Spurious

The Absolute Child

Last Toy

Why did I give you a toy like the last toy of mine, we who were about to leave school? Why that gift, which was the double of the toy I carried in my pocket? As though I would give you an icon for what you were losing - the last of your childhood - or was it that I would give you your childhood again, that it was innocence I would give, but a second innocence, one which would restore innocence to itself?

Then the gift was one of childhood. Or was it that I gave what retreats as childhood in childhood - the secret which is known only in its withdrawal?

Too Young For You

As a child, I smarted at the idea that some toys were too young for me, even as my toys gradually disappeared to the loft, uplayed with. Even as the stuffed toys sat in plastic bags alongside the suitcase of lego in the loft of my parents' house.

Too young for you - I did not like the phrase, although I never really heard it, because it already pointed to what was already lost by childhood and lost by my own childhood. Toys in the loft: keepers of the heart of childhood - the heart buried outside you like those of ogres in fairy tales. The child is getting older - toys, one by one, disappear to jumble sales and to the loft. But they are in the loft nonetheless, icons of loss, waiting - but for what?

Transitional Objects

The open arms of a teddy bear. The family of woollen sausage dogs my grandmother knitted. The soft-toy puppies made by Andrex. And the holy of holies: that box in which I kept Christmas cracker gifts. Worthless items, but sacred for that worthlessness. A pink plastic angel fish in a finger puppet inside a box: the holy of holies. Worthless, and up there beside the old cot, mine and then my sister's, and the framed pictures of a stork flying through the blue night with a swaddled baby suspended from its beak.

Winnicott calls them transitional objects, these toys. Transitional objects: as if one should pass from one to another, and then away from childhood altogether. But it is us who are in transit, and the toys which keep place what is already lost.

Double Loss

As I grew older, I knew what was lost by age. But did I know, too, the irredeemable loss at the heart of childhood? Did I know the secret that lay buried in childhood?

Loss redoubled: what happened when they were accidentally lost, the toys? The youngest of the family of sausage dogs lost on a plane, his older brother lost on the roof. Then the bean bag dog whose felt eyebrows were ripped off by a friend of my sister (my outrage, my mourning). Now a part of my childhood was scattered and unprotected. Childhood evacuated, living outside of itself, outside the loft, which is the archive of childhood. Loss must not be lost, but kept.

Toy, Witness

A parent will watch as toys go unplayed with. And the child? Does the child know what has been abandoned when a toy is abandoned? Does the child know the childhood never lived, but concentrates itself in the absolute past?

Childhood mourns because it is too late for childhood. Innocence is too late for itself; that's why it mourns. And is that why I gave you the toy? Is that why I gave what cannot be given: the gift that would give innocence back to itself? I thought: last toy, guard my friend and guard me. Toy, witness, might it be that our childhood has yet to happen?

Eggs Benedict

Subtracted life, life subtracted. Life minus life: what did I do this Sunday? What happened yesterday? I would like to have written, but that's not what I did. I would have liked to have written, but I wrote nothing. I wrote nothing - but it was also that all I did was to wait to write something. Nothing happened, twice over: there was no writing and there was nothing done while waiting for writing. What happened? Nothing, twice over. What happened? Nothing, once and again.

I had an espresso. Half an espresso after lunch. And waited for the caffeine to cross the blood brain barrier. And waited for the caffeine hit, and the rash that opens on my hand. Caffeine and then the rash, because it is toxic. Caffeine, drank in order to write, drank in order to work, is also toxic, whence the rash on the heel of my palm.

Espresso - just a half, but that was enough. Eggs benedict and espresso for breakfast, and then work, I said to myself, then writing. Espresso and eggs benedict, and then it can begin. What happened? Nothing - twice over. Nothing redoubled. No writing, and then a whole day in which 'no writing' devoured the day. Life minus life. Subtracted life.

Before the day, nothing, and after the day nothing. And the day nothing, nothing could began. Then there was espresso. Caffeine was to cross the blood-brain barrier. It crossed. What began? Nothing began. The day, which was wearing past three o'clock, was already over. Nothing began. Everything was over. Then there was the caffeine, which made nothing happen more intensely. Nothing happened, but more intensely. Life minus life, but more intensely. Life subtracted itself from life, but more intensely. What happened? Nothing, but more intensely. I surfed the net more intensely. I read idly more intensely. I wandered around town more intensely. I thought about working, more intensely. I did nothing, but more intensely.

I read an article about caffeine in The Observer. It said scientists were divided as to whether its effects was adverse. I read the article more intensely. I read the stupid paper more intensely. I thought about how stupid it was more intensely. Meanwhile, nothing happened. There was no writing, nothing done, and nothing happened while I did not write.

Other people in the world were at D.I.Y superstores. Other people in the world were reading papers in cafes. Other people were on weekend breaks to Antwerp. Other people were gathering ingredients to cook a big meal. Others were walking hand in hand round the shops. Couples were walking hand in hand up and down the river. Others were wandering through the art gallery.

I wasn't working in the office. Nothing was happening in the office. Everything was happened everywhere but the office. The world was turning everywhere but in the office. The afternoon was progressing nicely everywhere but in the office. Everything was happening everywhere except the office. The office was where nothing was happening. I was waiting for something to happen, but nothing was happening.

Nothing was happening while I waited for something to happen. Nothing began, nothing began to begin, it was finished from the first, the day's destiny was mapped out from the first and it was finished from the first. Nothing was to happen and nothing happened. Everything was happening everywhere else, the weather was getting milder, I opened the window, it was a mini-Spring, couples walked up and down in town, couples walked up and down along the river, everything was happening except in the office, where nothing was happening.

What was happening in the office? Nothing. I was waiting for something to happen, but nothing was happening. Eggs Benedict, which I've never had before in my life, espresso, which I have very sparingly, and then nothing. Only nothing happened more intensely. As the caffeine crossed the blood-brain barrier, nothing happened very quickly.

I surfed the net, but no one had updated. I surfed, nothing had happened, I was the only one surfing in the world, everyone was outside, except for me, who was inside. There was only the outside, where everyone was enjoying themselves, and me in the office, who was not enjoying himself.

Eggs benedict, eggs in Hollandaise sauce on a muffin. Eggs, sauce, muffin, then espresso. Eggs benedict, eggs, sauce, muffin and a long herb-blade across the the benedict. 1) Eggs benedict (should benedict be capitalised?), 2) espresso. 1) Eggs benedict, made of i) eggs, ii) Hollandaise sauce (should hollandaise be capitalised?) and a long blade of some herb, I don't know which one, probably a chive, then 2) espresso.

Only half an espresso, but already too much. I had had an elderflower presse, thinking I wouldn't have an espresso, but then it came it upon me, I wanted an espresso, I wanted to work, I wanted to get something today, I thought: it would be nice if I got something done today. 1) Elderflower presse, 2) eggs benedict, 3) espresso, and I thought, I'll get something done today, I'll write something, but in fact I wrote nothing. In fact, nothing was written, nothing was done, the whole world was doing something, but I was doing nothing.

Lone chive across three eggs, served yolk intact, three eggs, in a row on a muffin - was it a muffin?, or was it a long piece of bread, a long half-roll? Long chive, and then sauce, and then eggs, below the sauce. The sauce, made of eggs, on the eggs. Plenty of eggs, first of all in the Hollandaise sauce, of which I know nothing, except that it was made of eggs, and the eggs themselves, three of them, in a row, yolks intact, white intact, no spillage, no messiness, and the half roll below, toasted.

