the diarists

Bought a book in Chapters near O'Connell Street.
It's an anthology featuring extracts from Brit diarists over the past five hundred years.
As per usual I find myself ordinately influenced by the various contributors.
I am too suggestible.
Many of the entries feature a curiously British and vaguely joyless eroticism.
Denton Welch homosexualling around London.
Good old Denton.
My feminist cousin Pauline used to always give me a Denton Welch book whenever she thought I was getting too confident in my masculinity.
He's still got  it.
Samuel Pepys coyly switching into French or Spanish for the indiscrete bits.
A chap called George Gissing meditating on his wife who seems to be the absolute beyotch of 1898 dear.
Elias Ashmole writing about the pustules on his bum in 1686.
It's all quite paradoxically life affirming, joyless or not.
And there is joy too.
A certain Joan Wyndham writing about a middle aged man trying to shock her in the 1940's, and she excitedly telling him to go ahead, and then how disappointed she felt when he merely asked her could he pee in her sink, and she laughing herself silly, and he annoyed that she wasn't shocked.
From her other extracts, I'd say Joan Wyndham could drone for England, but this bit was elevated prose.
And John Wesley the founder of a Protestant sect, proving unusually likeable and surprisingly Christian, visiting condemned prisoners and seeing them safely home.
This afternoon I was noticing everything through the lens of the diarists.
Their styles and voices are with me now.
It's hard to write as myself.
On the tram into town I sat opposite a rather appealing blonde girl.
A copy of Fifty Shades Of Grey peeped from her handbag.
(Samuel Peeped? - Ed note)
Fifty Shades of Grey is a domination porno concoction currently being hyped to the nines by the publishing companies.
They're apparently trying to debauch the middle classes.
They'll repent at leisure.
This sort of thing can achieve a short term sensation but overall I feel sure it causes people to read less.
I think it's likenable to the actions of the film companies and the music promoters.
Their most exploitative sensationalisms produce short term profits and long term bankruptcy.
Each Lady Gaga, or Rianna, or mindlessly marketed Hollywood cinematic explosion fest merely contributes to a sort of burning out, a moral debasement, of the popular imagination.
A pornogrification.
Lust is ueseless.
The eye grows tired.
Her promising reading material notwithstanding, the blonde on the tram remained demure all the way into town, not so much as favouring me with the merest ghost of a sado masochistic leer.
Later this evening, I sat opposite a black lady in Starbucks of Dawson Street.
She was wearing very high heels and a very short skirt.
Her beauty was simple and confident.
Her splendid form positively undulated as I sat down.
Lovely lovely eyes.
Eyebrows hairier than a werewolf.
With a wary optimism I saw she was reading Fifty Shades Of Grey.
My optimism increased as she shot me a dangerous look and gave a surreptitious jiggle.
In fact she kept up the jiggling in a most friendly manner in my general direction for about an hour.
Occasionally varying the pace to absent mindedly stroke her legs, just to remind herself they were there perhaps.
The only intermission came when the Muslim waiter arrived in our immediate vicinity and banged about our tables for about ten minutes on the pretext of tidying up.
I suppose she'd inadvertently worked him into a state too from across the cafe, and he needed to work off his frustrations with a bit of chair scraping and table wiping.
She ceased her ministrations while he was present.
Women are exquisite, adaptable and indeed amazing creatures, but no woman alive can continue an onanistic flirtation while a Muslim is banging tables at her shoulder.
It breaks the spell.
When the Muslim retired, the black lady resumed her sensual dance with me.
I suppose I might have actually talked to her.
It didn't happen.