Heh...don't bother reading Uselysses. It's crap. On uni there are a lot of pseudo-intellectuals who believe it to be a masterpiece, suckas. You're better off reading a good story that's funny, readable and makes you think.

Nah, I like it, there are some good parts in it, although I fail to see all the double layers referring to Irish independence.
But that's only for morons who read the book twice a year I suppose.

Besides, I got halfway already, so I want to finish it, same with the books mentioned earlier, I've got far, now I want the goddamn story to end.

Because I've given myself steam-courses in poetry in the last three weeks I've actually encountered some good stuff, some of which i will bother you with now.


A Martian Sends A Postcard Home

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings -

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside -
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves -
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

-- Craig Raine


And


This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

Just to confirm something
Is Aladdin Chinese, Turkish or Indian? We got this on Who Wants To Be a Millionare game in a pub. My mates picked Persian and got it wrong, I said Chinese.

Indian right?

I think it's Turkish. But what do I know.

I would've guess Turkish as well. How many camels you see in China?

When I saw this, the answer to that question became 'one'.

sweet jesus, Alladin has invaded Mongolia!

That's probably why the guy didn't turn up at squash today