My office gave me a computer so I could work from home (during the Covid crisis)
They also gave me a work phone as my job entails taking calls from the public,
It's strange but I've been doin' this job for years
And I've always had this stammer... this funny stammer
Yet luckily I've always been able to get by
I've never let it bother me that much
But now though, since working from home I'd noticed my stammer was getting progressively worse
Maybe it was all the isolation, the lack of interaction with others
But I found myself struggling with words/sounds that had never bothered me before
It was beginning to become a real worry
What was I gonna do !!!
So I started to take a drink or two, a couple of glasses of wine along with a can (or two) of beer
And listen to some music on my own phone
Hoping it would relax me more
Sometimes it'd work, sometimes... sometimes not
But then one day... one day Lana del Rey came into my life
Yea! I discovered the songs and music of Lana del Rey
What a voice and the things she could do with it, it seemed so effortless
What an Enchantress
She'd transport me off to some other world faraway
So between work calls, in the gaps in-between
I'd have her songs on and be watching her videos on YouTube
I used lose myself in her world
Now I didn't care anymore about work or phone calls or whether I stammered or not
Suddenly I was Mr. Cool driving down a motorway in LA with my sunglasses on in my Chevy Malibu
Or maybe hanging out, chilling with Lana's crew
(maybe on a thirteenth beach somewhere)
And when she'd be singing something melancholy, something blue
I'd be there comforting her saying  "I know Lana, I understand, sure Me! I'm a King of Melancholy too".

Well one Friday I was feeling kinda happy and good about life
I'd survived another week in the job and had a long weekend to look forward to as I had Monday off
And yes! I'd had a few drinks as well and was away again lost in Lana land
I had her songs on and a video was playing
Suddenly I felt I needed to go for a ***
So I put Lana on hold saying "Excuse me Lana"
But then... just then my work phone rings, there's someone on the line,
I say to myself I better take this call
I'll get rid of him quick (famous last words)
I don't know if this guy was lonely or just liked the sound of my voice
But I just could not get him off the phone
Sometimes the phone calls they'd remind me  of the old Air Aces back in World War I
In their biplanes, shooting at one another, those dogfights in the sky
(They should have had us wearing bomber jackets)
But if this guy was an Air Ace, then he was the Red Baron
I couldn't shake him, just couldn't get him off my tail, could not get him off the phone
He's like... he's like feckin Columbo (the detective off the TV)
It's like he's finished, he's just going out the door
But then he turns around and comes back with another question
"Can I ask you...this...
Can I ask you...that...
Would you mind answering this question...
Just one more thing...
Just one more question....
One last question....
One final question...
You're very good, can I ask you....
Sorry for taking up all your time but can I ask you....
You're very knowledgeable, it's great to get someone you can talk to, so you're saying....
Is that the way it works, can I ask you..."
At this stage I'm bustin' to go to the loo
It's getting to emergency stations, my poor bladder
What am I going to do!!!
Should I excuse myself and tell him I've got to go to the loo
But that's not very professional, I'd never ever done that before
Anyway I'm thinking I have no other alternative
But then suddenly... suddenly I spy this empty bottle on my shelf
It's an unusual bottle with thick glass and it has this lovely wooden capped cork which can be easily pulled out and put back in again
(I kept it 'cos I thought it might come in handy if I had a corked bottle of wine
And the cork got messed up with the corkscrew
I could put any surplus wine in there)
So I'm looking at this bottle and... I have an idea
"Desperate situations call for desperate measures", I think
"You gotta do what you gotta do,
And of course, their always saying you should be creative and innovative in your work"
So I take down the bottle, tell Lana to avert her eyes
I take out the cork, unzip the fly of my pants
Get my Old Boy out and start peeing into the bottle
I'm mightily relieved and I'm thinking Ha! Ha!
Go on you ****** ask me another question, I don't care now....I'm free!!!
I'm proud of myself "What a Pro !" I'm thinking,
The next thing a whole lot of *** comes flying out of the bottle, like a bottle of champagne gushing out
Shooting out all over the place, all over my pants and my shirt
I'd miscalculated the amount of *** and the size of the bottle
I never knew I peed that much (well you learn something new everyday)
And the guy is still talking to me on the phone
And all I'm thinking is "Jaysus I'm after peeing all over myself"
And finally... finally, at long...looong... looooong last the guy, he gets off the phone, halleluia!!!
I'm left there completely deflated, soaked in my own ***
Broken and disconsolate, all my illusions shattered
No longer am I Mr.Cool driving down a motorway in LA
No longer am I either Mr. All-understanding Melancholy Guru Man
No! Now I'm just... just some guy whose after peeing all over himself
I look at my phone and there's Lana looking back at me, still on hold
I switch her on again, she's singing that lovely song "Love"
She does that lovely little shimmy with her shoulders for a second
Then she gives me that cute little wink and the lovely smile
I think to myself "Well, at least Lana still likes me"
But I feel guilty, I feel I got to explain, got to apologise
"Sorry Lana", I say, "I guess...I guess they don't make heroes like they used to".

