The Songstone

Good morning, I am writing this from steamy Cebu city, the Queen of the South and the oldest city in the Philippines. I often come here for a few days break because, although it's just as hot as South China, the beaches are better and the girls are friendlier.   'The girls are friendlier'? If ur looking for love that's fine ur life I just want to say ur nearly 50 and fat soooooooooooooooooooooo good luck - u can always find a blind girl. I have a question: was I a mistake? Due to u and mum having uhhhhh a sleep after u got divorced. Mum's a bit vague.   You were definitely not an accident (launches into long explanation).  Anyway, here's a poem I wrote after you arrived: The Gift The night before you pushed and struggled out I slept on the ground, ice and snow about That was Art's path; I shivered coldly My belly empty, sod and soul solely But then you came, your hair was fine Brightness eyes, beautiful son of mine! I never knew before what life meant...

Carrie Gracie and the missing moolah. Well done, Ms Gracie: a storming campaign. £@300K!? And then, in a gushing flourish, she gives away the lot to charity! The genius of the haute bourgeoisie in manufacturing cultural hegemony... That millions of workers, for whom £30 quid extra might help pay the licence fee this month, should care about this Regency farce... Yet they do, cheer or grumble as disposed, and fail to see the payday's been ponced from their pittance.

Yesterday I was 50. To 'celebrate' I am laying my oeuvre on an unready world. You may purchase a copy here . Alternatively the ebook here . If I know you and believe you have sufficient intellectual and amoral heft to sup my ambrosia, I may send you a copy gratis. This supposes of course that I have an address for you. If not, you can buy your own, yer skinflints.

Du Fu ( 杜甫) 712 – 770 - also to be found here : with thanks to Mish. Returning every day from court, I pawn spring clothes. The river sees my drunken mien; my boozing debts mount up all over town. Men do not often live three score and ten. The butterflies go deep into the flowers, the dragonflies on wing among the drops, the passing time is always rushing hours; no time to know you: separation stops. 朝回日日典春衣 每日江頭盡醉歸 酒債尋常行處有 人生七十古來稀 穿花蛺蝶深深見 點水蜻蜓款款飛 傳語風光共流轉 暫時相賞莫相違

"(T)he future is a horny worker's hand spanking a perfumed bourgeois arse; (s)he may keep a dab of scent and be grateful."  (Unknown revolutionary). October. I went for the weekend with Meg, my Japanese girlfriend: it was her birthday. I was given a six-month stay; she was given three; I pointed this out with glee; I could tell from her moue the arrow flew true. Later, in bed, having pleasured me in unspeakable ways - 愛のコリーダ - she pointedly asked whether European girls could do what she just had. I had to admit they could not, or at least never had. Thus her honour was satisfied and face restored. And thank God for that!

The President has proposed that teachers should be armed. As a teacher, I agree. Think how much simpler weeding out the lazy students will be: "Haven't done your assignment again , Smith minor?" Bang!

Dad: so when you were born I left you in the care of mama and nana and didi because they would look after you better than I could. Son: you didn't want to wipe up the shit. Dad: don't say shit. Son: OK, dad. *** Son: so you know kids have been warned not to talk to strangers online. Some paedophiles are pretending to be chicken nuggets to groom their next victim. I'm sorry, but it's natural selection, isn't it? How stupid do you have to be to believe that the online voice urging you to meet them in the park is really a chicken nugget? Dad: (5 minutes of helpless laughter) even so, just because they're dim, doesn't mean they deserve to be a paedophile's victim, does it? Son: didn't say it did, but c'mon dad, fuckin' chicken nuggets? Dad: don't say fuckin'. Son: OK, dad.