I took my knife and cut the surface of an egg. I cut the surface - yolk ran into the white and into the Hollandaise sauce. Then my espresso, a taste of espresso. Then it was the turn of my espresso, which had arrived in a little but, as espressos should, but I knew not to drink too much. Then the espresso, I drank half of it, and thought: I'll be able to work now. I drank the espresso, having drunk an Elderflower presse, and thought: I'm in a position to work, I've had a good breakfast, all I need do is go back to the office, and I can begin.

I went back to the office. Everything was in place. Leaving late last night, I'd tidied u; everything was ready; there was no excuse. The office: pristine, and here I was, full of eggs benedict and half-an-espresso, and ready to begin, no excuse. And do you know what I did? Do you know what I did? I wanted to write, but I wrote nothing. I tried to write; I failed, my head was full of nothing, and I could not begin.

Do you know what happened? Nothing. There was 1) the desire to write, and 2) no writing whatsoever. Doubly disappointed. Disappointed once and then again. First the desire to write, and then thwarted desire, nothing written. To write, then not to write, thwarted desire, nothing began, and nothing happened. It was happening everywhere in the world except here, where it was not happening.

Nothing, then nothing. The desire to write, then nothing. It was a mini Spring outside, but nothing was happening inside. Stains on the windows, and nothing was happening. The plants watered, the office tidy, but nothing was happening. Everything was happening except something. Something was what was not happening. In fact, nothing was happening, and nothing was beginning.

Others would have abandoned the day; others would have bailed out, but I am no quitter. Others would have quit, but I thought, the caffeine will get through the blood brain barrier pretty soon. I thought: soon enough, the caffeine will move from the bloodstream to the nervous system, and so it did. Hours passed, and caffeine had passed from blood to brain, from vein to nerve, and there it was. Only nothing began. Only nothing happened, more intensely.

Subtracted life, life minus life. Life not yet life, life unwavering non-life. Life without distraction, life without achievement, life subtracted. Do you know what I did? Nothing. Do you know what I did while waiting for nothing? Nothing. Nothing once and nothing twice; nothing happened.

I looked around for someone to blame. What, was this life? Was this how it was supposed to be? Was it life I was living? What, was this what living was about? How, I thought, had I taken the wrong turn? How had I ended up here, with the heel of my palm itching? How here, with an itchy palm-heel and nothing happening?

The 11th Page

Given Time

I've read it, but when? I've read it before, but when did I read it? I can't remember, but it is as though I've always read it and always spoken as it speaks. Essential book, which gave me my own past! Essential reading which gave me my past!

I read. The reading bears me. I read, and it is as though everything I live is borne by that reading. The book is open in my office. My life is lived against that book, its backdrop. The book, a heavy hardback, is open in my office, and what I live it gives me again. The power of living is mine, but that power now reveals itself against the backdrop of non-power, of what I cannot do, but what the book gives me. Now, with the book, I see the world anew.

Now, because of the book, my eyes rest on the world in a new way. What do I see? What do I hear? Or is it that the book sees and hears for me? Is it that the book gives me what I cannot give myself: a second sight, a second hearing, a second way to know the world.

Book, I prop you up beside my monitor. Prodigal book that cradles my life! Prodigious book that opens my life as I open your spine! By your pages will I know what I've lived. By your sentences will I have known what I am. You, book, give me the future. You give me the future in which I can know what I've lived.

After the Book, Before the Book

What was my life before I read this book? But there was no 'before'; it is as though this book ran back upstream to the source of my life, and what I lived was always lived within this book. What I lived was already enclosed by the book. Wise book who knows what I have known! Wisdom of a book that lived in advance of me, waiting for me! How did you know I was coming, book? How was it you waited for me at the moment of my conception?

After I read you, there was no before. After I read you, there was no before the book. You were there at the beginning, watching over me. You made the appointment I would keep by reading you. And as soon as I began to read, I knew. By reading I knew another knew me, benign deity!

It is there on my office desk, although I am at home. It is there, just begun and waiting for me, and I am here, at home. I did not bring it with me, because I know it is with me. I did not bring it back to read last night, because I knew it would be with me less time by my reading: knew that to read will have been to have spent less time with it than I could have spent. Knew that by spending time, I was given time, and that to be given time was to be given a future in which to read the book.

Rather than read greedily, finishing it in a single, breathless day, I will read slowly and slowly will the future come to me. Slowly will it come, the future and the dreams the future allows. Slowly, then, comes the open space for dreaming in which the book dreams beside me. I will rest my head on this book, and it will dream with me. I will sleep alongside its sleep and the dreams will come.

I will not name you, book, I will not give your title. And your author, book, I will not speak of your author. Just that it is a late book, a rarefied book, which speaks by way of its author's early work, which speaks as though that early work had gathered the single wave that bore it. Speaks as though by the pressure of the forward-movement of those early books. Reward for the reader who has traced the course of an oeuvre! Reward of the reader who waited for the late books by reading the early books, and now receives his reading again!

The 11th Page

500 page book, you wait for me at the office. Hardbacked, 500 page book, freshly arrived from America, I have propped you by my monitor. I am 11 pages in. 11 pages, and the book opens its great doors. 11 pages, and already the book is opening great doors to me. Let me pause for a while at the threshold. I want to pause, knowing that the books which follow this one have not yet been translated. Will pause and look around me, at the world behind me and the darkness of the book. The great doors have opened, doors of a new earth and sky, doors of a whole world, which will soon shut and enclose me.

Soon, the 12th page, and then the 13th. And when will I reach the 250th? I know when I read it that it will have been I had read it long before. Know when I reach page 500, I will have known that page since my most distant childhood. You waited for me book, you were patient. You waited for me book, first, latent in the author who wrote the book, and then in a language I do not know how to read. You waited for me, in the translator who turned the book into English, and then in the foreign country from which you would reach me.

And then, one morning, you were in the package in my mail; there you were, imposingly thick, freshly arrived from overseas, in my office. You waited for me; you were there in my office, still waiting for me. As I read page 11, I knew the book was waiting for me, just ahead of me, as it will have always been waiting. Knew that by page 250, it will be waiting yet father ahead, and when one unimaginable day, I finish the book, it will be waiting further ahead than ever, waiting, now, to fill my dreams, to dream with me. To dream and give me the future by its dreaming, and then to give me my past, too - that life I will have lived in anticipation of the book.

Daddy Long Legs

Rooms

I have seen too few Daddy-Long-Legs this year, but here is one now. From Handke, I learnt that such creatures belong to the threshold. But over what do I cross? The world as threshold; this room - the flat - is exchangable with any other. The thudding of music upstairs, the sound of music next door the same as always, the same as last year and the year before.

I play music to drown out music; I speak on the phone so I will not hear them speak. This has always happened as it happens now: this is but one room in a sequence of rooms. They are all the same, and with the same disappointing view: a grotty backyard, pools of drain water, dying plants. Today and tomorrow, the same view.

Can you reach me here, friend? I imagine the Daddy Long Legs is your embodiment - that you have come to me in this form to witness me and allow me to witness myself. Then the Daddy-Long-Legs is an emblem of writing. Sign of incompletion, sign of not yet beginning, mobile threshold that makes this room a threshold.

The Threshold

Friend of the threshold - friend who brings me to the threshold, just as you told me I bring you to the threshold - in what body do I come to you? How does it reach you, the address from the threshold, which says, this room will be one of other rooms; you will move from here to there, and the world will be unloosened by your movement? How do I reach you as a sign of the threshold?

What did we speak of then, at that time? We never said anything, that's what you said. Nothing said, everything unsaid. But as though that unsaid was the unsaying of the world, and there were no more lies and hypocrisy. Propitious silence, that was the world's intake of breath, the taking of air to the bottom of its lungs. Silence in which the world drew back to its birth, and so was the morning through which we passed the first morning of the world.

