Mon FEB21, 2000

Attended a Bookfair at the Town Hall in Accrington on Saturday. Downstairs, the ticket man after taking my 50p gave a furtive flick of the head to indicate where I was to go (upstairs) as if for something kinky & exclusive, like a nude cocktail party run by the Freemasons. The usual crowd there. Browse space is at a premium. You find yourself being unsubtly barged sideways away from a stall browse area. You retaliate by barging in the reverse direction. Hands grasp at the books like snouts in a trough. Someone stretches across your space so you pinch a fold of skin and yell: “I was here first, do you MIND?” Sullen looks exchanged. I came outside with a handful of books I’ll never read, with titles such as OLD TRAM TERMINI; NEWBURY REGISTER 1900; GLINCHTHWOTTLE, A HISTORY.

Walked up to the Haworth Art Gallery. Some nice colourful town scenes of Accrington, oil on paper, by local artist Richard Foster on display.

Met Duncan in the Town Centre – we watched the kids on the play-car roundabout doing the ROAD RAGE bit by throwing milk shakes at each other and voicing BLAM, BLAM. A stall in the Market nearby had a line in novelty clocks – not the usual ‘birdsong on the hour’ variety but FARTS ON THE HOUR. The stallholder demonstrated each ‘fart sound’, much to the amusement of the crowd. A scrum developed and several punters walked off with boxes, but I reckon they were just stooges.

Duncan was sporting a black cashmere overcoat he’d bought in a charity shop. It scraped along the ground and smelt of butterscotch.

A Transvestite Choir serenaded the passing public in support of a tv theatre production of ‘Waiting for a Bus’. Spaniels in tartan jackets pirouetted in front of them, maybe because they’re in the show too. The choir were singing numbers from DAMES IN DUNKIRK and had a table with tapes, photos and Goldfish. They sang:

We’re Dames in DUNKIRK

And we like to LURK

‘Cause we ain’t got no WORK

So let’s follow that JERK.

I remembered it well. Duncan & I sauntered, lunched and compared notes.

Fri 25 FEB 2000.

So I went up to see my ASTROPHIC cat at Emma’s. Perhaps you’ve wondered why I’ve always referred to Crispin as IT and not HE/SHE ? Well that’s why. Crispin is a very rare Astrophic and has no gender. These cats tend to be rather talented because they’re free from sexual distractions, but in Crispin’s case, its marginal accomplishments thus far, lead me to believe that it has no special gifts, justifying the omnipresent look of bewilderment.

Emma’s posh friend was lallygagging my cat on the stripy settee as I entered the lounge. Next to them was Rachel’s cat which I learned was called Ticky-Wicky. Rachel offered me tea with a supercilious air, but I took it with sugar and milk. She frowns like a frowdy-howdy person crossing the Danube on Stilts. I took an instant LIKING to her. She was tall and blonde and of HOQUUMUSQY stock (this is code for something, can you work it out?). I was rather disappointed that Rachel didn’t pour the hot tea straight into my lap like most haughty women do. I always think that’s a good sign (for me anyway). The old “I’d better dry out those trousers routine”.

Crispin appeared not to recognise me but that’s hardly surprising since at home he never took much notice of me except as a convenient place to doze. I suppose that now I’ve ceased to be a food source (however inappropriate) I’m of even less interest.

I told Rachel that if she’s interested in a ‘Fart on the Hour’ novelty clock she’d better leg it down to the Market sharpish because they wouldn’t be around for ever. She murmured something sophisticated to this and looked at Emma sympathetically. Next to the Lounge is a small olde worldy Library stuffed full of old tomes (books). Apparently Rachel had inherited the books from a rich Uncle who had been a Cambridge don. The sweet mouldy odour excited me and I pressed my nose to the spines to sniff out some good’uns. A lot were in Latin. Rachel showed me some of the illustrated volumes stuffed full of engravings of luscious mysterious places.

Emma looked quietly sophisticated in her little round purple glasses and had take to using the phrase DI-DEE-DUM IT’S HOT ON THE SUN! The significance of this I declined to investigate. I daresay it’s a Rachel-ism.

After patting the bemused Crispin, sitting contentedly in Emma’s lap, I strode off and headed back down the hill, admiring the fine Edwardian houses. I was hatching a fiendish plan which I tentatively labelled CLOOKIES.

Wed 1 MARCH, 2000.

Are you just a shadow chasing light?

Is your day a flight from night?

Ogin McLugie ‘Flishies’, 1921.

AN INTELLECTUAL GETS SHIRTY

I woke up and thought, “Today I shall buy a shirt.” Thus I made haste to my local boutique for the purchase thereof, which was indeed replete with multifarious, multicoloured or monocoloured shirts, in all sizes (except extra-large or extra-tiny). The assistant, a pale youth called Jeremy, sporting a soiled Cleetman’s Adobbi Vestoon, babbled about an abortive expedition to Yorkshire on his moped. I professed the inadvisability of such an undertaking and he murmured agreement. Such an undertaking had best be accomplished by threadbare Public Transport. The shirt question was introduced, colour specified. He retreated to his shelves and ruminated. He returned after a few minutes whereupon I quibbled his final selection; I did not require stripes. Stripes were manifestly not required. I was not into stripes. Bridget Riley had sickened me of stripes; they made me ill, giddysome, especially if the stripes were next to each other and of different colours. I settled on a maroon silk zippo-suction Mudrahan baffled shirt with clintos on the sleeve (of the erect kind – I prefer density to my clintos, this avoids chaffing).

I left the boutique (whimsically entitled GARONS DES MESSINES) flipping my deep royal green bag hither and zither, spacing my steps so as to affect a lilt and achieving a rather sly sylph-like extrusive qualm-herring dizzy quack style, not unreminiscent of the DUCK QUAKE. Fruit essence drifted up-nasal from the Outdoor Market Stalls. The penny had dropped, I was a silk shirt owner styled by Mudrahan (the exile from Croon Glen, Swamptown, Iowa), and felt the power surging through my thrusting legs as I spaced my feet, plummeting forwards, catching myself at the last moment and careering forwards again, jiving to a climax. I perused myself, reflected persuasively in the windows of the adjacent BIN PALACE, the Plastic Refuse Disposal Emporium (BINS TO HER MAJESTY since January 2000 - this in bold green felt-tip smelded to the rain spattered window). I had reached a level for which there was no going back. I knelt on the damp pavement and prayed my obscene devotion to the Godhead.