From The Centrifuge

It’s all a little bit exciting, if you’re me, which I am, to have revived something so Hanoverian as a literary feud! Such a back and forth brings to mind the savaging of John Rae by Charles Dickens post Franklin expedition (including the publication of Rae’s rejoinder in Household Words ), or the attacks by William Hazlitt on, well everyone. I only wish I had the intellectual vigour of a Hazlitt or indeed any of the great correspondents of the past, to be able to maintain a contiguous train of thought for longer than a lunch time, and to not to be interrupted and thus de-railed by something so mundane as a game of football. Still, to be galvanised at all in this age of short attention spans and antipathy to anything other than apathy is a miracle, and it is to football that, my wife’s scorn notwithstanding, I can give credit on this occasion. Swipe I set myself up for a pretty meaty swipe in retaliation for my retaliation previously . I sort-of lost the plot a little bit in places,

You know, I almost did a very stupid thing, and copied all of my most interesting tweets from Twitter into a blog post. I didn't. Not because it was a senselessly narcissistic thing to do, but rather it would show up what a completely dull twit I am. Outward gaze, latent writer, outward gaze...

I feel the need to raise the ugly spectre of my footballing allegiance this sunny Tuesday morning in response to some not unfounded criticism from an  understandably long-suffering Jack , now into the fourth (or fifth?) day of waiting for the delivery of a little Jack, and also a Swansea City fan of some years. I say not unfounded but playing to an anti “Plastic Scouser”* crowd is just going for cheap laughs if you ask me. So, a rebuttal it is. In no particular order, let’s start with punditry. Like all those in the harsh media spot light, the best football pundits are the ones who are unequivocal about their opinions. It doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong, as long as they invite comment and argument, otherwise what would be the point? An expert opinion is useful if one has to make a decision on something, but when the decision is out of your hands in the first place, the only use it serves is to make a prediction that can be debated endlessly for fun or to infuriate.

A rare foray outside my comfort zone today, with an entry which attempts to convey my experience of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, or lack thereof, despite much marketing on the BBC website, from Guinness and from a NZ wine company that used that irritating piano-led diddly diddly dee song by an American named after a Vauxhall saloon. I managed to miss about 40 days worth of rugby due to commitments such as work, sleep and a beautiful baby boy, and frankly, didn’t feel left out or unduly upset by missing such entertaining contests as South Africa 87 - 0 Namibia or New Zealand 83 - 7 Japan . What Namibia can take from such a series of beatings is beyond me, and even if Japan can manage a creditable draw with a below par Canada they surely won’t be chucking up rugby union stadia with the same demented fervour that they prepared the country for their football World Cup bow. Nonetheless, infected by the rabid jingoism of friends, co-workers (both current and erstwhile) and random

Write what you know. What do I know? I made a list as follows: 1)       Cycling (only the actual moving part, not the mechanical aspects like repairing, or health and fitness and nutrition) 2)       Dogs (but again, only the experiential aspects of owning one – obligation, responsibility, tidying up etc) 3)       Babies (again with the tidying up and also general pulling-of-faces-to-entertain – although have just become proficient at swing-pushing) 4)       Pub football talk (no real understanding, just amassing huge amounts of random trivia and statistics to bedazzle other pundits with similar goals) 5)       Reading (often without understanding – inhabiting a role as a consumer of books) 6)       There is no number 6. Number 6 submerged beneath the rising tide of bleakness. As exercises go I have had more success losing weight with Suzanne Somers’ Thighmaster ™ . 

This year I experienced the dubious pleasure of knowing that I'd outlasted the corporeal incarnation of some one's Lord and Saviour, Jesus H Christ . This put me to thinking, that I could map my life against the lives and deaths of famous people; having already convincingly beaten such luminaries as Gram Parsons and Jimi Hendrix, I should create a series of short-term targets (short term being the only ones I can ever really achieve given that my attention span is shorter than 140 characters) against which to measure my lifespan. Every victory is valid, regardless of the intrinsically pointless or pyrrhic nature thereof.  So here it is, my guide to outliving the rich and famous. Well, not guide exactly, more a list of people about whom I can feel smug for having managed to not kill myself over a greater period of time. Which reminds me, I forgot to celebrate Sylvia Plath's death three years ago. I've already crossed out Jesus, so next stop - Charlie 'Birdman'

