Bring Me The Sunset In A Cup, Or Something...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws. Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. But I’m not. I’m a fucking sub-editor. Scuttling across scores of tiresome screeds and wasting vast swathes of my all-too-brief time on this planet poring over deeply dull, stultifyingly self-important crud.

I don’t want to be a bore about it – I know almost all of us have to endure the gluttonous teeth of the toad work squatting on our glazed faces and sucking out all that is good and vital about life – but today it was particularly irksome. Today, because I had to stay late to finish some especially egregious crud, I missed out on an opportunity to see something I really wanted to see. Something that I suspect might have moved me, and reminded me of the good stuff.

To wit, a recital, with the words of Pablo Neruda read by Charles Dance and set to the music of Astor Piazzola. When Astor Met Pablo it’s called, and it’s happening now. For one night only. My flatmate Imogen got me a ticket. All I had to do was be in Farnham for 8 o’clock. But because the toad was particularly poisonous today, I couldn’t make it.

So I came home, furious, and opened a bottle of wine. Night-coloured wine. Wine with purple feet.

I knew next to nothing about Pablo Neruda until yesterday when I watched Il Postino, and then, still weeping from the film, I found some of his poetry online and quickly realised that he’s awfully, awfully good.

I read a poem of his called Don't Go Far Off, Not Even For A Day and I found myself yearning to be in love, even in unrequited love (although preferably not), and I thought ah, yes… poetry.

I’ve always found poetry a little difficult and I’ve rarely read it for my own pleasure. In fact, I could probably only name half a dozen poets of whom I’ve read more than just a few lines. Probably very predictable stuff too. Let’s see… Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, TS Eliot, ee cummings… um… I’m running out. Roger McGough. And aaaaah, Baudelaire. But only one poem. Oh, and a little bit of Keats.

So I have decided, on finding Neruda, on losing Neruda, that I must read more poetry. I think I might be ready. I think I might need it. And not just because in Il Postino, an ignorant man uses it to snag this heavenly creature…



…but partly.

I have also decided – because I started having premonitions of death and I really don’t want to die now, not now – that I shall stop riding my bike to work for the next three weeks. This means I can read poetry again on my commute. (Ugh, what a ghastly word.)

So I need your advice. Which poets should I seek out? (One good thing about work by the way, is that I can go in early and spank seven shades of sycamore out of the printer, so don’t hold back. And if a thousand trees must die in my quest to have the barnacles ripped from my brain and my emotional moorings stripped and scattered on the shore, so be it. You see? I need help.) What poets do you like? Which ones make you cry? I want to cry. Crying is good. As long as there is laughter involved too.

Oh, and Dylan Thomas! I love Dylan Thomas.

So, poetry please... if you'd be so kind.

What’s the Worst Book You’ve Ever Read?

I’ve always despised Jeffrey Archer, probably for exactly the same reasons that other people who despise him despise him: because he’s an odious smug liar and thuggish whore-mongering thief who parades his character flaws as if they’re virtues. Wonderfully vocal Archer-hater Ian Hislop once described him as having ‘a supreme vanity that meant he believed he should take centre stage in the country, and he wouldn’t be put off by the fact that he had no talent, ability or moral character’. I’m not sure it’s entirely reasonable to suggest that he has no ability, considering the amount of times he’s crawled out of the gutter of his own turpitude and slithered his way into a position of considerable influence, but still – an awful, repugnant human being all the same.

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, I’ve never read any of his books. Until now. I’m currently about 30 pages into Shall We Tell the President? and I must say, it is absolutely bloody awful. I’m reading it because I’m looking for tips on how to write thrillers, and because someone whose opinion I respect (I won’t embarrass him by naming names) mentioned this book to me, and said that he’d enjoyed it as a teenager. Plus, I thought, one can’t really go through life slagging off someone’s writing (as I have done) without having actually read one of their books. So I intend to finish it, even though it’s some of the most leaden, inauthentic tosh I’ve ever had the displeasure to tolerate.

Really it is. Here’s a little example. This is the passage on which I assume the rest of the book hinges, a passage in which a corrupt Senator and a gaggle of would-be assassins discuss their plans to murder the president, in a restaurant kitchen, in earshot of a Greek waiter. Unbelievable enough in itself, obviously, but what’s really infuriating is the inconsistency in the Greek's speech patterns, the way in which his knowledge of English grammar comes and goes, like a tide of bullshit...

Ugh. It's like the writing of a retarded child. Could Jeffrey Archer really be one of the most popular writers on the planet? How can that be? Stephen King summed it up in this interview here when he said, 'There'll always be a market for shit, of course. Just look at Jeffrey Archer! He writes like old people fuck, doesn't he?'

I think it’s fair to say that this is the worst book I’ve read since I forced my way through The Difficult Second Book by Chris Moyles earlier this year.

