I'm Having Dreams About This Not Going Right
In the velodrome, the night-flying dragons reach out with love, touching and passing on those heated dreams of World-War III. They are black and small, passing in front of my eyes like eye-motes, just at the edge of perception, though with dreams in tow they look larger. Now we are in some book of trees, drawings of all the native species, hushing us in the wind, white noise to bring them to their lovers. The air is never so clear now. I can see the edge of the world from here, and all my sisters running over the hill to meet us, a random mass of them, singing of all the things they love in some wild canticle to the earth. All this an empty vision of fiction compared to yesterday's truth.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Exorcising Rural Dragons
So here we are just out of the rain again, some of us hoping for the thunder to get closer, and some watching anxiously for newcomers who might bring fags. There might be about six or seven of us trying to sound clever over the sound of the rain on the pavilion roof. The cold gets to us sometimes but this is supposed to be summer. I listen to the conversation but I don’t say much. The topics are as important to me as the atmosphere here, where the sun means nothing; we are all the pale kids, the kids who stay in and read.
And then Kay delights us all by saying that she knows that she is selfish but she hopes she dies before her parents. I miss the next part of what she says as it is drowned out by the sinners shouting. Someone brings up the inquisition; I have no idea why. I am thinking all the time of the order of death of my relatives, the fact that a death in the family is the worst thing we can all go through now that the chance of revolution has faded. Kay is saying that they don’t understand the inquisition and that as good Catholics they should be aware of what awaits them should they become bad Catholics. Being as old as I am now, I do know that she does not know enough to be serious but we do not know that then. We think she is clever and knows more than we do. I do know that the inquisition is gone. I tell her so and she argues that it is still around. Still torturing? I ask. She concedes this point but mentions ‘Moral Relativism’ and of course has to explain. The rain rains on and time passes, bored with us and moving on to cause decay in Northern cities. None of us really know anything, these girls who wear black and boys who read poetry. Nothing that bad has happened in our lives. We do not know which of us thinks of suicide or how movement across this countryside makes me so sad as to want to crawl into the space under the stairs and never move again.
The darkness of the storm makes reading difficult and the threat of lightning strike drags us back inside. The breaks here are pretty cool. We have an American teacher with us for a term while his counterpart here lives it up on burgers and gridiron or so we think. His salary here is more than that of the avuncular Yank who takes his place. He tells us of suicide in literature and how the blood could reach the ceiling, of great American poets and if you can guess who that is you have more death by self. And all this drags me away to my own pallid little world where I know what I know about all this. The great, grey weight of the future in rainy cities hits us bucolic foreigners and only immersion in study can keep those shadows at bay. My first days away from home are sad ones and yes it did rain like God proving his own pathetic fallacies in one week-long deluge, the flood again to wipe out these unfriendly people of the densely populated, sooty stacked blocks. I dream of the fields and woods that I once dreamed of leaving for good. I will play loud music the day I leave this city in my fast car, the window open and a finger extended in insult to the brick and concrete. The time that left us in those heady, first-love, pseudo-intellectual conversations has caught up with me and girlfriends have more serious implications now. They talk about real things here and point out the shabby children on the corners or the syringes in the gutters. I knew all this happened of course; TV shows us the world after all but I am within infection distance of the sad illnesses and soon enough those dark particles jump the gap.
We love in many different ways but having these things shown to us everyday is wearing. I grow used to it all but you knew that. And Will will build his supercity across the country and the countryside, splitting the green in two and leaving a dark legacy of a world that needs to get out into space before the sun explodes. The accent in this city is identical to the country accent I grew up with so I cannot tell who, like me, comes from the country. That white-clad girl in the corner who sometimes smiles at me for a reason I cannot tell, has the wide personal space of the rural-born. See her with the smoke-kids and she walks backwards while they try to adjust themselves to each other’s requirements for comfort. Body language is a wonderful thing. As I said, I grow used to all this. They have me closer now, talking to them eye to eye within spitting distance and sometimes I want to spit but this is just normal to them.
