Friday, March 04, 2011

'I can squeeze in twelve hundred words'

From Neil McCormick's Killing Bono (2004), without doubt the best book I've ever read about music:

"Sarah must've been impressed at any rate. She offered me the job on the spot. But what job? I was on full alert for clues.

'I think you would be ideal material for the Telegraph,' said Sarah. 'You're young...'
(These days it wasn't often I was called young but journalism is very different from the music business and at a newspaper whose most famous correspondent, Bill Deedes, was pushing eighty, I suppose a thirty-four year old could be considered a spring chicken.)

'...dynamic...'
(I could tell she liked the cut of my suit.)

'...you're a really terrific writer...'
(What can I say? I just felt flattered that somebody had noticed all the good work I had been doing.)

'...and you can bring a wealth of your own experience to the job...'
(What experience was she getting at, exactly?)

'...Because unlike most people in this profession, you've seen it from both sides...'
(I wasn't sure I liked where this was going.)

'...You've actually been there and done it.'
'I certainly have,' I said, hoping she wasn't going to ask me to elaborate on where I had been and what I had done.

'I think you would be an outstanding rock critic for the Daily Telegraph.'
I nodded thoughtfully.My past had caught up with me." 

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I'm not sure if there's a point to this story but I'm going to tell it again.

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I've been wilfully caught up in the self-defeating quest to get to know myself for years. I've never expected anything beneficial to result from such a quest. I tend to evoke extremely polarised reactions from people I get to know in passing. Consequently, only those people who know me inside-out would honestly claim that I'm a person who's just "alright." It's not a coincidence that the description I've laid out above has no fewer than, title included, eleven references to me (make that twelve). I'm affectionately referred to as "Ego." I think that last statement might have given away a tad too much. Welcome Aboard.

IHTRTRS ke pichle episode mein aapne dekha...

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