Freeze the nads, glow the nose, see the breath mornings,
unlockable car lock, blow fingered, arse slip car parks,
ice scraping, ear burning, toes numbing amputating cold.
Bottom warming, slipper finding, sleep inducing, wood smoking, blanket wrapping, crumpet toasting, whisky sipping, toes burning, isolating warmth of the log fire.
The dark evening began early. Street lights illuminated, car headlights searched, pedestrians scurried collars raised and scarves knotted. Puddles adorned the roadside, dirty brown, black reflections, avoid.
The football ended better than it might. An anguish easing equaliser in the second half saved the day, again.
The lads walked home up the hill. At least there was no phone call, yet.
The trip to the shop was successful. Minimal stress, relatively. Jeans purchaysed, laptop fixed, parking fee, refunded.
The stroll to the Morning Star, anticipated. Cloverless pint of Guinness poured, slowly. Smacked lips licked, savoured.
I came home to a Jamie Oliver crispy duck in hoisin sauce salad, scoffed.
Just another ordinary day like all the other ordinary days. You wake up, get out of bed, brush yer teeth keef, have breakfast maybe – pick yer jumbled order. Order yer jumbled picks, four candles, oze.
Grunt into the morning. Pick a pair of trousers from the pile on the floor, retrieve a shirt and hey presto. Overnight the offers have come in. Can you come and do a breakfast show for Radio one? Radio twit twoo five arrive alive oh, four more candles. Handles for knives and forks, fork’n knives.
Put them to one side. Today there are other things to do, fish to fry, flags to run up the pole, or the Lithuanian. God save the King, God help everybody that needs it.
Sing isn’t yer thing, although you like a good song. Chanson d’amour. Goodness gracious me. A wandring minstrel I, a thing of shreds and patches, of ballads songs and snatches and dreamy lullaby. Uh?
Nobody said anything had to make cents. Tuppence. Hippy bathday, happy barfday. Moaning. A far as we’re concerned there is nothing of any particular note happnin.
Everybody talkin bout camras, scamras, watch the vid, make the vid, luxuriate in advertising revenues that pay for the next skiing holiday, should you opt in.
stretch that font sur le pont, quel concoction.
Just another day, it’s a perfect day. Act two scene one, the Steep Hill room at the Wig and Mitre. Yah yah waffle waffle, how do you do, duck. Might wear a new tie, before I die. A tie to die for? That’s one thing I have school to thank for. That and amo amass amat, amamus amatis amant.
New York, London, Paris, Lincoln, everybody talk about unbirthdays.
Uchelgaer uwch y weilgi,
Gyr y byd ei cherbydau drosti
Chwithau oll longau’r lli,
Ewch o dan ei chadwyni.
So long and thanks for all the Capn Birds Eye cod bites in breadcrumbs, cook from frozen.
Daddy
It’s dark in the bedroom it only because it is a drone. And already up and dizzying to self in the kitchen. Joseph church on sunday mornings.
An exercise in prose by dictation shoes mixed and interesting results I’m going to light the fire today freezing outside plus I’m cooking for the lads so I will have to make to waitrose to buy some chicken good. New paragraph
Jason I’m going to do all the usual roast dinner trimmings to go with chicken. An iso file virtual assistant to you with her friends jus why we’re on a row. Leslie emptied 1 of the freezers super quick defrost it. Re dude try again the temperature is sub 0 outside which makes it easy thing to do this morning I’m going to get a chainsaw ranch to chop up to the wood at the front
Three sentences, gone, unrecovered. A broken promise by Microsoft Word. A rewrite was considered but no, let them be lost, cast adrift on a sinking raft of memories. Time is short and we must move on to arrive at our camp before night time. If we are delayed, fumbling, we will miss our destination and ourselves drift, blind with not even the stars to guide us.
Staring out of the window the yellow headed tulips have opened wide but the reds seem reluctant to follow. A blue painted wooden garden chair sits in splendid isolation on the lawn. The grass needs a cut but it is too wet, as is common practice during droughts and times of hosepipe ban. Thunderous Odin casts down his wrath; his energy arouses false anger.
But still the bird sings, perched in the hedge at the side of the garden. The rain brings the worms up to the surface. The noise of the rain on the roof has drowned out the birdsong. For all I know it works to the same principle of the refrigerator. When the door is shut the light is out. Is this the same for the bird when the rain gets too noisy?
I have to go now. Goodbye.
