Tag: Marika Rose

The Cut


When I was first elected as a
councillor in Cambridge – many years ago,
I went to a budget survey meeting
with the public in a local shopping
centre which the then Labour council had
arranged.

I was handed a form which gave a list
of spending areas for the budget
debate. It said:

Please tick all those areas where
you would like to see more spending.

I am a small state Conservative in
some ways, and I found many items on
which I wanted to spend more. I was
terribly aware of what went on in
my ward – the lack of provision for young
people, the need to do more in many
areas – and I wanted to tick
many boxes.

However, the Labour council had
sensibly included a proviso,
which said:

All we ask is that for every
box you tick to give more money,
you identify another
item on which you want to spend
less.



Extract from a speech by MP Graham Stuart given in the House of Commons on the 19th January 2011. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Fifteen Minutes More



Our French dream is over . . .
and now I fear for our
happy marriage, says
Lauren Booth.

Lauren Booth: I changed my
Facebook profile after
a row and now my husband
is in a coma.

I asked him: ‘Do you know
who I am?’ reveals
Lauren Booth as her husband
emerges from a coma.

Lauren Booth thanks God her
husband survived a
horrific motorbike
accident but confesses:
The man I loved is dead.

Lauren Booth wrote about
dumping her husband on
Facebook and his terrible
road accident but now
her mother-in-law asks:
Why can’t we keep
this in the family?

Lauren Booth: why I hate
my mother and never
want to see her again.



Daily Mail headlines featuring Lauren Booth, collected by the Guardian’s Lost in Showbiz blog, 28th October 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Don’t Speak

I’ve got nobody to talk to.
Nobody to say, how you feel?
Nobody to say, you ok?
Nobody. You can’t talk.
I can only talk to you.
And you’re no frigging good, cos you can’t talk back.

It’s been really funny, cos in the stillness I’ve felt
you know
my goodness, you know,
this is me. It’s just
it’s just me now. I feel kinda stripped bare.
I can’t
the only way I can describe it is I feel
tetchy. I feel
every time it gets really quiet I think
I’m out of control.

With all the stillness
I really can look at myself.
I don’t know whether you can
whether that’s ever happened to you
where you’ve actually looked in the mirror and
you can kind of see past the eyes. And it’s like
meeting a new person.

Right now, right this minute
this is the loneliest I’ve felt since I was
was at the children’s home.

From the BBC’s The Big Silence, first broadcast 22 October 2010. By Marika Rose.

Not The Tiger

Begin by not thinking about a jungle
at dusk, then don’t think about a bush
rustling behind you though there is no wind.
Then don’t imagine turning too late, your
helpless shriek cut short by the rushing
onslaught of a powerful stripy carnivore
hurtling at you, its jaws agape. There
are about 3,000 tigers in the wild,
so if you follow this procedure once
every day in a little over 8 years
you’ll have not thought about all of them.

From Smoothies of Good and Evil, and Unconsidered Tigers, 31 October 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.

On Utility

Philosophy is not
meant to be practical.
It is not meant
to have a use.

It does not exist to
make us more productive
girls and boys. It is a
diet of words to feed
our soul by way of
stimulating our mind.

It is not a roast-beef
sandwich, but more the
substance of an
ethereal longing.

Taken from a Lost in Technopolis post 13 May 2009. By Marika Rose.