Skip to main content

Ah, memories, how fleeting etc

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 happened... Rob found this on t'interweb somewhere.
 
CARDIFF

Arrive in Cardiff for a book reading. Easily one of my favourite cities. I love the fact that the best pie shop around is an independent café in the square directly above the public toilets. It is the most potent reminder of the principle of cause and effect

It is dark and the yellow lights shine a chill sheen across the shopping precinct as I rush to find  Waterstones. I arrive late and end up being shut out of my own book reading. Banging on the closed doors staff inside shake their heads. One looks and mouths, "We're shut." "Let me in" I mouth back, quietly muttering obscenities through clenched teeth."Go around the side" he mouths, throwing his arms about to mime directions.
Nipping to the side to building I stride into the now open door, step into the warmth and hold out my hand. "Hi. Thanks." I say breathily. "Nice to meet you Mark, I'm Chris". He says pleasantly. "Right then, where do we go?" I ask taking off my coat. I might be late but I am ready to go straight on. "For what?" He calmly asks. "For the book reading" I say, patronisingly raising my eyebrows with incredulity. This is Waterstones, Chris explains politely, we put a bid in for you to do a reading here but your publisher turned us down. You're reading at Borders tonight. It's out this door, right, then right again and just down the road."
"Thank you I appreciate your help." I say, leave my dignity on the floor and head out into the precinct.

Five minutes later and slightly panicked I ask the event organiser in Borders if I might be able to grab a cup of tea to take on with me. "I'll get you one," says a nice lad with black and red dyed hair.

And so it was that I walked out clutching a steaming cardboard cup of Starbucks tea to begin my reading on branding and globalisation. Oh the ironies one has to endure as a celebrity anti-capitalist...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rage, rage against the piling up of shite.

It’s Local Election Day in Cardiff, and on my way out with the dog, I am greeted by the smiling faces of the Liberal Democrats’ Plasnewydd Focus Team. I had naively believed that I might go one day without being harassed by the Liberal Democrats, but obviously today was not going to be that day. Nonetheless, it was the final straw for me and my paper-thin patience. A little history, and some contemporaneous comment, would be useful right about now I think. The Lib Dems have led the council in Cardiff since 2004. My sources in the Welsh Conservative Party have indicated that they are about to take a complete pasting in today’s local election, with Labour way out in front, likely to come close to the 50 members they had back in 1999. In my opinion, this is a justified spanking. And yet I am unable to justify this on a political level. According to some of the bombastic nonsense that comes through my door unbidden every single day of the week and often on weekends too, ...
2 comments
There's a bit missing...

Bike sheds and urinal ettiquette

I noticed something today, something that I had previously ignored, on locking up my practical (in every sense except cost-effective) bicycle this morning in the bike shed provided by my place of work. When I entered the enclosure (see diagram 1 below), I realised that nearly every other bike hoop had been taken, so I started thinking about which space it would be most proper to appropriate for myself. Normally, at 8.15am this is a mere formality, as I park in a nearly empty bike shed at the far end, directly underneath the security camera. Today, I'd dropped off le petit monstre at his nursery (that is not an euphemism for anything before you begin) and so was a few minutes later than is usual, hence the rather replete shed.  What am I doing? I thought to myself, this is not a toilet, just take the first space available. Diagram 1. Our shed has a nifty half-pipe style roof.  Great for  nearly keeping the weather out, bad for  bashing  helmets...
Post a Comment
There's a bit missing...

Stay angry, people.

Ed's dead, baby. Borrowed, with thanks, from the Independent I was unsure whether or not to write a post, post-election, on my post-election blues. For the most part, this was because I'm sure that political commentators, bloggers, activists, and people with far more understanding of the political landscape and the effect that the latest result would have on the lives of those for whom the spectre of a Tory government was only a bad dream, a shade that haunted at night when the lights burned low and the wolves howled at the door, had already used all of the adjectives and metaphors of despair in ways far more eloquent than anything I might come up with. I find however that I must say something, even if it doesn't help matters, to explain to myself more than anyone else why it is I feel so miserable. I will probably have no right to bemoan a Conservative government - my country still has a socialist leader, in theory if not in practice - particularly as I did very littl...
Post a Comment
There's a bit missing...