Evenings, I walk to phone home, to talk to people I casually knew at school, listening to calming music on my Walkman, a product of some far-away city. They talk back enough, happy it seems to have a link to less anxious times but they are happier because they have not moved. I read in the paper of a reunion which I did not attend and some of the people there came from as far away as Birmingham! I laughed and then cried. They could have had me down as the ‘as far away as… ‘ and where would they have put? This could be a circle of hell for all they know, the demolished town coming down about my ears, leaving me for dead and out of contact for ever. The end of terms and back home fills me with a temporary and false happiness, Christmas is no longer as exciting as it was though the books still come and I have days in a window reading and happy at more rain. My own children will have to come along to bring back the old feeling. My Christmas is more like the feast it replaced, something to celebrate the winter rather than man. And so we are back, arguing about religion again. And Kay says ‘Remember that time when I told you about the Inquisition? Well I was right; it does still exist’ and off she goes into some older person’s rant about what is real and what means anything to us. She is more erudite now but what she says is the same in meaning. The conversations have not changed and I feel we are the same happy kids we were under the eaves of the Cricket Pavilion in a Thunder storm.
So here we are just out of the rain again, some of us hoping for the thunder to get closer, and some watching anxiously for newcomers who might bring fags. There might be about six or seven of us trying to sound clever over the sound of the rain on the pavilion roof. The cold gets to us sometimes but this is supposed to be summer. I listen to the conversation but I don’t say much. The topics are as important to me as the atmosphere here, where the sun means nothing; we are all the pale kids, the kids who stay in and read.
And then Kay delights us all by saying that she knows that she is selfish but she hopes she dies before her parents. I miss the next part of what she says as it is drowned out by the sinners shouting. Someone brings up the inquisition; I have no idea why. I am thinking all the time of the order of death of my relatives, the fact that a death in the family is the worst thing we can all go through now that the chance of revolution has faded. Kay is saying that they don’t understand the inquisition and that as good Catholics they should be aware of what awaits them should they become bad Catholics. Being as old as I am now, I do know that she does not know enough to be serious but we do not know that then. We think she is clever and knows more than we do. I do know that the inquisition is gone. I tell her so and she argues that it is still around. Still torturing? I ask. She concedes this point but mentions ‘Moral Relativism’ and of course has to explain. The rain rains on and time passes, bored with us and moving on to cause decay in Northern cities. None of us really know anything, these girls who wear black and boys who read poetry. Nothing that bad has happened in our lives. We do not know which of us thinks of suicide or how movement across this countryside makes me so sad as to want to crawl into the space under the stairs and never move again.
The darkness of the storm makes reading difficult and the threat of lightning strike drags us back inside. The breaks here are pretty cool. We have an American teacher with us for a term while his counterpart here lives it up on burgers and gridiron or so we think. His salary here is more than that of the avuncular Yank who takes his place. He tells us of suicide in literature and how the blood could reach the ceiling, of great American poets and if you can guess who that is you have more death by self. And all this drags me away to my own pallid little world where I know what I know about all this. The great, grey weight of the future in rainy cities hits us bucolic foreigners and only immersion in study can keep those shadows at bay. My first days away from home are sad ones and yes it did rain like God proving his own pathetic fallacies in one week-long deluge, the flood again to wipe out these unfriendly people of the densely populated, sooty stacked blocks. I dream of the fields and woods that I once dreamed of leaving for good. I will play loud music the day I leave this city in my fast car, the window open and a finger extended in insult to the brick and concrete. The time that left us in those heady, first-love, pseudo-intellectual conversations has caught up with me and girlfriends have more serious implications now. They talk about real things here and point out the shabby children on the corners or the syringes in the gutters. I knew all this happened of course; TV shows us the world after all but I am within infection distance of the sad illnesses and soon enough those dark particles jump the gap.
We love in many different ways but having these things shown to us everyday is wearing. I grow used to it all but you knew that. And Will will build his supercity across the country and the countryside, splitting the green in two and leaving a dark legacy of a world that needs to get out into space before the sun explodes. The accent in this city is identical to the country accent I grew up with so I cannot tell who, like me, comes from the country. That white-clad girl in the corner who sometimes smiles at me for a reason I cannot tell, has the wide personal space of the rural-born. See her with the smoke-kids and she walks backwards while they try to adjust themselves to each other’s requirements for comfort. Body language is a wonderful thing. As I said, I grow used to all this. They have me closer now, talking to them eye to eye within spitting distance and sometimes I want to spit but this is just normal to them.
