I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I was lonely

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I was lonely. Not pitiably lonely, certainly, and the old thing about making your bed and lying in it certainly applied. But once my darling little Honey came along, I started asking myself what kind of a household she was being brought up in. Out r five-bedroomed Primrose Hill house was a sort of upmarket dossing place for Dominic's clients, friends and assorted hangers-on, even when Dom wasn't there (he still spent half his time in Paris): I'd come down with her for the early-morning feed, nightied and leaky-breasted, and find strangers lying across the brutal and frankly ugly furniture. I was too old for this, I kept telling myself, and besides had never had any kind of yearning for this rock'n' roll lifestyle: I wanted hardcore domestic, in the way that you always want the opposite of your own childhood. Something, it became clear, had to give, and since Dom was either unwilling or unable to abandon - well his life, it made sense to remove myself from it. We separated a year ago, when Honey was eight months old. I wasn't sorry: disliking Dominic's life was one thing, but I'd also begun to dislike him.
From the book 'Don't you want me?' by India Knight

An austrian woman

An Austrian woman, a tourist in London, got chatting to some youths aged fourteen (fourteen!) to seventeen, they seemed to her friendly and she went for a walk with them. Which was a bit naive of her, perhaps, but it was daylight, and she probably thought of them as children (she is thirty-two herself, it said) and being a foreigner she probably didn’t understand their conversation too well, or read the signs in their body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc., for they must have been nudging and winking at each other, exchanging glances, sniggers, sotto voce comments. They lead her to some deserted spot where they stripped her and rapped her , ‘repeatedly’ the newspaper report said, then flung her naked into a canal, though she pleaded with them not to, and told them she couldn’t swim – which probably saved her life, actually, because she could, and managed to drag herself out of the canal on the other side. I pictured her, sobbing and shivering, bruised and bleeding, streaked with mud and slime, staggering along the towpath until she found somebody to help her. What struck me was that she said she survived this ghastly ordeal by ?separating her mind from her body as much as she could? . I wonder what Ralph Messenger would make of that. It seems to me a good argument for dualism.
From the book ‘Thinks’, by David Lodge

The house begins to fill up.

The curtains on the long Georgian windows have not been drawn, and light streams out onto the drive and footpath. Approaching guests can see the throng inside, chatting and laughing and drinking and chewing animatedly but silently, like actors on television when the sound is turned down, The door has been left on the latch, so there is no longer any need to ring the bell, but Ralph hovers just inside the door to welcome his guests, and directed to hang their coats in the downstairs cloakroom, where some linger to examine the wall-paper with its pattern of illustrations reproduced from La Vie Parisienne, women are invited to spread their coats on the twin beds of the guest bedroom, which has an en-suite bathroom convenient for last-minute adjustments to hair and make-up. Divested of their outdoor attire, the guests provide themselves with red or white wine, beer or soft drinks from the bar-table, tended by Mark Messenger in an electric blue shirt and black Dockers, the pass into the large drawing room, where Simon and Hope wriggle through the crush bearing plates of canapés, daring back occasionally for replenishment to the kitchen, where Carrie is warming up the ciabatta and focaccia and organic whole meal rolls in the electric oven for supper, while chatting to some women friends who are enviously inspecting the new modular kitchen units and work surfaces imported from Germany and fitted just a few months ago.
From the book ‘Thinks’, by David Lodge

Emily is on the kitchen

Emily is on the kitchen with her boyfriend Greg, a tall, gawky boy who is in some awe O Ralph. They are squatting on their haunches, peering into the oven through its glass door, at the meatloaf which Emily has prepared for supper.
Ralph suppresses a belch.
'Yeah,' says Emily, in a slightly insolent drawl.

He is about Ralph's age, a little stouter, with a red leathery complexion and big hands. In the hairy tweed sports jacket he favours he looks more like a farmer than a doctor. He pushes, presses, probes with his big spatulate fingers. 'All right ,' he says. 'You can put your togs back on? He goes back to his desk to write some notes in Ralph's file, using a gold-nibbed fountain pen.'You've got a lump on your liver'

Ralph gives Hope a hug in the hall, sweeping her off her feet and whirling her round on the black-and-white-chequered floor. The child laughs with glee. Then he kisses Carrie and looks at her. Ralph waits until Hope has scampered off to her room to be reunited with her favourite dolls and toys
From the book 'Thinks' by David Lodge

It is the evening of Ralph’s birthday party.

Helen has arrived early, by prior arrangement, to help with the food preparations. Most of the serious food – the poached whole salmon, the famous cured ham on the bone, the variegated salads – had been supplied by a local catering firm, and it is already laid out in the dining room beside stacks of plates and sets of cutlery wrapped in thick paper napkins. But Carrie likes to prepare her own canapés. Helen has been entrusted with the task of chopping and slicing crudités for the savoury dips. Carrie herself is peeling fresh prawns and impaling them in toothpicks, separated by cubes of ripe pimiento, like miniature sish kebabs. In the large square hall, with its floor of black and white flags, a table has been placed to serve as a bar, with bottles of red and white wine arranged in two symmetrical phalanges, separated by a large tray of gleaming wine glasses. Shortly after Ralph has left the kitchen the two women hear the regular pop1 pop! of corks being pulled with the aid of the screwpull . More distantly the strains of cool instrumental jazz percolate from the hi-fi in the drawing room, where Emily is placing little bowls of nuts and pretzels in strategic places. The Messengers are experienced party-givers and everyone knows their function and how to perform it. The front doorbell rings.
‘The first guest’, says Helen, superfluously.
From the book ?thinks? by David Lodge

Monday 17th of March

Monday 17th of March. Another weekend has passed in thrall to the Messengers.
It had been agreed that I would stay the night after the party on Saturday, so that I could drink without worrying about driving myself home. I felt a little self-conscious, standing beside Ralph and Carrie in the hall and saying goodbye to the last departing guests, as if I were part of the family – but that is what In seem to have become.
‘Adopted’, was Jasper Richmond’s word. It was somewhat disturbed by its remarks, but he’s a rather malicious gossip, and probably everything he says should be taken with a pinch of salt. If Carrie is being nice to me just to keep tans on Ralph, it seems a risk strategy. He's already managed to kiss me once, and would have done again on Saturday night if I’d let him.
After the final stragglers had gone. I helped collect the soiled plates and glasses from various rooms on the ground floor, and to stack them in the kitchen ready for the domestic help, who was coming in next morning specially to attend to them. Carrie made us a delicious nightcap, and we sat round the kitchen table sipping this concoction and discussing the higklights of the party before we retired to bed.