The pointer, a time served professional, high vis jacket kept jauntily unzipped, playfully left his pointing until the last minute. It had been quite obvious which way to go but reassuring to know that this was in line with expectations. After all we were on a big sea journey and were happy to know that we were in the safe hands of a team that knew its stuff. The Jeep slid in behind a white van near the front, perfect for an early getaway at our destination.
The harbour had met with expectations. A quay, a lighthouse that looked the part, lifeboat station with bright red barn doors and the RNLI flag flying proudly aloft. Behind it the gas tanks suited the scene and up above on the headland a hotel, now defunct, stood next to the offices and transmitter of the local radio station. Slightly lower down, on the path leading towards the lighthouse stood the camera obscura.
Our ship, the Manannan, was moored next to the larger Ben My Chree, a high sided white expanse of a ferry that plied its trade between Douglas and Heysham. Thick grey smoke emitted from the two chimney pots at its rear. These looked implausibly small at the top of the huge black and red funnel.
We were Liverpool bound. (more…)
The bleary eyed stagger
Fumble for the light
Kettle on autopilot
Oh no – out of tea bags
Scramble around in corner cupboard
Ahah – find new pack
Pour milk into large plastic measuring jug – only one available
Two mugs – my favourite and hers
Rinse out teapot
3 bags
Click whoosh
Tea cosy on and tray upstairs
Back to bed.
The early morning run to the kitchen
Heavier? Nicer?
Faster? Louder?
Blacker? Meaner?
Possibly all these and maybe more.
Both came from Nagato and arrived within a year of each other.
Both made at the best Japanese guitar factory – Fujigen.
Bargain.
You won’t see another like this for a long time.
Until you are too old to play.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antoria-telstar-electric-guitar-405048-/200742869357?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item2ebd35196d
21 years ago it was all you could do to keep me alive. I devoured your time, precious little bar a gurgle and brief smile in return; a flashing glimpse of the dynamic force I would become.
You fed me code, patched my wounds and watched me crawl, and boy did I crawl.
No faster than a slug in glue but still you persevered, knowing one day I would be up on my feet causing headaches for oldies as they sat sipping tea, reading newspapers and hardback books.
As a child I was everyone’s darling.
I was the future, the bright kid who would change the world. Everyone wanted to be part of it; the world invested in me.
But a darkness developed deep in my soul. Powerful unnatural urges bubbled under the surface, popping up briefly to be walloped, thankfully, down into the fires of hell.
Cleansed of the worst yet my rebelliousness persisted, dismissing each and every rule and social norm as a product of bygone era.
I could say what I liked.
I would take what I wanted, giving nothing in return.
I cowered behind my friends, hiding my face with a scarf and hood.
I shied away from social intercourse, preferring instead the solitude and comfort of my room, writing poisoned letters spitting bile at anyone I suspected of standing in my way.
I cared little for those I upset, for I was the young noble warrior riding a righteous path to battle; to correct injustice and slay the dragons of oppressive tyranny.
Yet I never signed by name, for deep down I knew. I knew I had to live to fight for a lifetime and beyond.
Though these years just behind me I cringe at my naivety, my teenage ideals. A decade shredding the rule book I now find myself piecing it together, re-establishing many of the principles taught by my parents.
Not that I can bring myself to admit this to them: Mum, Dad, you were right. Well mostly, for the newly reconstructed order isn’t quite a facsimile of the old institutions.
I’ve been a catalyst for obsolescence and a facilitator of innovation; a massive disruptive force connecting billions to each other and to a universe of knowledge; challenging, and, for the most part, improving global society.
And I’m only 21, or thereabouts.
We are moving him into retirement flats at the weekend. It’s a one way ticket. They never make it out again you know. Kiss goodbye to life pop. Sure we will turn up on a Sunday and take him for the occasional spin and he can walk to the post office to buy his paper. When you’re in that place you watch the other occupants die around you. One day you’re talking to them about heating bills and the next they’re gone. Bang! Dead! And then their family, if they have one, moves their stuff out and it all starts again. A new name to learn, and forget.
He isn’t that mobile these days. Sits at the window a lot looking at life passing by outside, thinking. He has a TV. It’s a new one. He had to get rid of the old museum piece because of the digital switchover. Likes a bit of a tipple too and used to get down the pub a bit though that’s mostly a thing of the past. Used to go for early doors with his mate but his pal’s not around anymore. I take him back there once in a while. It isn’t the same really. The staff have changed. Anyway he has a problem with booze now. Prostate.
