when's the gravy?

the secret buried as deep in the parts
as in the whole
and I, looking to move through the posts of the past
to see, through the far of the fog
to the posts of another goal
...

But that’s not how it happened
What happened is, that, i... i ... moved back the goalposts myself
I was all lined up for a goal but before i could swing my leg to knock it in i changed my idea of what a goal should be
And so the goalposts got moved further back into the mist and i had to blunder around a while longer in the murk, trying to find the posts again
What i’m trying to say is that i never made things easy for myself
I might have been a perfectionist, or a control-freak, which i like to think can be the same thing, but they weren’t the problem. The problem is that i moved back the goalposts myself.
So i never achieved any goals. And i never felt satisfied with any achievement.

...
I genuinely reckon that school dinners first developed this bad habit for me.
Because most of my school dinners were hideous.

The first courses were all right, but the desserts were literally the stuff of nightmares... would keep me awake all night terrified that tomorrow’s lunch might have cold custard.

Honest, it would keep me awake.

And cold custard wasn’t the only horrible one.

There were plenty.

So plenty that something like semolina and prunes, which was foul, would be a relief... cos at least it wasn’t the trifle, or that vile blancmange stuff which i’ve never come across since and don’t know what it was called and must’ve been yet one more disgusting pudding whose creation was necessitated by postwar rationing.... which had been defunct a good ten years by 1967-9, which is when i’m talking about, but which was the kind of habit the English would never let die easy.
Oh no, they’d cling onto it unnecessarily for decades of excess misery, like butlins or blackpool or fanny craddock.
Anyway, i’ve digressed onto puddings... [Mrs Blogg was her name, the head cook at Lorraine County Primary, and they were both her fault and Hitler’s]... When what i wanted to talk about was the first courses: the beef, the roast spuds, the curried eggs, the whatever, which weren’t bad, but some of it, the cannonball peas i can only remember the disparaging name of, the sprouts, the carrots, the mushy peas... were horrible... so i would eat them first because i reckoned that would free me up and make me happier because when they were eaten i would have only good things to look forward to
Did you do that? the bad bits first? How many people did?
Cos i did and i reckon it set a pattern i'm still patterned by...
What i’m trying to say is that i think i’ve been spending my life eating the awful first bits... without getting to enough of the gravy, the lamb, the chicken pilaf, or the roast spuds. ]We even had veal and fried bread... bizarre eh, for the infant school on the skintest council estate for miles?]
Cos i worked that out myself at six... that it paid to eat the awful bits first. And its a good plan ...

...

Except i`m 47 and i reckon i`m still eating them.
?
When do i get to the nice bit.

...
where's the gravy
...
...

mal

or mamallapuram

7th century carvings, very good seventh century carvings in fact... and lets face it, that's old... not much in england is that old... virtually nothing

plus we had the eclipse... and me, i was out, wondering why it was so not light enough at 1.20pm

dohhh!

unfortunately mal is a tourist zone which means poor food ... [only goa of tourist zones has had great gfood... cochin and pondy were disappopinting]... and a general ease of conduct... so its easy for p to get work done on semi-self-imposed deadlines...

a 90 minute walk north up the beach... fishing boats and dhows... violent waves... the shaly grey of the cloud-shadowed sea

and the land is flat so this whole area must've got totally tsunamied... and many of the fishing boats were bought by german charities ... as, down the coast they were bought by USaid and various Germans

though USaid mucked it up by having a very large sign next a small tree saying, this tree was paid for by USaid

... not sure where to go next... kanchipuram, chennai, or straight to hampi for the sequel to The Tamil Nadu Temple Run... The Karnataka Lost Capital of Lost Empire Run

...

rereading the Tin Drum... [1957!!!] ... and having another great time with Oskar

...bliss

...