Evenings, I walk to phone home, to talk to people I casually knew at school, listening to calming music on my Walkman, a product of some far-away city. They talk back enough, happy it seems to have a link to less anxious times but they are happier because they have not moved. I read in the paper of a reunion which I did not attend and some of the people there came from as far away as Birmingham! I laughed and then cried. They could have had me down as the ‘as far away as… ‘ and where would they have put? This could be a circle of hell for all they know, the demolished town coming down about my ears, leaving me for dead and out of contact for ever. The end of terms and back home fills me with a temporary and false happiness, Christmas is no longer as exciting as it was though the books still come and I have days in a window reading and happy at more rain. My own children will have to come along to bring back the old feeling. My Christmas is more like the feast it replaced, something to celebrate the winter rather than man. And so we are back, arguing about religion again. And Kay says ‘Remember that time when I told you about the Inquisition? Well I was right; it does still exist’ and off she goes into some older person’s rant about what is real and what means anything to us. She is more erudite now but what she says is the same in meaning. The conversations have not changed and I feel we are the same happy kids we were under the eaves of the Cricket Pavilion in a Thunder storm.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North
Daughter (6) now wants to be an MP after seeing Penelope Wilton in Doctor Who at the weekend. Waitress, Actress, Nurse and now MP. A big career there. She wanted to know what she would have to learn to be an MP but on current performances I said I thought she might actually already be over qualified. Sorry! Too harsh maybe? There is always an element of MPs having to talk down from their lofty intellectual heights when they have to communicate with us plebs. I didn't really mean to use that word in its exact sense but I have which makes me feel slightly better educated than I actually am.
Returning to Doctor Who, I was rather pleased with the sly digs at our beloved leader - i.e. weapons of mass destruction deployable in 45 seconds and many other so subtle that I cannot remember them. I was however especially pleased to be shouting 'Vinegar' at the screen well before the Doctor did. A+ and long may it rain. They don't just throw it together you know. Dalek next week. Lovely.
I am finally reading His Dark Materials after putting it off for ages. This is of course just to make sure I finish before the film comes out. I have to say that I am tingling at the thought of getting back to read more; it is so well written and all I was expecting is surpassed and turned on its head. I had expected Lyra to be some elegant, intellectual hippy-chick but instead she is a wild gang child who just happens to live in an Oxford college. Some of the reviewers on Amazon seemed to suggest that using Oxford as the base for the setting showed a lack of imagination but that is so wide of the mark. It reminds me of Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin, where real places are given complete about-face twists which make them newly interesting - Magic Realism I suppose though His Dark Materials is no GGM or Isabel Allende. Maybe my self-perceived semi-autism also makes me disagree with the idea that the characters are flat and hard to relate to. Warning of tenuous and pretentious art analogy sparked by the comparison of HDM to Harry Potter - Harry Potter is rich and detailed like something by Escher though ultimately in Black and White while HDM is subtle like a Paula Rego where you have to tease out the meanings by looking at the relationships between the characters. I will let you know if this stands up when I have got more than 100 pages in. Too much for a Wednesday lunchtime possibly!
Talking of Escher has made me think that I feel like this picture at the moment, though maybe that is just a false link after having seen it. As you can tell today is a rambling day. Spell Check and back on your heads.
PS. After having read all the above stuff. It has struck me recently that I am more able to drag out what I want to say from the fuzz of my mind. I have noticed recently that reaching 40 made me aware of times when my brain seemed to be slowing but in the last few weeks everything seems faster and much more honed. Maybe my wife's slight changes to the diet have helped; hydrogenated oils have been booted out though that was on my suggestion. So the brain will be alright; it will just be the circulatory system which fails first. Where are those pumpkin seeds?
Daughter (6) now wants to be an MP after seeing Penelope Wilton in Doctor Who at the weekend. Waitress, Actress, Nurse and now MP. A big career there. She wanted to know what she would have to learn to be an MP but on current performances I said I thought she might actually already be over qualified. Sorry! Too harsh maybe? There is always an element of MPs having to talk down from their lofty intellectual heights when they have to communicate with us plebs. I didn't really mean to use that word in its exact sense but I have which makes me feel slightly better educated than I actually am.
Returning to Doctor Who, I was rather pleased with the sly digs at our beloved leader - i.e. weapons of mass destruction deployable in 45 seconds and many other so subtle that I cannot remember them. I was however especially pleased to be shouting 'Vinegar' at the screen well before the Doctor did. A+ and long may it rain. They don't just throw it together you know. Dalek next week. Lovely.
