London ILB - FAP?

I am doing a phone interview at 6 - but should be there by 7.15 or so?

You will know me easily. I am a large woman with glasses and long red hair, usually accompanied by a tall bloke with glasses.

the Fox's nose is very distinctive.

Oh, it's just me? .. I thought as much.

Hey, did any drunks guys come over to your table, like, "Oy! Wot you prats doin' readin' in a bar?? You're all lucky you got so many pints in front of you or I'd kick everyone one of you asses!"

And someone always woke her at the right stop.

The FAP was grand.

The Irish folk at the FAP were much keener on coemdy Irishness than the other Irish ilxors.

We discussed Donnybrook.

they are TRAITORS!

Books were.

Have had lovely holidays. Now, back to the books.

ILB FAP: 2009 edition. I'd be fine for a drink any day next week Monday-Thursday.

As for pubs: maybe go for one along Borough High Street?

Monday or Thursday would work for me, and Borough High St is A1 for me too.

Thursday's best for me - working a 12 hour shift the other days. Borough High St always a good place to go for a drink.

hey julio, im gonna be down in london next week so pl post details here - hope to come along

i don't live around london. tho i am heading up there for the weekend for the meltdown concerts and maaaay still be around monday/tuesdayish. can't say for sure, though.

hey Ward! This is good timing - hope to see you too. We'll keep details here.

thomp - Oops I knew about meltdown but didn't know if you were going to be around later that week.

Unless Gamaliel can make it Monday (doesn't look like it) I'd say next thur? Looking at the options how about this one just off the main street - Old King's head - but if you all have another option in mind then do tell.

http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub473.html

I'll revive thisILE thread now for casual ILB-ers (or otherwise) who might want to come along.

Unless Gamaliel can make it Monday (doesn't look like it)

I really can't unfortunately. Awkward customer I know - the toad work. I will have an ILB FAP by myself on Thursday if it's not possible for others though, to make sure I pay my alcohol/reading duties.

That's not awkward at all! See you and everyone who can come next Thursday.

Should be at the Old King's from six-ish, I shall be reading and drinking if I don't see anyone.

I'll say which book on the day :-)

Might bother to do a 'Balkanized' ILX London FAP thread over at ILE on the day of the meet.

And thomp - if you're in London later this year etc let us know and we can arrange a FAP (although I might see you on Sunday, I guess?).

Will def be along on Thursday, and will similarly post book-holding details (tho' Gamaliel and I can identify one another - we go back)

I might be back from Brighton in time for this FAP. Then again, come to think of it, I guess I don't know anyone who's going to it.

Pinefox we have been in the same FAP several times. I think you also have talked to Ward Fowler.

bit odd how the board has an entirely different clientele to last time. feels a bit like housesitting.

but, yeah, see you sunday maybe. i'll be hanging around the bar reading the bantam edition of dhalgren, i should think.

New generation, innit?

I shall look for the Dhalgren (bantam ed.)

did anything happen with this FAP?

it's nice to know that people think they've been at a FAP with me, but I doubt that I could walk into a bar and say 'hey, aren't you xyzzz__?' I don't think I can even pronounce it.

It's on Thursday. xyzzz is usually my last utterance of any evening in a pub.

Pinefox - Its Julio. We only see each other once a year, or thereabouts, but still you should know what I look like.

ah, would love to come to this, but not a chance I can make it.

That's a shame G00blar!

5 month old baby + wife trying to finish PhD corrections + moving in a week = hahahah the pub??? yeah right..

Julio? Sure I know Julio! It just wasn't intuitive to guess that 'xyzzz__' meant 'Julio'!

I can see that.

If I don't spot anyone immediately I will be drinking and reading Patricia Highsmith's Carol at some table.

If people are spotted but not everyone else I will leave it on the table.

:-)

sorry not to see catch you at the weekend julio — how did you find ornette? i think that night had maybe the oddest selection of musicians i have ever seen share a stage

hey julio, am in london typing this on a borrowed computer v. quickly - am going to wimbledon tomorrow, but still plan to stick my head round the door of the old kings early eveningish - have sent a link to m@rtin skidm0re, who i think will be coming along too

btw, i have a copy of THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY by Henry James going spare, have just finished it and don't especially want to lug it back w/ me to glasgow

thomp -- sorry I missed you too, Ornette was great, I sorta revived his thread on ilm but haven't checked.

ward -- I was at wimbledon yesterday.

see you all later

Will be struggling in probably between half six and seven, looking rather shop soiled and feeling rather vinegary, in all probability clutching a copy of Henry de Montherlant's Chaos and Night.

Right. Unlike the last FAP there are no pics but thanks to Gamaliel, Ward, woof and m@rtin for meeting up.

Pinefox you were missed.

As I said last night: a pleasure.

Ward - let us know when you come down to London again, and do try and go to Wimbledon some other year. The queue is 'work', but I managed to finish a book while sitting in the park waiting. And then once you get to the grounds its matches and luck that you might get to see something great, but some of the outside courts have this lovely intimacy to them. Its an experience.

Thomp - didn't get enough time to say more when I posted previously but yes, kinda weird and yet its part of harmolodics that you could get Patty Smith, Flea and Master Musicians of Jojouka on a single stage. How were the other nights you went to?

Gamaliel - Chaos and Night sounds really interesting. By a coincidence of sorts I am going to see Alain Resnais War is Over, both seem to be a central character's feverish dream of their role in the Spanish civil war(?)

i demand pictures next time!

glad you guys had a good time.

Yes, that was def some fun. Good to meet you all - now have a brain full of recommendations and leads and look forward to doing it again.

Yep, I had a very good time. Drink + interesting and intelligent people (er... + me) = an evening well spent.

xyzzz___, yes, I'm liking Chaos and Night a lot. It's rather vicious and comical, free wheeling and digressively conversational. The Spanish Civil War forms the main backdrop to both the book and the main character, Celestino (exiled in Paris, hilariously, self-defeatingly misanthropic), I'm not sure how much the book deals with the actual events of it. It seems (I'm only a third of the way through) more like it's going to be about how it affected Spain 20 years later, and how it's distorted Celestino's mind - he suffers from a sort of Quixotic political insanity, that causes him to unheroically misinterpret the world around him.

Greene was a fan, and I wonder how much using the Don Quixote template to explore the idea of a mind warped by political extremity was an inspiration for (the admittedly far gentler) Monsignor Quixote.

I wish I wasn't quite so attracted to Fascist writers though - Celine, de Montherlant. It's emphatically NOT the fascism that appeals, but I do wonder if the reduction in empathy and an unwillingness to tolerate democratic compromise produces a hard, extreme style that I quite like, not exclusively, but which I certainly have a taste for from time to time.

Speaking of Fascist writers, (sort of joeks) Wyndham Lewis wrote one of his more accessible novels on the Spanish Civil War and specifically the English types involved in it (more tilting at Bloomsbury windmills) in The Revenge for Love. If you're immersing yourself in civil war stuff it's possibly worth reading for the excellent opening scene set in a Spanish prison. Lewis was capable of writing remarkable set pieces, extremely evocative of their setting - I'm thinking of the scene I just mentioned and the one at the beginning of the otherwise daunting Childermass, where a sort of heavenly limbo is described, and which feels like the best science or perhaps more properly speculative fiction (as do the excellent and hardly mentioned sequels Monstre Gai and Malign Fiesta - two remarkable books).