Then I start to think 'This working from home is really fraught with danger, lucky there's no cameras on these computers or they'd be saying "I don't believe what I've just seen, what's that feckin' eejit doing now"

But then I think "Still, the customer went away happy, I didn't let it faze me too much, I saw it through... me and my funny stammer...what a Pro!
Maybe I was... maybe I am...a hero after all.

She's like a Lana Del Rey Song
Beautiful, deep, and once it gets stuck in your head - you can't get it out

She's beautiful in more ways than one, maybe it's her personality or it's the way her hair falls past her shoulders or maybe it's the way she looks at you with those eyes. Oh Those eyes that makes your heart race because you know they're on you. Those eyes you wish you could wake up to them in the morning. You find her actions cute and maybe that's another reason why you think she's beautiful. The way she calls you an ******* when you tease her the fact that you and her can have a cute playful relationship. Her giggle her laugh it's so beautiful, you can't help but to smile when you hear it probably because it's so rare to hear. She's beautiful because she is someone that you find interesting and interesting people are hard to come by now a days. Her soul though - you find the most beautiful. The type of person she is. What makes her so beautiful? You think to yourself - it's everything literally everything and you understand she may not understand but you do and well that's enough because you'll make her understand it. You want her to see herself the way you see her.

She's deep in oh so many ways, she writes poetry and reads literature. She's intelligent and it's like a breath of fresh air. When you speak to her even though it maybe about nothing at all so much is being spoken - it's not just in one ear and out the other words it's actual conversation. Those words, her words stick to you. You want to discuss the world with her and her views on life. You want to listen to anything and everything she has to say as she smokes her cigarette. You want to see the world through her eyes even if it's just for a moment. You want to know everything you can about her, the good as well as the bad. You want to know the person she is, you want to know what goes on in her head. Is there a war in her mind like yours? Or is her mind peaceful? She is the exact opposite of you, yet you and her are the same. Would that make sense to her if you tried to explain it? Eh you hope so. Then again would you even explain it to her? Probably not because you'll probably never share this with her for the soul reason of being too afraid to share your thoughts on someone like her to her. You're also too afraid she won't feel the same way, and that scares you.

Then again just like a Lana Del Rey song she can be dark and it's not her fault and she can't help it. But do you care she has a dark side and messing with her is like playing Russian roulette? No in fact - you want to play. You want to take that chance, you think her imperfections make her absolutely perfect. You want to hold her in your arms, you want to push her against the wall and make out with her. You want to prove to her that not all people will **** her over, that there are people YOU who want to give her everything even the things she never knew she wanted until she had them. Others have just let her walk out of their life's like she was nothing. You think to yourself, you would never do that because you are not an ******* like the rest. You want to prove to her that she matters in more ways than one. You want to prove to her that she's worth every ounce of energy you can muster up. Most importantly though - if she left, if she ever wanted to leave would you let her walk out of your life just as easy as all the rest? No you would put up a fight to make her stay, even if that meant getting on a plane immediately to go be with her to tell her she's being ridiculous as you kiss her deeply to clam her down.

She's get stuck in your head and you won't be able to get her out, and you know what? That's okay because just like a Lana Del Rey song those lyrics so hauntingly beautiful you want her in your head. You want to think about what she's doing and if she's thinking about you at that very second. You think about the possibilities of you crossing her mind and if you do does she smile? You sure do hope so. You often wonder what it would be like to kiss her lips and feel her small frame against yours, it's probably pure bliss you think to yourself. You want to kiss her passionately to Burning Desire because for some reason that songs speaks to you about her, and grab her hips holding her close to Gods & Monsters because it's the first Lana song she sang to you and in some way that song is our song. However maybe it's just our song to me, although hopefully it is to her. But you want this and you want that, you can only hope she wants the same. Please want the same you think to yourself. You also wonder what it would be like to drag your teeth against her skin and kiss every inch of her body, yeah I'm sure it's complete bliss. You want her, you want her.

