“Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.”
―
―
“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
― Crime and Punishment
― Crime and Punishment
“UKIP SHIPPING FORECAST by Nicholas Pegg After a UKIP councillor claimed widespread flooding in the UK was God’s punishment for allowing same-sex marriage, author/performer Nicholas Pegg wrote his own version of the Shipping Forecast. His recording went viral, receiving 250,000 hits in four days. ‘And now the shipping forecast issued by UKIP on Sunday the 19 January 2014 at 1200 UTC. There are warnings of gays in Viking, Forties, Cromarty, Southeast Iceland and Bongo Bongo land. The general synopsis at midday: Low intelligence expected, becoming Little England by midnight tonight. And now the area forecasts for the next 24 hours. Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire: south easterly gay seven to severe gay nine, occasionally bisexual. Showers – gay. Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher: women veering southerly 4 or 5, losing their identity and becoming sluts. Rain – moderate or gay. German blight, immigration veering north – figures variable, becoming psychotic. Showers – gay. Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth: benefit tourism 98%, becoming variable – later slight, or imaginary. Showers – gay. Biscay, Trafalgar: warm, lingering nationalism. Kiss me Hardy, later becoming heterosexual – good. FitzRoy, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey: right or extreme right, veering racist 4 or 5, increasing to 5 to 7. Homophobic outburst – back-peddling westerly and becoming untenable. Showers – gay. Fair Isle, Faeroes, South East Iceland: powerbase decreasing, variable – becoming unelectable. Good. And that concludes the forecast.”
― The Shipping Forecast: A Miscellany
― The Shipping Forecast: A Miscellany
“This is it
I’m not coming after you
I’m going to lie down for half an hour
This is it
I’m not going down
On your memory
I’m not rubbing my face in it anymore
I’m going to yawn
I’m going to stretch
I’m going to put a knitting needle
Up my nose
And poke out my brain
I don’t want to love you
For the rest of my life
I want your skin
To fall off my skin
I want my clamp
To release your clamp
I don’t want to live
With this tongue hanging out
And another filthy song
In the place
Of my baseball bat
This is it
I’m going to sleep now darling
Don’t try to stop me
I’m going to sleep
I’ll have a smooth face
And I’m going to drool
I’ll be asleep
Whether you love me or not
This is it
The new world order
Of wrinkles and bad breath
It’s not going to be
Like it was before
Eating you
With my eyes closed
Hoping you won’t get up
And go away
It’s going to be something else
Something worse
Something sillier
Something like this
Only shorter”
― Book of Longing
I’m not coming after you
I’m going to lie down for half an hour
This is it
I’m not going down
On your memory
I’m not rubbing my face in it anymore
I’m going to yawn
I’m going to stretch
I’m going to put a knitting needle
Up my nose
And poke out my brain
I don’t want to love you
For the rest of my life
I want your skin
To fall off my skin
I want my clamp
To release your clamp
I don’t want to live
With this tongue hanging out
And another filthy song
In the place
Of my baseball bat
This is it
I’m going to sleep now darling
Don’t try to stop me
I’m going to sleep
I’ll have a smooth face
And I’m going to drool
I’ll be asleep
Whether you love me or not
This is it
The new world order
Of wrinkles and bad breath
It’s not going to be
Like it was before
Eating you
With my eyes closed
Hoping you won’t get up
And go away
It’s going to be something else
Something worse
Something sillier
Something like this
Only shorter”
― Book of Longing
Lucy’s 2025 Year in Books
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