Motley Glue

The Letter

Why am I not suprised that the most popular newspaper in the country I live in would readily exploit a grieving mother to vilify a man who is half blind, and probably quite busy, about his spelling.

I’m putting policy  to one side here.

The more I concentrate on the content of what I write, the more the content affects me, the worse my spelling becomes. Gordon Brown has lost a child.

More than that, while I would consider a handwritten letter, by definition, more personal and meaningful than a wordprocessed one, that we consider spelling or literacy to be a matter of ettiquette is a cultural quirk. Some civilisations never write stuff down. Some use pictures. My boyfriend is dyslexic, he can’t spell any day of the week.

I am sure I would lose sight of this had I lost a child, but I’m pretty sure a newspaper journalist would be aware of it.

10 minutes 2 minutes

Saturday 11 am

I enjoyed this morning. I enjoyed my walk home, basking in the sunshine and also the second glances that yesterday’s sparkles and precariously-arched pigeon-steps attract in the daylight of Bedminster high street at 9.30 on a Saturday morning. As I hobbled I was particularly enjoying the knowledge that our London Adventure had turned so wayward that we forgot our precious award in a carrier bag full of empty beercans somewhere in Waapping.

At exactly opening time I walked in to a gallery I usually walk past; looked at “World War Two”, drawn, I was pretty sure, by someone who had fought in it. I left with two thrifty books in my arm and the picture in my head, so I was halfways respectable-looking, and sort of attuned, to stop and find myself politely discussing immigration (reality) and indigeneity (not) with poppy-wearing old codgers (clever, that) offering leaflets for the British National Party…  I sort of enjoyed trying to convince a man who was 70 if he was a day, that yes, we really do have an aging population… and why did you offer me this leaflet which apparently turns back the clocks to when my Mother was greeted with “No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs”?

I enjoyed the downpour which I would have missed if I hadn’t stopped to talk to old men; the windows of the paper-bag factory at the top of the street popped out all blinding metal violet against dull sky, and it seemed to go with my outfit. Not the colour, but the fact that I was being pissed on in last night’s clothes. Just after I was wolf-whistled I noticed there was a small piece of tissue stuck to the cloudy patent of my shoe… I wondered how long it had been there, it seemed funny because I hadn’t got around to cleaning my shoes in the end.