Actually, I’m not sure I can think of any book I’ve actually finished which is worse than Moyles. I’ve started a few which would have given it a run for its money, including Learning to Fly by Victoria P Spice, but I couldn’t finish them.

Speaking of bad books written by WAGs, this five-star Amazon review of Welcome To My World by Coleen McLoughlin is perhaps my favourite ever review…

‘I really really liked this book. You get to know Coleen so well. There is a chapter on all the things that she may or may not have for breakfast and sometimes the writing is done in real handwriting instead of boring typing. Also, my favourite colour is pink which is good because I have never seen so much pink in one book. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in someone who is married to a celebrity.’

Ahh, Jim Nixon, the doyen of toothbrush reviews.

Speaking of bad writers, I was reminded of my hatred of Carla Lane on Saturday by an appalling television programme about appalling television programmes, and I came across her website, which features a selection of her poetry. Here is an example. It is called Thoughts…

Think of the plight of the fox in flight,
The beasts in the slaughter house.
Hear their call as the hunted fall,
And the cry of the scientist's mouse.

The scientist's mouse! Squeeeeeak! I wish Carla had written a book. Oh, wait - she has! Great title too.

Anyway, I seem to have meandered. My thrust is this: Jeffrey Archer may be about to replace Chris Moyles as the writer of the worst book I've ever read. So. What’s the worst book you’ve ever read?

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Roofs of the World (Because Chicks Dig Poetry)

I used to keep a diary. A proper diary – the kind you cover with tears and bad poetry and keep hidden under your mattress like a shameful secret or a semen-sock. The kind that in recurring dreams is devoured by family and other sneering enemies, maybe over your coffin.

Last night Keith and I got talking about a weekend we spent in Brighton many years ago. He claimed that in the middle of the night I stripped off and marched into sea, shouting, ‘Any fool can walk on water. It’s merely a matter of mind over matter!’ I maintain however, that no such thing happened. I maintain that the water-walking episode took place in North Wales years later.

So when I got home in the early hours, I dug out my old diaries and checked. I was right. Of course I was right. For I have the memory of a giant computerised elephant, whereas Keith has the memory of goldfish with Alzheimer’s. Why, sometimes he even forgets he has a girlfriend!

Sorry. Sorry, Keith. And happy birthday for tomorrow. Me old mate.

Anyway, the reason I mention all this is because I ended up staying up till gone light this morning catching up on my adolescence. Mostly diaries from when I was 15 and 16. What was particularly astonishing and not a little dispiriting was how very little has changed. I still spend most of my time bemoaning my physical appearance and lack of female company. The only difference is I wrote a lot of really shocking poetry then.

So I was thinking of maybe sharing a bit of the really embarrassing stuff, by way of full exposure. But I think I might be a little too ashamed. I’m definitely too ashamed to include any of ‘Angry Poem on Gulf War’, written on 27 January, 1991.

God, I was ticked off about that war.

But besides war in general, nukes specifically, vivisection, suicide, dandruff and despair, I also seemed to specialise in poems that appeared to be clever but in actual fact weren’t. They gave the impression of having depth but were in fact empty Petri-dishes of disappointment. Like this one:

Bait

A cat steals bread, by the slice,
From the kitchen of its owner.
Takes the bread to the garden
To use as bait for birds.
The owner of the cat notices
That his girlfriends
Are getting younger.

This next one too is similarly delusional, but for some reason I still actually quite like it. It was written when I was 16, so it’s quite a mature, introspective piece. Yo, check it:

My Eyes

My eyes.
Nestling in their walnut shells
Like frightened boys in crowded cells,
To and fro like sulphured bells
Which toll when someone dies.
My thighs.
Like two pale boys who cower in fright
With shifty eyes of cellulite
Which twinkle spiteful through the night
When someone lonely cries.
My size.
A sea of impact, pressure, noise,
A mass of ass devoid of poise.
A crowded cell of frightened boys
With watering, damaged eyes.
My eyes.

Then there’s this, one of my unrequited love poems from one of my 400 volumes of unrequited love poems. I’m almost ashamed to say, but I’m pretty sure this was written about Ange, back in the day, when she was giving herself at parites and I was hiding away in my bedroom reading ee cummings and listening to George Formby. (I had already found out the meaning of ‘unrequited’.) I’m actually quite proud of this one. It doesn’t have a title:

thy skin is a bandage of unbroken beauty
thy unsleeping bones beat the passion of truth
thy head (clenched with questions) laughs poems of loving
thy heart (filled with giving) smiles proof

Awww.

Go on then, one more.

Tick Tock, Tick…

How her wings do flap and carry
Folk to coffins, kids to bed.
Mistress Time without a worry,
Winds her watch and finds me dead.

Hmm. I should have stopped at the love one. Damn it!