Rogues Bard - Prose - Saved (In Praise of Laptops)

SAVED (IN PRAISE OF LAPTOPS)

Dear sir. I’m new in St.Ives and I‘m writer.
My plan today was to finish a short story for The Bridport Prize but I got drawn into the local pub which I’ll call the three Ferretts because its such an unlikely name, because Of a football match the details of which I wont bore you with but Man uApparently lost to someone called Psmouth
Anyway there was this bloke there with a young quite pretty but very thin girl whom it transpired was from south Africa trying to escape theracist elment because she felt guilt awkward and unwelcome cos she was white and didn’t like the hatred that happened either way and that’s important,.. cos she wasn’t racist just couldn’t cope with the hatred both ways and while she was telling us this this bloke Who wasn’t white ,but wasn’t black either came across and apparently he was fron New Zealand and he looked a bit like a Maorii but I didn’t ask him cos its not relevant,and he wore a black woolen hat and played Rugby which probably meant he punched people and dropped hisv trousers when he got drunk unless he wasn’t a stero type and not everyone Is because its not P.C.to be a stereotypeanymore!.. Anyway he started the racist argument and she git upset and burst into tears which really upset me and the other guy. (not the Maori) cos she was young and vulnerable but also very gutsy and we being older felt protective Towards her.and she was very opinionated and so was he and at one stage allegedly she called hin a”Mongrel” in Africaans which if it is true wasn’t a nice thing to say .. Anyway a lengthy argument ensued and he asked her for a private talk and she agreed and they went away came back best of friends and it all ended happily ever after And nobody got thrown out.This was incredible to witness cos the Three Ferretts is a pub where I’ve never heard anyone discuss anything other than sport Bums and tits and here we were discussing international politics and in a miniscule way solving the whole of the worlds racist and cultural problems over three pints of beer in an obscure pub..if only Osama Bin Laden Tony blair and George Bush drank in this pub there would be no problem at all because it wasn’t about COLOR.and religion never came into it It wasAbout accepting each others culture (which incorporates both)..not trying to integrate it..just respect it and I’ve never been a white person living in South Africa. Or a colored (Maori person ?) living In New Zealand and so I was tactful enough not to express any opinon .. just Mediate and so was the bloke withg the skinny girl who incidentally had a weighing machine that also told you your percentage of body fat (Apparently she was under fatAnd he was “obese “ (which was a bit over the top. He was just slightly tubby And I think It was also about sex cos they were both attractive people and I don’t wish to be cynical about this.cos its not my style But if it had been two blokes having the same argument someone would hsave died ! Anyway to cut this story short I I stuck up a rapport with the man in the pub whose name I cant remember but he hsad a guest house but disnt look like a guest house propietor at all suddenly th girle left and he followed cos he was wrried about her and I had a card I wanted to give him cos he was interested in Music. So I finished my pint and went to his house and rang the bell and he came to the door and he looked the same person but he wasn’t.. He was a guest house propietor Not the bloke I had just shared a pint with but it looked like him And it was almost as though we had never MET.cos he was a different personna. And I understand this because pubs are pubs and home is homeand gueast houses are business’s and you don’t necessarily want the two to cross because for all he knew I could have been a toal nutterand for all I knew so could he..So I would be the same if he knocked on my door I mean Its o,k to slurrrr a pint with a person but not your home.And that’s the point with racial integrationIf We all understand each other we don’t have to sleep in the same bed.(or fuck each other ) Just drink at the same bar and talk to each other and tolerate each others differences.I’m not naïve I know Life isn’t that simple but it’s a very basic principle;

I was beating myself up today cos I should have been writing a story to try to win the Bridport pryze and I went to the pub instead but all this came out of it which means that locking oneself away in a\garrett isn’t necessarily the best way to get inspirtion cos theres no output without input and thank you to my laptop cos if I hadn’t got YOU I would have gone home and scribbled this down in pencil and woke up the next day..and wouldHave thoughtb whats the fucks all these hieroglyphics in undecipherable pencil written on beer stained bits of paperand so all my literary runinations would have been to no avail and I shudder to think how many literary mashterrrpieshhees like this have been lost in a similar fashun Just pissed up the wall like the beer. I think this styule of writin is called stram of unconciuosness popularised by James Jotyce who was Irish and wrote a book called Ulyseese which people constantly quote as being a Litersry classic but few people have ever read ..a bit like The Glaa bead Game which is written by some German bloke called Hesse
(not Rudolf.) And everyone in Germany knows about but only anal retentive people Liturature Graduates liars and Tony Blair would clainm to have actally read.

I t was also popularised by some bloke called Geoffrey Barnard who was Drinking was subsidised by a well known Newspaper so he could go out and get absolutely pissed and write a column called Geoffrey Barnard is unwell So instead of curing his\ alcoholism they Paid him to get drunk and die of cancer of the liver. Cos it made good copy and they probably paid for his funerals.

So how moral is THAT.all you newspaper blokes ?

And will you pay me to do the same.
Answers on a post card to..

allmistakesare deliberately not deleted in order to retain the integrity of the Story which is true) So lets hear it FOR the Laptop because thanks to technology Im SAVED.. *They didn’t gimme a job as a drunken columnist ..just kept publishing letters about one way systems, holiday homes dead artists and missin cats and kids with skateboards.