That Resnais seems quite appealing right now - I might go on the Monday if I can finish work early enough.

Need to find another word for 'remarkable'.

"I wish I wasn't quite so attracted to Fascist writers though - Celine, de Montherlant. It's emphatically NOT the fascism that appeals, but I do wonder if the reduction in empathy and an unwillingness to tolerate democratic compromise produces a hard, extreme style that I quite like, not exclusively, but which I certainly have a taste for from time to time."

Don't know about de Motherlant - but there a negative energy to Celine that makes his writing pretty vital. Not exactly because he was a fascist either. Beckett also had that quality, from what I recall.

I should be at the NFT on Monday for Resnais, too.

I will make a point to read some Wyndham Lewis, think I'll start with The Revenge for Love

Its really lovely out there -- drink sometime next week (later in the week: Thursday, perhaps).

I'd be on for that. Gamaliel, you about?

I could feasibly come along...

Can do Wednesday or Thursday, yep. (Wednesday slightly preferable tbh, but it's not a massive problem, Friday would be no go).

Wed is fine with me. We'll go w/that. I know its obvious but how about the Royal Oak in Tabard street? Any other suggestions welcome...

Damn, weds not actually great for me - thurs better. Any chance of that? Royal Oak good though.

oh yeah fine with either. Thur it is :-)

Royal Oak, absolutely. Thursday fine, just need to remind myself to take the late shift on Friday not the one that entails me getting up at five.

i wonder what happened to mikey g.

Oh and for anyone who wants to come along Thursday and does not know what we look like I will have a copy of the ARABIAN NIGHTS on the table.

^Likewise, I will be the one in the corner with the vacant illiterate stare. Complete fraud going to this - my inarticulate fists can barely hold a book at the moment, let alone turn pages. I blame the ILM listening clubs.

One more thing: should be there between 6-6.30.

For those who were thinking of coming along, here, from six-ish -

http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1228.php

Kinda looking like it's just going to be me, xyzzzz__ and woof, any more? Stevie T?

def coming, get fucked up talk abt books.

South of the river (Mummy, I'm scared), but might come along, fancy a walk (and a pint)

Still not sure if I can come, but will be there around 8 if I can...

Got here early. Pint of mild and a copy of Eric van Lustbader's seminal work The Ninja, which I plucked more or less randomly off the shelves of the pub, in order to justify my appearance.

LYRICAL
in its tranquility
REMORSELESS
in its violence
STUNNING
in its sensuality (aye-aye)
HEART-STOPPING
in its suspense

apparently. Surely how this FAP is going to turn out.

Oh I say, apparently it also

EXPLODES THROUGH THE FRONTIERS OF MODERN FICTION WITH UNPRECEDENTED POWER

astonished I haven't heard of it before tbh.

Hmmm. Seems pretty conventional so far.

"What the hell am I doing with a Mercedes? he asked hi
Self rhetorically."

lol.

Might just liveblog this book if no one else arrives.

Ah, my game pie is here.

Game Pie? I wish I could've joined you chaps now. Liveblog the pie at least.

Game pie was good, not great. We've got a quorum now. Intense discussion about the finer points of literature as I'm sure you can imagine.

where is this FAP?

somewhere near London Bridge maybe?

Yes, Royal Oak. Borough. Link upthread?

Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring, you fapping fellows.

The beer sounds good, on that link.

A pity, for me, I couldn't make it.

I have ended up destringing a guitar.

def coming, get fucked up talk abt books.

✓

Thanks to everyone for a wonderful evening.

Yep, was v enjoyable. The beer is good, pinefox. Still one of my favourite pubs in London.

Further to the FAP talk of a UK 20 under 40, just spotted this.

Slim pickings:

1 Chris Cleave (b 1973) His first novel, Incendiary, was about a terrorist attack on London and was published on July 7, 2005. The Other Hand (2008), a cross-national thriller set in England and Nigeria, became a word-of-mouth hit.

2 Rana Dasgupta (b 1971) Born in Canterbury, but now lives in Delhi. His first collection of stories was set in a Tokyo airport; his first novel, Solo (2009), was about a 99-year-old Bulgarian chemist.

3 Adam Foulds (b 1974) After writing his verse novel The Broken Word about the Mau Mau rebellion, he wrote his Man Booker-shortlisted study of John Clare, The Quickening Maze (2009).

4 Sarah Hall (b 1974) The author of four novels, the first two of which were set in the early 20th century in her native Cumbria. Her most acclaimed work is The Carhullan Army (2007), about a band of women rebels surviving in a Britain hit by environmental disaster.

5 Steven Hall (b 1975) His debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts (2007) – about a man who loses his memory and tries to create a new identity for himself – unusually lived up to his publisher’s hype.

6 Mohsin Hamid (b 1971) The Reluctant Fundamentalist – a literary thriller about a Pakistani man who may, or may not, be a terrorist – came within a whisker of winning the Man Booker in 2007.

7 Anjali Joseph (b 1978) Her debut novel, Saraswati Park, is published next month. Sharp yet lyrical, the novel, which is set in Bombay, shows the influence of Amit Chaudhuri.

8 Joanna Kavenna (b 1974) Wrote seven unpublished novels before her eighth, Inglorious, was published by Faber and won the Orange new writers prize. Described as “Dostoevsky meets Bridget Jones”.

9 Benjamin Markovits (b 1973) Part way through a trilogy of novels about Byron and his circle, this assured writer has also just published an autobiographical novel, Playing Days, about a professional basketball player in Germany.

10 China Miéville (b 1972) Inspired by horror writers such as HP Lovecraft and Michael Moorcock, his science fiction and fantasy books – including Un Lun Dun for young adults – have legions of fans.

11 Paul Murray (b 1975) His second book, Skippy Dies, a comic novel set in a private boys school in Ireland, was recently described in the Telegraph as “gigantic, marvellous, witty…heartbreaking”.

12 Patrick Neate (b 1970) Won the Whitbread (now Costa) novel prize in 2001 for Twelve Bar Blues, a picaresque novel about New Orleans jazz artists. His most recent work, Jerusalem, deals, like his first novel, Musungu Jim, with European encounters with Africa.

13 Ross Raisin (b 1979) This Yorkshire-born novelist’s first book, God’s Own Country (2008), followed the dark story of a teenage farmer’s son living on the Moors.

14 Dan Rhodes (b 1972) After his second book, Rhodes declared he wanted to give up writing. Luckily for us he carried on with Gold (2007), about a Welsh-Japanese woman living in a coastal cottage, and his most recent book, Little Hands Clapping.

15 Kamila Shamsie (b1973) The author of five novels, mainly set in the Pakistan of her birth. Her most successful work is her latest: Burnt Shadows (1999) follows two families from the Second World War in Japan to the aftermath of 9/11.

16 Zadie Smith (b 1975) Wrote the wildly successful White Teeth while still at Cambridge. Her writing has matured since then, most notably in On Beauty (2005).

17 David Szalay (b1974) Winner of a Betty Trask Prize, Szalay’s The Innocent is told from the perspective of a KGB agent in late Forties Russia.

18 Adam Thirlwell (b 1978) Clever All Souls fellow who published Politics at the age of 25 and since then the Milan Kundera-inspired The Escape (2009).

19 Scarlett Thomas (b1972) The End of Mr Y (2007) was a surprise bestseller about a student who discovers a long-lost Victorian novel.