From the book ?Thinks', by David Lodge

I went to the Messneger's cottage yesterday

I went to the Messenger's cottage yesterday for lunch, as arranged, It's situated in the middle of pretty picture-postcard Cotswold country- pretty even this time of the year, when there isn't a leaf to be seen on the deciduous trees. The road wound and undulated between dewy meadows and green humpbacked hills dotted with sheep, through villages embalmed in a Sunday morning hush, past ancient churches and neat farmhouses and snug thatched cottages. 'Horseshoes' has a thatched roof, but it's more of a house than a cottage - double fronted, built of mellow Cotswold stone, its walls covered with wisteria which one can imagine dripping with mauve blossom in May. It has low, raftered ceilings, and a bumpy flagged floor covered with rugs, and a huge open fireplace in the living-room. Needless to say it's provided with central heating and other mod cons, all tastefully integrated into the eighteenth century fabric.
Here the Messengers' family simulates the life of English country folk for one or two days a week: Carrie bottles fruit and make preserves on the oil-fired Aga. Emily rides the pony she keeps at a local stable, and Ralph chops wood for the open fire or takes the younger children out for rambles and bike-rides. At the back of the house, however, a more exotic and sybaritic note is struck: a balcony, or 'deck' as they call it, has been constructed on two levels, with a redwood hot tub on the lower level. The effect is rather bizarre as you pass from the English eighteenth century of the house to twenty-century California in the back garden, like walking through different film sets in a studio.
After lunch ( a superb leg of local lamb, roasted to perfection, with slivers of garlic and sprigs of rosemary delicately inserted into its layer of fat) we went for a walk around a circuit of lanes and footpaths in the neighbourhood.
My ' lunch' invitation stretched inordinately, and in the end we left the house together at about seven o'clock. Suddenly the pace of life speeded up. Everybody bustled about, supervised by Carrie, picking up things and putting them away, resetting thermostats and turning light off, drawing curtains, and fastening shutters, making the house secure for another week. It was as if the curtain has come down on some dreamy pastoral idyll and the company was suddenly galvanized into actions shedding their costumes and packing up their props before moving on to the next venue. We parted in the lane outside the house as we got into our respective cars. I said goodbye and thanked them sincerely.
Form the book 'Thinks' by David Lodge

The conversation is taking place in the hot tub

The conversation is taking place in the hot tub in the back garden of the Messengers' country cottage. The ground slopes quite steeply away from the rear of the house, and a timber balcony has been constructed with steps that lead down to the garden. Halfway down there is a kind of mezzanine deck in which a redwood tub, some seven feet in diameter and five feet deep, has been fitted flush with the surface. A bench runs round the inner circumference, on which Helen and the Messenger family are companionably seated, hip to hip. The hot water bubbles up between their legs and sends wraiths of steam into the cold air. It is late afternoon, or early evening, and already dark. The only illumination comes from the blue light fitted inside the tub below the waterline, and the lanterns with thick amber glass cowls fixed at intervals on the staircase and along the decks.
Carrie clambers out of the tub, steadying herself with a hand on Ralph' shoulder. The water streams from her tight, dark swimming costume and pallid heavy limbs. She wraps herself in a towelling robe and thrusts her feet into a pair or rope-soiled mules. 'Time you kids got out too,' she says.
Form the book 'Thinks' by David Lodge

One redeeming feature

One redeeming feature of the expedition was that I saw Gloucester Cathedral for the first time. It's not huge, but beautifully proportionated, built of mellow Cotswold stone, with a remarkable square Perpendicular tower that has delicate fretted stonework running round the top like a balustrade. The cloisters are exquisite - among the finest in the country my Visitor's Guide claimed, and with justification, I should say. Edward II is buried here. All I know about him is from Marlowe's play, which may not be reliable, but makes him seem like a real person who once lived and breathed, not just a name in a history book. It seemed extraordinary to stand beside the remains of somebody who lived seven hundred years ago, and know who he was. If Ralph Messenger is right, the atoms of his dust are indestructible. But it is my mind that preserves his identity, and makes a connection between us.
As I trod the worn paving of the ancient aisles, pausing at intervals to admire fine brasses and carved statuary, another literary association came to mind. In the Golden Bowl Charlotte and the Prince begin their adulterous affair at Gloucester, delaying their return to London from a houseparty on the pretext of viewing the cathedral- and there's a reference to the tomb of Edward II, I'm sure. Did they really visit,it, to give circumstantial plausibility to their story when they returned to their respective spouses, or did they spend every stolen moment in their room at in the inn selected by the resourceful Charlotte? I don't have the novel to hand to check . James probably doesn't say, anyway.
I had lunch afterwards at the Cosy Pew Café, just round the corner from the Cathedral, poring over every word in the guide because I had brought nothing else with me to read. I wondered despondently if this was the spinsterish future that awaits me: collecting cathedrals and reading at the table in twee restaurants.

