I’ve never worked so hard on a post as this one.
Last Friday evening I locked myself in my room with a bottle of whisky – donated kindly by a kind donator – a large bag of salted cashews, a laptop, a thick pad of 160 GSM plain white paper, a large selection of fine pens, and strict instructions to my house mates not to interfere till I had read my way through the whole culture vulture website.
And I meant whole. Quite literally, the lot. Even the posts talking enthusiastically about Manchester (and there were loads of those in the early days). Even the one where Andrew Critchett had a crap time at Light Night and got all sweary and ranty (look what happened there!) Even my own early efforts, which were, incomprehensibly, in verse (thanks Emma, you ought never to have encouraged that nonsense).
I even read that one by Robert Sharples – yes, even that one – and still don’t know what he was on about.
By Saturday afternoon I was about two thirds through and desperately in need of a toilet break. Already I had nine sides of closely written notes. I had sixty or so links to posts I thought special enough to earn a mention in the final piece. And I had a vague idea of a narrative swirling around in my head – it had tears, it had laughter, it had emotional honesty and intellectual depth and moral authority – weighty and worthy enough for a feature in The New Yorker I thought. This was looking good.
Then my dad rang.
This isn’t the place to relate the tale of how I came to spend most of the weekend in a place without Wi-Fi and end up last night in casualty with a herniated disk (L4-L5 I believe, for the curious and ghoulish amongst our readers). Let’s just say that I am typing this with the little finger of my left hand, horizontal, with a pillow under my arse. Every keystroke is like a hot knitting needle jabbed in the nether regions. And that’s not the sort of thing I do for fun. Or even for profit – which is just a silly rumour put about by certain jealous types that can’t handle rejection.
Anyway, back to my point. I’m keeping this one short.
We’ve published 2012 posts, and this is 2012. That seemed a good enough reason to celebrate as any. We’re gonna party like it’s 1999 (+ 13). There’s a date, Nov 23; there will be a venue (once Emma finds the perfect place); we have 300 bottles of beer from Leeds Brewery; there will be an eventbrite page with all the details (soon); and there’s a title … Hell In A Handcart.
And we even have a competition! The best answer to the question, what the devil does the phrase “going to hell in a handcart” possibly mean? wins a lifetime subscription to The Culture Vulture. Your lifetime, naturally. The Culture Vulture is immortal!
Well, we have at least a dozen more posts in us …
On which note …
All this laying about, moaning and writhing in agony, has meant that there is a bit of a backlog. A blockage. We are a bit backed up with blogs. So it’s time for a purge.
Isn’t it better that we look forward than look back?
The phrase ‘hell in a handcart’ was a plot hatched by puritans who felt that the original ‘going to hell on a go-kart’ sounded way too much fun
My spellcheck insists on going to hell in a handset … I think we just postmodernised a proverb.
My googly eyes read “To Hell In A Handcart” as “To Hell In A Hobbycraft”
A familiar feeling neatly described.
Congrats all.
Onwards!
Wikpedia the source of all knowledge ( though not necessarily accuracy) says this is a title for an out of print novel that was controversial and flopped and that was branded a 400-page recruiting pamphlet for the BNP ( harsh)…..there s the obvious but gruesome plague/dead body removal link…..not liking either of thse for a party theme. Maybe more the reference to CV would be the blogging is out there, people and their opinions are unleashed and there’s no going back!