20 Evie Wyld (1980) After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (2009) was a haunting first novel set on the Australian East coat.

The question is, for those who actually read books that have come out recently, is which author (and which book) shd I go for?

Rana Dasgupta sounds like the kind of thing I'd like. He mentions 'central European guys' and I'm usually all over that.

1 Chris Cleave (b 1973) His first novel, Incendiary, was about a terrorist attack on London and was published on July 7, 2005.

Don't read this. Eerily unprescient - bomb leads to chaos and riots etc, rather than people knocking off work early and going to the pub. Also, awful 2D characters.

I tried to think of something to say about that list, but it's been 3 days and nuthin. Uninspiring names, and I'm p ignorant. But HELL why should that stop me

SO, braindump: I don't mind Dan Rhodes, might read the new suicide-museum one, no probs with Foulds (but have only read poetry by him), vaguely intend to read Mieville one of these days and Sarah Hall's Carhullan Army at least sounded intriguing – 70s feminist SF redux maybe. Scarlett Thomas sounds like she has a taste for strange ideas? No, wait, "Her first three novels feature Lily Pascale, an English literature lecturer who solves murder mysteries," fuck it.

Markovitz maybe decent? Can't shake the illogical suspicion that his literary career is parallel to his sporting career: couldn't make it in the American leagues, came to play in Europe.

For the rest, mostly names talked up by people I don't trust, and fuck a Thirlwell; but hadn't heard of Dasgupta, that could be good.

(The fap was great fun by the way - thanks for suggesting it xyzzzz__)

So I got me a copy of The City & The City by China Miéville. Let's see how that flies. Will read the new Foulds at some point, was mildly impressed without being blown away by The Broken Word. Hated the tiny bit I read of his first novel.

I guess Paul Murray is interesting me there. A comic novel? Really? Guy's got balls. I bet you anything you like it's not funny, but still, I'm intrigued.

I bought the Paul Murray, but haven't read it yet--it was three books in a slipcase, like 2666, and the book design nerd in me won out over the usually disappointed reader of supposedly comic novels.

I think we should stage an ILB FAP in the first week of 2011.

If anyone is interested then let's discuss details.

You're a hard taskmaster, but reckon I'm game.

This affair shall be convenient only for those who occupy that there green and pleasant sceptred isle, right?

Possibly only for those in its decadent slum hell capital. Count me in! Anything but the 5th.

Liveblogging of this FAP on Guardian website for international audience. Page refreshes every time Gamaliel Ratsey picks up his pint.

Christ.

Any days are fine with me. For location, I do prefer it to be nr London Bridge (or surrounding areas).

we could still plan this

I can agree about London Bridge

Sounds good. How about this Thursday?

I think so!

Thursday, London Bridge is good.

The Royal Oak again?

fine by me.

Thurs and Royal Oak = all good.

def coming, get fucked up talk abt books.

― tetrahedron of space (woof), Thursday, 10 June 2010 15:43 (6 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Prob about 6.30 for me.

Probably won't be there much before 8 again :/

Not sure yet. It depends whether I go home first and change out of my wet cycling gear, you'll be thrilled to know. About half six if I come straight from work, half seven if I don't.

I was going to ask about this. OK will aim for 7 or after. Not sure I've been to the pub before, or then again maybe I have.

Can be a bit tricky to find if you're going for the first time, or not -

The Royal Oak, Borough

will be there twixt 6:30 and 7. ditched bike but trains a bit screwy. conductor has just said on PA 'I apologise everything's cocked up for you'. the fuck you say - I'm going to get drunk and talk about books maunder about stuff maybe slightly connected with books; couldn't be better.

Hey that was fun. No idea why I took against Michael Wood at the end of the evening. I don't really mind him. Sry for any table banging.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n22/michael-wood/presence-of-mind

oh! and you have to say that's magnificent.

meanwhile:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/06/annie-lennox-feminist

A good evening! Think we pretty comprehensively dealt with Mills & Boon, Tolstoy, The Magi, Norman Cohn, Nik Cohn, CS Lewis, Alasdair Gray, Paul Morley, Owen Hatherley, Jonathan Franzen, DFW, Tom McCarthy, Zadie Smith, James Wood and Michael Wood. What was the name of that 17th century troublemaker you mentioned, p.o.v - somebody Coates?

Back on Wood's WBY book: it's marvellous compared to most literary criticism, but it does repeat elements that were frustrating to me and, I think, Mr Wooof in the original essay:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n16/michael-wood/yeats-and-violence

The crack-pated dreamers of ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’ by contrast are ruined by hindsight, they were only dreaming, and it is not ‘enough/To know they dreamed’, and not just because they are not all dead yet. Even death will not convert their errors into anything but folly. But why is this? And who are they?

They are a class, as Roy Foster says, the old Ascendancy in Ireland. Elsewhere Yeats borrows a phrase from the poem to talk about Lady Gregory, who is said to be ‘indifferent to praise or blame’, a quality attributed to the law that was one of the pretty toys ‘we’ had when young. But then their youth in this sense goes back a while, at least to the 18th century, as Foster suggests, and by the early 20th century that class was nervous rather than idealistic, and many Protestants were arming rather than dreaming. Foster also invokes England and the Pax Britannica, and I think Yeats is skilfully creating a movable moral and political community, English, Irish, international, a now defunct club to which anyone who was wrong about the world can claim to have belonged. Or can be accused, by themselves or others, of having belonged to. Members would be, for instance, all the casualties of what George Dangerfield long ago called the strange death of liberal England; all the Irish people who hoped for a non-violent progression to independence; and in the club’s most capacious definition, all the inheritors of the Enlightenment, in Europe and across the world, all the believers in some sort of moral progress running alongside the 19th century’s manifest advances in science and technology.

Did such a club exist, except in a retrospective arrangement, to borrow a phrase from Joyce? This is hard to say, since the evidence comes mostly from the club’s repentant and guilty members, in instances full of self-parody.

I've always this pretty misleading and unnecessarily muddy, and Wood repeats it in the book. It's OK as a paraphrase of what WBY seems to be saying, but I think it misses the probable incoherence of WBY's thought, the fact that what he says likely doesn't add up and is full of special pleading.

So:
- the Irish Ascendancy shouldn't be identified with these other groups
- the Ascendancy is internally incoherent anyway, or is an idea (dear to WBY) rather than a real sociological group. Some Anglo-Irish were nationalists, some were unionists - they can't really be run together politically.
- once you get to 'skilfully creating a movable moral and political community, English, Irish, international, a now defunct club to which anyone who was wrong about the world can claim to have belonged', you are admitting that the group isn't real, is just a Yeatsian construction, and that it has little real connection with the Ascendancy. But in the book he throws in references to the Americas here too!
- Enlightenment? But WBY was in many ways an anti-Enlightenment figure! He believed in magic, gyres, myths etc! Once you let him stand as part of a pro-Enlightenment group you've lost whatever coherence was left in the construct.

I guess I'm saying MW is too generous to WBY here, and thus makes himself look much more historically naive than he surely is.

ps / WBY was not a liberal either, though admittedly in Ireland he struck positions that were comparatively liberal, partly in the name of an idea of Protestantism

Yeah, I think it was that paragraph, and especially the point about the enlightenment that tripped me - it accelerates from mild hey-wait-a-sec confusion into real incoherence. The attempt to reclaim him for a humane, liberal, fairly sensible worldview can't really work - like he's not a MacNeice - the nonsense, the self-dramatising (and the self-dramatising picking apart of the self-dramatising), the dodgy politics are where part of the energy and complexity come from. But to be fair Wood's alert to that elsewhere, so yeah maybe that par is a bad slip. Surprised that it was carried over into the book.