One redeeming feature

One redeeming feature of the expedition was that I saw Gloucester Cathedral for the first time. It's not huge, but beautifully proportionated, built of mellow Cotswold stone, with a remarkable square Perpendicular tower that has delicate fretted stonework running round the top like a balustrade. The cloisters are exquisite - among the finest in the country my Visitor's Guide claimed, and with justification, I should say. Edward II is buried here. All I know about him is from Marlowe's play, which may not be reliable, but makes him seem like a real person who once lived and breathed, not just a name in a history book. It seemed extraordinary to stand beside the remains of somebody who lived seven hundred years ago, and know who he was. If Ralph Messenger is right, the atoms of his dust are indestructible. But it is my mind that preserves his identity, and makes a connection between us.
As I trod the worn paving of the ancient aisles, pausing at intervals to admire fine brasses and carved statuary, another literary association came to mind. In the Golden Bowl Charlotte and the Prince begin their adulterous affair at Gloucester, delaying their return to London from a houseparty on the pretext of viewing the cathedral- and there's a reference to the tomb of Edward II, I'm sure. Did they really visit,it, to give circumstantial plausibility to their story when they returned to their respective spouses, or did they spend every stolen moment in their room at in the inn selected by the resourceful Charlotte? I don't have the novel to hand to check . James probably doesn't say, anyway.
I had lunch afterwards at the Cosy Pew Café, just round the corner from the Cathedral, poring over every word in the guide because I had brought nothing else with me to read. I wondered despondently if this was the spinsterish future that awaits me: collecting cathedrals and reading at the table in twee restaurants.

I'd been In Cheltenham

I'd been In Cheltenham only once before, a few years ago, to do a reading at the Literary Festival, and was hardly there long enough to acquire much sense of the place. This morning I drove helplessly round the one-way streets for some time until I spotted the neoclassical hulk of the Town Hall where they hold the Festival events ( a building of dingy brownish stone, with a pompous oversized portico, that looks clumsy against the surrounding Regency terraces of white stucco) and then I knew where I was. I left the car in the first car park I came to, and made for the town centre. It was a cold day, but dry and sunny, and I spent an enjoyable hour hour or so strolling along the Promenade, browsing in Waterstone's buying a blouse in Laura Ashley and a pair of trousers in Country Casuals, having a light lunch in a café served by waitresses in old-fashioned uniforms with white aprons. I briefly explored a long , two-storied shopping mall discretely hidden in a parallel street, but quickly retreated from its airless atmosphere and tinkling muzak. I followed a sign to the Art Gallery and Museum, which specializes in the history of domestic art and design - appropriately enough because everywhere you go in Cheltenham you see restoration and refurbishment of the old houses and terraces going on, inside and out, a kind of collective cult of the House Beautiful.
From the book "Thinks" by David Lodge

The proof of the experiment is if their behaviour

The proof of the experiment is if their behaviour seems interesting, plausible, revealing about human nature. Seems to whom? To the 'reader' - who is not Mr Cleverdick the reviewer, or Mr Sycophant the publicist, but some kind of ideal reader, shrewd, intelligent, demanding but fair, whose persona you try to adopt as you read your own work in the process of composition. I sort of resent the idea of science poking its nose into this business. Hasn't science already appropriated enough of reality ? Must it lay claim to the intangible invisible essential self as well?
I'm a self-taught two-finger typist, prone to error (for which reason I Thank God - and science- for the invention of the word-processor). But some words I always seem to mistype. One of them is 'science' which invariably appears on the screen of my computer as 'scince', with a reproachful red wiggly line drawn under it by the automatic spell-checker. I duly correct it, but there is something onomatopoeically appropriate about ?scince? (pronounce skince) which I am sorry to lose: it expresses the cold, pitiless, reductive character of scientific explanations of the world. I feel this hard, cold, almost ruthless quality In Ralph Messenger. His reaction to Martin's death, when the subject came up in the course of lunch, was like having a bowl of icy water dashed in one's face.It shocked and angered me - I almost got up and left him at the table. But I'm glad I didn't. I might never have seen the Karinthy mural, for one thing. It provoked all kinds of ideas.
From the book 'Thinks? by David Lodge

One, two, three, testing

One, two, three, testing, testing... [belches] Pardon me! It's, what, 6.51 p.m. on Wednesday 26th February... I'm still in my office, instead of at home, warming my bum in front of the fire and enjoying the first drink of the day, because we have a problem in the Brain... I got a message this afternoon that Captain Haddock had crashed, but it seems to be a hardware failure or possibly wiring... there are technicians and sparks crawling all over the place at the moment trying to locate the source of the trouble and I don't feel like going home until I know that it's been fixed ... the thought of an electrical fire breaking out in the Brain in the middle of the night is scary, unlikely as it is... So I called Carrie to say I'd be late and settle down to do some work on staff assessment I've been putting off... so many fucking forms these days... but when I unlocked the filing cabinet where I keep confidential material my eye fell on the old Pearlcoder and I couldn't resist listening to the tape I recorded last Sunday morning. I played back the tape on the recorder just now , and I must say it was absolutely riveting... though of doubtful experimental value ...not that I'll ever be able to quote much of it in a paper, it's far too personal, too revealing, not to say raunchy at times... but it was fascinating to... to as if were eavesdrop on one's own thoughts.
From the book 'Thinks', by David Lodge

'You don't mind walking?'

'You don't mind walking?' he asks, as they descend the stairs to the lobby.
'No, not at all.'
'There is a shuttle bus in...'He glances at a chunky stainless steel watch.?About ten minutes.'
'No, I like to walk,' she says. 'It's the only exercise I get'
'Me too. I always walk on campus unless its raining.'
It isn't raining outside, but looks as if it might soon. A damp wind is blowing across the campus under scudding grey clouds. They walk along the path that skirts the lake, moving into single file every now and again as a tinkling bell warms them of the approach of a cyclist. It being a Wednesday afternoon, there is evidence of sporting activity. Shouts and cries carry faintly from the playing fields on the eastern perimeter, and a rugby ball rises and falls in a spinning arc against the sky. On the lake, some students in wetsuits are windsurfing. The brightly coloured shards of their sails against the dark water make a pleasant picture, but the lake is hardly big enough for the purpose: no sooner have the craft got up some speed than they have to make quick turns to avoid hitting the bank, or each other. Capsizes are frequent.
' I know what this place reminds me of,' Helen says suddenly. ? Gladeworld. Have you ever been?
'N0, what is it.?'
'A sort of up-market holiday village. I went with my sister's family last summer. It was in a biggish bit of wooded country, surrounded by a wire fence. You live in little houses built between the trees. In the middle there's a huge plastic dome with a kind of swimming pool cum botanical gardens underneath it with a lots of water chutes and whirlpools and suchlike. And there's a supermarket and restaurants and sports halls - and an artificial lake for sailing and windsurfing that isn't quite big enough. That's what reminded me. That and the bicycles. You're not allowed to drive your car at Gladeworld once you've unloaded it. Everybody rents bicycles, or walks. Everything you need for your holiday is inside the fence. You never need to go outside.'
From the book ?thinks', by David Lodge