She's like a Lana Del Rey song that's so hauntingly beautiful that you want to leave on repeat.

-soc

Rey del Lana
Her beauty is bright,
She sings like a nightingale
Who hasn't experienced fright.
Tall and radiant as if in a 60's movie
She sings about the other woman
Pity she doesn't know who is she.
Lana del Rey is like the daughter of a god. She is everything that a girl would be , to have to trod.
Lana is a fiery beacon in a land of gods and monsters, she rides when there is a war in her mind.
Marilyn her mother is happy about her baby, Whitman her dad has made her a poet. Lana del Rey, where would I be without you? I'm happy your life experiences have made me better. I'm glad I can celebrate the day with you.
Let's drink some wine and feel the blues, Lana den Rey, imagine if I were I your shoes....!

One day it dawned on Lana:
Some physical “flaws” seemed more dominant.
Rivers of wrinkles crisscrossed her face,
And the bump on her nose looked more prominent.
“This just won’t do,” she said to herself.
“Good looks are SO in demand.
I’ve got to see Dr. Slicestitch before
All of this gets out of hand.”
 
The doctor, after examining Lana,
Made a few helpful suggestions:
“I have the perfect plan for you.
Just stop me to ask any questions.
Let’s start with a major skin resurfacing
To get rid of wrinkles and spots.
We’ll do a slice here, a little slice there,
And then we will start with the shots.
Collagen and Botox injections
Will follow your mid-face lift.
Rhinoplasty will flatten your nose.
But we can’t give your ***** short shrift.
If you’re looking at breast enlargement,
We can give you an impressive rack—
Unless reduction is more beneficial
To somewhat relieve that pain in your back.
We’ll lift your eyelids, raise your cheekbones,
And put an implant in your chin.
We’ll thicken your lips and pull back your neck
To allow you to have the tightest of skin.
There's sclerotherapy for varicose veins;
My accuracy is really uncanny.
And a little more work in the lower area
Will give great form to your flat *****.
Liposuction on your thighs and belly
Would, I think, be very smart.
Plus laser treatment for unwanted hair.
All this should be a great START.”
 
You should see Lana now;
Stop by to kindly surprise her.
You’ll be astonished by her new look,
Although you won’t recognize her.
Her face is so tight that she can’t smile;
Her translucent skin is pale and waxen.
Her chin protrudes and her nose is flat.
She’ll remind you of Michael Jackson.
It almost seems as though she can’t blink;
If she could, I’d be amazed.
The look on her face is the look of a woman
Perpetually shocked or crazed.
Regarding her *******, she went with large
Instead of doing the breast reduction.
Her ******* might turn heads, but not
The loose skin from her liposuction.
Yes, she’s got new shape to her bottom,
But now especially she must beware:
Since she is so heavy on top,
It makes it hard to sit on a chair.
Since she’s started all this work,
Frequent adjustments will be needed
To fine tune areas that would get messy
If they're left entirely unheeded.
 
A major overhaul on a car
Works well on an old Model T.
The human body is more problematic;
The outcome has no guarantee.
A little adjustment here and there
Is fine if it’s done quite tastefully.
But many people like the idea
Of growing old gracefully.
Lana received a complete transformation;
Of options she was presented with plenty.
It’s just that it’s strange when someone looks
Seventy going on twenty.

- by Bob B

I hope I don’t see anyone I know
I need to be high to enjoy the show
It’s wearing off can we please go?
Come back to my place we’ll snort some blow

Her face, flawless and filtered, flows over
my chest, ribs, stomach, hips, fitting the curved
mounds of my body, and even within simplicity
of thread and dye, I sense her presence as her face
hangs from my frame, a statement louder than pillow-lips,
Nancy Sinatra-hair and a glamorous 60’s ***** face.