Maybe if we'd written letters of protest about this para to the LRB at the time, we could have stopped this material from reappearing!

Had a lovely time last night - was thoroughly vexed beforehand, in high dudgeon, and the evening proved just the tonic I needed. It's a total pleasure to listen to the conversation, and, er, boozily interrupt with the sketchiest of comments. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Sorry Stevie, missed your question - Titus Oates was the troublemaker.

Feel like we barely got started on Owen Hatherley & the world of Zero Books.

Hatherley is in need -

If I might, errm, 'crowdsource' for a moment, if anyone has a title better than either/both Razzmatazz or The Joy of Pulp, please please let me know in the comments...

dear me.

link here, btw.

Was thinking about that Christopher Hill essay on the 'The Mad Hatter' today.

Lovely evening - did way more listening then had to go, shame I missed woof's table banging?! Can't quite picture it!

Both those titles are appalling.

Simon Reynolds once asked his readers for a title, then, as usual, gave his book a crass tasteless one that he could have thought of in 30 seconds. I mean, even apart from Rip It Up: Bring The Noise and Totally Wired? I think this character, though seemingly intelligent in many ways, also has a bizarre lack of nuance at some level.

I remember Elastica had a much-trumpeted name-our-album competition in the nme, which was won by something like 'xxxxxxxy' (their sex chromosomes) - then they just called it 'Elastica' anyway.

Can we do this another day? I missed it.

Hi PJM - I'm sure we will do it another day. They tend to happen once a season(?)

Spring Is Icumen In ILB FAP? Arrival of child #2 in April means this month may be my last chance for fancy book-larnin' chat for some time.

Any night of the week preferred?

Possibles for me in March would include

Fri 4
Tue 8
Mon 14
Thu 17, could be a good one
Wed 23
Thu 24
Sat 26
Sun 27 ...

March 17 is good for me. It is St Patrick's Day but I doubt the Royal Oak attracts many Guinness hats.

17th seems to be ok for me. I think. I'm sure the pinefox can be relied upon to wear one.

17th should be ok.

Think I'm in for the 17th.

PJ Miller will you be able to make it?

I'll tell him about it on Facebook...

Thursdays are difficult for me because her indoors has popmobility or something and gets very irate if she can't go. Otherwise I would be well up for it. Bang up for it, in fact. Who is Portrait of Velleity?

Is Weds 23 easier for people?

actually it's not so good for me after all.

I ain't no-one you know (probably), just a man on a message board. Was checking since you'd expressed interest upthread, & more = merrier.

Weds are difficult for me, tho' I have just been gifted the 30th.

I thought you might be some kind of alternative identity for The Pinefox.

Probably best not to change plans for me, cos I am quite likely to "pull out at the last moment" as some of you have experienced in the past.

22nd - 24th March is no good for me, btw - but go ahead if you need - should be around early summer, etc.

May as well stick to the 17th I think.

So is it this Thu and do we know where?

I'm not drinking right now but maybe I can change by then.

I had a rather heavy weekend and am still not feeling like drinking at all. Also I haven't read anything for what seems like eons. So basically I'll be sitting over a glass of lemonade saying nothing. Or I'll just drink too much and talk shit like usual.

Anyone else around? I seem to remember c# major expressed an interest at some point in the past.

I am up for this. The Royal Oak again?

I am def on for it, & Royal Oak sounds good, poss even 'traditional' by now.

Have come down with my 4th or 5th illness in as many months - illness for me is now becoming like war for C21 neo-cons, it never really abates - and my feeling about drink is much like Ron Rom's. But hope to attend.

Cool, see you all tomorrow round 18.30 - 19.0

yup, will get there around 7 i think.

just got out of an overrunning meeting by saying I'm really sorry, got scoot, I'm supposed to be somewhere. well it's true isn't it.

On the golden rocket to the royal oak as we speak.

ILB FAPS - get you out of boring work meetings, get you drunk, make you laugh and bang the table, and fill your brain with half remembered names, books and info. is there anything they can't do? it's practically a reithian vision of society.

Good to see you all last night. Further to the extended discussion of management speak, it turns out George Saunders' Four Institutional Monologues is online:

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090619161519/http://thegodparticle.com/2003_08/01Saunders.html

Yes, that was fun; I just seemed to be stricken with heavy humours, or Lenten gloom. Frustrating. Sorry I had to leave. Had been feeling dopey all day.

Well, the conversation was quite dystopian!

Had a good time as well.

Thanks for that Stevie, I'm looking forward to reading it - although some of the emails I've been getting today...

Hi Gamaliel

Thanks for your usual clarity. Its helps focus my mind.

[...]

We'll have a chat to ensure we are singing from the same hymn and to discuss any potential staging.

Thanks again

Cheers

A Manager

Later on another person, separately, said 'to make sure we are singing the same song'. Still, I'm looking forward to that potential staging. Sounds like it shd be fun.

Thanks everyone.

Looks like a lot of people want to secretly join a choir happen to also work in management.

Thanks for that link Stevie.

i am glad it was fun! it would have been so nice to be there, i shall hold out hope for the next.

How about a drink next week? or is everyone away?

I'm away till Friday.

I'm away till Friday.

That should not have posted twice (twice).

Might Thur 29th be a good day for this? Would be nice if anyone is about.

Could potentially do monday 26th, too. Confirm in a week.

Yep, I'm up for this. Either date, but I'd probably prefer the Thursday.

Noted. Royal Oak again, wdn't have it anywhere else by this point :-)

Think woof was keen on the FAP as well, but I think he's away for a couple of weeks. Not that it need affect anything of course, but he did say it wld be good to have one. Good to see Stevie drumming up custom on the london thread as well!

yes, i will not be able to make it, but there in spirit, complaining about James Wood, Michael Wood, etc.

Will mutely thump the table shd their names be mentioned.

George Wood?

Ron Wood?

Roy Wood?

Royal Oak? Ou est le Royal Oak.

Actually Thursdays are out, but still.

Borough. Down a back street - Tabard Street I think. V nice pub.

We haven't actually named a date for this, have we?

no.

er, 'Thur 29th'.

woof/PJ Miller - would the next Thursday be better for this? Alternatively, can come along on Tue/Wed this week (in fact wd be able to stay a bit longer if that were the case - probbly need to be off by 9.30 this Thur). Not sure if Gamaliel or PF would be able to make that.

That Tuesday might be difficult but other than that I'm easy.

Wednesday is cool w/me.

let's make it one night this coming week. I can do most of them, at the moment.

Wednesday's fine by me.

Wed 28th then!

Best not to count on me at the moment (not at my best), but Thursdays are always out.

Just recovered from fluey roughness - see you tomorrow, round 6.30-7.

I'll leave a book at the table in case anyone else wants to come along and doesn't know anyone here - Female Man by Joanna Russ.

Enjoy! Sad I cannot be there.

(Wood ranking:

Roy>Victoria>Ron>Michael=James>Elijah.

I don't know about George.)

any ETAs anyone?

had to work late, puncture, just missed a train, half seven? Still, at least I've got Ada to read.

I have heard that Ada can improve just about any situation.

I have been very busy but am planning to head out now - so hang on there?

we'll hold the fort.

we did the FAP.