Coming here

Coming here was a terrible mistake, I want to run away, I want to scuttle back home to London - home, yes, that's my home, not this little tatty little box. Do I dare ? Why not ? I haven't really started yet. I haven't met any students, or taken any of the University's money. They'll easily find someone else to do the job - there are a lots of excellent writers around who would jump at it. Why not just leave, tomorrow morning early ? I see myself creeping out of the house before it's light, like a thief, loading my things into the car, shutting the boot lid softly, softly, so as not to alert anybody, leaving a note for Jasper Richmond on the table in the living-room with the house keys. "Sorry, it was a terrible mistake, all my fault, I should never have applied for the post, please forgive me.' And then pulling the door shut on this Scandinavian rabbit hutch and driving away along the empty service road, scarves of mist round the throats of the street lamps, slowing down at the exit barrier to give a wave to the security man yawning in his brightly-lit glazed sentry box. He nods back, suspects nothing, raises the barrier to let me out, like Checkpoint Charlie in a cold war spy film, and I'm free! Down the avenue, on to the main road, on to the M5, the M42, the M40, London, Bloomfield Crescent, home
except that 58 Bloomfield Crescent has been rented for the next three months to an American art historian on sabbatical and his wife who arrive next Friday. Never mind, send them a fax, ? Sorry, all off, change of plan, house not available after all.'Could they sue me? There's no legal contract, but perhaps our correspondence would count as one... Oh, what's the point in pursuing this futile line of speculation when we all know (by 'we' I mean my neurotic self and my more rational observing , recording self) we know, don't we, that this is just a fantasy? And that the real reason I won't run away tomorrow morning is not because of possible litigation by my American Tenants (or for that matter by the University of Gloucester, who could undoubtedly sue me for breach of contract, thought I very much doubt if they would bother) but because I haven't got the courage to do it. Because I couldn't bear the guilt, the shame, the ignominy, of knowing that everybody I know knew that I had funked it, panicked, run away . Imagine to having to ring up Paul and Lucy to tell them, and hearing the disappointment in their voices even as they tried to be supportive of their mad mother. Imagine seeing the ill-concealed smirks and smiles of people at literary parties, as they whispered to each other over their their glasses of white wine. 'That's Helen Reed, did you know she went to be a writer in Residence at Gloucester University and ran away on the first day of the semester because she couldn't face it either,' And they might add, ' not that I blame her, I'm sure I couldn't face it either,' but nevertheless they would despise me and I would despise myself.
It was a nice fantasy while it lasted, though. I even chose the tape I would play in the car on the M5, the Vivaldi wind concerti, with their sprightly, cheerful allegro
From the book "Thinks" by David Lodge

I woke this morning feeling slightly hangover

I woke this morning feeling slightly hangover and dyspeptic from last night’s consumption of food and wine (I fear I was probably over the limit when I drove myself home, albeit very slowly and carefully) so I went for a walk after breakfast to get some fresh air. The sky was not promising – a quilt of dark grey cloud sagged from horizon to horizon – and it began to rain as soon al I left the house. Trudging round the campus on a wet Sunday morning was not a spirit-lifting experience, but I persevered, making it an occasion to master the geography of the place, and learn the locations of the various departments and faculties. The buildings erected in the sixties and seventies have not weathered well. Their concrete facades absorb the rain patchily, like blotting paper, and the brightly coloured panels and tiles with which they are trimmed, designed to relieve the dominant grey, are chipped and cracked or missing in many places.
From the book ‘Thinks...’ by David Lodge

'They describe you as a viper,'

'They describe you as a viper,'I said to Mt. Visconti.
'They?'
'Well, in fact, it was not the detectives. it was the Chief of Police in Rome.'
'A Fascist,' Mr Visconti said.
'Ah, a collaborator then.'
'The war was over.'
.A collaborator nonetheless. One collaborates always with the victorious side. One supports the losing.' It sounded again like a quotation from Machievali.
We were drinking champagne together in the garden, for the house at the moment was impossible. Men were carrying furniture. Other men were up ladders. Electricians were repairing lights and hanging chandeliers. My aunt was very much in charge.
'I preferred flight to anew form of collaboration,' Mr Visconti said. 'One can never tell who will win in the end. Collaboration is always a temporary measure. It's not that I care much for security, but I like to survive.
From the book 'Travels with my aunt' by Graham Greene.

When I opened the door

When I opened the door of the flat I found everything in deep darkness. I set an occasional table rocking in the hall and something Venetian tinkled into fragments on the floor. When I drew the curtains the Venetian glasses had no glitter - they had gone dead like unused pearls. There was a scurf of correspondence on the floor among the broken glass, but it consisted mainly of circulars and I didn't bother to examine them for a moment. I went into my aunt's bedroom with a sense of shame - yet hadn't she asked me to see that all was in order? I remembered how meticulously Colonel Hakim had explored the hotel room and how easily he had been outwitted, but I could see no candles anywhere, except in the kitchen where they were of a normal size and weight- presumably a genuine precaution against an electric failure.
I returned to the sitting-room and began to go through the post. One day mu aunt might send me a forwarding address, but in any case I wanted to save anything remotely personal from the scrutiny of Woodrow and Sparrow if they came. My old acquaintance Omo had written, and there were various bills from a laundry, a wine-merchant's, a grocer's. I was surprised not to find a bank statement, but remembering the gold brick and the suitcase stuffed with notes. I thought that perhaps my aunt preferred to keep a closer look among the dresses she had left behind, for it would be dangerous to leave cash about in the empty flat.
From the book "Travels with my aunt" by Graham Greene

