How Kenneth Williams Spoilt A Susan Sontag Essay, Why Broadway Can Prove West Ham Fans Don't Have High Expectations And Other Ramblings Of Another Too Early On A Sunday Morning Insomnia Post

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well as I'm writing this it's 5:56am on Easter Sunday morning. I'm not working today, I have no real plans and yet here I am awake. Insomnia rules again.

Have finished Susan Sontag's Penguin pocket book of essays I bought last week. All very interesting and intellectual. Her essay on "Camp" clearly showed her knowledge and intellectual breath. Trouble is, when I think of "Camp" in relation to a manner of behaviour I think of someone like Kenneth Williams or  Larry Grayson which she probably never heard of being American. So it was difficult to look at it in a more reflective, calmer mode.

That of course is my problem. My other problem is that she is far more cleverer than I am. When (and not if) I approach a Susan Sontag book again, I have to get my brain into fifth gear from page one. That as a reader is my responsibility. Whatever a Susan Sontag book is, I've learnt that she demands attention from page one.

West Ham won yesterday (hooray) but a lot of focus has been put on the club recently due to it's poor performance in previous games (including against Swansea City, which living in South Wales I was reminded of constantly) and the protests against the board.

When the mainstream media looked at the situation they got people, including ex manager Harry Redknapp (a manager who I did respect when he was at West Ham. After all under him you didn't have to look at the bottom of the table to find out where your team was) who agreed with the idea that the club's supporters had high expectations.

Rubbish.

West Ham fans are not glory seekers. They are fans because they believe passionately in their team. All they expect is for the team to put in a shift. To make an effort. To do the best they can.

And if you don't believe me then I would refer you to Broadway and the origin of the West Ham familiar chant "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". What other chant anywhere in sports would have something like these lines referring to blowing bubbles.

"...just like my dreams they fade and die. Fortune's always hiding. I've looked everywhere"

Is this the song of a team supported by people with high expectations? No. We are West Ham supporters. We are realists. But we also care. And it's the fact that we care which is what confuses the media and ex players to think we have ideas above reality.

It's now 7:35am. The sun is actually shining. Wife/daughter are asleep. Perhaps we should go out. But wife has bought beef and is actually looking forward to cooking for lunch and, well, how can I argue with that?

Must admit I do enjoy riling right wing Americans with regard to gun control. After all the rest of the world thinks that their gun laws are mad and yet somehow they're right. Tell you what? They don't like me.

One of them pointed to a particular graph of homicide rates. Just four countries in the graph HE TWEETED were worse than America's. The rest were better than the USA.I wonder why. These people really are thick. Thick and with guns in their possession.

Well wife and daughter awake. So time to close off for now.

Until the next time.

The Brief Return Of The Bookshop, Penguin Paperbacks and A Quick Word About Greetings Cards

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Wasn't working today (Monday) so the wife had some tasks for me to do.

"Get some ham as long as there are no purple bits in it".

Which I did. Apparently though the look was so white it was inedible so in the bin it went.

"Why did you get me Wholemeal bread?"

"I thought you liked it".

"I like Wholegrain idiot"

Oops...

But the one thing I did do without any argument or comeback was to post a couple of birthday cards the wife bought the day before. I went to Penarth to get some stamps before posting the letters. Job done.

Now a quick aside about cards. My wife is not the only woman I know who takes an interest in cards to such a forensic level it's CSI in it's thoroughness. She particularly takes interest in the verse.

Unless the card is humorous (rarely find them funny) I however have no interest in reading the verse. As long as the event, the picture and to whom it's referring to are OK I'm happy enough. And just for the record, when I receive a card I read what someone has written but the verse could be in Chinese for all I care.

Anyway back to Penarth and I was walking past the local bookshop where I noticed a series of miniature Penguin Paperbacks called Penguin Modern being displayed in a sought of light olive green cover.

The bookshop is called Griffin Books and it's that type of quirky place which is slowly disappearing from the local high street so more power to it's elbow. Unfortunately as we currently live in an apartment in the hunt for a proper home my book buying ways have been curtailed so much as though I would like to as there is no space currently for me to be a regular customer.

Ditto my collection of Penguin paperbacks which is locked in storage as I speak. Held until the moment arrives when I can open them and start reading "properly" again. At the moment the Kindle holds sway. And although as I've explained before the e reader has it's uses, there is something about the quiet pleasure of turning a page the electronic usurper can't match.

But here was a situation where the books were just £1 each and they were pocket book size....so....yes I was tempted......and having succumbed I went in.

Looking at the shelf where these Penguin Modern books were (fifty of them) the shop assistant/manager mentioned that they had been popular and were selling well. I could see why. There were works from authors from many parts of the globe such as Italo Calvino and Chinua Achebe. Eventually though I plumped for these two.

Different

Ryszard Kapuscinski was a Polish journalist who wrote The Emperor about the last days of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia and a collection of journalism called The Soccer War which I have read as well as other works that I haven't. I read once a review of a book that questioned a lot of the veracity of his work but as I haven't got round to reading that book I've no idea how valid that critique was.

Susan Sontag is a writer I've never read (so many books so little time) but I'm looking forward to reading her.

And so I was thinking. You know what I could just collect them. They're only small and wouldn't take that much space. I'd also be supporting my local bookshop.

Then I'd realised I'd made a mistake. I remembered too late that I didn't collect Penguin paperbacks with coloured bindings after 2013, Because their new owners did not recognise trade unions. I was so excited to buy an actual physical book it just slipped my mind.

Obviously I won't buy any more. But I feel I owe a debt to the Griffin Bookshop even though they wouldn't know (or probably care). So this is what I'll do. They are arranging a poetry reading in May (including Carol Ann Duffy). If I can make it I'll go there. If not I'll buy a hardback book from the shop.

Support your local bookshop.

Until the next time.