I enjoyed the FAP.

Did you come to any conclusions?

That you were missed :-)

Especially when we touched on M.Wood's article on the Wake.

Fizzles, re Stevenson at the Edinburgh Writers' Museum - a free gem:
http://burnsscotland.com/tours/edinburgh/

http://www.qype.co.uk/place/418423-The-Writers-Museum-Edinburgh

a few coments about it on that page.

Thanks pinefox! I'm going to try and get there before the end of the year. Sedulous = 1.assiduous or diligent 2. painstaking

ORIGIN L sedulus from se dolo without deception, hence in earnest.

Is actually an essay by RLS, didn't know that, makes more sense for Wyndham Lewis to have called him that now.

How about a drink next Thurs at the...Royal Oak :-)

(Jan 19th)

sounds… plausible.

also, ilb awaits return of the pinefox

Suspect he may have got slightly lost en route to the sandbox and possibly given up ilx for dead, or at least semi-vegetative state, to be checked in a couple of years maybe.

Oh yeah, drink. Drink is good. Any day of the week. That day? Yes! That day!

he'll be back I'm sure, have a vague recollection of wanting to do this pre-xmas before ilx went into a coma.

See you next thurs.

astonished to find ILX exists

hope to see some of you tomorrow. be about from 5.30-6pm

apologies to the pinefox for assuming he mightn't have the nose to truffle out a book FAP. Folly on my part. I'll be there with a copy of Walter de la Mare's Collected Perms. Probably from about quarter to seven, not later, possibly dependent on what time a colleague from work whose company I'm rather keen on gets her train. We talk books. It's preparation!

so this is tonight ???

Yes!

I'd have been there regardless tbh. Since xyzzz__ mentioned it last week had game pie on my mind.

Will prob be there about 6.30-7. V conveniently timed this fap, need to do some Dickens street-tramping research round that end of se1 anyway.

feel like i should show my face, i hope they're doing their famous suet pudding.

Be great to see you ledge.

Fizzles: this is the sound of Stevie (vocals) and me (lead guitar) playing a gig years ago.

http://soundcloud.com/pinefox/midday-moon-live

Thanks pinefox, I'll have a listen later. I had a good time last night, although I'm feeling slightly tired today, despite sticking to mild.

The book that became becalmed trying to remember wrt malign pastoral was The Village that Died for England by Patrick Wright, a previous FAP mention by Stevie in fact. (Cowper Powys clan crop up in it).

Will put together a hit list of Kipling stories later, ledge, when I'm not... I just had to do a staff presentation and I felt very distant indeed.

Cheers - just had a look for Walter de la Mare short stories to freeload, no joy online but there's one collection in an SE library that I can reserve.

That mild is pretty heavy btw.

Would love to attend your FAP, but I neither live in London nor do I have much time to read right now and on top of that I think I have developed an allergy to beer! Plus I am secretly worried that your real life personalities will not live up to your sparkling internet personae so I think I will just sit in New York listening to the pinefox's SoundCloud channel instead.

Wine drinkers are also welcome James.

Good to see all the usual suspects again. Plus Tom D. making an appearance and telling me about Peer Raben's music.

I don't want to approve of anyone's beer allergy but it is a rare delight, for me though no one else, to think of an erudite well-read New Yorker listening to my SoundCloud channel.

Outstanding business from previous FAP. Ledge, I found my colleague's email reporting the original bit of output:

harry: my first line of my first bit of output yesterday was 'fizzles the chimp accused of murder'

sadly no record of what it was supposed to be. will continue investigations.

Fizzles is innocent!

I didn't do it, I swear.

in phone, can't find places to eat in London. Good places to go in London Bridge at this time anyone?

as in cant find the London restaurants thread. not cant find anywhere to eat in London.

london restaurants

^thread

thx xyzzz - ended up in the Royal Oak!

game pie

lol yeah Fizzles there wasn't much about London Bridge that I could see from my search.

pork scratchings as it happens. not quite the ticket, as my nan wd say.

you know this weather gets me thinking

good

beer, shirt sleeves, books.

that's it. beer, mellow evenings, shirt sleeves, london, books, talk.

good

great, ws gonna revive at the w/end!

When?

Next week would be good for me (my last week working in London before becoming a full-time home-counties daycare dad)?

That's ideal. Not Thursday though.

Or Wednesday.

Monday/Tuesday would be good for me I think: things altogether hairier towards the weekend.

Like that previous tenant of my building Virginia Woolf, I can do Monday or Tuesday.

Tuesday?

good for me.

OK!

btw Royal Oak is hardly an outdoors pub (assuming it's not thunderstorming by Tue pm anyway). does ILB FAP need a special alternative spring / summer venue?

A new era for ILB FAPs may be upon us!

If we want to stay in the area, The George?

Curious, that doesn't show up on FancyAPint's list of pubs with garden. I don't love the george tbh - how about this (which I've never tried): http://fancyapint.com/Pub/2175 ?

yeah, got my reservations about the george too, but it seemed easy. But we can do better than easy! Ship looks good.

*sniffs suspiciously* I guess that might be ok. Also not a fan of The George.

working round here this week, something about the combo of the area, its pubs and the weather really makes me want to sit and drink and read for a while after I get off. And at lunch.

if the ship is bad we can stroll up to the george. via the lord clyde and the blue eyed maid - ilb crawl!

BELUSHI'S

Happy to go w/ship.

It'll probably rain anyway :-)

Ship is fine, obv. Yes, it'll be freezing.

Agreed, woof - god this weather gives you a thirst. The thought of sunlit daytime pubs brings tears of WANT to my eyes.

Reckon I'll make this at about 8 tomorrow, what with a meeting inconveniently scheduled for 6:30.

will be there uncharacteristically early I suspect, as I'm dodging the toad work in the afternoon.

"Think of being them"

yeah it's great thanks.

As long there is no madness (coming in from Hemel) I'll be there round 6-6.30

The Madness Out of Hemel

An unexpected addition to the Cthulu mythos.

spent a happy hour, on friday, reading the spoils of poynton by henry james, in the sunshine, by the duck pond, in queen's park, glasgow.

Anyone want to have a read of Englischer Fussball, the book that Ismael sent me? He said to pass it on, but there haven't been any takers. I'll bring it along just in case.

Unfortunately I won't be able to make this after all :(

will be there uncharacteristically early I suspect, as I'm dodging the toad work in the afternoon.

Hiding in the road like a Pasolini toad?

I might pop along as I actually have more of a connection to books these days, besides occasionally getting pished with a load of blokes who read 'em. Depends on how the day goes.

toading in west london, there about 6.30.

Looking into career as loblolly-man.

A Fap of Literary Losels.

xpost. I had to google it. I haven't knowingly heard Chariot Choogle. I'll listen to it later and let you know. it certainly sounds more appealing than sitting in our head office pretending to work.

just staring out of the window dreaming of drinking and fapping.

I can get there for 6 but unbelievably for ILB I don't have a B with me in case I need to pass some time on my own. Might have to hang around with the toad for another half an hour, at least he has the internet.

I am looking forward to this FAP
though it is a pity Stevie won't make it!

I can probably get there for six, ledge. Can't provide the variety of the Internet, can stare moodily into pint.

xpost yeah seconded - wd've been good to see Stevie before he retires to his happy garden state.

will aim for 6 then.

I am heading for the Ship now. Hope you are there!

