like you see people on Jerry Springer’s show being aggro back at angered spouses or whoever. Mates were goading both parties on. The atmosphere was heavy. Cans of Carling were in hand. Burberry caps were in place (they actually were, too, sadly). So what does young man in sportswear do? Lamps her. Punches her. In the face. Fist. Face. Girl. Straight away about four blokes from the immediate vicinity waded in and started kicking the shit out of this boy, both him and the girl on the floor, half-cut pillars of the community (in their own minds) standing and watching because what the fuck else do you do? And then traffic lights changed, people stepped out of the road ahead of me, and I had to move on, leaving the incident, like the fireworks, spent and in the past. Bizarre.
Marcus Trescothick was out for 105 yesterday. Regular readers will know that, despite the fact that my dad played cricket for Yorkshire school boys in 1887 or whenever, I have almost no interest in cricket, although I do quite like the fact that you can play it and legitimately drink Pimms at the same time, but Trescothick said something very interesting after the match. (I’m paraphrasing from hazy, half-listening memory) “Batting just after you’ve got a century is the hardest time, because it’s not often you get to do it.” That’s the thing, just there. You’ve got a century, 100 runs, a landmark amount – is it enough or do you want more? If you get a magnificent hundred, does it not then sully the achievement to follow it with a paltry, lousy five? Which is to say, don’t get caught up in taking the first hurdle like a winner, lest you catch your knee on the second and end up eating running track. 100 is good, but 200 is better, and 300 better still. It’s fucking hard to go much past that first barrier if you stop to think about it, but if the momentum is there then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t carry on. YES THERE’S A MESSAGE IN HERE IF YOU HADN’T GUESSED LIKE WHATWHAT CRAZYHORSE.
Played football last night for an hour, scored a few goals, hit the bar with some force, warmed up properly, was called a “faker” re: groin injury when I steamed a left-footer past the keeper. Played Wednesday night too, couple of goals, several good passes, couple of important interceptions (hammering past my brother, took it on my chest, laid it off to the keeper, satisfying – he’s meant to be quicker than me, even if I am stronger than him). The groin is OK. Still tight, I know something has been wrong with it, but two nights on the trot after nothing (bar the drunken Dublin thing) for seven, eight weeks even. I was so scared in case it didn’t stand up to the strain, in case it went again; the relief when I first hit a ball hard with my left foot was incredible, and whilst I’m not quite turning as well yet as I should be, or jumping & stretching for high balls, it’s definitely much improved. A couple of weeks and I’ll be back to proper utility, I hope. Being able to play football is very important to me. “I think we’d all be… much happier… if we just… played more sport…”
Also, visit here and have a play around. “Conquistador” is only the 86800th most commonly used word in the English language.
NJS
7/30/2004 01:45:00 pm
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1 Comments:
Pusillanimous is in there and i don't even know what it means. Whereas, sadly, discombobulated isn't.
Love is higher than death, must check hate.
What a fluffing great website.
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