Pescetarian pests

Fish near hook

It is almost 4 weeks since Graham and I ate meat. I say “meat” deliberately because we are still eating fish and seafood, and that doesn’t count as meat. I checked in the dictionary so it must be true. I believe this makes us “pescetarians” doncha know.

I don’t much like that term. Firstly I don’t like it because it makes you sound like a middle-class tosser. I made my peace with that years ago, though. Mainly I don’t like it because it sounds like you’re a vegetarian manqué. A wannabe who doesn’t quite follow through with their convictions, and I don’t like that mainly because it’s true. This makes it head an on-going list I have of drawbacks of pescetarianism:

1) You have to defend a stance that you agree has elements of hypocrisy. “It’s ok to eat fish ’cause they don’t have any feelings,” sang Nirvana ironically. Yes Kurt, I know, I know. You’re right. Fish and sea-dwellers are still living creatures. My disingenuous answer to this would be that I don’t think that these creatures routinely suffer as much as meat-producing animals can. The real answer is, baby steps! If we get on ok with no meat then perhaps no fish will follow. As it stands, I would have gone mad without being able to eat fish and seafood over the past few weeks.
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Brighton workhouse

Brighton workhouse

‘View of Brighton from Hudson’s Mill’ Published Jan. 1st 1846 by W.Lane, 3 Market Street. A very rare lithograph by C. Childs after a sketch by R.H. Nibbs

This is a view of the West Hill area of Brighton, where I live. It was taken from the top of Hodson’s Mill (given as Hudson in the name of the picture) the base of which survived fifty yards from my house in West Hill Road until removed in the 1950s. The fields to the right of the pathway belonged to the Brighton workhouse. More information here.

My house – or at least such that it existed back then – is the one on the very far left with a peaked roof edging the field. So strange to think it was then on the edge of town when the town’s edges now stretch miles further than this.

Fortune Cookie

fortune cookie

One of the more ambiguous conversations I’ve had with a waiter.
 
 
 
 

Me: It was lovely but I just couldn’t finish it. Just the bill please.
Waiter (in an extremely thick Chinese accent): Are you travelling?
Me: (slightly surprised, but hey go with the flow) Yes I’m here for work.
Waiter: Are you a job seeker? (pronounced “seekerer”)
Me: (unsure if I’ve either misunderstood the words used or what he means by them) Erm… I’m here to do work. We have an office here.
Waiter: So you are not seeking work?
Me: No…I probably wouldn’t be here eating a delicious but expensive Chinese meal if I were looking for work.
Waiter: I am a job seeker.
Pause during which he looks at me expectantly and I look back even more unsure if I’ve grasped this conversation.
Me: But you work… You’re a waiter (I add helpfully).
Waiter: But that is only to pay the bills. So I am a job seeker. Like you.
Me: (Getting scared) I really have to go, can I please have the bill?

I’m still not convinced that either of us fully understood what the other was saying here. But it seems to me enigmatic enough to bear many interpretations, as fortunes are wont to be. Am I seeking something, beyond the usual cornerstones of home, food, love and work? Aren’t we all? Does it show so clearly in me that this man couldn’t help but comment?

We’ll never know because I ran all the way back to my room. As men are wont to do from fortune-tellers.

Bus racism rage

Angry bus

 
 
 
I gave up my seat on the bus to an old woman, and then she started chatting to the man next to her about how dirty the bus was.

“Of course it’s because they’re all cleaned by bloody foreigners now,” she opined.

So I shoved her off the seat on to the floor and said, “I’ll have the dirty foreign-cleaned seat back then.”

Not reeeely, but I bloody felt like it.

It’s only a fag

Burning cigarette
A guest post by Graham David Brown, written in his smoking days.

Hear the poem read by the author.

 
 
For God’s sake, Mother, it’s only a fag.
You make it all sound as though it’s quite bad.
I like to smoke to give me a high
and who the hell cares whether or not I die.

I feel I’m in heaven – on top of the world!
Never to come down, unless there’s a hill.
And then I’ll accept the damage I’ve done
To my friends, and yourself. And not forgetting my lungs.

I’d rather be cremated instead of lying around
Under the earth way down in the ground.
At least I’ll then be what my cigarettes become;
A small pile of ash to blow away in the sun.
 

Clickbait Rant or “What he read next made him throw the laptop out of the window”

Worm on a hook
Until about a month ago I was not aware of having heard the word “clickbait”, but I was already aware of what it represented. If you’re as un-internet-speak savvy as me I’ll explain with a few examples:

…what he saw next blew his mind”, “…but she NEVER expected this”, “the 10 most amazing life-hacks you didn’t know you didn’t know”.

These are links to fuller stories, or videos, that try to bait you into clicking by a mixture of hyperbole, misrepresentation, withholding of information and downright lies. There is some discussion as to what exactly represents “clickbait” but I’d sum it up as any link that deliberately withholds vital information on what will follow when that information could easily have been included in the link.

 
I hate these links for a myriad of reasons. When I initially caught on to them I was annoyed at having been duped for some time into clicking on links to articles and videos that I am not remotely interested in reading or viewing. I was annoyed that it had taken so long for it to click that I really was a worm on their marketing hook.
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Situation Vacant

Maid
A pile of filing on a table creaks.
A crumpled bag of washing reeks.
An unused Hoover round a corner peeks.
An unwashered tap in the bathroom leaks.

An abandoned sock on the floor’s alone.
An unironed heap has hidden the phone.
Unchecked moss on the decking has grown.
Oh won’t someone come help me clean this home?

One of the cats has just been sick,
So I’ll have to rush and mop it quick
Or I’ll find that the other has eaten it.
Oh. Too late. The little sh..kitty kit.

I don’t ask much, just a wipe or two
Over the smear of spilt Irish stew
That has now congealed and turned to glue
And gained a beautiful rainbow hue.
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Why not, asked Knot

Knot Telling

Why everyone should like my friend Knot Telling’s blog at tellingknots.com and facebook page at facebook.com/tellingknots30.

 
Have you not liked Telling knots?
Asked Knot and if not,
Why not? Asked Knot.
For this site knocks the spots
Off other pages and blogs
Turns leopards into springboks,
Said Knot.

Didn’t you know, asked Knot,
That this site knocks the socks
Off cheer-leaders and jocks
Makes wannabe Hitchcocks
Push “snooze” on their clocks
Turns ordinary hacks into laughing-stocks,
Asked Knot.

Yes I do, replied Tim,
For the chances are slim
That it couldn’t charm cherubim
Fill a half-full glass to the brim
Mechanise kibbutzim
Captivate, fascinate, and infatuate homonyms.
All should like Telling Knots, replied Tim.

Insomnia

Ship on a moonlit sea
I stare at eyelids,
Notice the pattern of blood vessels
Steer the ebb of floaters
On the Sea of Tranquility:

Moonlit reminiscences of
Night-time adventures.
I salute the voyage of the Dawn Treader
As she pulls into port.