He let us in

He let us in . The lights were on in the living-room, now that the day had darkened, and my eyes were dazzled for a moment by rays from the glass ornaments which flashed back from every open space. There were angels on the buffet wearing robes striped like peppermint rock; and in an alcove there was a Madonna with a gold face and a gold halo and a blue robe. On a sideboard on a gold stand stood a navy-blue goblet large enough to hold at least four bottles of wine, with a gold trellis curled around the bowl on which pink roses grew and green ivy. There were mauve storks on the bookshelves and red swans and blue fish. Black girls in scarlet dresses held green candle sconces, and shining down on all this was a chandelier which might have been made out of sugar icing hung with pale blue, pink and yellow blossoms.
Her dressing table gleamed with them: mirrors and power-jars and ash-trays and bowls for safety pins. "They brighten the darkest day,? she said. There was a very large double-bed as curlicued as the glass. ?I am especially attached to Venice,' she explained,'because I began my real career there, and my travels. I have always been very fond of travel. It's a great grief to me that my travels now are curtailed
From the book "Travels with my aunt" by Graham Greene.

Barcelona

Barcelona's bustling, tree-lined Ramblas boulevard is a boisterous fusion of noise, colour and activity. Herds of pedestrians push their way past the squeaking menageries at the exotic birds stalls and the bright, sweet smelling flower stalls.Circles of spectators form around dancing, juggling and fire-eating street entertainers. Human statues stand silent watch as a teenage Moroccan bag-snatchers weave through the crowds and, at the port end, a handful of dumpy, cheap prostitutes pitch for business.
I know no other city where a single street is so important. From sex shops and souvenir stalls to the opera house and, in La Boqueria, the best fresh food market in Spain, Las Ramblas caters _ in one way or another- for the most elemental desires of life.
This is where Barcelona celebrates, protests and riots. Built over the course of a stinking stream once known as the Cagalell - the Stream of Shit - it is, more importantly, where Barcelona meets itself.
From the book "Gosths of Spain" by Giles Tremlett

Folklore

Folklore, death and hard-edged politics overtook a village where local businesses closed down for the day. There were pipes and drums and dancing girls in long red skirts and white blouses carrying long hoops decorated with ribbons. A male dancer performed a neat, austere and highly acrobatic dance - the aurresku - full of on-the -spot turns and impressively high kicks in front of the coffin. There were also angry speeches and denunciations of Madrid. It all ended with the surprising, high-pitched sound of women ululating and the turning over by angry radicals of a radio reporter's car. I do not recall any masked men this time. But at another funeral in Solaruze - this time for an ETA gunwoman shot by the army sergeant she had tried to kill when he stopped his car at a traffic light - masked characters appeared with a huge banner bearing the axe and serpent of ETA.
From the book "Ghosts of Spain" by Giles Tremlett

The gaggle

A separate door might then open and a swarm of slightly older, crawling infants appear through it. The crawlers would be shepherded this way or that like a gaggle of slow-moving geese. If they had to go upstairs, they tackled the staircase like professional climbers determined to conquer Mount Everest, a mass of bobbing, well-padded bottoms heading for the peak.
And so it went on. A couple of hundred children aged between zero and six, all encaseds in neat, green-and -white checked gingham pinafores, came here every day. Some started at 8. a. m. and were given breakfast. One of most starling things about these children's was the tweeness which some were dresses. We had spotted the specialist children's shops full of powder-blue boys' outfits and pink girl's outfits before coming parents ourselves.
But it was when a delicate, powder-blue, knitted.cotton, ribboned baby suit arrived from an acquaintance who was not only meant to be a prominent feminist but also a Socialist minister, that we realised this was just not fashion for 1950 nostalgists. At the nursery school and in the park, we would see parents who looked and dressed like us, parading children dressed in elaborate knickerbockers, smocked dresses, sashes, bows, Peter Pan collars, pin-tucks or matching knickers and bloomers. Often these children would come in matched pairs, their clothes identical or, if boy and girl, made of the same material. The occasional family of three of four kids might be identified by the fact that they were all, despite the age spread, wearing the same clothes, just in different sizes.
From the book "Ghosts of Spain" by Giles Tremlett

Benidorm

It may be a massive eyesore, but spread those tourists out horizontally - the way they have done in Marbella or , further down, the coast from Benidorm in Torrevieja and numerous other spots - and they go on for ever. If Benidorm, with its twenty-four square miles and 12.3 kilometres of coastline really does account for 5 per cent of foreign holidaymakers (38.000 hotel rooms of some 700.000) in Spain, then, in theory, the rest could be plonked on an island the size of, say, Ibiza. Alternatively, more of them could still be shovelled into little Benidorm - where buildings land is by no means all used up.
Benidorm's beach is still beautiful. But now you have ti hire a top-floor suite at the Bali if you want to appreciate just how majestic those twin curves of gold are. Most visitors are left to glimpse it through a thickt of buildings. The beach is cleaned every night by machines which churn up and filter the sand. This system is now used all over Spain. A reecnt newspaper report tells how a woman who fell asleep on a beach was swallowed up by one of the machines. A sign in one, older, beachside hotel overshadowed by the Bali, reminded me thet Benidorm's reputation for the cheap and shoddy would never quite go. ?Clients are reminded that reception has a special thinner available to help you remove grease or tat from your feet', it read.
From the book "Ghosts of Spain" by Giles Tremlett.