Silence, unsaying. Silence - the unloosening of everything spoken. But there was a saying by this silence. Saying that unspeaks - saying that yet speaks the word that cannot be spoken. Incomplete word! Word that never begins! But to share speech thus - speech that passes from one to the other, speech that begins without completing itself - is to lighten the world.

Lightened Speech

Of what did we speak? Our world was too small, too confining. What were we going to do, we who were to leave school? Truancy: we wandered to the park in the schoolday. Who was there? No one; or perhaps a mother with a pram. We were there, but there was no one else there. Restlessness first of all, that's what bore what we said. What was to happen? The old life was coming to an end - this was welcome, we were never satisfied with it, and the new one was beginning - but what was to begin?

Lightened speech. What was lightened was the past, and the burden of the past. Newness: not, now, the life we would pass in the suburbs, nor the life in the new companies that were appearing all over the Thames Valley, nor the life of our friends who were to disappear into those companies, but of what gave itself as we spoke of this life and of our friends. Newness: to speak of the world, of a past shared and a shared present, was already to lighten it.

Now our truancy was redoubled in the truancy of saying. The lies of the world were unsaid. Corruption became innocent; the world was born again and we passed in the first morning of the creation. The first morning: dawn, over the suburbs. And the first night: dusk, over the suburbs. We met at the threshold, the dawn and the dusk and by our speech, the world was lightened.

Daddy Long Legs

I haven't seen for you for many years. How did you know to send me a Daddy Long Legs as your envoy? Through my window and drawn by the light, a foreleg twitching before it in the air as it flies, it is your emissary. But how do I reach you? What creatures are for you a sign of speech?

Rush-That-Speaks

The Image

The ambition, here, is always to generate writing as though from itself, out of itself. To write to mark only the act of writing, to say, today writing was possible. Palliative of blogging: writing is allowed to write itself. Writing marks itself as event, as achievement, and can then die away. There is no need to detain writing in a book; no need to round off what is written - to draw it into an essay or a story. The post is complete because it is dated - because it was what was written on this day. But is it complete?

Was it in a story by Borges that there was a mirror that called what it reflected into existence? The image came first, I remember that, and then the 'original'. So does the event of writing call for more than an enigmatic signature to say, I achieved myself. Writing asks to be made flesh; it calls for an event to relate. Something must be related - writing is not music, it is not painting. It must speak, and speak with words. Something must be said. But with blogging, what is said stretches itself much more thinly over the event of writing. 'Beneath' what is recounted, there is the marking of the event of writing. As if to say, I was able to write today, writing was possible today.

What is it that was marked? in Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, there is an explorer far ahead of the adventurers of the story. He leaves his signature here and there. He leaves his name, his mark. Something was possible - I was here. I was here, and I am ahead of you, you who follow me. So with blogging. I was here. Only now, the blogger is not ahead of you, but behind you. Nearly every day was marked, not so the blogger could lay claim to it, but to himself. To say simply, it was possible, writing; I was able to sign my mark across the day.

Crusoe

Sometimes I dream of sustaining what is written here over the course of a book, or at least an essay, to be published elsewhere. To be borne by the momentum of what is written here to make a whole book, a sustained piece of writing. But I know I would miss what is most important by doing so: to keep my appointment with the day, to put my mark on the blank surface of the day as on a clean page.

I imagine myself as Robinson Crusoe who makes a calendar to mark the passing of days. Crusoe who fears he will lost in time if he doesn't make his mark. But there is always the hope that I will do more than leave a mark: that writing will need details with which to clothe itself, that a small narrative will be possible. But what is there to narrate? Only that I have spent a great deal of times in rooms like this one trying to mark my presence in the day. That I waited for the surplus of strength that would bear me from boredom and dissipation to mark the day.

The mark is a struggle, I know that. The strength to write raises itself against the day. How do I meet the day at its own level? By lying down. By giving up and wandering the streets. By leaving any particular task and letting the day carry me. How do I struggle against the day? By leaving the dated entry that will mean it will not pass without me - that the day will not have carried me too far from myself.

Rush-That-Speaks

Is this why the most imposing theme at this blog is stagnancy and lassitude? Is it because it is over stagnancy that I have triumphed in order to write? Then to write of stagnancy is to stand over the body of the loser. I am the victor; I won - what did not allow me to write is now mine to write about. I, the victor, can write of my defeat.

But defeat is waiting for me again, I know that. John Crowley's Engine Summer is narrated, we learn at the end, by a construct, a little machine, who is kept filed away until one comes to ask his story. He speaks (his name is Rush-That-Speaks), but all he is is speaking, and when he finishes he will be switched off again. So it is here - speak, write, and know by doing so this is your chance to struggle against the day. Speak, write, but time is drawing short and the story will find its end.

Unless there is a way to tell the same story over and again. Unless the story of stagnancy can be begun anew each day. And now I am Sheherazade, who must come up with a new story each day lest she be executed. Speak, write, because otherwise the end will come. But of what is there to write? The 'there is' of writing, that is true. The address.

Sheherazade

To write in a notebook is not enough, although what is written there is already public. The notebook does not open widely enough; its pages are fixed in size and shape. Dream of pages without dimension, of a writing written on the sky and earth. I was here: speaking of itself, writing of itself here, at the blog, clothing itself in this or that little story, writing reaches unknown readers straightaway.

You are found right away, reader. The pages open as wide as the internet and can be found on those searches which pass through every webpage. Now, as Crusoe, I do not write to keep my place in time, scratching a mark on the wall so I know the date, but have placed a message in a bottle without knowing who it will find. There it goes, out to sea - but where does it ago? Across the day, as though opening the pages of the notebook as broadly as the day itself. Across the day and doubling the vastness of the day.

Writing resembles itself. It speaks itself, and resembles itself. But in this resemblance, it passes through all the things of the world. Writing passes through everything in order to give substance to itself. What is writing apart from the materials it gathers to itself like a dresser crab, which augments its shell from what it finds on the ocean floor? But writing has no shell; it is made from what it does not own. To mark itself, its address to unknown readers, it must borrow what it is from elsewhere, must tell a story.

Writing is Sheherazade, speaking only to survive. And who am I, who writes? The means writing has to speak of itself. It borrows me; it borrows my life and my body; it writes with me. Then who is it who writes here? Is it I who leaves my mark? Or is it writing as it makes that mark tremble? Writing takes what I write away from me. I know it by the experiences from which it deprives me. I was allowed to speak - I wrote - but what I write was lost by writing.

Then I am not Crusoe who marks the day, or even Crusoe who throws a message in a bottle in the ocean. Writing is the ocean, and to write is already to have lost oneself. I am not the victor; what I take to be my triumph is not mine. Writing has already laid claim to what I have written. Who writes, who speaks? Writing brings us forward, each of us, as Rush-That-Speaks. And then we are switched off and filed away.

The Double

Who writes? Who speaks? Writing marks itself. Writing leaves a trace of itself. But what about the one who would, by writing, leave his mark? What about the one who marks by writing his triumph over the day, over the stagnancy of the day? Writing is also stagnancy in which it is impossible to begin. Writing, stagnant in advance, is the invasion of the beginning by what does not begin. Then the beginning, the event of writing, cannot complete itself, and this is the lesson.

In the most elegant and well-rounded post, in the post which forms itself, like Schlegel's fragment, into a curled up hedgehog, there is already that opening which spreads it across everything that exists. As though writing, by resembling itself, had to pass through all the things of the world. As though writing lived by transforming the world into its own image.

