Page 53 - Phonebox Magazine February 2008

A Day In The Life ....
I predict a hosepipe ban this summer. It’s been raining for days now, and all the fields are flooded. This virtually guarantees water board complacency and an arid Spring. Bet I’m right. Any takers?
On the subject of precipitation, please may I resurrect and share with you a parlour game I started playing privately at the end of ‘Summer’ ‘07. There were rumours circulating then, (I know, I started them) that Stoke Goldington was to be officially renamed Stoke Floodington. I thought it unfair for that village to be singled out, so I advocated mass renaming of all villages and towns. Here are a few. Weston Underwater; Newport Paddlingpool; Clifton Rains; Showerington; Newton Bucketville, ooh, and this came to me in the small hours last night, H20lney. Suggestions for others on a (waterproof) postcard please.
All this talk of is water is very timely, because it allows me to seamlessly announce an exhibition at ICETWICE in February. (www.icetwice.com for details)
Danish Photographer Steen Doessing is showing his collection
entitled ‘the congenital landscape’ which includes, as you can see, objects protruding from lakes. They are haunting, beautiful and well, moist. Not to be missed is what we say.
Now, in what way are women like locusts? You must have asked
yourself that? I can tell you. Locusts descend on and devour crops. Women hanker after and consume jewellery. Even though our new Spring lines were not in the sale, the poor wretched adornment addicts of the area have been swallowing them whole (not literally, obviously, fool) from the day they arrived. I fear for their health frankly. In future I require a doctor’s certificate to be produced before I can allow a purchase to be made (or a letter from the Betty Ford Clinic will do).
The one thing I absolutely LOVE about being a bookseller is that there is no VAT on them. I can’t tell you how much pleasure it gives me when I sell a book, knowing that I do not have to give one penny of the transaction to the government, at least not in the form of sales tax. It keeps me going, but also
reinforces my book addiction, which means my stock of new books grows daily which will surely overpower me in the end unless I get a bigger storeroom.
One of these books is a satirical self-help thingummy, with the catchy title “Lose Weight, Get Laid, Find God”. Pop in and rummage through it. It tells you what you should be doing at any given year of your life. For example, at my age, 39 (haha), it says I should be learning how to Deny My Age and guess what, I just did, so it works.
If that’s all too frivolous for you, try this excerpt from another new book called This Means This, This Means That (A User’s Guide to Semiotics).
“The oredr of the ltteers deosn’t mttaer bcuseae we do not hvae to raed ervey lteter bferoe we can raed the wlohe wrod. The mian tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pclae. The oethr ltteers can be in a toatl mdudle and you can sitll raed the snetnece wouthit a porbelm.”
See you nxet mtonh. Yuor felis are udnnoe!
ICETWICE GALLERY & BOOKSTORE
25, HIGH STREET SOUTH, OLNEY, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MK46 4AA INFO@ICETWICE.COM 01234 714499 WWW.ICETWICE.COM
Phonebox Magazine 53