The edge of a barber's Razor

It is shortly before 7.00 a.m. on a cool Madrid spring morning. The traffic is still just a purr, though it will soon be a rumble and some time after that, the usual riot of horns, ambulance sirens and roaring motorbike exhausts. This should be a small moment of peace in what must be one of Europe's noisiest cities. a helicopter, however, has spent the past fifteen minutes poised noisily at roof-top level just a block down our street. The wide-open well of our six-storey apartment block is acting as a sound box that amplifies the relentless chugging and clattering. Sleep in our top floor apartmenmt seems, under this circumstances, impossible. I lie in bed worrying about whether the helicopter - which does this every few weeks - will wake the children. It is not as thogu they went to bed early, even thogh they have school today. One of them, a seven-year-old, got out of bed to take a phone call at 10 p.m. last night. It was another seven-year-old, excitedly inviting him to a birthday party at the weekend. Madrid boasts that it is a party town, a city that never sleeps. But does this really have to aplly to the under eights?
From the book "Ghosts of Spain" by Giles Tremlett

Day nine

'I can assure you, Jason, that we are all actors in life, presenting ourselves as we wish others to see us. That is why those of us who actually are actors, like myself, understand our world and the people in it more fully than ordinary people do. W know the tricks , we read the signs. we recognize that we live in a world full of performers. some of us are subtle, some are hams, but every one of us is acting. Seeing through your performance, Jazz, is my bread and butter.'
Jazz didn't reply for a moment. 'That's bollocks,' he said finally, which was sadly well below his usual natural wit.
David smiled.
Then Kelly leaned forward and whispered something in David's ear. It was hard to catch, but there was no doubt about what she said. What Kelly said to David was 'I know you.'
Then she leaned back against the side of the tub and looked straight into David's eyes.
David returned her stare, his superior smirk undaunted. he seemed unruffled.
He was about to be ruffled. Very.
For Kelly leaned forward once more and whispered something into David's ear.

Day five

Dervla pushed the bar of soap under her T-shirt and washed her armpits. She was just beginning to get used to showering in her underwear, it had felt very uncomfortable on the first morning and rather silly, like being on a school trip and insisting on undressing under the covers. The alternative, however , meant exposing herself her naked body full frontal to the viewing millions, and Dervla had absolutely no intention of doing that. She had watched enough reality TV to know what the producers liked most and took great care as she lathered under her arms. It would be extremely easy to inadvertenly pull up her vest and expose her breasts and she knew that behind the two way mirrors in the shower cubicle wall a live cameraman was watching, waiting for her to do just that. One flash would be all that was required and her tits would be hanging around somewhere on the Internet till the en of the time.
From the book 'Dead famous' by Ben Elton

 
 
 
 

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Day four

'I want to have a house meeting,' said Layla. 'So would it be cool if everybody just chilled? So we can all just have a natter maybe?'
Across the room Moon's bald head poked out from the book she was reading, a book entitled You are Gaia: Fourteen Steps to Becoming the Centre of Your Own Universe.
'It's dead spiritual, this book,'Moon said. 'It's about self- growth and development and personal empowerment, which at the end of the day I'm really into, if you know what I mean, right?'
'Yeah, Moon, wicked. Look, um, have you seen the state of the toilet?'
'What about it?'
'Well, it's not very cool, right? And Dervla and I...'
'I'm not fookin' cleaning it' said Moon. I've been here for four days and ain't even done a poo yet. I'm totally fookin bunged up, me, because I'm not getting my colonic irrigation, and also I reckon the electrical fields from all the cameras are fookin' about with me yin and the yang.'
'Layla's not asking you to clean the toilet, Moon,' said Dervla gently. 'We just think it would be good to organize some of the jobs that have to be done around the house, that's all.'
'Oh. Right. Whatever. I'm chilled either way. But at the end of the day I'm just not scrubbing out other people's shite when I haven't even done . I mean, that would be too fookin' ironic, that would.'
'Well, I don't mind doing heavy work, like lifting and shifting,' said Gazzer the Geezer, pausing in the push-ups that he had been doing pretty continuously since arriving in the house, 'but I ain't cleaning the bog, on account of the fact that I don't mind a dirty bog anyway. Gives you something to aim at when you're having a slash, don't it?
From the book "Dead Famous" by Ben Elton.

Dervla

She was the most beautiful, everybody agreed that, and the most mysterious. Quiet and extremely calm, it was never easy to work what was going on behind those smiling green Irish eyes. Eyes that always seemed to be laughing at a different joke from the res of the group. By the time of the murder Bervla had been the bookies' number two favourite to win the game, and she would have been number one had Geraldine Hennessy not occasionally and jealously edited against her, making her look stuck-up when in fact she was merely abstracted.
'So what's a trauma therapist when it's at home, then?' Garry asked. He and Dervla were stretched out beside the pool in the pleasant aftermath of the morning's champagne.
'Well, I suppose my job is to understand how people react to stress, so that I can help them to deal with it.' Dervla replied in her gentle Dublin brogue. 'That's why I wanted to come on this show. I mean, the whole experience is really just a series of small traumas, isn't it' I think it'll be very interesting to be close to the people experiencing those traumas and also to experience them myself.'
'So it's got nothing to do with winning half a million big ones, then?'
Dervla was far too clever to deny the charge completely. She knew that the nation would almost certainly be scrutinizing her reply that very evening.
'Well, that would be nice, of course. But I'm sure I'll be evicted long before that. No, basically I'm here to learn. About myself and about stress.'
From the book "Dead Famous" by Ben Elton