Then writing borrows the body of the world as it borrows my body. Writing, double of the world that by writing calls the world into existence. Writing, reversal of image and original. Writing that swaps one for the other and makes of the writer a double of himself.

Abstract Writing

Writing, non-event. Writing, which signifies by way of withholding signification amidst signification. What would an abstract writing be like? A writing that is the equivalent of the abstract painting? Magnificent peace! Peace without words! But impossible, for all that. Writing means and must mean; it signifies and proceeds by way of signification. Then the task is to interrupt writing in writing; to render abstract what appears to be most concrete.

So blogging, in which the concrete (the story that is related, the blogger's musings) wears itself away. Blogging in which the 'there is' writing speaks by way of the concrete and in the trembling of the concrete. The story, the musing, is worn away. Writing affirms itself. Writing says: you, blogger, are only Rush-That-Speaks, and I the one who has switched you on. Writing that has borrowed your body and given you writing, but on condition that you relinquish your hold over writing.

Readers to Come

It is the 27th October. It is 10.32 in the morning. I listen to Hex Enduction Hour by The Fall and look out over the yard. The plants look ill; a drain is overflowing. Perhaps they are ill because their roots, in their pots, is being nourished by overflowing water. 10.33, and the students upstairs have gone to the university. I am Rush-That-Speaks. What time is it, what day is it? Only you, who are reading, know. From where have you come? From what corner of the earth?

It is upon you that writing depends, as it speaks of itself. What time is it? What do you see, beyond your monitor? Writing depends on you. But there are always other beyond you. Always other readers, readers to come, readers who chance on this site by searching on Google for Team Aniston or Team Jolie tee-shirts, or by asking how tall is Brad Pitt?, and others who have just set out from the far corners of the world.

Corpse of the University

The Long Rot

The corpse of the university floats face down in the water. We are all poking it with sticks. Is it really dead, the university? Is that really its bloated, blue-faced corpse? Yes, it is dead, and there it is floating, face down. In the end, there is no point pretending, not anymore. The university is dead and there is its corpse.

Now the swelling and the rotting. Now it will swell and will rot, devoured from the inside. Now begins the rot and the creatures of the rotting, the maggots who will hatch into flies and leave the corpse. Now come the maggots, the managers who will devour what is left to feed themselves and fly away. How their salaries are rising, the managers! How much money they earn!

The lid has been taken off their salaries, that's what is said. The lid has been taken off to encourage competition. Now there is no lid and no limit. Now begins the rot and the creatures of the rot, who live off the corpse that rots. Now the rot, the long rot, how long will it take? Now comes the long rot, and really it could take forever.

Now the long rot, now comes the eternal rotting and the creatures who live from the rot. There it is, the corpse of the university, blue-faced, swollen. But this is only the beginning. There are creatures who live from death, who are drawn to it. There are parasites who live from death and are produced from death. For the corpse, in truth, is a breeding ground. The corpse is where Capital comes to leave its eggs. The university is that rotten place where Capital deposits its eggs. Eggs in rotten flesh. Spores in zombied flesh. They are here, the ones who live from death and the long rot.

The Old Elite

But was it ever alive, the university? Isn't it the worst kind of nostalgia to think it was once alive? After all, wasn't it over ever the breeding ground for State-Thought, for State-Philosophy and State-Criticism and State-Sociology and State-Political-Science? Wasn't it only ever a breeding group for the State and for Capital? The old professor said, it wasn't always like that. The professor said, it wasn't always like this. Once the meeting rooms were full, once the senior common rooms were full, once there were seminars everyone attended.

But is that how it was? Is that really how it was? Who were they, who filled the meeting rooms and common rooms? Who were they, who filled the seminars, the old crowd? The old elite, no doubt of that. The old elite, who are disappearing now. The old elite, who, stunned at what happened, are disappearing to the countryside and to their houses. The new breed replace them. The new breed, harassed and harried, take their places. But who have they replaced? The power of their predecessors has gone. The power they might have had is gone. The power is in the hands of the management, there's no doubt of that. The power has passed out of the hands of academics and into those of the management.

Who have they replaced? No one at all; they have no ancestors. For it was then that the university died, in that gap between the old and the new, between one breed and another. It died - but wasn't this death something liberating? Wasn't the dispersal of the old elite something marvellous? Wasn't there at least an afternoon or two when the university seemed to open to a new future, a future of the non-elite, a future welcoming those who would never have belonged in the university?

The dinosaurs had gone, and now the new breed had come, those who would never had had a chance in the old system. Then the death of the university was welcome, for this death was only that of the old elite. This death was welcome, and even the capitalisation of the university was welcome for a time, because it meant courses had to be offered to students outside the old paternalism and the old canon.

Yes, for an afternoon or two, a breath of wind passed through the university. The university had died; capital had killed it, but this was welcome, for the king was dead and there was no king to replace it. Capital swelled in the corpse. Capital ran in its veins, which meant, for a time, students had to be appeased: if they wanted to be taught Nietzsche or Hegel, that was at last possible.

In the late 80s, in most university philosophy departments, it was impossible to study Nietzsche or Hegel however much we wanted to, but now, in the mid 90s, it was possible, because the students brought in revenue and the students had to be appeased. Capital ran in the dead veins of the university, but this was welcome; it was novelty itself. But what happened? Capital was captured. Capital lent itself to new forces of accountability and quality.

Sublime Capital

There is no question but that there is a sublimity to Capital, a deathly beauty. It commands awe, like a starry sky. So the starry sky opened for a time over the dead university. The old elite were now irrelevant; whether they knew it or not, their time was up. The old paternalism was defunct. Students had a voice because they brought revenue to the university. Now they had to be appeased, whatever the old elite wanted. It was the new regime; the former polytechnics had research money for the first time.

This was welcome, at first: the former polytechnics, which were soon to become the new universities, had money to give to staff for research and to potential students for research. This was the new regime. The university had died, but it was opening and transforming and becoming something marvellous. Granted, it didn't last long. It barely happened, but there was a moment when something marvellous began to open. Staff grumbled, but they were forced to widen participation. Staff moaned, but the university had to reconnect to the local community, if only to attract students. People who would never have gone on to postgraduate study were given grants to study. People who never would have gone onto academic jobs were permitted to do so.

The New Elite

Yes, the university was dead, but this was welcome. The chance of a new kind of educational system opened. No longer the divide between one institution and another, between school and university, between college and university, but a new whole. But what happened? The old universities organised themselves to make sure they would get all the money from government research funding. They quickly put together departments responsible for drawing up funding bids, and attracted money to themselves. The old elite, shaken, began to reform, albeit without the old set of values, the tedious old conservatism.

Wily professors, marginal in the old elite, came forward. Wily professors linked with wily administrators drew research money to themselves. The old distinction between old and new universities was reinforced; the old distinction between Oxbridge and the rest confirmed itself. But it was too late: the myth of the old elite had dispersed, and there was nothing to hold anyone staff but competitive bids for research income. The old elite was dispersed, staffing had been significantly reduced, student numbers were increasingly rapidly, and nothing held anyone together.

Now was the time of great movement and no achievement. Now there was only the long decay, the decomposition of the corpse and of the creatures of the decomposition. How quickly they came, the flies, to lay their eggs. How quickly they hatched, those eggs. Until the university was full of maggots, blind and wriggling. Until the university became a hatching place for the maggots who would grow fat from money. Now maggots appeared wherever there was surplus value. The maggots, non-academics, managers appointed from industry, soaked up all the money. And the academics, those who were left, were full of resentment.

