peripathetic

Businesspeople annoy me. I was sitting in this great coffeeshop in Belfast today, Clement's, and there were a whole clump of them sitting at my table. With their fake smiles and sense of importance, and loudness, they really got up my nose. Hmm, guess it's not just businesspeople who annoy me then.

So yeah, I was there to read the paper while I enjoy doing in there because you've usually got enough room to spread out and actually read. Rather than being shoved, and making sure the newsprint doesn't add a subtle flavour to someone's skinny latte. And I found a really interesting article about this Roman guy who's been found in a grave dressed as a girl. I don't think that challenges what I've said before about their sense of logic and fear of the instinctive, but I could be wrong. I mean, if a priest turns up wearing a dress, big deal, we'd say today. Back then, similarly, big deal, because he was a priest I guess and had a job to do with his authorized little sect. But the Romans were the people who thought it was absurd and threatening to ignore a group of crazy people who thought death didn't mean dying and who drank the blood of the guy they loved the most. The christians. Are the lengths to which they went, truly, so absurd? I dunno...

And from the Guardian, the news that "The literary establishment sharpened its talons last night as Booker prize judges warned that plans to Americanise the prestigious award would cause irreparable damage to a great British tradition. The prize, Britain's most sought-after literary award, was last month renamed the Man Booker prize in honour of its sponsor, the Man fund management firm. The sponsor swiftly announced that the £50,000 award, for Commonwealth writers only, could be opened to US writers by 2004."

My god. Another example of a company sticking its oar in, trying to be smooth and nonchalant. Whereas what actually happens is that it drenches some poor bastard who wants nothing to do with stirring anything up: the authors for example. I mean, I'm a poet. I don't care who decides about the famous prizes or how much money's on offer, so long as they don't exclude anyone and most importantly it's not run by a company. But why open the Booker to the US when they have their big prize?