I thoroughly enjoyed that. so nice to see pinefox tom d ledge woof xyzzz. it's always a highlight of the year.

I thoroughly enjoyed all the drunken impersonations of a poetry lecturer i have no knowledge of.

fuck the head on me this morning tho.

I had a thought while awake at 5am which was: the relative phrasal unmemorability of Hill's dense verse, a point on which there was a degree of agreement, might actually be something he shares with ... cue Fizzles impression ... "POETICS". I don't really find 'poetics' stuff memorable.

I remember looking at the Lanchester book together and finding that it was just as bad as has been said, but if anything it seemed even more irritating than I thought for its multicultural-London obsession.

At 8am on the corner of Pepys Road, Shahid opened the corner shop on the corner of the road. Mine, all mine, he thought, looking proudly around the tins of inedible English biscuits.

The greatest compliment you could pay to all those who helped Fabrice Muamba to come back from the 78 minutes when, in the frank words of the Bolton Wanderers's doctor Jonathan Tobin, he was "in effect dead" was the sight of a FA Cup tie played out in exactly the spirit you would hope for between any two teams anywhere in any circumstances. Once the tributes to Muamba and his progress were paid the occasion swiftly segued into a routine game. For everybody who was here for the original match ten days ago, there could be no greater symbol of recovery.

As the players warmed up in the evening sunshine and the crowd filtered into White Hart Lane chattering and cheerfully greeting their friends, beneath the superficial bonhomie was an appreciative relief that everybody was able to gather again for this rematch in an atmosphere of optimism.

The home fans sang of Wembley. It was only the little band of visitors, with their clarion call refrain in honour of Muamba, who added a layer of extraordinary emotion once the game was underway. In the 41st minute of the match, the time when Muamba fell on this turf, the Bolton supporters began to chant the name of Bolton's No6.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/mar/27/tottenham-bolton-fa-cup-fabrice-muamba

That was fun. Some of later stages a bit disconnected. Sorry if I was a bore or a boor at any point. I am aware that others might not have found shouting in geoffrey hill voice as much fun as myself & fizzles.

I am agreed on Hill's phrasal unmemorability, I think - it could be just because I don't read him that much (and one doesn't bump into his verse quoted in other books a lot) so nothing has stuck, but it feels more generally like a failing or limit of a certain kind of cerebral modernist verse.

I can't even imagine having the authority to do an impression of him.

dont remember the presence of any boors or bores (if you can't name a mad relative, you are the mad relative maybe). But then again I don't remember sending that post last night either. Highlight of the year!

Still, did have a good time.

Doing off-beam Geoffrey Hill impressions definitely a part of this I will apologise to no one.

I heard a more recognisable Paul Mason impression from pf as we headed south of the river (and beyond for me).

Great stuff, see you all soon!

drink for the summer - which I'm told will be finally here - can do Tue or Thur, usual place and time.

you know, i might actually be in london.

Let us know which day when you know thomp.

THOOOOOOMP.

Shit, just found out a really good recital on Thursday - do go ahead if it must be but i think that means tuesday is the only feasible day for me (also out on Wednesday, wish i could cancel that).

I can do tuesday but not thursday.

errrrr i am in london tuesday evening i think BUT i might be stuck at a friend's poetry reading /:

and despite my drunken hallooing, this week's a bit difficult.

ok if thomp is stuck and unable to come and fizzles can't attend I'd suggest next week. not sure which day yet.

doing this as i assume people are off somewhere in august.

If you mean by "off", brooding alone by the runnel, then yes.

you are never alone on ilx :)

revive this later in the week

A few weeks later...Tue or wed next week (12th/13th) ok for this?

Sorry 11th/12th - can't do thur.

I'm out of the country next week, not that this shd stop a FAP. I'm also never ever drinking again ever. (but this may change).

It will, it will...I'll leave it till late Sept - early autumn FAP!

ran into xyzzz (yes, in a bookshop) yesterday, serendipity demands bump.

Hope the film was good; Gaga was excellent.

Film ws so so - worth a watch.

bump this again soon

How about this week? Can do Tue to Thurs at the mo (also Mon but that's a crap night to drink)

That will probably change for me (one of the eves to be booked) - but go ahead and let me know any prefs and we'll work from there.

Tues or thurs good for me.

Am easy.

ok Weds is out for me.

Lets go for Tues. Probably be at Royal Oak around 6.30 for this late late summer early autumn fap.

See you then!

I think this works for me so I will see you there.

for anyone who wants to come along -

http://fancyapint.com/Pub/london/the-royal-oak/1228

come along!

That was a lot of fun.

Many plans

Enjoyed this very much, as usual - seemed to cover a lot. so much stuff to get through. good!

Four books added to my reading list, always a good thing.

Books, ideas for threads, crazy projects, lots of laughs, beer and great pie...tx all, do it again soon!

having moaned how it was impossible to get - out next week:

http://amazon.co.uk/dp/1848315856

this ILB thing is still going?
I feel I have not seen it for a long, long time.
do you still have FAPs and things?

― the pinefox, Friday, 8 February 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey welcome back pinefox. yeah, we're still ticking along. Last FAP was the autumn, probably due another one soonish.

― woof, Friday, 8 February 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was on the current reading thread. I think for much of winter and spring this year Thursday evenings will be the only day I will ever be able to make it, if at all.

Which is to say that you all should organise a day.

Thought I should inform as the person who has organised the last few.

Yes, FAP - and I'm sure we can do a Thursday evening too, at least to maximise the possibility of an xyzzzz__. Not good for me until the 28th tho. March looking clearer, in that way calendars further down the line do.

half-hearted hungover reading in library today, going to watch the spurs newcastle match instead i think. does mean beer will be the first thing to pass my lips today, but i'll just have to jump that hurdle through grit and determination.

I'm sure you'll do fine.

I had a dry roasted peanut first to line my stomach.

tips for 2013.

would be up for this! haven't consumed anything yet today. *dreads fridge*

come along! definitely a case of the more merrier. I knew before I even got up that the fridge wd be a pointless exercise in futility, hence what Martin Amis once memorably described as his "breakfastless face". I did make myself a remarkably sorry cheese sandwich for lunch which is lying in wait after the football.

Ok I'll def revive this for the first Thurs of March and see how everyone is feeling then.

2-1

How is 14th march looking?

Good for me.

Great see you there, prob 7.30-ish onwards.

Aye gwan then.

pretty sure I am free, will be there.

Think we've got a couple of early fallers - xyzzzz__ will be there though, 6:30ish he says, and I hope to be there but might not be.

new blood needed

There are a couple of lurkers who've asked me about coming. Maybe worth getting them along. Don't actually think I'm going to be able to make this now. :(

Sorry. Blanked on a fucking stupid thing I have to do w/ gf this evening. wld so much rather be shooting the bookshit than doing what I'm doing (it involves Swarovski crystals fyi)

Well there will be other faps, Swarovski crystals *googles* = once in a lifetime

Thanks for coming along ledge, hoping to schedule another one when its spring proper.

a FAP happened?

I am out of town.

a minifap happened.

anyone interested in a couple of weeks?

yes, I am. Definitely. Haven't had much ILB time lately but fancy a fap.

great! Thursday is my only good night for the week (as per above, this has gone into the summer too). I'll post at the weekend, should be usual times and the same place.

Thursday the 20th right? That's good for me, can't do 13th.

likewise not really been around ILB but i'll try and make it this time.