I am finally reading His Dark Materials after putting it off for ages. This is of course just to make sure I finish before the film comes out. I have to say that I am tingling at the thought of getting back to read more; it is so well written and all I was expecting is surpassed and turned on its head. I had expected Lyra to be some elegant, intellectual hippy-chick but instead she is a wild gang child who just happens to live in an Oxford college. Some of the reviewers on Amazon seemed to suggest that using Oxford as the base for the setting showed a lack of imagination but that is so wide of the mark. It reminds me of Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin, where real places are given complete about-face twists which make them newly interesting - Magic Realism I suppose though His Dark Materials is no GGM or Isabel Allende. Maybe my self-perceived semi-autism also makes me disagree with the idea that the characters are flat and hard to relate to. Warning of tenuous and pretentious art analogy sparked by the comparison of HDM to Harry Potter - Harry Potter is rich and detailed like something by Escher though ultimately in Black and White while HDM is subtle like a Paula Rego where you have to tease out the meanings by looking at the relationships between the characters. I will let you know if this stands up when I have got more than 100 pages in. Too much for a Wednesday lunchtime possibly!
Talking of Escher has made me think that I feel like this picture at the moment, though maybe that is just a false link after having seen it. As you can tell today is a rambling day. Spell Check and back on your heads.
PS. After having read all the above stuff. It has struck me recently that I am more able to drag out what I want to say from the fuzz of my mind. I have noticed recently that reaching 40 made me aware of times when my brain seemed to be slowing but in the last few weeks everything seems faster and much more honed. Maybe my wife's slight changes to the diet have helped; hydrogenated oils have been booted out though that was on my suggestion. So the brain will be alright; it will just be the circulatory system which fails first. Where are those pumpkin seeds?
Friday, April 22, 2005
'limbus patrum' or 'limbus infantium'
I read this stuff for a while and then it hits me that it is no more than the arguments over how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin. We should spend time on more important things and I don't mean Trinny and Susannah.
Election fever has reached this place. The symptoms are complete catatonia. For years I have ranted about how many people stood up for the right to vote for plebs like us and that it was a betrayal to not vote. My resolve on this matter is now being severely tried by the negative campaigning and lack of rigour on the part of all the politicians. Why can't we have some 'We will be better than this Government' rather than the 'Isn't this Government useless' from the opposition? I was considering taking the day after the election off so I could stay up until the point of majority was passed but I can't be bothered now. Those days of hope all those years ago!
We did stay up for Question Time last night. I was only really impressed with Shirley Williams though I think that might just have been her ability to string more than a few words together and make a coherent argument. She was our MP for one term once - well she was MP for the constituency we live in now when I didn't live in it - if that makes sense. It seems she was a sort of flying candidate for the SDP - brought in at a moment's notice to dispense Centre-Left reasonableness to the poor, ranty scousers up in North Liverpool. She was the Calm-Down candidate. I may have misread early 80s politics here. Our current MP - Claire Curtis-Thomas is often seen out and about at various socially acceptable events like the opening of a new lap-dancing club - er sorry - litter-drives etc. She was in the papers as having the highest stationery expenses of any MP but I have to say that she does send out letters all the time even when there isn't an election. She often comes to our Church (Let's not get into the debate over why a Secular Humanist like me goes to Church) with husband and sprogs which is a nice change from the MPs who can hardly remember where they are supposed to represent. Having said all this she was in favour of the Iraq war and while I know I should be thinking of local as well as national issues, people died for lies and that has removed the restraining bolt of my support.
My daughter is obviously going to vote for anyone who will promise more Angela Lansbury programmes on TV. Not sure about NOS. He understands far more than he can say at the moment. He is also getting quite good at climbing which is a worry. My daughter learnt how to vault out of her travel cot when she was just under two years old which removed any possibility of restraint. I remember the world going into slow motion as I came down the stairs to see her with one leg over the side of the cot, a split second's hesitation on the brink as she smiled an evil smile at me and then the expert paratrooper's roll as she hit the floor and scooted off towards some hazard. We visited my Brother some weeks later and told him about this. He quietly asked us not to put her in his boy's travel cot as at three he was still unable to escape from it and he didn't want any master classes going on. Kids hey! And then when they get older and mature
Poor Tom!
I read this stuff for a while and then it hits me that it is no more than the arguments over how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin. We should spend time on more important things and I don't mean Trinny and Susannah.
Election fever has reached this place. The symptoms are complete catatonia. For years I have ranted about how many people stood up for the right to vote for plebs like us and that it was a betrayal to not vote. My resolve on this matter is now being severely tried by the negative campaigning and lack of rigour on the part of all the politicians. Why can't we have some 'We will be better than this Government' rather than the 'Isn't this Government useless' from the opposition? I was considering taking the day after the election off so I could stay up until the point of majority was passed but I can't be bothered now. Those days of hope all those years ago!
