No Middle Name

I feel ill. , originally uploaded by No Middle Name .

I had some bad news about a friend this morning. She's found out she's got some horrible disease that could mean impending, although without a definite timetable, wheelchairyness followed by dribbling from all orifices concluded with death. I sent a "buck up, old bean, worse things happen at sea" email (I fear I may have been cramming a trifle too much Wodehouse into the old noggin over the last week or so). I have the choice between writing this entry and reading Orwell's 1984 on the train this morning. Orwell's book is not exactly crammed with hilarious set-pieces. Quotably pithy one-liners, yes, but also soul-crushing misery. Would it have hurt the story at all to have some more jokes? To give Winston Smith a wisecracking sidekick? Or a talking dog (this was supposed to be the future after all)? I don't think so. Anyway I thought I would write down all the cheery things I thought of but didn't put in my email. 1. We're all going to die anyway. (...

I sauntered past the pharmacy at lunchtime and noticed a small, blue sign that read: “Bowen Therapy – enquire within”. My rumbling stomach precluded indulging my curiosity, so I fear I will never find out what is involved in Bowen therapy. Several definitions presented themselves, all involving the only Bowen that I could picture.   At first, I thought it must be a programme of help for people whose Sunday teatimes have never quite recovered from the cancellation of their cherished, darts-based, game show . They can be found wandering forlornly around speedboat showrooms, muttering “Look at what you could have won” to themselves. A normal game of darts holds no interest for them, for they have grown accustomed to the heady exhilaration of a quick-fire general knowledge round.   Alternatively, Jim Bowen may have branched out into alternative healing, developing his own branch of acupuncture. Patients are strapped to a giant, rotating dar...

VanderWorld (under occupation): READING STORIES - That nice Mr. VanderMeer, author of my favourite book (City of Saints and Madmen), lays the smack down on lazy writers.

Smoky sunrise , originally uploaded by No Middle Name . Sunrise obscured by bushfire smoke this morning.

(de)construction , originally uploaded by No Middle Name .

A later train than usual. Mostly full, but I see several empty seats clustered together. I sit down next to a skinny man, who is wearing denims and is hunched over the freebie newspaper. There are a couple of other empty seats near us, but people are standing. The man's jeans are dirty enough to have become shiny in parts. The skin on his hands and neck is papery, blotchy, abraded in strange places. His hair is cut very short and is either naturally a faded ginger colour, or the man smokes a lot and has white hair. We sit next to each other for a few more stops. Nobody sits in the seats opposite. He carefully folds his newspaper, then puts it in his holdall before getting off at his stop. He leaves behind a slightly sickly, persistent smell and a fly which will not leave me alone.