Any this month are good for me - so 20th is good, yeah. xp = not bene on ILB much either, I'll revive this nearer the time to check :)

This Thurs => still good for me.

yep, same here.

Yeah, I may have to be a bit late, but should be able to make it.

i'm oot

Yes, should be about from 7pm onwards.

Should get there between 8 and 9.

I'll be sitting there with a book from as soon as possible.

Royal Oak in Borough for anyone who fancies coming along!

shame ledge is stuck in his spelltower, but we'll struggle on as best we can regardless.

That was fun but too brief.

We should adopt agile fap approach from now on. Stand-ups.

Risks have been mitigated against with another milstone now completed!

Well done team!!

Hi all, 'nother fap for autumn? Around for the next couple of Thursdays (then only from mid-Nov onwards as I am out of the country).

on for next thursday, but not the one after

In glasgow this Thursday, Thursdays after that shd be free tho.

Two FAPs in a row then for me hooray :)

I'll be @ Royal Oak reading away - might see you both or anybody else - in the eve sometime, usually from 7-8 onwards.

won't be able to make this thursday now, though I would like to catch up & talk platonov etc xyzzz - should we try for something a little larger mid-november? Be feeling the cold by then, royal oak will warm us up well.

Indeed - mid-Nov is good.

Sounds good. Will also put some Platonov under my belt.

Back now so can do this coming Thurs.

this thurs not looking good for me, nor the two after that.

:-(

Can do it… I think… but shall we hold off for ledge, early december maybe?

Yes we'll do that.

V kind. Will hold off the first two Thursdays against all comers.

can't do the 12th, but if we can all do the 5th that'd be great.

Still on for the 5th?

Good for me.

Great, see you then.

I'm there like dan dare.

I'll be along, but maybe only for a drink or two – I'm just shaking a nasty cold, don't want to undo my days of healthy living. But definitely along.

I'll be making the trip, despite being barely literate, what time is kick-off? Don't want to get too bladdered though.

I was pretty bladdered last night so will be erring on the abstemious side of things. I can prob make it for 6 or any time thereafter.

Around 6pm for me too.

Not me tonight, will try to get to the next one.

I'll try - tho work is going to keep me late tonight, so cd be difficult.

I think I'll be towards seven.

that was great - arrived late, but militant Marxist monks, london boundary variations, subtitle error song lyrics, single sex v co-ed magic schools, Cornelius Cardew, Nigel Kneale etc (loads of other stuff as well) made it worthwhile. great to see everyone, esp gravel puzzleworth - a new face in hell - amongst welcome others. v v enjoyable.

Suffering this morning. I blame Thatchers.

Woof I hope you're feeling better. tx for turning up at all in the first place.

Reading about Rosicrucianism this morning.

no, really annoyed a) to have been sick and b) to have miscalculated my sickness so that I thought I could socialise. It looked like fun! Conversation sounds A1, just what I would have wanted. But I did make the right decision - on the upward slope now, would be GOING DOWN if I'd lived it up last night.

Joining the Rosicrucians this morning. Apologies for bailing earliest even though I have the least excuse. Thx to TomD for the new display name.

So you took Leonard Cohen's advice then?

"if you don't become the ocean
you'll be seasick
every day"?

"Why don't you join the Rosicrucians,
they can give you back your hope"

This was a very good time - thanks to all for having me! V. exciting to put faces to famous names, see pictures of things, confirm universal applicability of 'prog' as adjective.

http://theidiotandthedog.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/img_1284.jpg

The Invisible College of the Rose Cross Fraternity (from the Speculum Sophicum Rhodo-Stauroticum)

Looks pretty visible to me.

http://bayimages.net/images/22k/fountain-and-temple-rosicrucian-egyptian-museum-21945.jpg

^^^^very very visible in San Jose, as discussed at FAP and none of you believed me!

But then again, Rosicrucians in California don't really seem to do much except run esoteric bookshops and Egyptian Museums.

p.s. Thank you for being so welcoming to this Ghost of FAPs Past; I had been worried that it would have been impolitic to turn up, but ended up having a brilliant time, would FAP again etc.

Obviously I wasn't there, and maybe the conversation took this in, but there are opportunities to Rosicruce closer to home if you want, apparently: http://transpont.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/peckham-rosicrucians.html

I was unaware of this last FAP but I remembered recently that this FAP thing used to happen so I suggest a FAP.

I was just thinking that we should have another FAP again soon!

Lets go for mid-march?

I have no life; I will FAP whenever (FAP forever) but I'm always in town on Thursdays so that would be best?

yes, this sounds good to me. Mid-March works, Thursdays generally good.

Lets go for Thurs 13th March at the same place and then various people (includes me) can confirm nearer the time.

yep, full-on busy atm, but things shd settle down soon.

Yay! Sounds good. Will pencil it in. Hope to see you all there. With dolmens on.

OK people I will see you at that pub for that FAP if possible

Still good for this next thurs.

Tim if you are reading - are you coming?

I will come, and if I successfully manage to contain my surliness you can tell me all about Sas Bo Bip.

:)

I'm in. Got a post-work drink I should do, so between 7 & 8.

See you all later.

Not sure I'll be able to come along tonight, sadly. Sadly for me, rather than for you, obv.

I think I also cannot attend the FAP.

I'm in. once I've tommy-gunned my entire office down.

It would be nice to be at a FAP, outside, tonight.

That didn't go well last time we tried. (Won't be able to make it myself tonight mafraid.)

sad face @ Tim.

and ledge. yeah I remember we got all ahead of ourselves with the summer weather last year and ended up dragging our sorry somewhat cold asses back to the Royal Oak.

pinefox and ledge are lubberly knaves.

What happened at the FAP?

Beer was drunk. Game pie was eaten. (Not by me, natch.) Agile Stand-ups were hated. The difference between Where and Having established. Kate Mosse dissed, at length. (And examples required of post-Name Of The Rose library mysteries.) The form and formalism of Rom-Coms addressed. St Eustice (not actually St Eustice, but TBC) had his feet dried by seals. Whether certain audiences were ready for Strokes-shagging was not established. Everyone thinks I should go and work running an international policing organisation's databases. I'm sure there was more, but I left early claiming exhaustion, at having walked all the way from Bloomsbury in the sun.

Oh, and the secret history of the gentrification of "Brixton Village" and the not-real England-ness of the "Village" real estate agent construction.

I thought it was a success. succinctly encapsulated by BB.

See you all in the (world cup) summer.

I am far too ruined today for how little I drank. :(

woof - what's that anthology of anglo-saxon poetry we talked about again?

Fairly certain it's this one we were discussing

http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/a-choice-of-anglo-saxon-verse/9780571228362

Thanks!

xp yes - it's Richard Hamer's A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse - Faber - it's been around forever in different covers (but I never see it much). Also mentioned Beowulf: A Glossed Text in Penguin Classics.

What was the Tsvetaeva you had, xyzzzz__?

got a bit of a head this morning tbf.

Fizzles - http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Captive-Spirit-Marina-Tsvetaeva/dp/0875011772

i ate a lot of lentils when I got in. I feel surprisingly ok. stomach's a bit funny.

Oh, yes, friendly reminder this morning. Arthur Quiller-Couch: Not English*

*Cornish

;-)

mid-june, maybe Thurs 5th or 12th?

I won't be able to do this during the world cup..