Now the two great forces of the university were capital and resentment. A few wily professors were left, and a few of the new breed, who would exploit the chaos and open up small departments in the midst of the decay. New disciplines appeared here and there, operating very precariously. This was welcome; it was impressive, but these were local operations and very precarious. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, there is the great hubbub, the great activity. Meanwhile, there is only activity, albeit the activity of the decay.

Recourse to the Pub

What did you do today at work? What happened today? The philosopher bids for research money and the historian bids for research money. The political scientist bids for research money and the historian of art bids for research money. What happened at work? A little teaching, but that was nothing. Some teaching, pleasant enough, but that was nothing. Some teaching, some administration related to teaching, but what was that, really?

First of all, there was money to be raised. Firstly, the attempt to raise money. Then the attempt to consolidate your position as a teaching unit. Secondly, the attempt to lodge yourself more deeply in the rotting corpse of the university. Secondly, the insecurity, the contract you are on, which demands you lodge yourself more deeply in what-calls-itself-a-university.

Of what else do we speak, we the new breed? Of the insecurity of contracts and rsearch funding. Of the impossibility of any security, and the impossibility of attracting research income. And of our resentment, and the resentment of others, as it turns on those who attract research income. We would like to be the little-department-who-could, but in reality we are the little-department-who-can't. We'd like to succeed, but in fact we are failing, as we must fail.

For, in truth, what's in it for us? Paid on the lowest possible point on the scale, publishing as much or more as the professors, nothing matters but income generation, but who can be bothered. For a time, the quantity of research counted for something. I am of the generation in whom it was drilled that a great deal had to be published, and I published a great deal. But I am already antiquated, for this no longer matters, in fact it is irrelevant. You can publish whatever you like, but that's something you do in your leisure time. Publish whatever you like, that's up to you, but it is an activity for evenings and weekends and no longer the concern of the university.

What does it matter what you publish? What does it matter what you read or write? There's no incentive to read and write. Reading? I've given up reading. Writing? Why bother? I prefer the pub to writing and the pub to reading. After work, to the pub, and to laugh at the impossibility of reading and writing, and the folly of those who thought we might survive in the new regime. For in time, we'll go to the wall. In time, it won't be long, we'll be put out of our misery, and we'll take our place on the dole. In the meantime, the pub, the glory of the pub. In the meantime, work's over, so let's go to the pub and laugh about the money we haven't raised.

Corpse of the University

The corpse of the university floats face down in the water. I'm glad it was murdered. But why couldn't it have mutated into something new? Why has it reorganised itself in a ghastly parody of the old elitism? Sometimes I dream of the great privatisation that will allow capital to loosen up the rigor mortis. But this is only a symptom of the disappearance of the old socialist dream - of the government that would force the university to connect with the region in which it is based and with the people of that region. And perhaps the government that would dissolve the university-form and the school-form and dream up a new educational system. (This is not idle utopianism: think of The Open University ...)

No More Universities

The Topslice

The university is over, everyone agrees with that. The dream is over, the university is finished, everyone says the same thing. There are no universities; there are money making machines, that is true, but no universities. There are no universities, and there are no students, that's clear enough. There are units of resource, but no students. And there are no lecturers. True, there are still some old professors, still a few left, but there are no lecturers. No one teaches. There is no teaching, just as there is no reading. Students don't read, staff don't read, no one reads, the university is finished.

Some old professors, stunned by the changes, wander about, but in truth they are lost, they don't know what's happened. Where is the university?: that's what the look on their faces says. Only the most wily professors survive. Only those immured to change. The rest founder: where is the university?: that's the look on their faces. What happened? Where am I?: that's what their faces say.

Are there students? No doubt for themselves there are students. Students who say to themselves, we are students. But they are barely taught. The students are no students, but units of resource, and are barely taught. So too are subject areas units of resource, they barely exist. There is no Philosophy, not any more. There's no English Literature, not any more. True, there are professors of Philosophy and professors of English Literature, there are still a few people who remember how it was when there were universities, but they are coming up to retirement. There are a few professors around, but the university is keen to pension them off, to get rid of them, so the takeover can complete itself.

'The university'? I refer to what-was-a-university. What was a university and is a university no longer. They are leaving, the professors, stunned and bewildered. What happened? When did it occur? Get out, they tell themselves, and get out. Meanwhile, the new breed are taking over. I am one of them. Rat-like, desperate, looking to earn revenue, to bring money into what-was-a-university. Rat like, desperate, running along in the maze as quickly as possible and dreaming of ways to bring money into what-was-a-university.

For we have to earn money, we know that. We have to bid for money, we know that. What matters is to bid for money, to bring money in, and to swell what-was-the-university's coffers. What matters is money, is revenue, and what-was-the-university's topslice. Because the what-was-the-university has to make a little profit, there has to be a topslice. You teach to make a profit and your research must be tied to profit. Forget Philosophy, forget Literature, those are long dead. There is no Philosophy, no Literature. No Philosophy, no Literature, no Political Science, no Sociology, nothing.

Overteaching

It's over, the university's over and we live in the aftermath. It's a numbers game. It's a profit-making game. If it can't be quantified, it did not happen. If it does not bring in money, it has no occurred. Nothing happens unless it makes money. The auditors will tell you you're overteaching. You're overteaching. A hour and seminar a week for the students: that's overteaching. You should be concentrating on other things. Income generation, for example, or preparing paperwork.

Teaching is always overteaching. That's why there are no students, not anymore. No one is taught and nothing is happening. There is no teaching, only income generation. Countable bodies, each a unit of resource, in what used to be called a lecture hall, but no lectures and no students. There is no university. No Philosophy, no Literature, no Politics and no History: there is nothing. It's a smokescreen. Everywhere there is activity, but nothing is happening. The university is finished, and the takeover is nearly complete.

Do you remember teaching, do you remember that? Do you remember studying? Do you remember how it was, once upon a time? The older staff looked stunned. The wily ones survive, but the rest are stunned. It doesn't matter what they write, not anymore. They can't quite believe it. All their work for nothing. Everything they did, for nothing. For what matters now is only countable bodies. What matters is revenue, and the generation of revenue. What-used-to-be-called-courses have to be as popular as possible, that's the criteria. What-used-to-be-called-courses for what-used-to-be-called students in what-used-to-be-called-a-university.

Resentment

You'll be okay as long as you bring in student revenue, says W. That's true, but what about the other great force of what-used-to-be-called-the-university, that is, resentment?, I say. You're okay as long as you're making a profit, says W. But what about resentment? Anything interesting and difficult must be hunted down and closed down. If they scent something interesting and different, they'll close it straight down, there's no question of that. Interesting? Difficult? Then resentment builds up. Resentment sets out to find you.

You're enjoying yourself, they decide and in the wrong way. Your units-of-resource are enjoying themselves, and in the wrong way. One solution: to shut you down. The solution: get rid of them. Resentment spots you, and then sets out towards you, with one intention: to spoil your fun. You're having fun, your units-of-resource (students) are having fun, so you'll have to closed down. It happened to Cultural Studies in the UK. It happened to the CCRU. It was hunted down and closed down. They spotted it, the resenters, so it had to be hunted down, and then closed down.

Communist Russia

It's like communist Russia, says W. If you don't go over the top in your reports, someone will get shot. It's like communist Russia, says someone else who lived in communist Russia, it's exactly the same. I escaped to England from communist Russia and now it's exactly the same in England, the same as communist Russia. If you don't go over the top in your reports, says W., someone will get shot. This is no time for doubts and hesitations and constructive criticism, says W., it's like communist Russia, where unless everything is fantastic and peerless and exemplary practice, someone will be shot. Of course they won't be shot exactly, but there's always a way of getting rid of people, of freezing them out. Take that professor who complained and was moved to a tiny office. He had a nice office with a good view and he was moved, when he complained, to a tiny office with no windows and no view.