We are moving him into retirement flats at the weekend. It’s for the best.
Encasement – the wrapping in cement for purposes of hiding, disposal or strengthening of very foundations
Encapsulation – the art of concise summary; complete packaging, possibly in advance of launching into the furthest reaches of the galaxy
Enveloping – hugging from behind using strong, manly arms; mechanically inserting hundreds if not thousands of sheets of paper into hundreds if not thousands of purposely manufactured and folded outer covers, almost certainly as advanced preparation for posting
Enclosure – remote drystone square (usually) designed for herding cattle or sheep in advance of branding, shearing or other farming related tasks
Enigmatic – puzzled over this one for some time before deciding go to print
My approach to art and philosophy:
1 I read in Bob Dylan’s autobiography that Woody Guthrie wrote songs about everyday things he saw in the street. This is what I do. Not songs necessarily but short reflections on everyday items. Poems maybe. I sometimes think that some people think this can be quite boring. No dramatic emotion-filled prose, the product of a tough back street childhood or action packed near death escape from certain disaster. I am into the ordinary, the sunlit street, the view from a café table, the snippet of overheard conversation, the bird fleetingly perched on the garden chair.
2 Time plays a big part in shaping my thoughts. Because I can’t get my brain around the huge expanses of infinity going both forward and back everything for me is of the moment. A spinning coin is a work of art even though the coin will stop spinning after a very short while. The fact that it has stopped is neither here nor there – it was of its time. The act of spinning is art as is its state having stopped spinning. Lying there motionless it also has a story to tell – not the same story perhaps as when it was spinning.
3 If I were to take a picture of a pebble I could probably invent lots of deep meaning in that image. Erosion of time. Loneliness in amongst millions of other pebbles. It’s too deep. I leave it to others to come to their own conclusions. Many might conclude nothing. This is no different to the pile of bricks or the unmade bed.
4 I usually like to see words flow easily in the mind. On these occasions it can be almost as if the words themselves don’t matter although it is nice if they both flow and make sense. When considering a subject that is in itself an uncomfortable topic the words don’t have to flow. A hesitant stream not easy to read reflects the difficult nature of the subject. Or so it should in my mind.
Hope that helps you understand the stuff that I do.
There is something quite reassuring about those words. “…there is no run…”
Normally associated with lazy summer days, the French windows open into the garden, Test Match Special on the wireless and me, sprawled on the sofa half dozing, half listening. Cricket can rank as one of the most frustrating games going. Teams swing from stellar performances to disastrous collapses. One moment you are glued to the set and the other you have to switch off to avoid the unbearable tension.
However cricket is at its reassuring best when nothing is happening. Hot, slow scoring afternoons with ball after ball left outside the off stump, the occasional safe prod back to the bowler, drinks breaks, chocolate cake, seagulls and double decker busses trundling down the Old Kent Road.
When there is no run all is well.
Doesn’t happen very often!
It’s 1.20pm on New Year’s Day 2012. I am sitting here waiting for the tea to brew and in anticipation of a visit from the next door neighbours for (another) cuppa at 3pm.
Observation #1
I got 2012 right first time. I often get the year wrong the first few times when it is a new year. I guess I wasn’t just writing a date there though. I was specifically referencing 2012.
Not much of an observation perhaps as the first of the new year. Nothing hugely meaningful as people are wont to spout at this artificial date in our timeline of progress (gravewards). I expect you thought I’d express joyous and optimistic thoughts geared to lift the spirit, parting perhaps the mental mists that remain in front of eyes, bloody from the closing celebrations of 2011. Nope.
Observation #2
I was in my pyjamas until 11.30 this morning. Unheard of! Having hit 50 in December is this now the beginning of the end? The ride down that slope, time-worn brakes offering no protection against hitting wall, ditch or hedge. It could be though it probably isn’t.
Observation #3
My cup runneth over no longer. The tea has been drunk, consumed, absorbed and its effects noted. It is an empty cup. Plenty of potential there and no cause for concern. Fill, cup fill. I stare expectantly. It will only happen if I get up and do it myself. So be it.
We have drifted into November like leaves blown gently against a hedge. A climbing rose clings stubbornly pink to the archway in the back garden but there is little left to cover the gangly apple visible through the curved frame. It is a peaceful time. The belly is full.
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