Interactive version of Oliver's Poetry Garret
The Last Word is King!
Monday, 5 June 2006, Blog 3
Leamington Garret
Today is beautiful bright, sunny, wonderful in every way.
I set off from Lewes in The Last Word and made it door to door to Leamington in under three hours. The Last Word is king! She is in amazing form at the moment, fully deserving of her MOT tomorrow.
I should be outside, of course, topping up my tan, but, needs must, and the website has to come first. I called the Landlord who was keen on me finding a replacement for John and keeping on the flat. I will have to put some thought into the best way of doing this, so the Leamington Garret is not too expensive.
Otherwise, all is well. Had a good time at SalsaMagic, in Lewes, last night, although I had to drop out of the final third of my lesson because my back was giving me hell.
The tutor, Miguel, has promised to put in a link from the SalsaMagic website to Oliver's Poetry. I love SalsaMagic - SalsaMagic is the friendliest salsa club I have come across.
My Beloved and I have decided to take back the soon-to-be-vacant room in the London Garret, to do it up the house over the summer. So I could soon be posting from a third garret. God knows how I will find the time!
'Git!'
Flashback to Tuesday, 29 May 2006
Leamington Garret
Sunny outside, yet the window is mottled with big drops of rain. The British weather working its artifice once again.
Stephane Grappelli is on the stereo downstairs, extra-loud because the hall speaker fell down this morning. Great music deserves to be played at full volume. Playing Stephane Grappelli always reminds of a woman with whom I lived many years ago.
She was a big Stephane Grappelli fan and we played him constantly as we drove through France overnight on one occasion in mid-1980s while drinking liberally from a bottle of wine. Very memorable!
I received an email from an old friend who emigrated to Iceland, with more gen about his 'orgy'.
He wrote: 'The orgy, yes. Well, for some time now I have been aware that two of my colleagues at the school here in the east - husband and wife - were swingers. In fact, it was a standing joke last year with my ex-girlfriend - when we heard that they had had a threesome with a black girl who lives in the town.
'The wife has also made it clear to me that she wants me for a long time now but I have no interest in her. Husband and wife tried to get me involved in a threesome earlier this year but I didn't go for it. Then on Saturday we got drunk with the black girl and her Irish boyfriend. Before long everyone was taking their clothes off. That's it, really.'
A bit disappointing. I have to confess my friend might have employed his descriptive powers rather more fully on this one! However, he added: 'I had a really bad few days earlier this week, due to too much booze. I smashed up my computer, wiping out all my email addresses, records, diaries, etc.
'Fortunately, my book is on another computer so that is at least safe. I actually am not too bothered about losing the computer. I was watching far too much porn so this avenue is now denied to me permanently. It will act as a nudge to find myself a new girlfriend.'
I also got a poem for the Friends' Poetry section of my website. It is from a chap known as The Master of Warmstonne Hall, an Oxford varsity friend of my younger brother.
Warmstonne Hall was the nickname for the terraced house in which they lived during their time in Oxford, and many a wild, drunken, musical night was had there (the Master would conduct all his official duties clad only in his dressing gown!)
The poem is rather good. No doubt you have already checked out Oliver's Poetry and read all the poems (ho, hum!) but just in case you haven't had the time, here it is:
A Conversation between George Bush and the Dalai Lama
by the Master of Warmstonne Hall
aggression arsenal bad biological
beings brotherhood
cease chemical
compassion concern
deception defiance destroy
friend goodness happiness heart humanity ignorance insights
Iraq
love
nuclear obligations oppressor
optimistic pain planet
regime responsibility
shelter sisterhood suffer
terrorism threat
understanding unity
violated war weapons.
11.50pm. Had a horrible scene with John. We had both been in since around 9.30pm, watching the England-Hungary match and listening to music. He told me he was still planning to move out on August 24 when the contract comes to an end.
I said that was fine and we discussed the handover; how I would have to find someone new and so on. Quite business-like. He said a debt collection company had caught up with him, and he had to pay £100 a month of a £1,500 debt (for 500 quid he had owed a credit card company four years ago). We talked a bit about women, a bit about football, a bit about music.
I went out to the kitchen and made him yet another brew and, made peckish by watching him wolf down a bowl of cereal, I made a ham sandwich. Returning to the living room, I sat on the floor, presented him with his tea and started to eat my sandwich.
In a rage John rounded on me. 'After all the food I have made you, isn't there one for me?' he demanded, looking at the sandwich. 'Have half of it,' I said passing it to him calmly. He took it and went on: 'The real reason I am moving out is that I think you're a git. I don't like your lifestyle. You are conceited and self-obsessed.' That was the gist of it.
I was more than a little taken aback. 'I think I'll go to bed,' I said. There had been something strange about his manner all evening, particularly when he accused me of being bored.
He ate the sandwich and then came up here and said we were not getting on and he would probably move out sooner rather than later. I said he should forget the whole thing he had just lost his temper. He said he had not meant it, but he did not apologise. Not properly.
I said: 'Maybe I am a bit conceited' while adding that I had wondered if I could help him sort out his problems. 'I can do that myself,' he said. 'Maybe you can,' I replied, frankly not too bothered at that instant whether he could or not.
John is basically a nice guy, but I am deeply hurt that he should take such a strong dislike to me. What I am supposed to have done to him? I am not even in the flat most of the time.
In my decades of sharing accommodation with people, I have never made such an effort to get on with someone (excepting my Beloved, who is worth it in spades).
I cannot quite see what allows him to take the moral high ground. I am certainly not getting into a blazing row with him over it. It does not matter that much to me.
If that is what he thinks of me, fine. I could describe his many faults in excruciating detail, but, this time, I am not playing tit for tat with a flatmate. For once I shall rise above it!
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