When paired with leggings and an artfully-distressed denim jacket,
I become a member of the “freshman generation of degenerate
beauty queens,” a hipster fallen to the circumstance of youth,
but I wear her face and the romance of it all reminds me:
we are not defined as Lolitas lost in the hood, or distant,
airy voices in a sea of crude jokes and half-baked skits

meant to highlight shortcomings of a person who doesn’t give
two *****. Lana fits me better than my ribbed, red
sweater and even amidst gods and monsters,
this T-shirt makes pretty last, and I am just as cool.

Lana Del Rey
Your voice is like ice cream
I feel like I can taste
all the emotions you belt
Forgive me for this
but Lana, Lana del rey
why are so easy to love?

when i write
i always find myself wishing that i wrote like Lana del Rey,
making even the simple things seem extraordinarily grand, to be able to glamorize what is sometimes a painfully normal life
i want to touch someone's skin
and write about it in a way that makes someone feel as though they're touching velvet
i want the kiss we shared
to linger on someone's lips like the taste of their favorite chapstick
i want to write about love
so that in turn someone will lust for what i already have
i want to write about my years of pain and isolation in a way that makes someone want to rip their own heart out and offer it up to me on a platter made of shimmering, sterling silver
which, of course
i'd have to refuse
because what would a writer be if surrounded by love and admiration they knew was real, that they didn't doubt for even a second
although, the sensuality of the circumstance might be tempting
an artist without eternal, incessant suffering
is merely a wolf in sheep's clothing
or a fool who thinks he's a king
they simply aren't built to last

i want to write about my mid-night thoughts and for someone to think: Lana would be proud

I will love you even when you're no longer young and beautiful as Lana del Rey once asked.

I will love you even when we are working our ***** off the pay bills we shouldn't have. I will love you when you can't wipe your own **** and when you're grumpy and old.

I will love you when you hate me and tell me I drive you crazy.

When the passing sun and moon go right on by... I will still smile and think how I've loved you all the while.

When the earth stops rotating and our world starts to end... I will remember the days we shared together.

But just remember I will love you when you're no longer young and beautiful.

"And then taking from his wallet
an old schedule of trains, he'll say
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger."
                                        --- Leonard Cohen

I'm the most surprised person on the planet.
Your coming to see me off at the airport
has my mind scratching glass seeking words.
Why is it that in this relationship,
you seem to have gotten all the speaking parts?
You're well aware that I have loved you
for the better part of two years,
bottling that emotion, afraid to pop the cork.
Your eyes implore mine, rotating like
a searchlight over Baghdad seeking
the stealth laying carnage to your heart.
Twice in the last week you've made it evident,
the Grail was mine, but for the drinking ---
That and finding a shorthand for adultry.
I'm guilty courting the love of a married woman,
made worse, you're here at my departure
telling me we aren't free to choose who we love.
I know my desire must die of thirst,
so I turn, boarding pass in hand,
the last words I ever hear from you,
Write me! --- Thirty-five years later I have.