We did stay up for Question Time last night. I was only really impressed with Shirley Williams though I think that might just have been her ability to string more than a few words together and make a coherent argument. She was our MP for one term once - well she was MP for the constituency we live in now when I didn't live in it - if that makes sense. It seems she was a sort of flying candidate for the SDP - brought in at a moment's notice to dispense Centre-Left reasonableness to the poor, ranty scousers up in North Liverpool. She was the Calm-Down candidate. I may have misread early 80s politics here. Our current MP - Claire Curtis-Thomas is often seen out and about at various socially acceptable events like the opening of a new lap-dancing club - er sorry - litter-drives etc. She was in the papers as having the highest stationery expenses of any MP but I have to say that she does send out letters all the time even when there isn't an election. She often comes to our Church (Let's not get into the debate over why a Secular Humanist like me goes to Church) with husband and sprogs which is a nice change from the MPs who can hardly remember where they are supposed to represent. Having said all this she was in favour of the Iraq war and while I know I should be thinking of local as well as national issues, people died for lies and that has removed the restraining bolt of my support.
My daughter is obviously going to vote for anyone who will promise more Angela Lansbury programmes on TV. Not sure about NOS. He understands far more than he can say at the moment. He is also getting quite good at climbing which is a worry. My daughter learnt how to vault out of her travel cot when she was just under two years old which removed any possibility of restraint. I remember the world going into slow motion as I came down the stairs to see her with one leg over the side of the cot, a split second's hesitation on the brink as she smiled an evil smile at me and then the expert paratrooper's roll as she hit the floor and scooted off towards some hazard. We visited my Brother some weeks later and told him about this. He quietly asked us not to put her in his boy's travel cot as at three he was still unable to escape from it and he didn't want any master classes going on. Kids hey! And then when they get older and mature
Poor Tom!
Thursday, April 21, 2005
You Never Expected Me To Talk About This
I got the two top talking points on the BBC mixed up yesterday. One was thoughts on the new Pope and the other on the new Doctor. Make up your own jokes here.
What is serious and really bugs me is Benedict XVI's railing against moral relativism with the implication that things should stay as they are. Bearing in mind Joseph Ratzinger's previous job as head of the organisation within the Church supposedly descended from the Inquisition, then some form of relativism must have occurred over the years. Or was Torquemada really a puppy? Having read a tiny amount for research I have found that at least one Pope did protest about the free use of torture. The fact remains, what has been seen as morally correct has changed beyond recognition over 2000 years. I can't be bothered to debate this with myself but I will leave the topic with a remark about the confession of an Argentinian Naval officer who used to throw people out of planes and said that the Military priests justified these acts by saying that they were following the Biblical proverb of getting rid of weeds. Read the article here. I'm all for moral relativism. Maybe one day I'll understand what it means.
Have I missed a point? I probably have being an uneducated oik in the face of such Theological depth; just what we need these days.
I got the two top talking points on the BBC mixed up yesterday. One was thoughts on the new Pope and the other on the new Doctor. Make up your own jokes here.
What is serious and really bugs me is Benedict XVI's railing against moral relativism with the implication that things should stay as they are. Bearing in mind Joseph Ratzinger's previous job as head of the organisation within the Church supposedly descended from the Inquisition, then some form of relativism must have occurred over the years. Or was Torquemada really a puppy? Having read a tiny amount for research I have found that at least one Pope did protest about the free use of torture. The fact remains, what has been seen as morally correct has changed beyond recognition over 2000 years. I can't be bothered to debate this with myself but I will leave the topic with a remark about the confession of an Argentinian Naval officer who used to throw people out of planes and said that the Military priests justified these acts by saying that they were following the Biblical proverb of getting rid of weeds. Read the article here. I'm all for moral relativism. Maybe one day I'll understand what it means.
Humani iuris et naturalis potestatis, unicuique quod putaverit colere, nec alii obest aut prodest alterius religio. Sed nec religionis est religionem colere, quae sponte suscipi debeat, non vi.
Have I missed a point? I probably have being an uneducated oik in the face of such Theological depth; just what we need these days.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Bangers Out!
