hunkagirl

are going here in a couple of months. :-( Sigh.

And many, many, many more, I’m sure. It’s a piece of my soul, really.

As a matter of fact, I’ll be heading up there this Saturday for a girls’ weekend getaway.

Glorious place.

...as there is a very specific place I’d like to go in Scotland (actually, a specific room in a specific flat on a specific street…)!

...I had my 89 year old grandmother, who was wheelchair bound, blind and had the beginning of dementia setting in… what a nightmare!

Slough
-John Betjetman

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who’ll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women’s tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It’s not their fault that they are mad,
They’ve tasted Hell.

It’s not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It’s not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren’t look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Rufus Wainwright sings a good ‘un about Barcelona…

The summer sun set a vicious circus
When shadows held the world in place
But today i felt a chill in my apartment’s coolest place
Fuggi regal fantasima

The village larks cannot be heard
Cause all the crows got panderers
I can’t escape these velvet drapes
Don’t want my rings to fall off my fingers
Fuggi regal fantasima

The mirror i find hard to face
Cause i fear it’s a long way down
Got to get away from here
Think i know which hemisphere
Crazy me don’t think there’s pain in barcelona
They dance you round a waltz confound
But i fear it’s a long way down
This road
Even if that straw i pulled
And i got to fight that bull
Nothing really does compare to barcelona
Besides in spain don juan’s to blame
But i fear it’s a long way down
And i fear i won’t be around

Got to get away from here
Think i know which hemisphere
Make sure i have all my papers
Laying out my summer clothes
Search for traps in vain like scratching
So my suitcase i can close
Fuggi regal fantasima

love that Kings of Convenience song…

Through the alleyways to cool off in the shadows
then into the street following the water
there’s a bearded man paddling in his canoe
looks as if he has come all the way from the cayman islands

these canals, it seems, they all go in circles
places look the same, and we’re the only difference
the wind is in your hair, it’s covering my view
I’m holding on to you, on a bike we’ve hired until tomorrow

if only they could see, if only they had been here
they would understand, how someone could have chosen
to go the length I’ve gone, to spend just one day riding
holding on to you, I never thought it would be this clear

... I went here alone, and it was the first time I had been off the North American continent… it was indescribable… life changing…