A few days ago I was planning to write an open letter to the council about cycling, cyclists, cycle paths and other things of the same etymological root due to the fact that I had two punctures inside a week of the student population returning to Cardiff and because the roads are so rough that the frame on which my child seat sits actually shakes so much when cycling that the child seat is perilously close to falling off – much tightening of bolts is required daily to the point that my hex key has removed even the idea of a hexagonal-shaped indent in the head of said bolts. We pay enough Council Tax and Road Tax that the least they could do is clear the glass and shrapnel from the cycle paths unless they just physically can’t, in which case an admission of ineptitude and a reduction in charges is in order. I sensibly decided against such a rant when, thanks to the fact that I have probably risen to the level of my own incompetence when it comes to all things manly and DIY-ish, I manage

It’s really rather hard to have a good old moan about your job in public without letting slip sufficient information for a very lucky, casual but interested browser of the Internet to piece together the relevant stuff, dob you in and get you sacked. To this I add reference to the dismissal of Joe Gordon in 2005 for the use of the apparently offensive pseudonym “Bastardstone’s” (amongst other things) in his weblog . Well, that’s not going to stop me, no sir! I was musing whilst cycling this morning, dodging rashly driven council vans and bellicose seagulls on Cathays Terrace (not to mention broken glass – one could be forgiven for supposing that the student population of Roath and Cathays wish to re-enact the events of November 1938 on the streets of Cardiff every week night) that it often feels as though an unseen hand occasionally and perhaps disinterestedly strokes the waters of my existence not caring that the wake comes smashing straight into my face. I guess I’m just susceptible t

 Ray Bradbury  in 1975  In part as the result of a conversation with someone I didn’t know and to whom I had demurely down-played the virtues of my writing in general, and in another part due to the fact that it strikes me as one of those truisms that smacks of verisimilitude, I came suddenly to the realisation that writing (and writers) starts (and start) with solipsism and move outwards from there. [Notice how I’ve made a syntactically permissible but nearly unreadable sentence there by the use of distracting and in terms of agreements uncomfortable parentheses! What a cock.] One writes of what one knows (and can prove) – the self. Only when enough time has passed in practice can that inward gaze be slowly turned outwards, and only with constant vigilance will it stay thus. Ray Bradbury reminded me recently, writing in the introduction to a book of essays on creativity that I half-remembered existed from my time as a bookseller, and which I picke

I've just spent two hours (not unpleasant hours I must admit, thanks in no small part to Death in Vegas ) fiddling with profile options on Live Journal , trying to get them just right, like the fuel / air mix on an airplane or the pH of a swimming pool, so that I have the most fecund environment into which I could cast the seeds of my imagination. Little tweaks here - do I want all comments uploaded to Twitter and likewise, all Twitter postings captured here? - little permissions denied there - NO FB links, thanks - and just when the time had come to finally stop procrastinating and get stuck in, virtual pen in hand and coffee with chocolate digestive at a convenient distance (not too close to the laptop, not so far away that I might need to stretch), all I could see was the vast empty space of the Internet. Sometimes you eat the abyss and sometimes... All that directionless but febrile activity has burned out the synapses. At least, that's a good excuse for now. I genuinel

Cleaning up the old FB inbox, I came across a message (see below) from a chum who reminded me how indifferent the Universe can be to the trials of mere mortals.   Firstly, my name isn't Chris (although Mark may have been protecting my identity - no need old bean!) and secondly, I'm not sure The Hayes Island Snack Bar sells pies... Still, on the first point, Ninjah (residents of Cardiff will know exactly which 7 foot bin-thumping rap star I'm talking about) called me Nick for ten years, and the lovely Lisa from Jazzy Jackets in the market insisted my name was Matt. When set straight they were respectively mystifyingly unperturbed (Ninjah didn't care - he preferred Nick to Gareth), and embarrassingly forgetful (I became instead "Maaaaa - shit! - Gar!")   Anyway, I have no idea about how genuine this extract courtesy of Mark Thomas may be, but it warms my cockles nonetheless. Enjoy.   13 November 2008     Mark Thomas can't remember things the way they happene