Never complain, that's the answer. Do everything you can to go unnoticed, that's the answer. From the first, attract no attention, let them busy themselves elsewhere. Attract no attention, do everything you're told, no matter how arduous it is, and maybe they won't notice you. Because the way they'll get you is through quality. That's the way they'll attack you, through academic quality. You may be the best department in the world, your units-of-resource might be happy, your staff might be happy, but if your paperwork is not up to scratch, they'll get you.

Yes, that's how they'll get you, that's how they'll hunt you down, through your paperwork. Through the minutes of your meetings. Through your reports and minutes, they'll go through them one after another. That's why, as in communist Russia, you have to go over the top in your reports. Everything is improving tenfold. Every year it's getting better, its all improving, your operation is becoming more and more streamlined. Every year, it's getting better. Every year you're learning and growing. Every year, quality is enhanced. Every year, quality improves. Every year! What a miracle! Quality is going up just as A-levels are going up and everything is going up! The world is improving, it gets better and better! We are already in paradise, and paradise is improving! It's getting better, everything is improving!

The Probehead

It's only a matter of time, says, W., and we're out. We've not long left, says W., and we'll be kicked out. It's all over, says W., and we'll be kicked out. Because they're hunting us down. Because they've caught the scent and we are the quarry. Because they've set out towards us, they know something's different, something's interesting, they've caught the scent and now we are the quarry. What chance do we have? We can lie low and hope they don't notice us. We can hope there's trouble at the top, a change of governments, confusion, and they'll have great concerns than us. But what chance do we have, really?

It's all over, the university is over, there are only money-making machines and resentment machines. The double whammy, money-making and resentment. If it was down to money-making, we'd be okay, but there's resentment as well. Resentment and quality. Quality is the probehead of resentment. Quality sends out its probehead like the Martian machines in War of the Worlds. Infinitely subtle, infinitely adaptable, the probehead is looking for us. Keep still. Hopefully the paperwork will be good enough. Hopefully we'll survive another round. The probehead is winding through the corridors. Hopefully they'll get someone else. Hopefully it'll be someone else's turn and not ours.

In the end, they'll see us. In the end, they'll know us. Capital is the all-seeing, all-knowing eye. Capital is looking out for us, as Sauron looked out over Middle Earth. Sauron and the Ring-Wraiths are looking for us. The auditors are Ring-Wraiths and in the service of Sauron. The auditors are made of resentment, they are nothing other than resentment. And they are great counters and scrutinisers. They'll riffle through your minutes in a second. They'll be through your paperwork all at once. They'll have scented you and come for your paperwork. If your paperwork is not in order, nothing can save you. Then resentment has its day. Then resentment laughs, for it has triumphed.

Rats

Meanwhile the rats are swarming. Rats like me are swarming through the corridors. Look how quickly we run! Look how much we do in a day! Everything, it's done, we do it, we can do more, there's always more to do! Rats in the service of quality. Rats crawling over one another, rats crawling over the dead bodies of other rats, in the service of quality. Rats who know they will be hunted down if they keep still. Rats active because they know they are the quarry.

The rats are frantic. I am one of them. I am another rat, a rat among rats, and I scamper over rats just as others scamper over me. I disgust myself, I am a rat, but what matters is to keep going and not to stop. How I disgust myself! Has it come to this! But no matter, I am a rat, and I must keep going. Is this what it was all for? Is this what it's come to? No matter. I am a rat, I have adapted myself, I am fast and I am frantic. Perhaps I won't be caught. Perhaps I'll run faster than the other rats, and I won't be caught. But we know, each of us, that we will all be caught. We know the end is coming and we'll all be caught.

Writing Unworked

Morning Writing, Night Writing

Morning writing, night writing. Morning writing bears with it the old misery, but disgust is still lively, disgust can set out to seek and destroy, disgust is on the hunt. So is morning writing a kind of falconry. Disgust seeks its quarry. Disgust goes out to find its quarry, and so does morning writing carry with it something of the old misery. So does the old misery trail behind it like the tale of the comet. But the comet's head is disgust, active and youthful, born to itself again and seeking its quarry again. Yes, disgust, in the mornings, is on fire as the sun is on fire. Disgust is the morning, the song of the morning.

Evening writing is wearied. Evening writing, wearied, is emburdened by the day, and all that has happened. Evening writing, enwearied, emerges, if it emerges, from what is crushed. It speaks of what is crushed. Disgust is tired; there's no comet and no comet's tail. Sometimes, it is true, there is a kind of wisdom. No longer falconry, no longer despair's leap from your arm, no longer the seeking of the quarry. No more seek-and-destroy. But wisdom, instead, the days' wisdom. As though you'd grown old in the passing of the day. As though by that day you had grown old with the day.

Tonight, disgust lies down in me. Tonight, the old misery is already asleep. Then I am always up too late - up too late, outliving misery and outliving disgust. No falconry. Disgust does not leave my arm. No comets; misery does not trail behind disgust. Today, the whole day spreads out before me. There it was, a whole day. What happened? This happened, that happened. What happened? This and that; the day turned, the planet turned into light and then dusk, and then, too early, into darkness. It was night too early. Night, at seven o'clock. Night at seven bells, too quick.

And now I wonder whether the events of the day, the whole comedy, happened only to bring near to me, signifying across signification, the night where the sign would be lacking. What happened? A great deal - and in the end? What happened, in the end? The sign lacks. It is night, and night brings forgetfulness. I've forgotten what happened - or it is that what happened happened such that something failed to happen. As though what happened as the events of the day failed to accomplish itself. Or that the day itself was incomplete, that it had been worn away, and what I come into contact with now, what draws me towards itself, is the non-event around which the day turns and every day turns.

The turning of the everyday. I would like to say, I learnt something today, I learnt something of the day and what happens when the day is over. I would like to say: night-writing comes after the day is complete and there are lessons to be drawn. But I know this is an alibi, and the day has not finished. I know what happened was the non-event of the day, its non-finishedness.

What began did not end. What began, in truth, did not even begin. What began did not begin; there was no event, or no event that completed itself. What began did not began, and what ended did not end. Night, but nothing has ended. Night, but the day has not completed itself. Night, and the day remains stranded, and for this reason, the night is also stranded. The day is stranded, it has not found and completed itself, and so too is the night stranded, because it cannot mark itself in its difference from the day; it is as though night lagged behind itself, and was too late for itself.

Dilatory night! Tardy night, incomplete and uncompletable! Tardy night, tardy day, how I can measure you? But I am measured by that delay, by that dilatoriness. It measures me, that delay; it is the wearing away of my day and the wearing away of my evening. It measures me, but only because it is without measure. It measures me, the measureless, as I am worn from myself. For the day does not support itself. What happens as the day does not support itself. It is incomplete and does not finish itself. The day does not round itself off. The day runs into the night, without completing itself. Day, night, both incomplete.

Measureless day, Measureless night

Measureless day, measureless night: who knows this, who experiences this? I have always known it and always experienced it. Write to mark time in the day. Write to stamp an hour on the night. Write to say: It is 9.52 PM, and I am writing. Write to stamp time on the occasion. But know that by doing so, what is night is already lost. As though night could only be expressed in the infinitive, the 'to night' and writing only as the 'to write'. As if the 'to night' and the 'to write' were entwined, each in the other, each incompleting the other, each unbecoming the other.

