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Author Archives: A S H Smyth

Interview(ed)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

(for the British School in Colombo yearbook 2010/11) 1. So, what’s with the beard? After I graduated from the War Studies Faculty at KCL I rather fancied myself as a war correspondent, so I grew the beard. Then I just rather fancied myself. 2. We somehow get the impression that you are always very sarcastic […]

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Textual infidelity

Thursday, June 9, 2011

I keep my condoms in a copy of Anna Karenina. My girlfriend hasn’t read it.

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Was ist Lydia? (homage)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

I  If only I’d been born Lydia Davis I’d have written a lot less.   II  The Lydia Davis School of Banter – Call me, bitch. – Don’t call me bitch.   III  Flaubert, revised ‘“A good sentence in prose,” says Flaubert, “should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.”’ […]

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Too much Sade, not enough de Sade

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Sri Lankan erotica comes of age (prematurely) Blue: stories for adults ed. Ameena Hussein It is practically impossible to write good erotica. By which we mean literary porn. By which we mean ‘even DH Lawrence couldn’t really pull it off’. In the UK there’s actually an annual Bad Sex Award, routinely won (‘won’) by mainstream […]

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An audience (with the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir)

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Matters spiritual aren’t really, as they say, my ‘thing’. (In all honesty, I’m not too hot on the temporal, either). But recently, what with a local recital under discussion, surprise correspondence from an erstwhile colleague at Hampton Court, and then, of course, The Wedding (watched grudgingly, I hasten to add, though I stood for the […]

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Note to my biographer

Thursday, April 28, 2011

For the record: that page I’ve turned down – 102 – in the Alain de Botton paperback (the one with the Cambodian price sticker) is to mark the linguistic curiosity of the author’s ‘goo-goo gaga’ [inconsistent hyphenation of onomatopoeia]; not the stuff about Eric – the protagonist – and his alleged emotional coldness.

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After Auden (fragment)

Thursday, March 31, 2011

I am better off with madness and with fear; I do not care for food; neither do I wish to sleep alone; but happiness – that is another business altogether.

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Withdrawal symptoms

Thursday, March 31, 2011

1. flaccidity 2. sharp odours 3. ‘mess’ (4. malaise)

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Domestic

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

– Nothing’s ever perfect enough for you, is it? – ‘Perfect enough‘?

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Text

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Sorry. That wasn’t supposed to come out like that. (Or – it was; but not so much.)

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