Lionel Asbo – State of England
Martin Amis writes London well. London
Fields, Money, Yellow Dog. Lionel Asbo (changed his name by deed
poll) comes from Diston. A dangerous suburb, not unlike Fowlers End.
Life expectancy (average) fifty years. Roughhouse boozers. Stolen
goods changing hands. Violence. Busy branches of Iceland. Organic
produce rotting on the shelves. Every other shop a sub-KFC chicken
'n' chips takeaway. The critics now pan Amis and go on about his
early novels being better. They probably panned the early novels,
too, for their own reasons. Anyway, between half and three quarters
of the way through, and I think that there's nothing not to like.
Lionel's nasty and unlikeable and
winning £140m on the lottery does nothing to make him any less so.
Diston is an exaggeration, but that's what fiction is about.
Fictitious characters in made up places. Doing the author's bidding.
There were those pre-film screen-bites
they put up. The Hitchcock one said something about never confusing
your audience. Maybe sound advice if you measure success by the
dollars taken at the American box offices. I would always rather be
baffled and bemused than bored. I have a preference for imagination
over plodding reality. I was about to write that, of course, no one
changes their name to 'Asbo', but then I looked here:
Mr Kingarthurpendragon. No doubt
there's some real life Asbos out there.
Spain 4 – 0 Italy
There was a lot of negative talk about
Spain. A lot of rot, I thought. Including some from our own Mr
Wenger. They play football the right way, I think. They looked so
relaxed in the tunnel before the game. A huge international final and
they might as well have been queueing for the pictures. Their
midfield players all have that first touch that controls the ball
coupled with the awareness to make that touch telling. They turn away
from trouble, into space, every time. They should have shut some
people up last night.
The eBay sales team...
...BLISS and LPL have gone into
overdrive. Congratulations on their first sales. We're about to go
into the export and shipping business. I'm on the alert for any free
bubblewrap and padded envelopes. Might have to start hanging around
the back of removal lorries and UPS vans.
Sun and a stack of paperbacks
That's what BLISS wants and that's
probably what we both need. Somewhere warm (or even dry would be a
start at the moment – we're now in the wettest hosepipe ban since
records began) where we can sit about and not fret about work for a
few days. A short midweek break would do.
The bankers cheated and rigged the
interbank lending rate to suit themselves
Some limp politician who will
ultimately do nothing was prattling on about taking appropriate
action. Well, through their greed, a whole generation of adults (the
one that includes me, but, hey, I'm not bitter (I am aggressive and
twisted, though)) have kissed any sensible retirement goodbye and
we're now doomed to work until we drop. So here's what I think is the
minimum reasonable punishment: line 'em up and shoot 'em. Better with
some torture first, and better still shoot 'em while they run away in
some sort of sporting contest. But at least, in Pulp Fiction terms,
“execute every mother******* last one of 'em”.
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