now i know why i might engage with writing obscene
poems, chauvinism included, but still there
is no burning excuse in my mind with the way
western society actively desires censorship of certain
words, i already attributed censoring obscene
words as worse than what this tactic precipitates into:
the apathetic spread of *******, and violence
in general... it crosses my mind that sparring with violent
language cushions people from violet action...
to utilise violent language with that: pardon my French
attitude does more good than evil on the users...
how many road rage incidents could have been avoided
if people were unable to watch their tongue:
somehow we're making language sterile, by actively
pursuing this sort of censorship: which is not even
remotely politically related / motivated, we're bringing
an anaemic status quo in how fluidly we speak -
we desire to not hear the sometimes funny and the sometimes
awful... but we choose to see the god-fearing horrific...
ask any blind-man about music and he'd say:
well, i can dance to it in a nucleus position, centrally
gravitational pull - but ask the deaf man about
what he has to say when seeing **** written to counter
obscenity, as in cartoon-like: f&%£! it's just plain silly,
pocket-sized expression of psychotic behaviours,
rummaging through them i find only one source of inspiration:
the fact that we're in this blind-man's garden of innocence,
somehow dressed in the camouflage of censorship such
a tiny problem, that it does indeed require 23 mattresses
for the princess to not feel the frozen *** agitating her...
this sort of censorship in its application is under
a false sense of purpose, it really doesn't change people's
behaviour for the better, it doesn't pacify them, in does
the reverse: it infuriates, it makes violence more potent...
i'm still trying to figure out why such words
will make our perceptions saintly... unless of course
that's the reason behind them, as way of invoking an
anaesthetic placebo, a placebo that's actually active rather
than passive - presuming the anaesthetic placebo gives
way to an aesthetic active apathy-inducing ingredient...
meaning we can't bare to hear swear words, but we can
gladly watch 20 hours of 20 : 1 ****... censoring **** ****
**** **** will not escape Newtonian physics...
given our current scenario, Newtonian physics is far
more important than Einstein's relativity, i'd hate to be
in denial about cause & effect... as began with Socrates,
i too abhor moral relativism... of course Newton got
the gravity bit wrong, but i like the simpler version...
plus... there was no Romance with Einstein...
no apple, no tree, no Voltaire... meaning we don't necessarily
write history collectively, with all of us starting from
the big bang or the view from the Galapagos islands...
we don't... we continue writing history not from a
collective consciousness genesis... or from the collective
unconscious genesis - that's Jung with his archetypes
(devil, god, wise man, mother, father etc.) rather than
dreams (Freud) - we can chose were to write the future...
it's not so much ignorance as arm-chair intellectualism,
it's not about the safety of understanding something,
but the comfort of choosing to understand something...
which is pretty much to my excuse for my previous poems...
Heidegger... and that concept of Dasein -
i never bothered to understand it to the point of
reacting subjectively to it, by that i mean an interest
in writing about it, an interpolation of the subject with
alternative variations... i objectified it, i also countered it
when objectifying the concept turned out to be an
everyday object, shortening my quest.
the counter? hiersein, i.e. being here, here denoting a
solipsistic classification of awareness with / in the world -
which is basically me in my room, admiring my library,
my record collection, my torn sneakers, everything that
is classified exclusive to what dasein evolves into
when all its grammatical weaving only express a verb,
i.e. concern... so i thought, given this what can hiersein
(being here / nonchalance) actually show me as
my lack of interest in: "changing the world".
it became obvious yesterday, i had a hard time when i
didn't read the day's copy of the times (more on this later),
instead i had to suffice with construction site media,
you might have heard of this newspaper: the daily star,
at 20 pence a pop, you will see what £1.20 makes to
your psyche... but that's basically it, i objectified Heidegger's
concept and made it into an everyday object, in this
case and as the only case available: a newspaper -
and the trick is? well, with a newspaper like daily star
you don't actually experience dasein - it's completely
missing in this style of media, and that's worrying given
my barbaric poetry of yesterday... it's missing, not there,
such object-for-object chirality is what gives birth to
hiersein (being here); but today i returned to my usual
media diet, a flicked through the times and the natural
balance of personal objects and a fresh impersonal object
coexisted - the newspaper is truly the most adequate
compounded expression of Heidegger's dasein -
which i attribute to the constant need to emphasise an
empathy with others... empathising is a neutral form
of sympathising, since sympathy is sourced in shared
experiences: **** victims (e.g.) - therefore empathy is
something that in the ontological structuring of dasein,
which opposes the ontological structuring of hiersein,
which is structured by apathy; there is nothing else for
me to write, apart from the compendium proof
of the disparity of sources, i.e. headlines and subheadings:

