Become a Friend of Fiskbook
10 Jan
Facebook makes the bold claim that it is free to join, and always will be. We don’t make such a claim here at fiskbook, although instead, we can pretty much guarantee that, unlike facebook, we will try not to bombard you with advertising. You’ll also not get that annoying cookies notification that you get on so many websites. We don’t even know what a bloody cookie is, and besides, we’re fairly sure that this site doesn’t use them anyway. And besides, we’re pretty sure that the “cookie authorities” are never going to check up on us. The only slightly annoying thing is that, if you look up fiskbook on your smart phone, it may well come up with the question asking if you’d like to see a “simplified view”. The only way to avoid this, we believe, is to change the settings on your phone, but we think it’s a bit complicated.
But anyway, one thing we have now decided is to give you the option, a bit like facebook, of becoming a friend of fiskbook. All you need do in order to do this is to add your name in the comments section at the bottom of this particular page. At this stage, there are no particular benefits of being a friend of fiskbook. Perhaps that will become more clear at a later date. At the same time as becoming a friend, you might also like to consider subscribing, so you get updates delivered to your mailbox. You can do this by pressing the subscribe button at the top of the screen and simply typing in your email address.
But the primary purpose of this page is to give friends the chance to say hi. So if you’d like to do this, simply do so in the comments section below. Who knows what it might lead to?
The literal translation of this poem is this: lately, practically every day, either a robin or a sparrow will stand on the handle of my back door into the garden and tap at the (glass door), presumably asking for food, as I’ve been putting food out for the birds. A squirrel also feeds from my garden. They seem to quite like broken up biscuits. I have scattered biscuits and bread all over my garden table And quite literally, I noticed that the squirrel has generally been getting there first, and mostly taking the biscuit crumbs, not leaving much for the birds. I saw one bird picking up a piece of bread from the grass, and it occurred to me that perhaps the birds would prefer me to scatter the food on the grass, and on the bird-table in my garden so that it would be more difficult for the squirrel to get to this food. When I went out to move some food from the table to the grass/bird-table, I quite literally heard a bird tweet, “The dirty robbing cunt” – if you’ve never been able to hear birds when they tweet, apparently in English, maybe your brain is not trained as well as mine in the language of birds. And I’m pretty certain that the tweet was directed at me not the squirrel because although I was outside in the garden at the time of the tweet, why would it be directed at me?
The When Girl is a friend who I do quite fancy, although she is a bit young for me. She has recently been grieving a friend, and I think has, as a result, struggled with knowing how to express herself/listen to others. Obviously, when someone is grieving, quite often it’s better to leave them alone and deal with this themselves (I know a few people who are grieving over a death at the moment, and my thoughts have been with them). But at the same time, perhaps they also need some support. One thing she has been repeating is the word “When”. Sometimes it’s unclear how/why she says this. Sometimes she is able to expand on this…”When did I?” or “When did I ask?” implying she doesn’t care about the things you try to say to her. So in that sense, I’ve felt that I’ve been getting in wrong with regard to trying to communicate with her, on any level. She has been hanging out with other friends of mine, has told me to join the queue. I don’t mind too much about that. As the singer from Telgate might say – “Join my fkn queue, bitch – you think i haven’t got a queue?” I’d rather it was easier for her to “get it” than for her to have to be cajoled.
One thing she did say to me though, I think as if asking for a way for me to express myself that she could relate to, was simply the word “Nature”. As if, if I expressed myself via the means of Nature, she might be interested. And so Mother Nature is clearly also represented in this poem, in the second verse:
“She told me the when of everything –
When to eat, when to sleep,
Exactly when she wanted food.”
Getting it wrong is something I do quite often. I make mistakes, perhaps when doing things I know I really shouldn’t be doing anyway. But then on the other hand, it’s quite amusing that a young girl half my age feels that her dictating terms – when – is something I should adhere to. I should add, this person is a fkn awful poet. I think she might make a good psychologist, but as a poet, at least at the moment, she’s rubbish.
I find it frustrating when people don’t answer texts. Unfortunately, sometimes my paranoia then comes into play, and can make me angry. I’ve been a bit delicate lately, and not knowing when I’m going to hear from someone has led to frustration. I stayed with my ex a couple of weeks ago – possibly the wrong thing to do – but she did show me a lot of kindness, more than a lot of people I know who live in Cardiff at the moment. But I don’t know when I’m going to see her again, or even speak to her as she hasn’t been answering calls or texts. Probably nothing suspicious about that, but I won’t go into details about her current lifestyle.
I think it was only after writing the poem – which I did revise a couple of times (it was originally “on the floor” rather than “on the ground” which by chance is a half-rhyme with “learned”, so works better anyway) – that the song by The Human League, “Tell Me When” actually expresses a lot of what I was thinking. We are none of us original after all, quite often things we do or say will have been done or said by other people many times.
Finally, I’m not going to lie, my mind has been absolutely shot to pieces lately, imagining all kinds of far more elaborate goings on that are happening in the world outside of the world I live in myself. While watching the end of the Liverpool match last night, I started imagining that the Queen was going to become no longer of this Earth. Obviously, she was unable to attend her own public engagement yesterday, on the day I wrote the poem. Possibly she has been ill. I’ve imagined a revolution that might involve her being dethroned. But regardless of that, I imagined last night that yesterday evening, at around 20 minutes past nine, the Queen became no longer of this Earth. I imagined I, for some reason, was having this message related to me, while the media, etc. try to figure out exactly how to announce this news, exactly how to say WHEN it happened. I imagined I was asked to wave goodbye, but I didn’t want to do this, not being a particular fan of Elizabeth II. I just looked upwards, imagining her being sent off on her spaceship. About five minutes later, I went to the window, looked up, and saw a vapour trail had crossed the moon. I’d got it wrong again. If I’d just looked out a few minutes before, I’d have seen the method of transportation. But I thought I had it right – I thought I knew WHEN was the right time.
As a Bluebird, the question of WHEN will Gareth Bale finally announce who he’s signing to. To be honest, if he doesn’t come to Cardiff, it’s hardly worth renewing the season ticket next season. When will a friend who’s recently had a baby allow me to come and visit her – she’s moved and I don’t know her address – hardly a big deal is it, just dropping by to say hi? But sometimes, you just get sick of the wait. Best to find another distraction.
Well, I thought I’d get the ball rolling. I have the slightly unfortunate name of Engleburt Bartfast. And you thought Slarty Bartfast was an embarrassing name!
I was first made aware of the writing of Fisk when he ran his publication named Square magazine. I contributed at least one article to the magazine, a spoof piece about Paul the Octopus, the Octopus who successfully predicted various results in the 2010 World Cup. I believe this piece now features on this website.
I suppose I’m happy enough to be considered as a “friend” of fiskbook.