So is writing likewise measured by the measureless. So is writing likewise the unmeasured, as it accords with the measurelessness of the night. Both unmeasured, both in lieu of themselves. Both in lieu of themselves, but by writing you have a way of measuring the night. For you can end the flood of signs, as you cannot end the night. That part of writing ends, as you cannot end the night. So do you come to terms with the night. So does the night offer itself to be written, and writing becomes your game with the night and your game with the day.

In the morning, it is different. The whole day opens before you. There is too much day ahead of you; it is still undiscovered, still the repository in which events might complete themselves. But later, at night, the whole day is that which incompletes itself. The whole day is unworking, and unworks itself in writing. The whole day is unworking, and the night is the unworking of the day. Night and day, unworking and writing the unworking of night and day.

Writing unworked and unworking: but this is a way of coming to terms with the non-happening of the day and the non-happening of the night. I know it as such; blogging is a transparent alibi. Blogging is already the attempt to stamp being on becoming, to stamp time on the timeless. It is 9:58; it's dark; it's been dark for some hours. 9:58, a glass of Cava, the heating on, clothes drying on the radiators. 9:59 - time has passed, but time is immobilised here, as I write.

Time arrested by writing. Time arrested, time recorded as though I were in control of time. I could say: nothing begins here, not at this blog. I could say: nothing ends here, not at this blog. But what I write is written in the box called 'Post Introduction'; it begins and will end. Yes, it begins - it will end. But this is my alibi, this is my 'why I write' and it is a lie. Why blog? to mark time; to divide the infinite from itself - to substantiate the 'there is the day' and 'there is the night', or rather to allow that 'there is ...' to resonate in writing.

There is writing

There is writing. Perhaps. There is writing - but only if it is a writing unworked, a writing unworkable. Yes, it happens - there is an event, but only if this event parts writing from itself and suspends writing, the happening of writing. There is writing. Writing attenuated. The 'to write' stretched across the day and the night: yes, this is the dream. Infinite attenuation, writing incomplete and unworked. Writing that unworks writing and wears it thin.

10:06. 24 minutes until Newsnight. Night; only the reflected room on the window. I can't see the ugly yard. Blackness and then this room reflected in blackness. Blackness and this room, this little cube in the glass, reflected. The room, reflected. I do not see myself. I keep the curtain half-closed. I do not see myself, but what would I see? The darkness and then my reflection. Darkness and first of all the night, and the night's darkness. As though I were Narcissus, but Narcissus, now, who saw what he was not. Night-Narcissus who sees what he is not, and loses himself by writing. Narcissus who resembles himself and resembles the night across which he sees himself. The night that does not complete itself. The night unworked.

The day does not support itself; the night does not support itself. Do not immobilise it in the form, 'the day', 'the night'. Do not immobilise writing in writing. But this is what you have already done, which means your writing is always your writing. So do you betray the day, the night, and what fails to complete itself as the day, the night. So do you betray the 'there is writing' by writing. Begin, write, but know that by writing there is betrayal. Begin - end writing, end your post, press the button marked 'save', but know you've betrayed writing by writing.

Contentedness

What is this bland contentedness? The last thing I expect to experience is bland contentedness, and the satisfaction of a job well done. Absolutely no desire to write, not here, nor elsewhere. No desire whatsoever. No misery, and therefore no hope of the 'merciful surplus' that would lift me out of misery by giving me writing.

Too content to search around in my memory for another of the great list of humiliations. Write an anti-'esteem indicators' said W., referring to that section of the R.A.E. form where you write about your invitations to speak at conferences, the number of articles published etc. Write indicators of your humiliation, said W., write how you dragged yourself down and dragged others down. W. is thinking of himself. Write about that bloke who says I've been going downhill since I started hanging round with you, he says.

Write about that says W., and I told him I thought of that a long time ago, but I'm too content, life is pleasant, all is well, there's nothing in me that wants expunging, there's nothing that asks to be written, there's not the eternal return of memories of old humiliations. All is well, the light falls equally on everyone. All well, the light falls gently on each and on me as one of the others. I detest this contentedness and everything written out of contentedness. I hate even-handedness and patience.

Where is it, the old misery? Where is the old misery and the old desire for the 'merciful surplus'? I could certainly count on that, the old misery. In the morning, there was always the old misery. Rising, I thought, there it is again, the old misery, so I'd better have a coffee and write about the old misery. Yes, that's how it was up until a few days ago, up in the morning, another day, white and bland, so I go into the kitchen to make coffee and turn on the computer and open up the 'Post Introduction' box.

Until a few days ago, yes, not so long ago, that was the beginning of my day, always early, always too early, because I wake up too early, I can never help that, I never sleep well along, I'm always up too early, and then I think, I might as well begin, and I go and make coffee. Up early, too early, making coffee in the dawn, making coffee in the half-light, there's the yard, the ugly little yard, and my damp little kitchen with great patches of damp on the walls and damp in the air.

Yes, first thing, up and to the damp kitchen and then coffee and the same old misery, the same happy misery, because it is always the beginning of something, because from misery, there is at least the peculiar energy of disgust. Out of misery, yes, there is the need to give disgust its head, to allow it to find its target, its object, and to set it on its way. From the first, misery, the same old misery, and then the desire, by writing, to give disgust its target and unleash disgust and let it run by writing to its target. The old misery, the old disgust, and then the quarry it tears apart. Joy of that tearing apart. Joy that misery will allow humiliations to arise from the past. Joy that there are always other reasons to feel excluded.

Yes, that's how it was, day after day, week after week, the evening and night spent in the pub and the next morning, wake up too early, the old misery and the desire to escape that misery, but always the faith in that escape, which passes by way of disgust. In the morning, arise, misery, then disgust, then writing, then the happiness of having written, then the happiness that misery had been put to work.

First of all, misery, bountiful misery, the riches of misery. From the first, misery, reliable, dependable as it bore within it a kind of energy. Nothing better than that first, energetic misery, disgust tugging at the leash, coffee by the window, computer on, Post Introduction opened, then disgust unleashed, disgust running to tear its quarry apart. Disgust off the leash, off by writing to tear its quarry apart. Beatitude of disgust, beatitude of misery. Beatitude of misery-writing and disgust-writing.

But today, contentedness; today, a new tranquility, there's no need to write, nothing asks to be written, there's no disgust. Today, no disgust, except that I've worked up because there is no disgust. No disgust except at the absence of disgust. No disgust except that there is no disgust, only contentedness, that vile, stupid contentedness in league with the vile stupidity of the world. No disgust to carry me from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph. No bridge across the morning.

Already I'm failing, already, the post is giving way as I write. Find your way to the end, I tell myself, find the end. You can always do that, you know it's coming, but you're not there yet, not this morning, I tell myself. Find the end of the post, I tell myself, it's not far off, but find it by way of writing and the energy of writing. The end is there, waiting to be written, but only as it was born at the inception of writing. The end was there, but you'll discover it only by writing, by impatience. For the way opens by impatience and disgust.

Impatience and disgust, that's how it opens, that's how it begins and how it is carried forward. Impatience, disgust, so does the bridge open, so does sentence bear to sentence and paragraph leap across blank space to paragraph. That's how it begins, leaning out of itself, depending on itself, trusting only disgust, launched in misery and calling out to misery. But contentedness is creeping back. Contentedness is holding out against misery.

