{"id":1994,"date":"2024-04-01T15:08:24","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T15:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1994"},"modified":"2024-04-01T15:08:29","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T15:08:29","slug":"malaprops-of-nuffink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/malaprops-of-nuffink\/1994\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaprops of Nuffink"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pub had familiar liturgies: football, beer, women, and Aristotle, although not necessarily in that order. Set upon a hill in the backstreets of Uplands, it also had a fine literary history, a meeting place for luminaries such as Kingsley Amis, who could often be found, in days gone by, luring students to certain reputational doom in the snug. And, it is said, Mary Shelley, when visiting her mother in Laugharne, would stop over for a bevvy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Bert Thomas, sat in Kingsley\u2019s favoured place. He wasn\u2019t a literary figure, nor an academic, but Bert liked to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll right, Bert,\u201d Ted Watts said, as he shuffled sideways to look at the book Bert was holding firmly in his heavy hands. \u201cWhat\u2019re you reading?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis, Ted,\u201d said Bert, \u201cis an outline of Aristotle\u2019s thoughts on time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat right? Any good?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA bit slow, poor character development, and not much in the way of conflict,\u201d Bert replied. \u201cBut it has a convincing theme. You see, Aristotle divided time into three parts: the future, the present, and the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat makes sense. What\u2019s he say?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe posits that the future doesn\u2019t really exist yet, and the past has ceased to exist. So, he wonders how thick the present is?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooking at young Brian over there, very thick if you ask me, Bert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot that sort of thick, Ted. He wonders if the present is an hour, or a minute, or just a second. In the end, he decides it\u2019s just a moment between the past and the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, what does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt means the present is a dividing line between two things that don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA bit like the Swans midfield then, Bert. A dividing line between an attack and a defence that don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, something like that. It\u2019s all a bit woke if you ask me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat, like those lesbians?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, and the Israelis and the Pantechnicons. Woke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gone mad, this woke stuff. I read in the Evening Post you can\u2019t give your kid a clip round the ear these days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right. Il est baffe moins une, as the Belgians say. Ruined everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, that woke stuff can do one. Next thing you know, they\u2019ll be forcing us to have gender changes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike Tommy Nonuts?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNah, that was an accident. But he leaned into it with his frilly dresses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeaned into it? That sounds a bit woke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust modern argot, Ted. Woke is when you have someone who is disadvantaged, and you ruin everything to let them feel included. Like letting women into the bar at the Labour Club.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, I see,\u201d Ted thought for a moment, \u201cand like making me park on the road, so some bloke from Townhill can get by in his electric chair?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not called that, it\u2019s a motorised scooter. But that\u2019s the strength of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCase in point. It ruined my bloody door mirror when a council lorry clipped it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTerrible. That\u2019s woke for you. Ruins everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pub had familiar liturgies: football, beer, women, and Aristotle, although not necessarily in that order. Set upon a hill in the backstreets of Uplands, it also had a fine literary history, a meeting place for luminaries such as Kingsley Amis, who could often be found, in days gone by, luring students to certain reputational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211","service":"facebook","timestamp":1752596522,"status":"success"},{"account":"twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305","service":"twitter","timestamp":1752596640,"status":"error"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1129,1202],"tags":[1236,1233,1102,733,1235,1238,8,116,1084,1234,9,1237,1239,159,1240],"class_list":["post-1994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1129","category-april-2024-ruin","tag-aristotle","tag-bert","tag-between","tag-bit","tag-exist","tag-future","tag-he","tag-like","tag-past","tag-present","tag-said","tag-ted","tag-thick","tag-what","tag-woke"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-wa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1996,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions\/1996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}