don-simon

[don-simon]

Some translations for men

My ex is controlling: I am a cheat. My ex is bitter: I am incapable of linking cause and effect. My ex is crazy: I treat women poorly. My ex took me for everything I had: she received an amount commensurate with her contribution to our marriage. My ex won't let me see the kids, though I pay through the nose: I think maintenance payments ought to work like a VIP concert ticket, where you buy access to the performance, irrespective of my failings as a parent. You're different to other birds: I believe women are more or less interchangeable.

from Sea State by Tabitha Lasley (2021, 4th Estate) I really liked this book, btw. The author has a deep fascination with men, and all-male environments. Even when this fascination draws her towards men she'd probably knows it is best to avoid, on a subconscious level she can't really help herself – and to her credit it makes a great memoir.

[don-simon]

Her pictures were so filtered, it was quite tricky to work out what she looked like. I hate that. False advertising. I had one rule on Tinder: no filters. Any bird with dog ears or deer noses or flower crowns can get in the fucking bin. Pity women can't do the same with men who filter their horrible personalities for the first six months.

from Sea State by Tabitha Lasley (2021, 4th Estate)

[don-simon]

The best parts of any conversation are those brief stretches of absorption when you are able to forget about yourself and feel, in some way, bodilesss.

I could never quite get acclimatised to the fourth-wall breaking distraction of videocalling, of being able to see my own face onscreen.

Adapted from Jem Calder's book Reward System (2022) Faber & Faber

[don-simon]

Before busking, I was a surfy girl who spent a lot of time with surfy boys. While their blond hair, blue eyes and incredible ice-cream cone physiques were beautiful, they were emotional bonsai. You had to put fertiliser on them to get any feeling out. They were incredibly sexist, too – all brawn and no brain. 

Kathy Lette on surfer boys, from an interview in The Guardian June 14, 2025

[don-simon]

Whether it’s puberty, motherhood or menopause, I always write the book I wish I’d had when I was going through it.

Kathy Lette

[don-simon]

What we see, when we see men in white take to a cricket field, is men imagining an environment of justice.

Joseph O'Neill from his novel Godwin (2024, Pantheon)

[don-simon]

Once you've begun to recognise a pattern in a 'random' process, it is no longer random: the machine is almost certainly broken and you should bet on it before the management finds out.

[don-simon]

August 2024

[don-simon]

On Privacy

Yes you can have zero crime, but only in a society with zero privacy and zero human rights. The prevention is far worse than the crime. Privacy is not a privilege, it's a basic right.

[don-simon]

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

Kurt Vonnegut

[don-simon]

Expectation is the root of all heartache

Shakespeare, apparently

[don-simon]

You were too sane to teach a child about craziness and cruelty. I had to learn about those from people who were crazy and cruel themselves.

The words of Bella Baxter, from Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (Bloomsbury, 1992)

[don-simon]

Your vision of the world as a place where God grows human vegetables for his own consumption may appeal to a market gardener ... but not to me. Get a faith which warms the heart, binds you to your fellow men and points us all toward a golden future.

Taken from Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (Bloomsbury, 1992)

[don-simon]

I was glad to hurry back to my warm warm Wedder who can be blown up into giving all the solid heat a woman wants.

The words of Bella Baxter, from Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (Bloomsbury, 1992)

[don-simon]

Only bad guardians and parents expect admiration from young brains.

The words of Godwin Baxter, from Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (Bloomsbury, 1992)

[don-simon]

What men have hopelessly yearned for throughout the ages:

the soul of an innocent, trusting, dependent child inside the opulent body of a radiantly lovely woman.

[Source: Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (Bloomsbury, 1992)]

[don-simon]

I was twelve before I learned exactly what mothers do. I knew the difference between doctors and nurses, and thought mothers an inferior kind of nurse who specialised in small people.

The words of Godwin Baxter, from Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (Bloomsbury, 1992)