Not at the fish stand, please

You see them in Asian supermarkets, the mismatched couples: large Caucasian men and their tiny, tiny Asian girlfriends. Retired marines, you know the type. Standing there a little stupidly while the girl decides what’s for dinner. It always creeps me out a little. Sue me.

But when they stand next to you? And she’s buying him food? Dressed in a quasi schoolgirl outfit, a thin plaid skirt? And his huge hand is fondling her ass crack? While you contemplate your lunch?

You kind of lose your appetite.

I’m it

Crikey, looks like I’m going to flex my withering writing muscle. I’ve been tagged by Mr Hg with The Book Title Meme.

(update: It’s taken me a month to get it together.)

1. Briefly describe an aspect of your life for which ‘The Dying Of Delight’ would be an apt title.

Delightful aspects have been sadly missing from my life. No dying, no death, not even little ones. Not a whole lot gives me pleasure at the moment. Even my appetite is lacking, so the pleasure of food has diminished somewhat. I blame the diabetes. It’s good to have something to blame.

2. Pick another book whose title has some resonance in your life, and write a little about it.

I could pick ‘The Light and Dark‘, but that would be too self-centered, even for me.

Looking at the books on my shelves, nothing really resonates until I hit Brendan Kennelly’s epic ‘Poetry my arse‘.

But I don’t want to make things too easy for anyone who picks up this meme from me, so I’ll choose MeFite John Bennett’s ‘Sea Otters gambolling in the wild, wild surf, which is the type of book you’d tell anyone they ‘must read’, because it’s dead funny and it might give them a few hours of that elusive thing, delight’.

Whatever.

I hear the Dutch title of this book will be ‘Dartelende zeeotters in de wilde, wilde, branding’, and it will be out in September this year. That’s for the benefit of any Dutch readers I might have.

3. Write one more short personal piece – one which matches the book title chosen (in part 2) by the person who tagged you.

So that would be ‘Saturday Night & Sunday Morning’.

That title means nothing to me. They’re just days. Parts of the weekend. Only slightly different from weekdays for the fact that I usually do not have to work. But sometimes I do.

I’m sure couples have their weekend rituals and younger folk are all about the Saturday Night out, and the Sunday Morning hangover. I’m too old for that now and every day is like Sunday.

4. Take your favourite little-known book and plug it to your readers. Authors need incomes, and word of mouth is one of the best ways to sell books.

John Banville may have won the Booker Prize for ‘The Sea’, but he isn’t particularly well known here in the Netherlands. ‘The Untouchable‘ is quite possibly my favourite book in the whole wide world. can’t say that everybody should read it, it’s not that type of book. If you identify with aging men (and for some reason I do), it may appeal. ‘The Untouchable’ is based on the life of Anthony Blunt, one of the Cambridge spies, and it deals with betrayal. Of country, of marriage, of friendship, of self.

5. Sit back and marvel at the magnificence of this meme. It was brought to you by an out-of-breath author, reduced (on account of her publisher* having expired) to trundling copies of her book across the internet on a rusty old trolley with one wheel missing, sweating and shouting “Buy me book, Gov?” Now visit www.TheDyingOfDelight.co.uk and see if you’d like a copy for yourself. I

There is something about this viral/meme that makes me uncomfortable and that’s probably why it took so long for me to finish the questionnaire. This last bit, #5, just annoys me a little. With apologies to the original author. I have no idea who you are. Please forgive me for not having the energy to find out. If I knew you, I might like the meme better, but perhaps this is one that doesn’t work beyond a blog’s regular readers. Or maybe it does and I’m just being my usual misanthropist self. Anyway, thanks for dropping by earlier.

6. Tag five people with this meme.

Nah. But anyone who reads me who hasn’t already done this, please, meme on.