An apology and change

Dear readers,

First of all I would like to apologise for the lack of new entries. However this blog has not come to an end but entries will now be selected rather than me just splurging out every bit of bile or incomprehensible nonsense I have written in there during the last couple of years.

An aside...

It may be of interest to everyone that the subtitle or alternative title to My Ramblings is Drink induced scribblings. An apt title for some of the things I have written in the book and the state I was in when I wrote them. Looking back on some of the entries is very much like waking up from a night out and having a friend tell you what you did and said the night before.

Commentary: Relationships and sordid things

I will be the first person to admit that I have a predatory nature, but I find this passage slightly depressing to read because I feel that I haven't changed a lot since writing this entry. I still go out and get drunk and try it on with random girls. I believe that at the time I was frustrated that I didn't have a relationship then, but as I state the conditions didn't really exist, well not until this year, which is why I added the reference to one of my more recent entries about my most recent girlfriend Natalia. Frustratingly that broke up despite there being more favourable conditions.

I am embarrassed by the fact that at that point I believed that the ultimate goal of a relationship with a girl was to have sex with her and that everything else is just pointless. However I am glad that I no longer think like this. The only sordid thing at the time I wrote this was me. I never did continue this 'essay'.

I remember where I was when I wrote this, I was in the café section of Blackwell's on Broad Street.

09/12/2007 Relationships and sordid things

The only way to achieve a meaningful relationship with someone is
i)Not to meet them when off you're face on alcohol
ii) Not to jump into bed after knowing them for five minutes

I am inept at avoiding both, but I suppose I am a teenager and on the verge of becoming a student. I'll just use my unsuccessful relationships as 'valuable' experiences.

The frustrating thing is there is unlikely to be a situation for a long time where I will meet a girl (who I'm interested in sexually) when I'm not drunk and therefore my priorities become skewered (when I'm drunk) i.e. shag now, talk later. Also it seems pointless to have a 'proper' relationship right now as I'm going to be globe trotting in four months time. i suppose I can try and find someone in Perugia, give a 'proper' relationship a trial run and see if I prefer it to my debaucherous lifestyle I am currently living (with the occasional fuck here and there). However the teenage boy's dream of being able to sleep with anyone he chooses or to have sex on a regular basis and lead a generally promiscuous lifestyle is misleading and unsatisfying. Since if you sleep with someone on the night you've met them, you've achieved the ultimate goal of a relationship (unless you want to go to extreme and consider marriage), everything else just seems pointless as all that's going through your mind when 'backtracking' (having a conversation and getting to know the person who you were inside of the night or couple of nights before) is 'when are we going to have sex again? ' As it is almost an inevitability . However this stage is only possible should you and your intimate partner exchange phone numbers (which to me is a moral thing to do). However it can a mixed blessing/curse if your partner is reluctant to exchange contact details after exchanging bodily fluids.

To be continued....

(14/04/2010 - see entry on Natalia Bubnova)

Commentary: Citizen Milton

This is a post I feel embarrassed about now, as this is a prime example of one of the great things that living in Oxford has to offer that I took for granted. Going to a drinks do to celebrate John Milton's work, headed by one of the country's leading authors, in an iconic Oxford building, is not something you should just shrug off casually. Now I am pleased that I went to that but ashamed that I went in that frame of mind. However this is when I just started writing in the book and I was just writing what I saw.

Citizen Milton: Philip Pullman opening of Milton Exhibition at Bodleian Library

Overweight, bearded old man who cannot deal with hair loss, has wisps of hair clinging to his head

The world of academia deglamourised. Surrounded by boring, old people who think they're special. The building's tell you nothing of what goes on behind the scenes.

Commentary: Day at work

I am describing my first job at Oddbin's. Although the world of wine should have been interesting, my colleagues (apart from one) made it almost impossible for you to enjoy your job and I can assure you the whole 'laid back' atmosphere in those shops is a complete illusion. My manager, Tom, would always make sure I was doing something incredibly menial, such as dusting bottles, checking the stock of the fine wine collection (it always stayed the same because nobody buys fine wine from an off-license) and re-filling the beer fridge which was a very frustrating because it was as if the alkies were waiting around the corner to come and empty the fridge just after I filled it up. He also made sure that I was never working at the same time as a friend of mine from school. Then there was Helen who was this nasty middle aged woman who treated everyone apart from the manager (me and Nick thought they were having an affair) like morons and give us orders as if we were dogs but with out the treat or 'good boy' at the end. However I'm not sure if I would ever want to receive a treat or tummy rub from her, the thought makes me shudder. The highlight of that job was when underage people came in so you could ID them and when I had to do deliveries.