- prior compendium -

i will never understand the point of autobiographies,
the majority of autobiographies are written
on a p.s. basis, after the facts / actions,
never immediately, concerning ideas /
solidified thoughts, thoughts condensed into idea
that allow thinking / cognitive narration to
continue regardless with what's being achieved...
i haven't anything autobiographical dissimilar
with something biographical...
Plato wrote that wonderful biography like
Shakespearean theatre, but i guess his critics felt
the claustrophobic tug & pull of mermaids...
still the problem ascends heights unparalleled -
even with ghost writers doing the leg-work...
cheap-buggers never learned to write, let alone read,
and here they are writing biographies...
ah, **** it... they're only sketches... whether biographic
or autobiographic... they're still mere sketches...
if this was the art world the revenue would come
posthumously, when it comes to literacy
nothing really distinguishes poets from
those prescribing pedestrian signs...
the Olympians can moan at the vacant stadium...
that there's a hierarchy in sports,
with the favoured monochrome idealisation
of where the bunny money is in the whirlpool
of the rabbit hole investment: football, volleyball...
but the literary events are the same...
people love to lie that they read the bestseller to
its full extent... but treat books like chairs and tables...
inertia prone half finished, sat on for 2 weeks of
the entire year... the Olympians are very much
like poets, and i care to distance myself from either
demand for more interest being invoked...
i like esoteric sports, i like esoteric writing...
but that's how it stand: poets are Olympians where
novelists are footballers, who retire at 30 and
then think about what to do with their wages
that are 10x higher than the everyday labourer...
start a restaurant, buy a strip of houses in Liverpool
like Michael Owen? good guess, here's to exploiting
youth disgracefully... that's what they're getting,
and these are the dilemma points to consider...
they're the equivalent gladiators of our time,
Rome was just a sleeper before it awoke once more...
but i'll never understand why these
people decided to exploit literature for gain...
all these academics with their pristine purity of discovery
are pacified when dictating print,
what poet, has a chance in hell, to appear gladly
excavated from Plato's cave of television?
about none.
i too was focusing on 20th century literature,
before 21st literature came about...
and i thought, oh god: they're really going to create
a totalitarian democracy, every artist will be
strip-searched for adding cinnamon and chilli to their
writing to bounce away from conformist
sober and sane extraction of alter wordings...
this 21st scene will become polarised...
we'll have the extinction of One Direction over a joint,
while the Rolling Stones drank a keg of whiskey
and pulled off a show... we'll have moralisation
of the fans to subdue the artists, which will mean
no artist will ably create a zeitgeist to rebel... everyone
will suddenly experience a weird sort of communism...
the worst kind... it will mean having
all the mental freedoms without the ability to
economise a coup... basically an inertia, an immediate
fatality... we can't economise a coup...
which boils down to why so many autobiographies
aren't really biographic, but rather consolidating,
by the meaning: autobiographic i intended to relate
the everyday... the most secretive account of life:
the everyday... this is stressing Proust,
even though i preferred Joyce over Proust i keep
the everyday the prime ideal: the only detail,
so that an autobiography can make sense,
automation of writing, like breathing or sneezing...
not some monetary-spinning device 20 years after
the facts... 20 years later you're pretty much writing
fiction... i am all for the biosphere of expanding
Alveoli... but when did you ever read an autobiography
that mentioned the taste of weak coffee
from the Friday of 20th of August 2016? never;
you read autobiographies
like you read self-help books...  waiting for
all that experience regurgitating motivational talk
about reaching a plateau of comparative success...
i can understand autobiographies written by the elders,
i understand biographies written about people
posthumously - but the tragedy is, given the spinning
wheel of money? we're getting "auto" biographies
written toward their 3rd volume renditions of
people aged 30... let alone 40... so much for
western society having the upper hand on political matters...
just saying: sort your own **** before trying
to sort other people's problems...
i could understand if these autobiographies were written
as described: automaton solo... but they're not...
before the compendium it's this everlasting presence
of a desired body of power being depicted:
prior the monopoly of knowledge, there was a monopoly
of literacy... given that 99% of us are literate, it
actually doesn't mean a third donkey's *******
whether we can read, or write, we got shelved in controlling
this once priestly vanity, we got taught bureaucracy alongside...
but the monopoly of literacy is way past us,
we're being convened in the ability to monopolise knowledge,
(oh please, don't let the paranoia seep in,
remember yourself when reading me, once in a while,
i don't drag you to phantasmagorical heights, even if i could,
i'd prefer you being agile in learning how to be bored
than letting your repel the same boredom i too share,
well... but **** me if you want to be the next Lenin) -
and the easiest way to monopolise knowledge? the media...
you basically need a lot of facts, and an evolved version
of dialectics, dialectics being the prime enemy of democracy
(it's not an alternative political model like despotism as
we are held to believe, it's actually dialectics,
suppressing other forms of collectivisation is the one
sure method of suppressing the attempt at dialectics
(individualism) - by making people overly opinionated,
ergo: the inability to engage with opinions, blind-alleys
throughout all plausible attempts to do so) -
so once you have enough facts to fiddle with the Rubik's cube
of juxtaposition, you end up with the ultra-scientific
form of dialectics... the matter of opinion in relation
to truth without a relative uniformity that prescribes
the status quo stasis is a debate about how accurate
we all are: i.e., is that true to the closest centimetre,
or the closest millimetre? it's a bit like watching a Zeno
paradox:
                 10.1                           and 10.01
      which one's tortoise and which is Achilles?
well, you know; ah ****! the compendium of the two
newspapers which got me slightly depressed...

