[Adrian Fry]

John, though no expert in the subject, everything I've read on Beckett says he didn't like explaining his work and was especially averse to dealing with questions about what it meant

[John Whitworth]

I meant how would you know he wasn't dead. He always looked very corpse-like to me.

Re not explaining his work I'm with him 100% there. Don't give an inch.

[Brian Allgar]

John, I know that I've said this before - still, you've asked it before - but you can tell that Beckett is dead because he writes even fewer words than when he was alive.

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Brian Allgar

John, I know that I've said this before - still, you've asked it before - but you can tell that Beckett is dead because he writes even fewer words than when he was alive.

...But perhaps that is just a long and as-yet continuing deliberate pause, for theatrical effect?

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Graham King

...But perhaps that is just a long and as-yet continuing deliberate pause, for theatrical effect?

(Brief laugh)

[John Whitworth]

Room to Let

No frills, at reasonable rent,
Would suit a quiet, single gent
With hobbies, gardener preferred.
Purveyors of the written word,
All encouraged to enquire,
Journalist or versifier,
Librarian or filing clerk,
Anyone in full time work,
Both respectable and prudent.
Coloured, unemployed or student
Faces summary rejection.
Moderate smoker no objection.

[Graham King]

Individual cabin plus 16-berth bunkroom available in unique submersible houseboat! Formerly oceangoing, steel-hulled vessel ‘Nautilus’ is now discreetly moored in beautiful secluded Pacific-island cavern. Resident landlord (retired sea captain) values privacy but entertains occasional intelligent conversation.

Unparalleled shared amenities! 12,000-volume library; salon lavishly furnished with objets d’art, marine specimens, spectacular underwater viewing windows, compact melodious pipe organ; galley offering imaginative seafood menu; fine silver-service dining room. Advanced mod cons throughout: H+C water, electric lighting, assorted gauges and advanced controls (caution! Slight shock hazard.)

Island abounds in scenic beauty, edible fruits, materials for handicrafts, and exotic wildlife (turtles, seals, koalas, orang-utans… much more!) Diving excursions by arrangement.

Payment in kind negotiable: assist proprietor with his biological field studies, marine-engine restoration or applied electrical research! Would suit person of cultured scientific type seeking solitude (especially, escaping warfare). Longer lets preferred. Sorry, no harpoonists.

Apply ‘Nemo’.


[Accommodation on board the submarine Nautilus, as described by Jules Verne in 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and in The Mysterious Island]

[basil ransome-davies]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

I don't see anyone doing better than that. And Orwell is a Staggers author, so they can be relied upon to have read him.

A Staggers author? You must surely know, John, that the douchebag Kingsley Martin wouldn't publish his reports from Spain because they bravely attacked the CP line.

[John Whitworth]

Indeed I do.And that creep Gollancz wouldn't publish Animal Farm and 1984 thus allowing my old publishers Secker & Warburg to make lots of money to subsidize their poets. Nevertheless...

I mean Staggers people are NOW generally pro-Orwell. As I am in spite of Nabokov. Mind you, Lolita is better than 1984. But then Lolita is better than anything published in English since... oooh Henry James.

Except for The Code of the Woosters and Lucky Jim.

[Rob Stuart]

It didn't bloody win though. The swine.