Blogwatch

Mike is nearly bored to tears by Bob Dylan - "I had primed myself for two possibilities. Based on what I had been told about his past form, either Dylan was going to be electrifying, incandescent, converting me in an instant... or else he was going to be an embarrassing sloppy mess. And I was ready for both. Hey, at least embarrassing and sloppy could be interesting, right? Heroic failures often can be. I've seen enough past-it wrecks in my time to know that. But what I wasn't prepared for was polite, efficient, bloodless blandness. Bar-room boogie. Pub rock. The sort of stuff that might have been all right down the Hope & Anchor in 1975. Think Eric Clapton. Think Dire Straits. Well, quite".

Elsewhere...

Inspector Sands offers us a list of sixteen places in London which don't exist.

By The Sea Shore recalls the time he flounced out of a seminar on the late John Fowles's 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' - "Mr C (I can't remember his name) argued I was wrong and that Fowles was talking about his cock. I countered by suggesting that a man fascinated by his cock would do better by having a wank than wasting his time writing a novel, and surely (and, years later, I still firmly believe this) THE IDEA OF AN IMMUTABLE OBJECT REPRESENTING A PERSON'S STATE OF MIND IS A HIGHLY EFFECTIVE LITERAL DEVICE".

Mish discovers NOT wearing heels has been the cause of her recent leg pains - "I stepped into a pair of high suede boots with a three-inch heel. And almost immediately the pain stopped. I could skip around the house, I could dance and frolic with gay abandon once more! It was truly a miraculous healing and I Beheld The Power Of The Boots with awe".

Robin goes for a less than satisfactory meal - "It's a very English thing, not complaining. I'm sure if I had been on the Titanic and a steward from the White Star Line had rowed alongside our lifeboat and asked 'How’s everything for you, then?' I would have replied 'Fine, thanks' and left it at that. Mel would have undoubtedly muttered something about sending a stiff letter to someone, a letter that would have hit a snag somewhere in the planning stages and never darkened a letter box, let alone anyone's desk".

Betty contemplates English holiday resorts - "South east England has a number of seaside towns where the percentage of the population with glass eyes is 430 times above the national average, and the rest of the population looks like the guests on 'The Jeremy Kyle Show'. Many of the town names end in git: Margit, Westgit, Sandgit".

And finally...

JonnyB has yet more skirmishes with East Anglian wildlife, this time mice - "Acting on advice, I buy two 'humane' mousetraps. They are cunning devices - once the animals get in they cannot get out again, like a rodentine direct debit arrangement with a large mail-order book club. I bait them with a generous chunk of nice malty bread, which should lure them in unless I have found one with gluten intolerance. I then climb stealthily up into the loft, like a Norfolk Steve Irwin".