- the compendium -

a. daily star

- B. BRO SAM'S SECRET 'NERVOUS BREAKDOWN'
- Laura & Jason's baby joy
- Robbie (Williams) £1.6M a night!
- BREXIT BOOST ON JOB FRONT
- ANGE DAD BACKS TRUMP
- JR'S wife Linda set to Holly
- Edd's no Beverly Hills flop
(Lana among cow *******)
- LAURA: OUR TINY TROTTS WILL BE WORLD-BEATERS
- FURY AT BAD LOSERS' SLURS
- 'Jealous sis' jibes
- MAKE YOUR KID AN OLYMPICS ACE
- Peaty: I want to be a rapper
- TV girl really ill
- **** SAM, 'ON THE BRINK OF BREAKDOWN'
- COSTA ***** HELL
- CAGING ANJEM WILL INSPIRE NEW JIHADIS
- POG'S LOADED AGENT BUYS CAPONE'S LAIR
- I'll make Kylie a pop star
- JEZ DOESN'T KNOW ANT FROM HIS DEC
- GUILTY OF DEMONIC SAVAGERY
- Great British Rake In
- Britain is *******
- BAYWATCH U.K.
- Va Va Vroom
- JUST JANE: My lover snubs plea to get wed
- HART: I'LL DECIDE WHEN TO GO.

b. the times

- Boy victim becomes a symbol of Assad's war
- US Olympics swimmers invented robbery tale, say Rio police
- Make us sell healthy food, supermarkets implore May (P.M.)
- Lost weekend of the lying best man
- fears over free speech delay law to silence hate preacher
- Met's 'commuter cops' live in France
- Husbands happiest when they earn half as much as wives
- Socialists plot to drive Britain left
- Fake human sacrifice filmed at European high altar of physics
- Officers investigated over ex-footballer's Taser death
- Number of pupils taking languages at record low
   (Mandarin @ 2,849 - % decrease of 8.1,
    alarmingly religious studies 27,032 up by 4.9%
    and psychology of status 59,469 up by 4.3%....
    meaning the mad will soon be diagnosing the sane
   as mad, just because the curriculum said so)
- Top grades add up to 100% at the school for maths prodigies
- Deprived sixth formers thrive on competition
- European students rush to get into British universities
- DVLA earns £10m selling driver's details
- Mystery over Kenyan death of aristocrat
- Journalist who voted twice reported to police for
  'fraud'
- Tomato tax threatens European trade war
- Love story of the Pantomime
- Homeless conmen fleeced widow, 81
- Brownlee brothers at the Olympics...
- Hopeful shoppers give sales a lift after Brexit vote
- MoD guard could be stood down despite terrot threat
- Owners spit mansion after failing to sell
- The job with international appeal: saving our hedgehogs
- Finch warns unborn chicks if weather gets warm
- Migrant violence rises after decline in policing around Jungle
- Longest road tunnel promises a relaxing ride under Pennines
- Mothers step up to drive Tube trains through night
(rowdy teens ageing exponentially on a Saturday night
when not getting a lift, ******...)
-MP's deal with bookmaker to be investigated
- Ebola nurse 'hid high temperature'
- Shoesmith's ex-huspand kept child *******
- Morpurgo war tale springs into life
- Supergran fights off teenage muggers
- IVF is more successful for white women
OPINION SECTION
- Great political fiction is good for democracy
- the BBC is leaving its audiences in the dark
- airline food? just pass me the gin and tonic
- Modern Olympics began on the fields of Rugby
/ greasy polls, holding firm, tongue tied,
  call for compulsory targets to tackle obesity,
second in line, mindfulness course, cost of planning,
puffins v. ship rats.... and all future letters to the editor /
- Moscow presses Turkey for access to US airbases
- Hundreds killed each month in Assad's jails
- Putin bans celebration of defeated KGB coup
(another James Bond movie on the cards,
i'm assured, and with a moral carte blanche) -
Hollande clams Carla Bruni spied concerning his
use of diapers...
- Euthanasia tourists flock Belgian A & E from France,
  where a revival of ****** made people dress shark-fin
  sharp on the catwalk...
- Mosquito pesticide linkage application = intersex /
   East German women
- Haiti cholera linked to Nepalese **** and ***** via
  the