Beckett's Wagner putdown

The unnecessary and arbitrary nature of this putdown rouses me rambling but irate from a years blogging sabbatical. Why does Beckett think that his two cents count after invoking Rick W? It's not a put down; it just shows a lack of fantasy:


I cannot explain very well to myself what they have that distinguishes them from the rest, something arborescent or of the sky, not Wagner, not clouds on wheels; written above an abscess and not out of a cavity, a statement and not a description of heat in the spirit to compensate for pus in the spirit. -----Beckett, trying to explain some of his better scribbling, 1932

Caroline and Henrik

Went to a great wedding on Saturday. Caroline and Henrik got hitched in Bosjökloster, just a few kilometers away form the summer cottage. Henrik is a tennis player from Ystad and is as charming as they come. Caroline is more charming than they usually come.

Martin produced a quote about her at the reception from som old fool who once said that Caroline (like Monica Zetterlund) like a fig of lingon in a cocktail glass.

I went up earlier to cut the grass at the summer place and am just glad we made it to the wedding on time.

For more videos of Caroline see her: Caroline in Widex Passion commercial

Pik street and drinks like cousins

Last weekend I subbed in on a trip for a pregnant colleague to Estonia. I must report that it is rather bleak over there (sorry Will).

We did manage to find a humorous street sign (see below Danish speakers), and later on Saturday night we had a talk to a little drink that has an unpronounceable name, but the descriptor is memorable: it's like kissing your cousin; it tastes good, but you know it's wrong.

Otherwise I've got a stomach bug and therefore have had my face down the toilet for the last 24 hours. I must clean the toilets in our apartment. . .

Cheap Vodka and Kitty

On Saturday night I was part of a scientific experiment. I wanted to see if a technique that I had read about in an article on Dave Arnold (a moleular gastronomy prime mover) had legs. The hypothesis was that cheap vodka would taste better if poured a few times through a coal filter.

I bought a coal filter at Clas Ohlssons, some cheap vodka in Denmark and invited Renzo over (as a guinea pig). We poured the vodka through the filter and noticed a faint discolouration that became more pronounced with the next filtering. I made a martini out of it. I took a careful sip, but when Renzo refused to drink the grey martini, I also backed out. . . afterall he is a chemist.

Although we might not have drunken much of the carbon filtered vodka martini, we did notice some subtle behavioural changes and the evening wound up in a late morning in the corner bar of KB with Kitty Jutbring djing (at least I think it was her).

Kitty has really good taste in music, and I really don't know why she is involved in that crap-ahh-I-think-my-sisters-friends-cat-is-gay-but-what-should-I-do-about-it-television.

Galatasaray 1 Fenerbahçe 0

Take a mega city and divide it into a European side and an Asian side by a narrow strait.  Cast an historical hotch pot of religions in there and you wind up with Istanbul.  Give the European side one football team (Galatasaray) and the Asian side another (Fenerbahçe, and let's leave Besiktas out of the picture) and let them go at it on the football pitch.  The local derby that results can only evoke some rather strong reactions.

I was watching the match in a pub in Ismir.  Hang on, I hear you say.  An Australian watching football - or 'soccer' as we use the new world diminution  What is wrong with that picture. . . ?!?

Well, nothing.  When I landed in London they told me to never trust a man who didn't like football, so I quickly joined the Arsenal fanclub.

Anyway, and more to the point, who does an Australian cheer for in such an alien match - the underdog of course.

Go Fenerbahçe!

Cate the creator, we love you

This speech leaves me absolutely speechless.  She is the bees knees (read reems of the usual Blanchette psychofantic/hormonal babble).  She is also an amazing orator, and all this after giving birth two days previously. . . see here.

(it's worth watching just for the Bill Clinton anecdote)

El nino busca su voz (or some quote to that effect)

I was in Valhalla, Hell's Kitchen last weekend and was trying to explain to a girlfriend of Uncle's the nature of the mutually exclusive yet symbiotic relationship that I had with Pat Rafter all through the 90's (whenever he won his game, something always went right in my life).  She was a tennis fan and never missed the US open, so she understood.  I was pouring out my heart but was forced to retire early as my voice gave out.

Then one of the girls Baz was with started asking questions about the incident of the untrouserly Francophone in the toilets in Camden.  On a regular night 
this is my party trick and my third drink vignette rolled together with my Magnum Opus. Once again, I found myself looking on from the sidelines as Baz stole my thunder. . .  

I am by nature a scribe but it is also hard when I lose my voice.  My plight in Valhalla and later on at Down the hatch, reminded me of Lorca's Mute Boy:

The little boy was looking for his voice.

(The king of the crickets had it.)

In a drop of water

the little boy was looking for his voice.