Miettes
2014
The Case
Je suis un non-lieu.
I keep asking the same questions because I don’t get answers. People prefer to ask questions instead. Apart from being easier, it gives the air of intelligence.
Because I repeat the questions once too often, the medical specialists ask if my brain is sick. It is a question they ask but can’t find an answer. But asking it is enough for a spot diagnosis.
When I ask them what is the basis, they say it’s a question I prefer not to answer. Merely by asking it you are questioning my answer in advance. And that’s a question I don’t want to hear. Ask yourself if you were in my (lofty) position, and you know the answer. You mean you don’t know. What do you think?
Amour-Propre
When you hate someone the Christian thing to do is make them love you.
Train-train
Mussolini made the trains run on time. In France it’s the passengers run.
Dernier Mots
Puta, j’ai ratẽ ma vie.
Triage
Hell is waiting ; heaven is being seen on time ; earth is missing the appointment.
Eclipse
If the smiling girl stops smiling the sun will go out.
The Freudian Pull
Eros is not the train engine. It’s the communication cord.
My Friends the Gendarmes
I was arrested for robbing my own house.
A Measured Bias
I don’t think the Germans are any worse that other peoples. Only better at it.
Les Members Inferior
legs
Legacy
When they find my black box in the Irish Sea it will contain a shrimp.
Velocity
My legs go better round and round than up an down. The rotation of the earth is not a matter of mood.
Joker
When I say something serious and everybody laughs I know I am a joke.
Philostein
If you are intelligent it’s better to hide it, or you become accountable for your ideas.
Short Back and Sides
When in despair
I have my hair cut.
Light Relief
I lit a candle every day to St Expedite during M’s illness. It made me feel better.
Street Friendship
Exchanging photos of dogs.
Life (the notice)
‘High tension transformer. Danger of death’.
What’s in a Name
1. Francois Holland, the least popular French President ever, has translated his name to ‘Pays Bas'. The country is feeling low.
2. Brigitte Bardot was born Javal (toilet cleaner) and changed it to shingles (bardot) .
Rugby
You eat before and drink afterwards.
Scrum-ptious
Crouch, bind, set.
Sport
Time stops when there is an injury.
Seamus Heaney
When you’re dead you are always quoted out of context.
Time
only moves in one direction. Space stays put.
Raimu, (Favourite French actor)
‘I started life by chance (pif) and ended it plastered (paf)’.
Auto-derision
closet pride.
They Grow Up
French has the right word for motherhood, Ephẻmẻre.
Chechen War
‘The war became too dangerous to report, and so disappeared off the map’.
Laughter in the dark
When the audience laugh at something I don’t understand I join in.
Why I am here?
Because there is nowhere else to be.
The Merry Widower
He who loves everybody
St. Ninon
Patron saint of Nihilists.
Control Not Power (Alex Ferguson)
‘The worst weakness is when you want to be seen as not weak.’
‘Exhaust your opponents by relentless boring persistence.’
False
‘The worst tyranny of translation is rhyme’ (Martin Sorrell, Verlaine)
True
To translate anything properly you must be fearless and ruthless (me).
Impulsif
I too am impatient with the truth.
Haunting
The really frightening thing about ghosts is people believe in them
Chess
In France the bishop is called the fou (the mad) while the other pieces
are named as elsewhere. This is due to the laicity laws that came with the
Pink Fishing Nets
La vie en rose pour les poussins
Sinister (Smaller Oxford Dictionary, 1864)
as a ‘typical Irish emigrant with his animal features’.
Train-train, gnan-gnan. Troncon, gnon-gnon.
French saw.
Le petite siete de Martha est une caresse de chat.
Pierre Bonnard.
Rule 1 for a Successful ‘Literary’ Writer
There must be no distance between the narrator and the author (Banks, Plath)
Shame on you
I must be the only non-Racist on earth who detests
Nelson Mandela.
The Cannibal of Cadillac
Jeremy Rimbaud (34) eats hearts and tongue.
Self-effacing
Everybody in the world is an egoist except me.
Lunar grammar
The moon punctuates the night.
Timely warning
You don’t stop time by breaking clocks.
Exercise
I’m off to bathe myself in sweat.
Graceful withdrawal
I would like to unshaken your hand.
M
I still live with you.
Le Penible Etat
Le barbarisme avec un visage humain. Il crache...