Day at work (undated)

Anytime to start is too early
Every shift is too log
Maddeningly boring and slow, you feel your mind turning into sludge, the kind of sludge you get when mix burnt material with water; black and bubbly, each bursting bubble is a part of your soul dying.
Surrounded by the dull and insufferable for hours on end, be they customers or staff. Although at least the customers are only there for a few minutes.

Commentary: 01/12/2007 part 2

It was weird reading this entry. It is an event that I would never remember just in passing. However reading it again I can remember the event very clearly. I was outside the Clarendon Shopping centre on Cornmarket Street, craning my neck so I could see over the person in front of me. There was a great energy about the performers and the music. I now have no idea what the music sounded like apart from the way I describe it in that entry, having said that I'm not sure you can describe any music in words and have any idea of what the tune was.

This was just the first day and so the intention of this book was just a record of my surroundings.

01/12/2007 part 2

Band busking in Cornmarket St.

Irish sounding

Electric violinist - violin emerald green, Irish connotations ' The Emerald Isle'

Attracting large croud , both young and old

6 man band-all look rather bedraggled and hippy like
violinist, banjoist, lutist, guitarist, electric guitarist, drummer

Applause
Change of tune, previously merry jingles, now melancholic yet sounds optimistic, reminds me of taking the next large step in life. Melancholic song goes back to merry jingle. A kind of finding your feet song as it gains confidence.

Man in audience who looks like John Hurt, perhaps older David Bowie.

Commentary 1/12/2007

It has become clear to me now that another reason that I started the diary was that for a while there was going to be no one I knew very well to talk to over the Christmas period which is why I noted that it was the end of the Oxford term. Otherwise I don't know what other importance there was in noting it down.

I have this obsession with being 'profound' at an early stage and hoping to find some poetry in a Café Nero. I think this is something to do with having just done English literature for A-Level and the over analysis of texts where you are forced to understand the deeper meaning in the use of a comma in a poem by T. S. Eliot. The result is that I come across as pretentious (referring to the rustling bag as 'the voice of a guilty conscience of modern society' made me cringe).

1/12/2007 - The end of Oxford term

Advice taken from a creative writing book

Sit in a café, buy a large coffee and note down sounds and what ideas come to mind from the sounds, then write character descriptions of people you see in café, read 'anything and everything' to broaden vocab.

Opinions on advice - average: drank coffee too fast, sounds are what one would expect (conversation, clanking of cutlery and crockery and stupid music playing). Any ideas drawn from these noises would be shallow but perhaps that's the point, there'll be a chance to be profound later.

As for people similar conclusions and opinions would be drawn (don't know what café the author went to that attracted a large variety of the weird and the wonderful people of the world).

However I'm going to ignore my cynicism and take advice from this book.

5 noises and what they remind me of
Sound of conversation
rustling bags
clinking of crockery
music

The sound of conversation:- sense of belonging and isolation (or welcoming and excluding), friendship, business, interaction school (dining hall), common room, the theatre (audience settling down before a show) , restaurants, vulgarity, sophistication

Rustling bags:- Shopping, supermarkets 9and other shops), bad weather, rubbish, landfills, the voice of of a guilty conscience of society

Chinking of crockery:- Eating, tidying up, washing up, dining areas (dining halls, restaurants, cafés)

Music:-Monotonous (reflects rhythm and style of work, lifestyles of people yet attempts to glamourise), irritating

[I am now getting irritable, going to go out for a cig] 1/12/2007, 3:37 pm]

Prologue

Before I post the first entry, allow me to set the scene. Six months earlier I had finished school and had fifteen months ahead of me before going to university. During this period I had got myself a job as a 'wine merchant' at Oddbin's, was attempting to get my driving license (a goal I have yet to achieve),had established myself with a group of Oxford students and was deciding what adventures I was to set out on my gap year.

Introduction

Dear readers,

On 1st December 2007 I started to keep a journal. Originally the point of this journal was to write down ideas for stories and scripts but eventually became a diary. Looking back at these 'ramblings', I am surprised and even shocked by the things I have written. I have held some pretty contemptible views, bitter attitudes and have come across as very ungrateful, but also now a reminder of how grateful I should be for all my experiences and the people I have met along the way. Anyway I will be the first to admit that I often I don't come across as a likeable person in some of the entries I have written over the last two years and a bit in my medium sized red book.

I intend to write out the original entry and then a commentary explaining the situation at that time and what I think now when I read it.

If there are any readers who don't know me, I am 20, live in Oxford, study Modern Languages at the University of Leeds and have aspirations to be a writer. This is also an exercise for myself as well as I hope an entertaining read for everyone.

Anyway, enjoy!