Woggle

'Shit, man,'Jazz observed, aghast.'Haven't you ever heard of soap?'
Woggle had taken up what was to become his habitual position, crouching on the floor in the room's only corner, his bearded chin resting on bony knees which he hugged close to his chest, his great horned dirty toenails poking out from his sandals.
Woggle was dirty in a way that only a person who has just emerged from digging a tunnel can be dirty . He had come straight to join the House Arrest team from his previous home, a 200-metre tunnel under the site of the proposed fifth terminal at Heathrow Airport. Woggle had suggested to Geraldine the Gaoler that perhaps he should take a shower before joining the team, but Geraldine, ever watchful for the elements that could for the elements that could be said to make up 'good telly', assured him that he was fine as he was. 'Just be yourself,'she had said.
'Who's that?' Woggle had replied. 'For I am the sum of all my past lives and those I have yet to live.'
Woggle stank. Digging tunnels is hard physical work and every drop of sweat that he had sweated remained in the fabric of his filthy garments, a motley collection of old bits of combats gear and denim. If Woggle had worn a leather jacket (which, being an animal liberationists, of course he would never do) he would have looked like one of those disgusting old-style hell's angels who never washed their Levi's no matter how often they urinated on them.
'Guy, you are rank!' Jazz continued. 'You are high! Here, man, have a blow on my deodorant before we all get killed of asphyxiation and suffocate to death here!
Woggle demurred, 'I consider all cosmetics to be humanoid affectations, yet one more example of our sad species' inability to accept its place as simply another animal on the planet.'
'Are you on drugs or what?'
'People think that they are superior to animals, and preening and scenting themselves is evidence of that,'Woggle droned with the moral self-assurance of a Buddha, 'but look at a cat's silky coat or a robin's joyful wings. Did any haughty supermodel ever look that good?'
'Too fucking right she did, guy,' said Jazz, who personally used two separate deodorants and anointed his skin daily with scented oils. 'I ain't never gone to sleep dreaming about shagging no cat, but Naomi and Kate are welcome any time.'
Layla spoke up from the kitchen area where she was preparing herbal tea. ? I have some cruelty-free organic cleansing lotions, Woggle, if you'd like to borrow them,'
Layla. Real job: fashion designer and retail supervisor. Star sign: Scorpio.
'They won't be cruelty-free after the plastic bottles end up in a landfill and a seagull gets its beak stuck in one,' Woggle replied.
From the book 'Dead Famous' by Ben Elton

Sally

'Nice knockers, girl!'Sally shouted at Kelly, who was just emerging from the pool.
Gary, all muscles and shaved head, was the next to emerge from the house. On seeing Kelly, soaking wet with her skimpy singlet clinging to her fit young body, he dropped to his knees in mock worship.?Thank you, God' he shouted to the skies. 'Something for the lads! We like that!'
Garry.Real job: van driver. Star sign: Cancer.
'Oh the girls!' Sally shouted back.'You never know, she might play for my team.'
'You a dyke, then?'Garry enquired, turning to her with interest.
'Derr! said Sally, pointing to the front of her vest on which were written the words 'I eat pussy.'
'Oh, is that what it means? I thought it meant you'd just been to a Chinese restaurant!' Garry laughed hugely at his joke, which was to provoke a minor scandal when it was broadcast later that evening, being considered highly bold, provocative and controversial.
Inside the house a bald woman in a leopardskinprint mini-skirt was exploring the living area. 'Check out, guys! There's a welcome basket! Wicked!
Moon. Real job: circus trapeze artiste and occasional lap-dancer. Star sign: Capricorn.
'Fags, chocolate, champagne! Wicked!
'Get stuck in! shouted Garry from the patio doors.
The others quickly assembled around the basket and the four bottles of Sainsbury's own-brand champagne were immediately opened. They all collapsed onto the orange, green and purple couches on which they would lounge for so much of the long days to come.
'Right, since we're chilling out and kicking back, I might as well tell you know,' Moon shouted in her exaggerated Mancunian accent, 'because at the end of the day you're all going to find out anyway. First of all I'm going to win this fookin' game, all fookin' right? So the rest of you bastards can just forget it! All right?' This exhibition of bravado was received with friendly cheers.
'Second, I've done lap-dancing, right? I took money off sad blokes for letting them see me bits. I'm not proud of it, but at the end of the day I was fookin' good at it right?'
This provoked more cheers and shouts of 'Good on you'
'And third. I've had a boob job right? I was right? I was dead unhappy with my self-image before, and my new tits have really empowered me as a person in my own right, right? Which at the end of the day is what it's all about,ain't it? Quite frankly, at the end of the day, I feel that these are the boobs I was supposed to have.'
'Gi's a look, then darling, and I'll tell you if you're right! Gazzer shouted.
'Easy tiger!' Moon Shrieked, revelling in the attention 'Take it easy. we've got nine fookin´weeks in here, don't want to peak too soon. Oh God, though, what have I said? I feel terrible. me mum never knew about me being a stripper, she thinks I'm dead proper, me. Sorry, Mum!
'I've nothing against a bit of cosmetic surgery,' Jazz reflected. I've never regretted my knob reduction, at least now it don't poke out the bottom of me trousers!
The housemates laughed and shrieked and said 'Wicked!' but there were some who laughed more than others. A quiet looking girl with raven-dark hair and green eyes only smiled. Sitting beside her was a rather straight-looking young man dressed in smart but casual Timberland.
Hamish. real job: junior doctor. Star sign : leo
From the book ?Dead Famous' by Ben Elton

One House

One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. One survivor.
The words punched themselves onto the screen like first slamming into a face.
Frantic, angry rock music accompanied the post punk graphics and the grainy images supporting them.
A spinning hot-head camera.
A barbed wire fence.
A snarling guard dog.
A girl with her back to the camera removing her bra.
A close -up of a mouth , screaming and contorted with rage.
More big guitar noise, More jagged graphics.
Nobody watching could be in the slightest doubt that this was telly from the hip and for the hip. The message was clear: boring people should seek their entertainment elsewhere, but if you happened to be young, bigged up and mad for it, this was the show for you.
Nine weeks. No excuses. No escape.
House. Arrest.
A final blast of swooping feedback- laden guitar and the credits were over.For one last moment the Peeping Tom house was empty and all was calm. A big, bright friendly space, with a wide tiles living area , pleasant communal rooms bedrooms, stainless steel washrooms and showers and a swimming pool in the garden.
The front door opened and ten young people spilled through it, spreading out into the large open plan living area. Ten people who, the pre-publicity had assured the nation, had never met before in their lives.
They whooped, they shrieked, they hugged, they say 'Wicked! over and over again. Some went into the bedrooms and jumped up and down on the beds, others did chin-ups on the door frames, one or two stood back a little and watched, but everybody seemed to be of the opinion tat the adventure of a lifetime had just begun and they simply could not be starting off on it with a more wicked crew.
Having clearly established the fact that the viewing public were in the company of a party crowd, the camera began to introduce the housemates individually.
The first to be picked out was an impossibly handsome young man with soft puppy eyes, boyish features and long shoulder-length hair. He wore a big black coat and carried a guitar. A graphic stamped itself across the man's face, letters made out of bricks, like prison walls.
David. Real job: actor. Star sign : Aries
From the book 'Dead Famous' by Ben Elton

