He was a proper old-fashioned London geezer (cringe word, hate it, can't think of a better one, worst of all it's the correct word), kind of East Endy, kind of Real London, the kind you don't really meet but if you do it always feels like an uncanny immersive theatre experience. They're anachronistic. They only belong in the London collectively imagined by people who don't spend any time in it.
I wonder if the birds knew I was watching?
my watchlater reached its limit years ago and now i have to create a playlist for each new topic im interested in but it is incredibly hard to create the taxonomy of knowledge because everything seems to be everything else because at the end it is what you get from it that matters not what is given
The old failed actor genuinely believed this girl was of a lesser race. He believed she shouldn't be talking with me, shouldn't be here at this party, shouldn't be here in this country. He wanted a white England. I didn't really challenge him on it. Sometimes I justify it with thoughts like I was drunk, or baffled, or it isn't an argument I'll win, or he can't hear me anyway, or whatever. I didn't argue with him. I just cut off his rant and left with a pathetic "In a bit."
Tue, 02 Dec 2025 11:29:50
As we're stood there I notice a middle-aged woman staring at us across the room. I'm trying to catch her gaze, but its kind of vacant. I guess she sees me looking and considers it to be an invitation. She floats over to us in this strange dazed way, and on the approach I realise she's staring at (through?) my Korean colleague / fresh meat. She's saying wow, wow, wow. She seems genuinely so delighted, so shocked, so elated.
a heavy, heavy rain. a clear day.
I created this site
."Put a blanket."
One of the birds shoots out of the tree.
A roll of 50s is one of the items he dumps onto my table during the search. Of course it is. He asks if I'm a delivery boy or a setter or this or that diamond related job. I keep saying no, I'm enjoying hearing all of these new words. Eventually I tell him that I work in film, which is kind of true. He asks where I'm filming. I'm not filming. He tells me that I can't be that good at it then. He then tells me that he made a film once, in the 80s. It was called Pimlico Rats.
It was about a crazy lady who lived above his flat in Pimlico. She would let pigeons into her flat so she could feed them. Apparently she didn't want her presence in the flat to interfere with the natural behaviour of the pigeons, so she would let them nest and shit in there and she wouldn't clean it up, because it wasn't natural to do so. The pigeons would die, but apart from the smell and the sludge and the gas, the corpses weren't really a problem. It was the rats that came to eat them. The rats would eat the rotting pigeon corpses mixed in with the rotting pigeon shit and they would get ill and die too. New rats that came through wouldn't mind though, and they'd start to eat the mass, only to get sick and die in it later on. The population grew steadily as more pigeons and rats came from in the cold, to live naturally. They fed the mass further.
There is a pause. She ashes her cigarette. It falls on me. It seems like the birds have stopped too.
And thank you for telling me that the manner in which the narrator consistently fails to act morally is really compelling. Fuck you.
I wonder if she knew I was down there listening? I wonder if she would've said something more true, more personal, more raw, more heartfelt, more harsh, more seductive, more freeing, more exposing, more risky, more romantic, more rude, more honest, more anything, if there hadn't been an audience.
She closes the window. I wasn't paying attention anyway, I'm getting cold, and the birds are nowhere to be seen. I go inside.
"No, it'll get cold!"
"Put a tut ahh put a-"
Thank you, Jack, for telling me I'm just as bad as the characters (actually they're people, if that means anything to you) that I'm writing about.
i want to do that too
Actual born-Londoners aren't LARPing like this, they sold their shite family home for a million pounds and moved to Malaga years ago. They have their culture and they've taken it elsewhere.
Like the tide, it comes in and it washes over the beach. It's beautiful. But like the tide it goes out, sometimes it goes out further than it ever has, it recedes back across the beach and further out beyond the horizon. The bare seabed opens up in front of you and all you can do is look at it.
plato
god "possessing" artists "possessing" people
ion