If it's not written in one sweep, it's no good, I know that. If it's not written in one single movement, in a single gesture, it's failed, I know that. A single gesture, given out of itself, given in writing by disgust, otherwise nothing. No pauses, no let-up, no surfing, no breakfast, no brushing of teeth and no showering, none of that. It's dawn and time to work, and work is everything, disgust must be unleashed. No getting up to wander around, no television, no food, just an empty stomach and bile.

Write about the history of your humiliations, says W. Write your humiliation-indicators, says W. Write about that, says W., and whine, I like it when you whine. But my memory is not working. My disgust does not roam into my memory, looking for humiliations. No quarry for memory. Nothing for disgust to seek and destroy. No cross-hairs on the quarry. Write about your humiliations, says W. Write about dragging the rest of us down, says W. I've lost it, I say. Oh yeah, says W., what did you have?

The old misery, the old discontent, the old disgust and the bounty of disgust. You'll never understand it, I tell W. You just don't get it, I tell W. Who do you think you are, says W., Thomas Bernhard? Why do you do it, you're not Thomas Bernhard, says W. What, so you think you're Thomas Bernhard now? That's funny. Write about your humiliations. Write about dragging the rest of us down. That's what I was planning, I told W., I thought of it straightaway. But I can't get going, I'm too content.

The Ouseburn Valley

The Trent

Winter! All my friends behind the doors of their houses, no one coming out. Home instead of the pub, imagine that, home instead of the pub, who would have thought it would have come to that? The evening was for the pub, that's how it was, that was how the evening was to proceed. Work, and then the pub for the evening and, likely, the whole night. Work and then pub, the first taste of beer, the first pint going down quickly and the second more slowly. Work, pub, the first pint quickly and the second less so and the third slower still, and after the third a pint of tap water to keep you hydrated.

Work, then pub. Work - everyone has to work - and then the pub. Work, pub, it's very simple. First of all, work, and then the pub to follow. Around six-thirty: meet at The Trent House at seven. Yes, that's how it should be, The Trent at seven. The Trent, with its free jukebox, then one pint, see if anyone wants a drink, buy a round of drinks and go back to the table, and then another, bought by someone else, delivered by someone else, drink that, back at the table.

Happiness of the pub! What is life without a pub? First one pint, then another. Conversation: how has the day gone? It was a day like any other, but there are conversations to be had about the day. How I like to listen to other's stories about their days. I have few stories; I'm quieter. I wait until the innuendo starts, after the third pint. Then I am on home ground. Innuendo: yes, that's happiness. Quick thought, but thought about nothing in particular and least of all philosophy. That's the last thing I want to run up against, philosophy. Anything but philosophy. Innuendo, yes, philosophy no.

Three pints and all is well. The world turns around us, but we are at its centre. Three pints of Speckled Hen, and all is well, especially if the barrel is new and the beer is fresh. Three pints, and the world turns around us and we are at the centre. The world turns around us, others join us, but we are already at the centre of the world. Three pints, and I text the ones who are not here, at the pub, I text them: come, come now to the pub, we're missing you and you're missing this, the pub, for there is only the pub.

Three pints, a pint of water, and it's time to text those who are not yet here. Perhaps we can pick them up on our journey to the other side of town to the other pubs. Perhaps we can arrange to meet on the way to the other pubs, in the Ouseburn Valley. For after three pints, it is time to take a journey, not a long journey, to the Ouseburn Valley and to the pubs of the Ouseburn Valley.

The Cumberland

What wondrous pubs are there in the Ouseburn Valley! What happiness there is to be found in the Ouseburn Valley! Past Morrisons, over the roundabout, past the Big Opticians and down the slope to The Cumberland Arms. What happiness to pass through the doors of The Cumberland Arms. My happiest hours are spent there, at The Cumberland Arms. No music except music played by folk musicians. No music except those played in the other bar by the folk musicians. An array of beers, new each time. A new array, new beers to try, each time.

Happiness of new beer! Happiness that there are new beers to try, each time! Spread before us, taps with logos of beers from different breweries. The breweries are old friends. A new beer from Wylams! It must be good. A new beer from Jarrow! It must be good. And it is good. And if it isn't good, there are always other beers. If one beer isn't good, you try the beers of your friends, which may well be good. The rule is: never order the same beers. Sip the beer of your friend. Say: mmm, that's good. Then you can order that beer next time. And they can sip your beer and say, mmm that's good, and then they can order that beer, next time. There's always more beer to try. And there's the cider, too. Prizewinning cider. Prizewinning beer. Always beers and cider, the full array, spread about before you.

Beers, ciders. But my friends are behind their doors tonight. My friends are behind their doors as I am behind my door with my Cava. I am watching a documentary on North Korea with my Cava. I listen to The Fall with my Cava. But it is not the same. There's only a couple of glasses of Cava, and there are pubs out there, pubs in the winter, pubs in the darkness. For it is dark, and shouldn't we be in a pub? It is dark, and we should be together in the pubs of the Ouseburn Valley.

Even the words, Ouseburn Valley, lift my soul. What marvellous words: the Ouseburn Valley. What a marvellous name: The Cumberland Arms and The Free Trade Inn. Nothing in life is better than The Cumberland Arms and The Free Trade. What could be better than The Free Trade, with its view of the Tyne. There is the Tyne, there's town, and you are in the beer garden of The Free Trade. Tyne, town, and you are in The Free Trade, looking at Tyne and town. Looking along the river towards town. Along the river, the lights on the river, the bridges, and town. Along the river, lights on darkness, the bridges across the river, and then town.

The Free Trade

Beer at The Free Trade, in summer, there is nothing better. A sundowner at The Free Trade. And yes, the sun really goes down. The sun really goes down, beyond the Tyne, beyond town. And darkness falls. Darkness falls over the city. Darkness falls, and we are at The Free Trade. Darkness, and The Free Trade is ours, superlative beers, a marvellous view, and, if we want them, baps. Beers, a view, and baps, if we are hungry. Baps, if we are so inclined.

Where else do you go to watch the sun go down but at The Free Trade? There's the Millenium Bridge, the Sage, where The Fall are playing on Wednesday, and the Tyne. Of course there's also the pub called The Tyne, just a couple of hundred yards from The Free Trade. A couple of hundred yards down and across from The Free Trade, there's The Tyne, the pub, that is, and not the river. But there is the Free Trade and then, not too far away, The Cumberland Arms. Cross from one to the other, it doesn't matter in which direction, from The Free Trade to The Cumberland Arms. Go across, cross from one to another and you are blessed in that crossing. Go across, and the gods are looking down and demigods rain flowers on you. Go across, cross, and all is well in the universe, everything is passing and you are passing. Go across, and the universe, too is passing, everything is passage! You are on the way to The Free Trade from The Cumberland Arms! You are on the way from The Cumberland Arms to The Free Trade!

There is nothing great than this! You are suspended between one great pub and another. From one pub you pass, to another. One pub, then another, first that one, then that one. First The Cumberland Arms, then The Free Trade. Or the other way round, it doesn't matter. What matters is that there is more than one great pub. True, there are also The Cluny and The Tyne, but these are not quite as fine. True, there are the other pubs, which are fine enough, but they are only waystations, and we are passing. What matters is passage, and we are passing from one pub to another.  Do you know such happiness? Do you know what the happiness is of passing from one pub to another?

We take newcomers to the city to the Ouseburn Valley. We take them there, it's our gift. What more is there to give? We take our guests there. We take them to the pubs of the Ouseburn Valley. For it gets no better than the Ouseburn Valley. My Cava has run out, but I am thinking of the Ouseburn Valley. Two glasses of Cava and a handful of peanuts, and I am thinking of the Ouseburn Valley. It's cold outside, it's dark, my Cava's run out, and I think only of the Ouseburn Valley.