Seeing Lear on the 5th, 12th is doable.

give him my regards.

both don't look too bad for me tho' I am sure I am forgetting something.

I've been going to Tabard street once a week these last couple of weeks to read more - was under a mountain of ILL to finish. Feel really comfortable for reading there.

Aim for the 12th then..

won't be able to make 12th but will raise a glass wherever I am.

ah, shame.

Of course if others drop out I can always move it to July.

coincidentally the 12th is not looking so good for me now - leaving drinks for a friend and future reuters malaysia correspondent.

Cool, I'll move this to July then - hope to see all of you then.

Still on?

For sure, about on Thurs 24th or 31st.

yep, can also do either.

down for tomorrow - fizzles is about.

Tom D.? anybody else?

I think… yes? I may have to check.

Cool, will be there tomorrow. Need a drink (don't we all really these days) plus I'll finish this book I'm on.

Probably should also say all fappers, old or new, ilb or ilx, are v welcome and we meet in the Royal Oak in Borough.

aye gwan then.

I'm all about booze not books but hopefully can make it

might struggle to make this - lousy work drinks, which I'm going to try and wriggle out of as early as is decent. also hot and sleepless night means only book I feel capable of discussing is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I might be available. Shall I go?

I am not going to shine (we decided last night I should get up at 4:30 to chaperone my stepdaughter to the breakfast programme of failing TV channel London Live & now I am at work and feeling v v spacey and coffee-sick), but I will try to make it for a bit.

You should definitely come Pinefox.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I have a hunger for PIE!!

See anybody/everybody later.

yes, come pinefox. i shall claim a Very Important Meeting of Minds to try and get out of this work bullshit this evening.

or say I'm going to the Poesie Internationale Expo.

PIE meant something very different when Leon Brittan was (a very vigilant and diligent... honestly) Home Secretary.

Woof and Fizzles, thank you very much for kindly saying that you'd like me to attend. I appreciate it.

Be great for lurkers/readers, contributors who have not been to one, everybody to attend @ Royal Oak. I am reading a book called KAPUTT that I'll leave on the table.

Can anyone say when they might be at the pub?

It's a question for the ages, that.

I hope I'm going to be there by half past six, but I fear I might not be there anymore by half past seven.

eight, I hope.

Should be there by 5.30 - 6.

I am thinking of possibly going to the FAP early, and hoping to see Tim.

I might possibly then have to leave early too.

Looking more like 7 for me, annoyingly.

Tim, do you still expect then to leave by 7:30?

Yes, yes I do.

apologies for not making it - mixture of workness and cancelled trains meant it would've been half ten by the time I got there. hope good time was had by all. missed pie.

No worries - there will always be another sometime.

woof - this is the book I was telling you about - http://www.amazon.com/Mausoleum-Thirty-Seven-Ballads-History-Progress/dp/0916354059

Do you have the Enszenburger Modern European Poets, Julio? I think I may have a spare of that one.

Yeah I do, its terrific.

I am looking for Ungaretti, if you happen to have that..

Thanks for that xyzzz - knew I wouldn't be able to remember. I was recommending the Zbigniew Herbert one iirc.
That was fun. I enjoy rambling + BSing + some book talk. And drink.
Mentioned -
Penman on Fassbinder & Football:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/07/14/ian-penman/fassbinder-the-football-fan/
Band of TLS subs:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2009/06/spirit-of-play-will-the-tls-band-get-to-number-one.html

Tx I'll look out for Herbert.

(xp) I posted on an RWF thread his Top 10 greatest footballers of all time, from memory I think Helmut Haller was no.1

Thanks for the FAP, ILB people.

There was some good talk.
Anti-rockism, artists who do and don't write their own songs, love and loss, record shops in seaside towns, British Catholic fiction of the mid-C20.

And on the way back with Woof - the peculiar criticism of Tom Paulin, and Paul Morley, two great gifts for impressions at a time when impression quality control might not be at its best.

Woof insisted at one point: MARK SINKER IS IN WITH THE LRB NOW

haha I enjoy *insisting* especially in state of drunken (Penman/Sinker) confusion

I also enjoyed the Morley & Paulin impressions. I wish had a decent Greer (ideally Germaine, but Bonnie might do) – we could have given the Lewisham line a full tribute to the 90s Late Review.

tbh I felt (after 4 pints) that my Paulin was rusty but my Morley at times was so dead-on it might as well have been Morley.

Anti-rockism, artists who do and don't write their own songs, love and loss, record shops in seaside towns, British Catholic fiction of the mid-C20.

Don't forget Tim's secret other life as an air-sea rescue pilot.

Yes !!!

Wasn't this Mark in the LRB? http://www.lrb.co.uk/v13/n13/letters#letter5

I hopey not.

Julio I do have the Ungaretti, but not a spare, sadly.

I took a pic (two, actually) of my PMEPs, and loaded them to Flickr for your perusal, damned if I can work out how to post a link though. Maybe these will work:

https://m.flickr.com/photos/37872438@N00/14745397534/
https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/37872438@N00/14744574171/

But maybe not.

Well done Tim!

We have all forgotten to mention the most extensive and heated discussion of the night: Amelia Fletcher's betrayal of the radical aesthetics of 'My Best Friend' and 'Pastels Badge' in accepting an OBE.

And the fugue state induced by 'Pastels Badge'.

Looks good Tim, something to aspire to :)

See people might want another round :-)

Thing is I may not be able to turn up to the autumn one but lets set a date down. How is next Thursday 30th.

can't do next thursday, but am up for this. weather is making me feel pubby.

No to Thursday 30th. Can't do that.
Thursday 23rd, I can make it by about 9:30 if anyone is still around, but that's a bit late to get to a FAP.
Basically Thursdays not good for me.

we can surely shift it from a thursday. mondays and tuesdays unlikely to be good for me for the foreseeable - so a wednesday? my november wednesday's are looking empty.

5th November then?

i can do the 5th yes.

I could make a comment like 'expect fireworks', but that would be too much laboured facetiousness, even for me.

I'm not sure I have the money to FAP ;_;

I think it's got past the point where it's beyond just 'cheeky' to nurse half pints until someone takes pity on me.

5th November is not a good FAP night as it is fireworks night.

Ok, so how about the 4th Nov.

can't do 4th or 5th now unfortunately. what about <drumroll> Wednesday 12th?

I'm ok with that.

I'm not

LOL

haha we'll get there.

25th December?

Tom D - when can you make it? 19th November?

Yes, that's fine. Now poll on how long it will take for someone to object to this date.

I can do this date!

now waiting for a ledge-shaped spanner to come flying over the ILB wall and into the greenhouse.

http://i.imgur.com/emnwoFRl.jpg

nah that should be fine.

Massive spanner.

spanner or no spanner it'll be winter at this rate so Weds 19th it is. Same place.

see you then.

If I have a job by then, I may turn up. And try to stop conflating Mr Kent and Mr Kant.

I should be ok for this. Looking forward to some more drunken insistence on confused points.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/Spaniard_lennon.jpg

Very impressed by the spanner picture.

On Wed 19th Nov I can only make it by say 9:30pm - will do so if others are still going to be present.

Should be, most FAPs (all of them that I can think of) have lasted till closing time.

Though not all of the FAPers have.

ledge+spanner is an excellent photo. feel it should be going out as an ILB Christmas card.

I was at the Royal Oak last night!
Can confirm that the pale ale remains high quality as did the haggis, neaps and tatties I tried.