I don't often blog stuff in any detail about work but we all received an email regarding the staff cafe this morning. Apparently due to circumstnaces beyond control, there will be no sausages available tomorrow and Friday. However, there will be extra bacon to make up for it. That was right after the emails from Koffi, Tony and George asking me to mediate over the oil-for-food debacle. Maybe that should be food-for-oil. I told them that a can of crude for a Chicken-Tikka batch would go down rather well but as yet I have had no reply.
A non-work related discussion in a meeting I was at yesterday got on to the various names for roundish, bread-based products. As there were a number of people from various regions of airstrip one, the regional names for lunchtime bakery products came thick and fast though I think the scouse 'nudger' won on pure double-entendre value. Wonder if it has anything to do with Glen Matlock? I do apologise if you know what that means and if you don't then it's maybe not a good idea to try and find out.
Let's try and raise the intellectual value a little bit. The score for Six Pianos came yesterday and having followed it with the music playing, I don't see any real problems. Watch this space. Well - listen to this space.
No Sausages! No Spellcheck!
I don't often blog stuff in any detail about work but we all received an email regarding the staff cafe this morning. Apparently due to circumstnaces beyond control, there will be no sausages available tomorrow and Friday. However, there will be extra bacon to make up for it. That was right after the emails from Koffi, Tony and George asking me to mediate over the oil-for-food debacle. Maybe that should be food-for-oil. I told them that a can of crude for a Chicken-Tikka batch would go down rather well but as yet I have had no reply.
A non-work related discussion in a meeting I was at yesterday got on to the various names for roundish, bread-based products. As there were a number of people from various regions of airstrip one, the regional names for lunchtime bakery products came thick and fast though I think the scouse 'nudger' won on pure double-entendre value. Wonder if it has anything to do with Glen Matlock? I do apologise if you know what that means and if you don't then it's maybe not a good idea to try and find out.
Let's try and raise the intellectual value a little bit. The score for Six Pianos came yesterday and having followed it with the music playing, I don't see any real problems. Watch this space. Well - listen to this space.
No Sausages! No Spellcheck!
Friday, April 15, 2005
Dool Alley
Write back Tim! It's been a week. Are all those fences needing creosoting keeping you busy. The Great Fence of Mann!
Listening to Zig Zag Wanderer by Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
That loose bass sound is so good; you can almost see the flaky way those strings vibrate and still they seem tight, totally fitting in with the rest of the song. It's not actually that weird this album; there is a lot of rhythm and melody but the future is there. We have changed to Souvlaki Space Station. Bliss out! See you in a few minutes.
And we're back.
This was going to be part of the long poem for Genie but it got away from me. Not very good is it? One of the lines was done in a rush.
Is it me, or is Frank Sidebottom going grey? It comes to us all but I though he'd last a bit longer. I think we are in Mornington Crescent territory - ie don't talk about it. Try the game. I didn't win
Write back Tim! It's been a week. Are all those fences needing creosoting keeping you busy. The Great Fence of Mann!
Listening to Zig Zag Wanderer by Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
That loose bass sound is so good; you can almost see the flaky way those strings vibrate and still they seem tight, totally fitting in with the rest of the song. It's not actually that weird this album; there is a lot of rhythm and melody but the future is there. We have changed to Souvlaki Space Station. Bliss out! See you in a few minutes.
And we're back.
Mantua City Wall Regulations
At the city gate, the paid translators fight for trade,
a need of language passed between as business,
outlaws running, love affairs those lost in love that needs
no dialect or common words save love and love itself.
We could be further, into time the same as distance
making all familiar places strange and dangerous
as separation tears and breaks our hands apart,
a live dissection in plain sight of each and each as one.
Here is a crash of hands, a jamboree for commerce
where the un-worldy fall into the human currents,
lifted away together through the crowds to earth,
with all that overlooked and messy weaponry.
This was going to be part of the long poem for Genie but it got away from me. Not very good is it? One of the lines was done in a rush.
Is it me, or is Frank Sidebottom going grey? It comes to us all but I though he'd last a bit longer. I think we are in Mornington Crescent territory - ie don't talk about it. Try the game. I didn't win
Julia Darling
I heard about the death of Julia Darling yesterday. I have not heard of her before but the poem - End posted as the last entry of her blog is beautiful - lovely in that way which makes all people say how good it is whether they are hardened anti-clicheists or standard flowers-and-trees types. It has also struck me while reading the rest of the blog that I was reading her life backwards, later entries first. I haven't gone too far back but I maybe want to stop reading as logically there is the potential to go right back to Julia's first scribbles as a child. That somehow denies her death. I have often had this idea that if the Universe is cyclical in a real time-reversal sort of way, then we don't die in the Universe, only in our time-limited experience. As far as space and time is concerned we are all here at every moment - not that there are moments. Of course that arch Anti-clicheist, Mr Amis did all this in Time's Arrow though I am certain there was no comforting emotion due in that reversal of the Holocaust.
