IN PRINCIPIO ERAT CULLEUM
Having been reunited yesterday with my bag amid emotional scenes, I can at last break my silence on STANZA, Scotland’s premier poetry festival. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it’s the best poetry festival to lose your bag in that I have ever attended. Everyone from the Director downwards is to be wholeheartedly praised for their efforts in tracking my bag down. The personal intervention of the Director himself reveals a true generosity of spirit but it also, I suspect, reveals that the man must be a culleophile.at heart.
Culleophiles are men and women who have through circumstance or inclination formed an unfathomable attachment to their bags. These people nearly always travel long distances by public transport and are often too ugly or damaged to form relationships with others and who, therefore, invest in their bags a huge degree of emotional importance. The bag is not essential for what it contains- indeed it may only contain a pair of well used socks, some old bus tickets and a crumpled up phone number of someone whose name you’ve forgotten.-but for the fact it has for years been a dependable and reliable companion through thick and thin, good and bad. The bag is privy to and part of the most vulnerable and secret sides of these people.
And has the bag asked anything in return for this loyalty? No. It requires no biscuits or walks. It doesn’t want to bring up a family or look at the bank statements.
I do not, by the way, want to suggest that the Director of the Poetry Festival is ugly and damaged. Having met the man I know him to be handsome, talented and blessed with many friends. But he understood.
Only other culleophiles can appreciate the utter torment I have been through in the last 10 days and I must thank the local support group for the little gifts of jam and whisky that have come my way. I would also urge culleophiles who are of a poetical bent to attend this excellent and wide ranging festival without fear.
10 comments:
So where was the bloody thing?
And were the socks still in there..?
lol, glad you tracked down.
bloody thing? BLOODY THING?
You unfeeling wretch.
Hmmm, a poet with a Nike bag. So "just do it" is your motive, is it? :)
Glad your wayward child found it's way home. Did it have any interesting tales to tell? Or is that poetry fodder for later?
Trebles all round again!
Glad to have played my own small part in reuniting bag with bagger.
The plot thickens...
I too am a proud cuellophile & tick almost all of the boxes you so thoughtfully provide. Indeed, our own bags have enjoyed many a fine natter of an evening at the bottom of a west coast bar or three, while their 'masters' (but who is slave to whom?) savoured the local produce by the 35ml portion. Our bags have travelled together in many UK locations & proved sturdy soulmates in the madness of Milan & Taynuilt while their 'masters' (but who always provides the back-up, eh, I ask you?) attempted to drink their way into some parallel liver universe or other. Aye, the bag's the thing.
Incidentally - I don't approve of your bag abuse in using it shamelessly as product placement. Are Umbro publishing your next book?
Post a Comment