R J Askew ~ One Swift Summer

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Otherwise he's out on his ass?

[R.J.]

Vanessa wrote: "R.J. Right slave I'm going to show you mercy...I'll let you use bottled milk so you don't have to milk the ass...can't say fairer than that..."

Bottled milk! You wldn't get Cleopatra settling for BOTTLED MILK! Nope, I will just go and sort the ass out.

What! What did I say? SAUCE!

*Frankie Howard roll of the eyes*

[Marc]

Vanessa wrote: "R.J. Right slave I'm going to show you mercy...I'll let you use bottled milk so you don't have to milk the ass...can't say fairer than that..."

well you could...

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

R.J. are you turning into Lurkio?...just wait till I get you back to Pompei !!!

I'll let you write me an ode...

[R.J.]

Vanessa wrote: "R.J. are you turning into Lurkio?...just wait till I get you back to Pompei !!!

I'll let you write me an ode..."

Arf, arf, Lurkio it is. I will see if I can work a suitable ode up when I'm on hols in France! Even a slave has to chill between all that olive picking and wine tredding.

[Vic]

Hello Ron

Determined to get you that next sale, I have just plugged your book on my blog by the crafty stratagem of quoting your review of my book:

http://vicsbigwalk.blogspot.fr/2012/0...

[R.J.]

84 second recording on A GIVING ART on:

http://soundcloud.com/r-j-askew/a-giv...

I'm going to make this one work hard, very hard.

[R.J.]

France beckons. Ile de Re. One week.

[Kath]

Enjoy it - take a break and return with a nude vicar!

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Two of them, I want a nude vicar as well!

[R.J.]

Ach, a week in France, absolute torture! The little garden proved the best writing place >> http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p453...

[Kath]

Have you seen your book on the top of the site? Congratulations!

[Jud]

Torture? My bum it was torture RJ.

[R.J.]

Ignite wrote: "Have you seen your book on the top of the site? Congratulations!"

Thanks for that Ignite. I am chuffed indeed. Do authors contribute to the discussion or maitain a discrete background presence?

[R.J.]

Jud (Disney Diva) wrote: "Torture? My bum it was torture RJ."

I swear I was in hell! My wired nerves cld not cope with all that peace, quiet, white sand, and gentle sea breeeeeeezes! They even had hollyhocks growing out of the pavements. And I'd forgotten how to type when I got back. Sigh.

[R.J.]

Sept 5. A beautiful sunny evening. Squadrons of midges on the air over the River Ver, a tiny chalk stream, just north of St.Albans. Cows a-browsing in the crown estate meadows. Buzzards checking out a newly mown field. Everything dry and dusty. Back past Childwickbury, where Stanley Kubrick is buried under his favourite tree. It was amazing how swiftly all the hedges were trimmed after he died and rennovation work commenced to brighten up his stately pile which was rather like a gloomy MI6 safe house. There are still signs on the rhodedendron encased drive saying SLOW, SLOWER, SLOW. Mr.K did not like being driven at more than 30 mph. Of his 13 films, BARRY LYNDON is my fave. Oh that music! And the great Leonard Rossiter plays a very proper 18th century gent who gets offed in a duel. The next time I go past Childwickbury I will have the soundtrack to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE on my iPod. Cue Little Alex smirk. Tried, but failed, to read CLOCKWORK ORANGE the novella recently. Perhaps it is a good example of a film outdoing the underlying book. Tom Cruise was spotted in a St.Albans curry house a couple of weeks ago. He and his guests didn't have any money on them, allegedly.

[Marc]

Leonard Rossiter was a fabulous and diverse actor.

Welcome back to Blighted Blighty old bean. Ready to receive PDF/Word document of your novella for review now. send to sewell(dot)d(at)googlemail(dot)com

As much as I enjoyed the film, thought Burgesses' novel even better

[Kath]

R.J. wrote: "Ignite wrote: "Have you seen your book on the top of the site? Congratulations!"

Thanks for that Ignite. I am chuffed indeed. Do authors contribute to the discussion or maitain a discrete backgro..."

You can certaily contribute. Once people have had the chance to read it, you might find questions coming up.

[R.J.]

Marc wrote: "Leonard Rossiter was a fabulous and diverse actor.

Welcome back to Blighted Blighty old bean. Ready to receive PDF/Word document of your novella for review now. send to sewell(dot)d(at)googlemail(..."

I'm in trouble. France has done me in. I am soooo out of my hamster wheel I can barely type. I wonder if there is such a condition as keyboardphobia? If there is I've got it. Sigh.

[R.J.]

Ignite wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Ignite wrote: "Have you seen your book on the top of the site? Congratulations!"

Thanks for that Ignite. I am chuffed indeed. Do authors contribute to the discussion or maitain a dis..."