I don't want to get morbid and as all this makes me think (sadly and happily) about my own demise, I will end on this subject now.
To lighter things. After my post on the swearing Clanger, I turned on the TV yesterday in the middle of an interview with Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin in which they did indeed confirm that the stuffed Clangers say "Oh sod It! The bloody thing's stuck again." I was going to bring our one in today but my wife complained that everyone would play with it, the battery would wear out and it is not replaceable. Result would be one disappointed small boy who loves his foul-mouthed, space-dwelling thingy to bits. I bet I could replace it; just needs a bit of sewing afterwards. No!
I heard about the death of Julia Darling yesterday. I have not heard of her before but the poem - End posted as the last entry of her blog is beautiful - lovely in that way which makes all people say how good it is whether they are hardened anti-clicheists or standard flowers-and-trees types. It has also struck me while reading the rest of the blog that I was reading her life backwards, later entries first. I haven't gone too far back but I maybe want to stop reading as logically there is the potential to go right back to Julia's first scribbles as a child. That somehow denies her death. I have often had this idea that if the Universe is cyclical in a real time-reversal sort of way, then we don't die in the Universe, only in our time-limited experience. As far as space and time is concerned we are all here at every moment - not that there are moments. Of course that arch Anti-clicheist, Mr Amis did all this in Time's Arrow though I am certain there was no comforting emotion due in that reversal of the Holocaust.
I don't want to get morbid and as all this makes me think (sadly and happily) about my own demise, I will end on this subject now.
To lighter things. After my post on the swearing Clanger, I turned on the TV yesterday in the middle of an interview with Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin in which they did indeed confirm that the stuffed Clangers say "Oh sod It! The bloody thing's stuck again." I was going to bring our one in today but my wife complained that everyone would play with it, the battery would wear out and it is not replaceable. Result would be one disappointed small boy who loves his foul-mouthed, space-dwelling thingy to bits. I bet I could replace it; just needs a bit of sewing afterwards. No!
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Day-Glo Decoy
I am reading a book called The Backroom Boys at the moment. The current chapter is about the British efforts at Rocketry - Black Arrow, Blue Streak etc. There was mention of the Chevaline system which rang a very distant bell with me. It was in fact a delivery tip for the Polaris system, a British bolt-on to the American missile in order to provide decoy balloons and chaff over the target. It was developed as a response to the deployment of an anti ballistic missile system around Moscow. My background search for photos turned up the sad picture of a beat-up old Chevaline harness in some air show exhibit. All that money and the thing is out there as some Saturday afternoon ten-seconder. An interesting coincidence is an article in the Fortean Times regarding the Solway Spaceman. All this is bound up with tests of Blue Streak and strange Government intervention - the normal guff. It looks like a bottle falling behind the girl's head to me. Go on - choose the complicated solution.
And finally - Clangers. Someone brought me an article about Oliver Postgate yesterday which prompted me to read the interview at the above link. He talks about the censoring of his script by the BBC because Major Clanger said "Oh sod it! The bloody thing's stuck again." ignoring the fact that the actual sound was made by a Swannee Whistle. He also said that this was the phrase uttered by stuffed Clangers. Strangely NOS has a small stuffed Clanger which indeed utters the phrase above - well the cadence of it anyway.
The Clangers did better with their delivery system didn't they? The Blue Ladder I think it was called.
I am reading a book called The Backroom Boys at the moment. The current chapter is about the British efforts at Rocketry - Black Arrow, Blue Streak etc. There was mention of the Chevaline system which rang a very distant bell with me. It was in fact a delivery tip for the Polaris system, a British bolt-on to the American missile in order to provide decoy balloons and chaff over the target. It was developed as a response to the deployment of an anti ballistic missile system around Moscow. My background search for photos turned up the sad picture of a beat-up old Chevaline harness in some air show exhibit. All that money and the thing is out there as some Saturday afternoon ten-seconder. An interesting coincidence is an article in the Fortean Times regarding the Solway Spaceman. All this is bound up with tests of Blue Streak and strange Government intervention - the normal guff. It looks like a bottle falling behind the girl's head to me. Go on - choose the complicated solution.
