From The Centrifuge

I took a moment last night, between nappy changes (not mine you guttersnipes) to consider a proposition that I have been bandying around for a number of years, more in idleness that in all seriousness. It was something I pinched wholesale from "The Worms Can Carry Me To Heaven " by Alan Warner, which I read quite a few years ago it would seem. His protagonist gives up reading anything other than travel guides and pamphlets because he has calculated that the time he has left to live (projected) is less than the time it would take to read every book he has collected in his library. "What a conclusion!" I thought, "What would it take for me to run to such a morbid assessment of my prospects in life? What strength in belief a man must have to make this decision and then stick to it!" I immediately resolved to use this line whenever a conversation came up when, faced by the book-buying public, I was forced to listen to another person bemoaning the lack of space...

... and more navel-gazing as promised. My “mood” hasn’t picked up noticeably, so I’m making a deliberate effort to avoid the tricks and tropes I’d usually employ to make it all dark and perplexing. Clear skies with a sunny outlook – 70% chance of crap. Plus I’ve had a crack at a book-review type blog (partially thanks to Cari’s Books for the proof that it can be done, although personally I was put off by her impassioned defence of the young adult genre) and so far have a title, URL and a background template. For those of you who enjoy looking at all things unfinished, you could check the work in progress at Metaliterate Musings . Wowed, you may not be. However, I don’t feel at all upset at sending link-love to myself, so I’ll do it again: Metaliterate Musings . With any luck and no small amount of application, it should eventually be the book-related opinion piece that my brain believes it could be. Once the first post is proofed I’ll let you know, and you can go be offended by some m...

Now I’ve noticed a pattern (that I had no plans to replicate initially, and will endeavour to put a stop to presently) of external referencing, specifically of websites where something interesting is occurring and warrants bringing to the attention of the discerning if misguided audience of this posting. This, with the unnecessary addition of commentary by your verbose and obfuscatory host (in so far as any nuggets of true worth – subjective or objective – are buried in sub- and sub-sub-clause, parenthesis and digression) seems to form the rudimentary basis of the last few posts, and indeed the greater portion of the blog as a whole. Therefore, after this post, I will return to the insular navel-gazing solipsism that normally constitutes my literary output and, mood allowing (and by mood I mean propensity for lack of clarity, eloquence and elegance of prose arising from the innate fear that anything I wish to impart has no intrinsic value whatsoever and should therefore be couched in p...

I may have started something hirsute with my unwarranted persecution of that guy with the tit accessories, but just an update for those who were only here for the hair - Beard Blog has moved. You can follow Bryan on the Chicago Tribune blog site. http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/beard-candy/

I was wandering around after work (read: walking home), musing on suitable subjects about which to blog and avoiding students on bicycles and cars intent on killing something, anything, at crossings and junctions, when I was distracted by the thought that I had never shaved every day ever. New job, new skin care regime I had reasonably assumed before starting - along with new Gap jumpers, Gap corduroys, Gap shirts (and you know what? I strongly dislike Gap. Go figure) and an errant H&M pullover - and had stuck to it for the full week without so much as thinking about not shaving. But now I was. . I'm not sure why shaving has become such a standard requirement for suitably dressed men past the age of university slackerdom. I regularly enjoyed 3 weeks worth of fluff up until the age of 32, even once the lovingly groomed ponytail had been ceased to be a feature of my daily routine, having been hacked orf during a moment of drunken clarity one drizzly Tuesday afternoon, aro...

You might be forgiven for thinking something interesting will appear here. It's unlikely you'll be forgiven, but, still, it's possible. And to set your mind at ease, post #1 is not that exciting. Of course, you can be the judge of that.