codswallop

cobblers
drivel
twaddle
gobbledygook
rubbish
balderdash

nonsense!

trickle

slowly. moving. forward. backward. or sideways. time has no arrow. time is unexplained. time is the only thing that can be true and not true all at once.

urban breadcrumbs

on the south bank of the thames, by lambeth bridge, a mini-disaster took place a while ago.

one day, a man, or a woman, or a child, was carrying a can of paint, or a pot of white glue, or a recipient with a mysterious white and sticky substance.

just about in front of the national theatre, the can or the pot or the recipient got punctured, by the beak of a furious attacking bird, or a stray arrow or some sort of spontaneous puncturing event.

and the white paint or glue or mysterious substance started leaking. and the man or woman or child kind of moved indecisevely around on the spot for a while, but then started walking, purposefully towards south london.

and they walked and they walked and they walked. and the paint or the glue or the substance kept leaking and leaking and leaking. and the resulting white line followed the bends of the river: under waterloo bridge (here some workmen, or pranksters, or abstract artists have taken out some of the tiles and put them back them in the wrong order, making the line all puzzle-like), past the london eye (here some cleaner, or busybody, or anti-white-line campaigner has tried unsuccessfully to erase the line), opposite the houses of parliament (where it becomes a dotted line, perhaps in an attempt to humble itself in front of the democratic powers), all the way to lambeth bridge.

and then the man or woman or child must have become a bird, or caught a helicopter or been teletransported to another dimension because just as you get to the other side of the tunnel, the white line (which has been your companion, or guide, or source of inspiration, or hypnotic mantra) suddenly stops.

and you're left -- like little hansel and gretel -- to wake up from your dream and find the way home all on your own.

what comes out when someone asks me what there is to see at home at the end of summer

uruguay then.

the uruguayan beaches will be rather deserted from end of feb onwards. there is always a mass exodus from the cities to the beachside in december, and the wave goes back in feb/march. the weather is also quite unpredictable around then, so not necessarily very good for the beach as it's not going to be that hot (unlike rio, which should be nice and warm!) and if you're unlucky can get a bit rainy and windy. having said that, some of the beaches are very pretty and it can be nice to hang out with the place more to yourself.

the most beautiful place to visit is cabo polonio, all the way to the eastern coast near the border with brazil. this is a very hippy type hangout, you don't really go there for the crowds/parties (although in jan/feb it should be quite buzzy), more for endless contemplation, maybe a spliff and a chat with the local sea-lions.

around there you also have the very peaceful resort of la paloma, which has a nice campsite (i think, i was last there when i was a wee child)

the biggest resort is punta del este, which may still have some life (in terms of bars/clubs) at the end of the season, as it is the most international site. this is a place for posing and partying with the beautiful people. much more materialistic than the cabo...

maybe worth a visit is piriapolis which has a very grand spa hotel and a casino too!

the countryside is also lovely if you're into that. i'm sure you can find horseriding places, although i don't know any off the top of my head. a nice place to visit is "minas", which is the hilliest part of uruguay (not really THAT hilly) very very very quiet, but you can explore and find shaded rivers to swim naked in if you fancy.

to the north of the country you have thermal baths arapey, dayman, with more or less fancy hotels, if you want some r&r.

if you're coming from bs as, you may have a wander round colonia which is one of the oldest towns in the south. very pretty, but very small too, so you can just spend a day there.

and finally, montevideo itself.

you'll love it. it's a very pretty city, small enough to get to know it, but full of different things too. it's got a bar/pub/restaurant/club in almost every corner, and there's always something going on (although because of the aforementioned exodus, it can be a bit more quiet jan/early feb). montevideo has its own carnival, a much smaller affair than the rio thing, but with it's own flavour too. you can catch some murgas, which are groups of men singing political songs in harmonies dressed as pierrots (!), see the parade, etc. you must spend some time in the ciudad vieja, in particular round the port, in the mercado del puerto, a converted train station full of food stalls, artists, etc. walking down the rambla (the seafront), watching all the people also walking down, drinking mate, eating ice-creams, gossiping. there are some museums, lovely parks, etc. but really for me it's all about walking around, people watching, and going to bars for long conversations into the early hours.

see also: answer to the question: anywhere to stay in uruguay between brazil and argentina, with a beach?

silence (still)

the clock tic-tocs in a corner of the room. the neighbours walk up and down their loose wooden floor, the murmur of their telly coming through the ceiling. cars rumble past. domestic appliances burr and sputter. the laptom hums. they keyboard clicks. hypnotised by my tinnitus, i can hear blood rushing round my body, oxygen filling my lungs. tic-toc. stomach rumbles comedy sounds and breaks the spell.

while you were at work...

