Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Tidings from Twickenham

I am writing an off-the-cuff post (again) because I haven't written anything of substance here for quite some time, and I don't think I will be at leisure to finish any of the mini-essays I have in mind for this blog for some time to come.



Yes, I write to you from Twickenham, cradle of Gothic literature. In fact, I am booked (with a winsome friend) to attend a conference on Gothic literature in the local area, on the 2nd of December. If you read my blog, and you are also in attendance, do come over and talk to me.

I am off work, but still have to deal with a multitude of chores, not least of all the preparation for my upcoming trip to Japan. I depart these shores on the 26th of this month. I will be gone for about three weeks, and don't expect to have much time for blogging during that period.

Well, I have little to say that I can actually say in the time available to me, so I will simply attempt to bring the one or two (or zero point four) people who are actually interested, up to speed with events in my part of Twickenham.

I got up at about nine thirty today, which was earlier than I had expected, and immediately found that there were items of post awaiting me. One of them was to do with travel insurance, one was to do with the student loan that I still have not paid off, and one contained two copies of a German short story anthology in which I have a story. The original title is 'The Cypher', but it is translated as 'Die Nummer'. The original may be found on the Internet, if anyone is interested. Unfortunately, I cannot read German, but I shall, no doubt, compare the translation to the original later, just out of childish curiosity.

After breakfast and ablutions, I went out to post a form for travel insurance, buy a new phonecard, and so on. I have stopped buying the Post Office phonecards, because they're a rip-off. I went instead to a corner shop; they seem to be the phonecard specialists at the moment, selling a greater variety of phonecards than they do porn mags, or almost, anyway.

Then I popped by Langton's Bookshop, not to purchase any books, since I am pretty skint right now, but to talk to the man behind the counter, Mr Jon Foulkes, who has recently read about himself on my blog, and who I must, therefore, refer to carefully from now on. (Hello Jon.) But seriously, if you're the book type (rather than the rugby type) why not pop in to Langton's Bookshop and get a more personal service (oo-er!) than you'd ever get in one of the bigger bookshops, where they all stock the same list of celebrity books. (There you go, free advertising!)

Before finally returning home, I dropped in to Waitrose to buy some carrots, breakfast cereal and fruitbread. I also purchased a copy of The Independent, which I have been reading a great deal recently. I like the angle they have, and especially the fact that they seem more committed to covering environmental issues than other newspapers. The cover story was about a recent environmental report that indicates China as the biggest threat to the environment that the planet has ever known.



The story almost paralysed me with depression, only increasing my feeling that we're all doomed. It's my opinion that the Chinese government care even less about the environment (and even more about money) than the American governnment. There is very little concept of global community within Chinese culture, the concept of guanxi and its related notions placing emphasis on obligation to those with whom you have guanxi (or 'connection'), and leaving you to let everyone else go to Hell. That is my totally honest, non-PC opinion. Shoot me down in flames if you can and must. If the fate of the planet is in the hands of the Tibet-annexing, tiger-exterminating Chinese, then we are really doomed.

They write nice poetry, though.

Well, it's almost four in the afternoon, and I have to write e-mails to sort out what will be happening with the Twickenham writers' group while I'm away in Japan, and to make appointments, and so on and so forth.

I feel that I should leave you with some edifying message, some American-style 'moral of the story', or some BBC-style 'and finally' lighter news item. But really, what is there? I'm doomed, you're doomed. Let's face it, God made man in his own image, and that image is rapacious, arrogant evil. If we had any decency we'd all kill ourselves.

Well, talk to you later. Take care.

Q.