The Best Word: Discombobulation

2005-01-16 at 12:06 a.m.

Somewhat discombobulated tonight, as I can hear noises outside my window. I should explain that I live in a rather quiet area and we have a kind of courtyard between all the flats to which no one really goes. At this time of night no one anyway - during the day two small boys who live over the way play there. Probably drunks at this time or the students from a couple of flats away.

I've not been doing much today. I woke up at a terrible time - half four in the afternoon - as my parents had gone out. Still I did not mind as I was very tired after yesterday, being completely unused to getting up at normal hours of the morning by now.

So really I spent the day sitting in a pub trying to ignore the Arsenal v Bolton match which was on, while reading a book of urban legends. Apparently Arsenal lost which means Chelsea win the league or something. This I was informed by the man who sat opposite me (the pub was full). I like that pub, except I'm not so fond of football anymore - I used to be an avid supporter of Newcastle United and went to the match, even had a season ticket one year, but I've been less into it lately. Probably because the matches I would watch aren't so often on the TV and I lived in Scotland for four years and never heard the English results. Couldn't decide on a Scottish team to support either, was torn between hearts and hibs and never decided. So thats the only trouble with the pub, they screen football and rugby matches and some of them are very popular. Usually I just ignore the shouting and sit somewhere quiet but the big matches - like the Arsenal v Chelsea match I see coming up, are very popular indeed and you can't actually get into the pub for the number of people inside when that happens. I quite like pubs without piped music either, but thats hard to find. As is my favourite drink - 80/- ale, which it is impossible to find in England. In fact I can't seem to find a beer I like at all - and I'm not so fond of lager. I could always drink Newcastle Brown I suppose, as I quite like it but its generally expensive. This is why I don't really drink in London, well that and not having anyone to drink with.

On the job front, still deciding. I had a look at a number of nursing websites yesterday and I think I'll ask to have a look at what they do. If I just write in I should be ok, or email the head of department rather than going through the work experience people who demand a ton of checks and the like. Plus I'm going to ask for a day at the St Thomas' radiography department sometime, as I'm having my interview for South Bank university at that hospital on Thursday. I don't want my opinion of the profession to be coloured entirely by the private sector, which I have absolutely no intention of ever working in and which for all I know might be completely unlike the NHS.

And now a poem that I took a fancy to post:

We Too Had Known Golden Hours
W H Auden

We, too, had known golden hours
When body and soul were in tune,
Had danced with our true loves
By the light of a full moon,
And sat with the wise and good
As tongues grew witty and gay
Over some noble dish
Out of Escoffier;
Had felt the intrusive glory
Which tears reserve apart,
And would in the old grand manner
Have sung from a resonant heart.
But, pawed-at and gossiped-over
By the promiscuous crowd,
Concocted by editors
Into spells to befuddle the crowd,
All words like Peace and Love,
All sane affirmative speech,
Had been soiled, profaned, debased
To a horrid mechanical screech.
No civil style survived
That pandemonium
But the wry, the sotto-voce,
Ironic and monochrome:
And where should we find shelter
For joy or mere content
When little was left standing
But the suburb of dissent?

<< - >>
Notes | G-book