Jazz fixed Garry with a gaze

Jazz fixed Garry with a gaze he clearly believed was both enigmatic and intimidating. Jazz's body was even better than Garry's and he too kept his muscles in a pretty continuous state of tension. They seemed almost to ripple up and down his arms as he idly fondled the thick gold chain that hung round his neck and lay heavy on his beautiful honed chest. 'Gorilla.'
'What?'
'You didn't say "bloke", you said "gorilla".'
'Did I? Well, what I mean is gorillas are big and strong, ain't they? Like your lot.'
Over by the kitchen units Layla, the blonde hippie supermodel in her own mind, tossed her fabulous breaded braids in disgust, Inspector Coleridge knew that Layla had tossed her lovely hair in disgust, because the video edit he was watching had cut abruptly to her. There was no way that Peeping Tom was going to miss that snooty little middle-class sneer. Coleridge was quickly coming to realize that Peeping Tom's editorial position was firmly anti intellectual pretension.
'We consider ourselves to be the People's Peeping Tom,' Geraldine was quoted as saying in the article. Clearly she also considered Layla to be a stuck-up, humourless, middle class bitch, for that was how the edit was portraying her.
From the book 'Dead Famous' by Ben Elton

But the excitement wasn't over

As Hamish gently explored, a phrase suddenly appeared in his fuddled consciousness, a phrase which he remembered from his class on forensic medicine. The phrase was digital penetration.
That's what he was doing now, That was what it would be called if anybody ever knew.
Suddenly Hamish became aware of the appalling risk that he was running. He was committing a serious crime. This crazy drunken improvisation, this sex prank, was assault. He could go to prison.
Hamish began to remove his hand, but reluctantly. And as he did, for a moment he pulled aside the thin, damp gusset of Kelly?s G-string and in that moment, in that one blinding moment of lust, he seriously considered taking his straining, aching erection from inside his own underpants and with it entering Kelly's unconscious body.
The thought lasted only for a moment. Drunk as he was, the terrible, life changing risks that he had already run were clear to him. In fact it was the momentary contemplation if this even grater abuse that truly brought home to Hamish the gravity of what he had already done.
From the book 'Dead Famous' by Ben Elton

Day twenty-six

Bob Fogarty waited until the following morning's production meeting to make his complaint. He wanted his objections to be noted publicly. It was difficult for him to find his moment because Geraldine was roaring with laughter so much as she recalled Sally's unlikely take on the weekly task.
'All I'm trying to do is persuade them to feel each other up and it turns out I'm a champion of minority rights. Anyway, all ethnic and sexual bollocks aside, Dervla will have to get them out for the lads or nobody gets a drink next week.'
Fogarty had to stand up to get her attention. 'Geraldine, we are coercing this girl into taking her clothes off against her wishes.'
'Yes, Bob, we all know that.Why are you standing up ?'
'Because , I think it's morally corrupt.'
(From the book Dead Famous, by Ben Elton)

The last show

It was not as if Peeping Tom had not put in the effort.
All the ingredients were in place for a television spectacular. There were fireworks, weaving searchlights, rock bands, three separate cherry pickers fot three separate trips across the moat. The world's press was there, the baying crowds were there. Ghloe the presenter's wonderful breasts were there, almost entirely on display as they struggled to burst free from the confines of her pink leather bra.
Perhaps the mos intriguingly of all, five out of the six previous evictees were also there. All of the suspects had returned to the scene of the crime.
In fact the ex-housemates were obliged to come back for the final party under the terms of their contracts, but they would probably have come anyway. The lure of fame remained as strong as ever, and with the exception of Woggle, who had jumped bail, Peeping Tom had assembled them all. Even Layla had made the effort and spruced herself up, as had David, Hamish, Sally (who got a huge cheer when she entered, walking slowly but on the way to recovery) and Moon.
Extrac from the book "Dead Famous"

Extract from DEAD FAMOUS by Ben Elton

The trouble started when Dervla returned from her second visit to the police station. She was tired and upset after her grilling from Coleridge. Then there had been all the qawpers and reporters outside the house, screaming at her, asking if she had killed Kelly, and if it had been a sex thing. And finally there had been the looks of doubt and suspicion on the faces of her fellow housemates when she re-entered the house. Even Jazz looked worried

Extract from Ben Elton's 'Dead Famous'

Day Seventeen. 10.00 a.m.
Back at work ? It was incredible. Terrible. Devastating.
During all the time she had been in the house, and indeed ever since she had recieved the thrilling news that she had been selected to join the House Arrest team, Layla had hardly dared to think of what she would be doing three days after leaving. Of course, she had allowed herself to dream a little and in her wildest fantasies had imagined herself juggling offers to model gorgeous clothes and to present exciting television programes about beauty products and alternative culture. In her worst moments of fear and doubt she had feared being lampooned in the tabloids and having to go on radio chat shows to defend her dippy-hippie ways. What she never ever imagined, however , was that she would be going back to work

The book "Dead Famous" by Ben Elton

It is an interesting book. The story is about a murder that occurs in a TV contest, named 'House Arrest', that copies the idea of the TV programme, we know it in Spain like 'The Big Brother'.
There it has been a murder in the show, and the police is reviewing all the recorded programmes in order to look for any kind of trace that could lead to find the assassin.
The book describes the show from inside, the manipulation that the contenders suffer from the editors and management of the television, how everything that appears in the homes screen has been set up before the exhibition. How the programme is focused to gain the attention of the viewers. Even the show is absolute rubbish, it only pretends to entertain and catch as much people as possible, to ensure the publicity paying for it. In a word is absolute business, despite de gossip and morbiness kept around the contestants of the programme.