Thanks for that. I will add a few graphs to the thread about the background to the story. Not sure how much to divluge though as it was written for someone about a decade ago.

[R.J.]

~ a Friday of strong emotions ~

Why should it be that witnessing a colleague's last day at work before stepping into retirment should make me feel some of the strongest emotions I've felt in a long time?

It felt ridiculous to be filled with such swirling feelings of tremdous loss and finiteness.

He, the baby-boomer retiree, 65 tmr, was leaving in good health, in his own time, not being bullied out, after 40 years with one firm. He has had a good career, postings abroad, has a well feathered final salary pension. he was applauded out of the newsroom.

So why was I so intensely stirred?

Is it that I think of my three kids and all other kids at the start of their working lives?

Or those colleagues who cld not hack it for one reason or another? Scores of them. And the faces of those who died...

Or was it that the retiree had in some way become a part of my human landscape? that his going removes a prop in my emotional... Ach!

He's gone. He went in a good way. He will be happy. All is for the best.

These emotions are far too self-obsessive. Work is work, right? We do it to earn a crust. We respect our colleagues, but they are not...

Even now, hours on, my attempt so rationalise the feeling away are not working. This sense of sadness is sheer, too much.

How will I go when I go? The chances are far more likely that I will be 'released into the community' at a time not of my own choosing.

Ach, to feel is to be alive, but sometimes..

[R.J.]

Hurrah, party night tonight .. a giant 25th anniv party .. 'dress to impress' .. why not? No expense spared by the Gatsbyesque host. O yes, I am looking fwd to this one.

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

We want photos!

[Kath]

That retirement post is extremely moving Ron. I don't think anyone felt like that when I went. I worked at a school which, due to falling rolls generally in the city, was closed and demolished - along with several others. So a lot of people were redeployed but some of us were lucky enough to get early retirement. We were one of many when we went though! A whole posse of us galloped off into the sunset!

[R.J.]

Ignite wrote: "That retirement post is extremely moving Ron. I don't think anyone felt like that when I went. I worked at a school which, due to falling rolls generally in the city, was closed and demolished - ..."

I like the sound of the mass escape! Dilute the moment. Ach, the finality of the demoliton job though!

[Kath]

True. It's a field now.

[R.J.]

DEAR DIARY,

The candles in the lanterns on the Georgian steps leading up to the open front door were tall and stout, all a stately candle should be. There were about a score of them in the front garden. A thirty foot connifer was bedccked with a spiral of fairy lights. The enormous black roller avec personalised number plates was all agleam. An Elvis impersonator sprang out of a bush. Wld mine host's neighbour be there -- a three times Wimbledon winner? or was he in New York? The ice-sculpture marking 25 years of marriage was sweating expsnsively. The two bars in the show pony garden. The cunning lighting. O the sheer beauty of it all! And mine host, the great man, my best man, everywhere, yet nowhere to be seen, always. I am happy, sooo happy to be with these people. I see myself on his wedding video. Such a handsome chap! Lush, dark hair, curling over my jacket collar. And THAT moustache! But that was then and this is now. Dancing, jumping, punching the air as the kickass band thumps out 'Your Sex Is On Fire' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zh5mX... O this is the life! LEAPING! Punching the air! Singing the lyrics ... Yaaaaaaahhhh ooo! Your sex is on fyah!'
Banging into wall to wall leaping cougars. Yeah, this is it man! Forget everything outside the walls of this living dream of sumptuous conviviality and sheer verve. And, bless my soul! is that 20 million quids' worth of early 18th century Georgian mansion I see behind me? And a rolly-eyed retriever snaffling cast off canapes. O William Hogarth, see how your mad poet boy here doth leap in the air, his three-quarter length coat with silver flash badge a-swirling around him. This is life! This IS life! 'Your sex is on fyah!

I swear to you this is how it was. And we do it all again in Berlin in ..

[Marc]

Ron, don't forget to send me PDF of your novella. E-mail addy in post number 267

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

That sounds like a poets party !

[R.J.]

Marc wrote: "Ron, don't forget to send me PDF of your novella. E-mail addy in post number 267"

I dunno how to do that mate. I am the most techno inept person on the planet. Can you not get it on your wife's kindle? Seriously, I have no idea how to PDF to save my life.

[R.J.]

Gingerlily (or Cyberlily..) wrote: "That sounds like a poets party !"

The dance floor had a mirrored surface. I hardly knew which was up I was.

[Marc]

R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "Ron, don't forget to send me PDF of your novella. E-mail addy in post number 267"

I dunno how to do that mate. I am the most techno inept person on the planet. Can you not get it on y..."

my wife doesn't own a kindle! Just send me a Word doocument then?

[R.J.]

Marc wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "Ron, don't forget to send me PDF of your novella. E-mail addy in post number 267"

I dunno how to do that mate. I am the most techno inept person on the planet. Can you no..."