...the house was quiet and cold
...some people travelled long distances
...mould grew on the cheese
...the world rotated a third of the way round its axis
...a kid learnt to make a new sound
...more than a million people drank a cup of tea
...and a whale swam up the thames to say hello

the way it could be

i could be tall and beautiful, and popular and funny, and i could have lots of friends, and a family, and i could travel the world, and live in an amazing house, and have a great job, and i could be creative and do interesting things. and i could be happy.

the road not taken by mr frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both.
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear.
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

old man in the tube

reading about the past, the past reading on his face

a man walks on a roof

he appears like a comet in your line of vision. he's on a roof. he's walking. he's full of possibilities.
what is he doing? where is he going?
walk to the window. catch your breath. close your eyes. secretly wish he'll grow wings and fly away.

men's shoes

black, laced, stitched patterns. occassional punctured patterns. some brown.
looking down on your way to the city doesn't make your journey that much more exciting.

superstition

i had just finished taking a whole lot of pictures of tombstones, when i look up and see a full moon. and i search my mind, and it's friday 13th. and a fog kind of descended on the city...

the house without a boiler

when the girl took off her bra, it accidentally fell on her feet. it felt like a hot coal on frozen ground. she stayed there for a second, enjoying the warmth through her thermal socks.

dream come true

as a child i used to watch a japanese manga cartoon. the girl was in love with a boy, whose name was anthony. i would daydream that one day my own anthony would come into my life, and take me away in his white horse. we would travel the world, have adventures, be beautiful. forever.

Update (midnight):
Just for the record, my mum did tell me that "watching those cartoons will rot your brain, girl!"

your grandmother!?

curtains
Originally uploaded by ladelentes.

the stage manager knew all the lines. behind the scenes she mouthed along with the actors, ready for her cues. most nights the actors changed the lines. the stage manager would then: panic about missing her next cue, laugh quietly to herself knowing the actors would be panicking too, make a memory of the line for late analysis in the pub.

repetition

a girl wakes up in the night, sweating. she's had a nightmare again. what's her nightmare? that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before that.

nighttime

on a nighttime walk across the river, one may encounter:
- japanese tourists taking photos of each other in front of big ben
- couples sitting on the benches, holding hands, quietly
- strange iron-fish staring menacingly from lampposts
- a man doing a mock-striptease unselfconsciously wearing y-fronts in his expensive riverside flat
- a girl taking photographs, wondering if she will, or she won't (she didn't)

stream of consciousness IV

when i was a child all i needed was a sofa and a book. even today, maybe that'll be all that i can manage. books don't make you lie. a man disappeared, here one day, gone the next. a woman didn't know how to look for him, so she shrugged and went to sleep for a long time. or maybe it was she who'd disappeared. or had never been there?

stream of consciousness III

i wonder sometimes if with the coming of the noise, my head lost the part of the brain that cares, that makes bonds, that makes relationships endure, that makes you vulnerable to pain. i just move along numb, no feelings, no sense of time, no driving motion.

stream of consciousness II

life happens around the edges, like in a holiday snapshot, it's what you don't see what counts. the most important thing in the photo is the person behind the camara, but can the photographer capture herself in the image? sometimes i see myself outside of myself, disengaged. i look back at my past and it doesn't belong to me anymore. abandoned. i've forgotten all of it, erased it, involuntarily.

stream of consciousness I

i once saw a ghost, i once made love in the sea, i once swam with piranhas, although maybe i do this more often than i realise, you came back from a trip and started another one, one that would eventually end another one, time, timing, timed. i was last in the race because i couldn't hear...there'd been a false start, they needed to start again, i was half way to the end line already, they finally stopped me (a woman frantically beating a flip-flop against the side of the pool?), the race started again, but i'd already used up all my energy. i came last. i never raced again.

soundscape

vauxhall tube station playing classical tunes since the middle of december. bombastic music blaring out of loudspeakers in the thames, making it seem as if each building on the north bank were an instrument in a massive orchestra. urban silence, filled with sirens and horns. loud young bands in a cool south london bar. missy elliot waving us goodbye from herne hill. happy new year as you walk by...