This Be The Verse

This Be The Verse – Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

 

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

 

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

 

Wikipedia entry here Philip_Larkin

Flying the friendly skies…

If this ad is correct (and holy Zeus, let it be so) at some point Continental actually had a bar on its planes. A place to drink and cavort with fellow travellers. A place to tell merry tales and shoot the breeze. Imagine all the high flying 70′s bon vivants laughing into their Singapore Slings, telling stories of corporate high jinks.

My sixteen year old self hates me…

Every few years I take up skateboarding again. The first thing I do is rush out and buy a deck – usually from a salesperson that looks like he’d rather shiv me with an Allen key than serve me.

‘Is Christian Hosoi still skateboarding?’ I’ll enquire politely. ‘How high can you ollie?’ At this point the salesperson usually scratches a truck against his temple and stares at me blankly

Finding these photos* on the web are partly to blame for the last bout of skateboard lunacy. And they go some of the way towards explaining how I found myself laid out on the sidewalk in Windsor – a 31 year old with a gaping hole in his ankle – waiting for the sixteen-year-old version of myself to skate past and beat the shit out of me.

*Not sure who took these shots. Please let me know so I can reference them and put in a link.