Ach, apols I thought from some previous comments that she did. My mistake.

I know. There is a copy of the story on Harper Collins online slushpile. Here is the link. I can't remember if this is the final edited version as I gave up on that site a couple of years back, it being but a biddable beauty parade >>> http://authonomy.com/books/26861/watc...

[Marc]

no my Mrs brazenly reads print versions of 50 Shades... On the Tube... sometimes with me sat next to her...

[R.J.]

DEAR DIARY

I should be working, I am working! But I am at home in my kitchen and the back door is open and my thoughts are wondering. Hmm, the door's grey paint is peeling yet again and it will stick again when the wet gets into it this winter. But for now the sun is shining. Such a modest sister of a month September. We have a turtle dove a-hooooing away now. And a breeze in the ivy and clematis on my fence. Must clip them soon. And a few childrens voices from the primary school. Sigh, only one of my three still in school today. Where is life going? Can you tell me Mr.Breeze-in-the-ivy, just where is life a-going? And now a fly buzzes in, flys around me, and buzzes out again. A fine shard of sun slandts into the kitchen and.. Just where is life a-going? Most of the issues in our lives a probably settled by the time we are in our mid-twenties, surely. Discuss. I wonder what kind of father my kids will think I am? That and other such questions. But more to the point how am I going to get to Wembley tonight? Train to West Hampstead n Jubilee line. Or the daft way: train to Mill Hill whatsit and walk? Even more pressing: what to have for lunch? I wonder if I'll end up changing my front cover yet again? And will he play Cahill of Jaggggyelka tonight? £140 for two tickets! Ridiculous. And just because my son had four teeth out to have a brace fitted. Still, in truth .. you know.

[Marc]

what's life for? That is what us artists ought, I feel, to be working towards in their art. That so few writers do, is a source of disappointment. They would prefer to duck the question, or 'escape' from it, by spinning yarns for people to get lost in and remove themselves temporarily from reality.

God has dropped out of the equation, (possibly because his apologists claimed not to play dice, when of course quantum physics betrayed him to be doing exactly that), which throws mankind back on the one incontestable fact, that of death and cessation. Given that, it behoves us to try and contemplate what the preceding span of time before cessation might actually be for. Ergo all my art proceeds from death.

Enjoy the match tonight...

BTW take the Jubilee Line, walking from Mill Hill is like Death itself...

[R.J.]

West Hampstead >> Jubilee line it is. Ach, now I am really freaked about that front cover -- not for the first time.

[Marc]

R.J. wrote: "West Hampstead >> Jubilee line it is. Ach, now I am really freaked about that front cover -- not for the first time."

what front cover?

[R.J.]

The game at Wembley last night was dire. England were like some dismal drab piece of modernist free verse, without form or beauty, perfectly, predictably, prosaic in their ponderousness, without music, accomplished in but one department -- their determined dullness. I took my son as a treat after he had four teeth out, prior to have a brace fitted. Something tells me that the pain of watching England go through the motions exceeded the pain of having the teeth out. The whole of life can't be viewed through the prism of poetry perhaps. There has to be efficiency, spreadsheets, stochastics, and other dismalities. There was no beating heart in the England team, no rhythm, no rhyme, no will, no lust to win .. merely a terrible fear-bound desperation not to lose. There has to be more than that, right?

[Marc]

not under Roy Hodgson. You need a visionary at the helm. Can't think we have one who leaps to mind at present mind

I once used the word stochastic in a novel. And as much as I luxuriate and bathe in words, even I edited it out as likely being too opaque for a reader. Having said that however, it has cropped up in the science fiction book I am currently reading on my Metropolitan/Jubilee Line commute.

[Kath]

See Marc, you should have gone with your instinct.

[Jud]

I've never heard it before, but I like new words appearing in my kindle cause it's really easy to find out what it means and (I hope) some of them stick to the inside of my skull for later use.

[Kath]

It's the sort of random breeding programme that can produce a sarcastic stock-broker.
Or did I dream that?

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Jud (Disney Diva) wrote: "I've never heard it before, but I like new words appearing in my kindle cause it's really easy to find out what it means and (I hope) some of them stick to the inside of my skull for later use."

That has given me an interesting mental picture...

[Jud]

Is it one where I stopped mid sentence, reach in, pull out the word and then say it?

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Well its a massive empty room with little yellow post-its stuck all over the walls!

[Jud]

Pink post-it notes, please. You were very close though.

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Jud (Disney Diva) wrote: "Pink post-it notes, please. You were very close though."

Oh, sorry! Just adjusting the picture...

[Kath]

Is it echoey in there? Mine is. And little dust-bunnies skitter about when a draught comes in (like when I blink rapidly!)

[Marc]

Ignite wrote: "See Marc, you should have gone with your instinct."

how very stochastic of you :-)