And finally - Clangers. Someone brought me an article about Oliver Postgate yesterday which prompted me to read the interview at the above link. He talks about the censoring of his script by the BBC because Major Clanger said "Oh sod it! The bloody thing's stuck again." ignoring the fact that the actual sound was made by a Swannee Whistle. He also said that this was the phrase uttered by stuffed Clangers. Strangely NOS has a small stuffed Clanger which indeed utters the phrase above - well the cadence of it anyway.
The Clangers did better with their delivery system didn't they? The Blue Ladder I think it was called.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Randomish Friday
Hello there to the Squid Wrestler! Did you guess it was me?
I don't really feel like a completely random entry today; Blogger is playing up and I have to keep pressing refresh to get anything to work. Where is Adam Hart-Davis when you need him? No updates since November? That's terrible! Too many explanation marks - Plings etc. Shouldn't that be exclamation?
Do you get the feeling that something big is going on? There is so much in the news that it is getting difficult to take it all in. Weddings and funerals and elections. It's all too much in a democracy.
My lauding and then dismissal of Richard Dawkins came in for some criticism from my wife yesterday. She told me I was too much of a scientist which wounds my poet's heart. However, for some years I have carried a thought that I may have been autistic to some extent and that the emotional content of the poems is a learned survival mechanism rather like a psychopath will learn to emote in order to fit in with the fallible and skittish, normal humans who surround them. Oh dear! Bag/Cat/escape scenario there! Back to the music. Where is Six Pianos?
All the way back and that Mary Magdalen sits comfortably, a sister of God in some well-furnished house, something out of history but still of the same time, her back to the dresser and a book - the book in her hands. I want to walk into that picture, out of the doorway and into the garden you see in the distance like Alice looking through that tiny door. The great and good are here to pay tribute - literally - to someone gone. There is always that presence in this picture, a spirit walking and talking as if nothing had happened. This is an intelligent woman supposedly gone bad and walking close to the edge of what her own church would find acceptable. Years later we have a management structure that shades the world's best companies. The business, the business of buying favours in that great ladder of good and bad that has had many names and many parts - limbo, seven circles, hell and heaven. Hell in the same sentence as something holy, a recipe for the duty officer to hand in his notice. I have five minutes more. Out of time. Ping. Like a long poem, she waits, contrite and saved by associations with the good man she left. Some people are saying she didn't leave him; that he married her. Is there any point to all that? We heard it all before in Foucault's Pendulum, and he was a philosopher of high order, a trophy for the Europeans in their war with the west. Choose this and be amazed. No one dies here. We all stop dying. There are no accidents.
Hello there to the Squid Wrestler! Did you guess it was me?
I don't really feel like a completely random entry today; Blogger is playing up and I have to keep pressing refresh to get anything to work. Where is Adam Hart-Davis when you need him? No updates since November? That's terrible! Too many explanation marks - Plings etc. Shouldn't that be exclamation?
Do you get the feeling that something big is going on? There is so much in the news that it is getting difficult to take it all in. Weddings and funerals and elections. It's all too much in a democracy.
My lauding and then dismissal of Richard Dawkins came in for some criticism from my wife yesterday. She told me I was too much of a scientist which wounds my poet's heart. However, for some years I have carried a thought that I may have been autistic to some extent and that the emotional content of the poems is a learned survival mechanism rather like a psychopath will learn to emote in order to fit in with the fallible and skittish, normal humans who surround them. Oh dear! Bag/Cat/escape scenario there! Back to the music. Where is Six Pianos?
All the way back and that Mary Magdalen sits comfortably, a sister of God in some well-furnished house, something out of history but still of the same time, her back to the dresser and a book - the book in her hands. I want to walk into that picture, out of the doorway and into the garden you see in the distance like Alice looking through that tiny door. The great and good are here to pay tribute - literally - to someone gone. There is always that presence in this picture, a spirit walking and talking as if nothing had happened. This is an intelligent woman supposedly gone bad and walking close to the edge of what her own church would find acceptable. Years later we have a management structure that shades the world's best companies. The business, the business of buying favours in that great ladder of good and bad that has had many names and many parts - limbo, seven circles, hell and heaven. Hell in the same sentence as something holy, a recipe for the duty officer to hand in his notice. I have five minutes more. Out of time. Ping. Like a long poem, she waits, contrite and saved by associations with the good man she left. Some people are saying she didn't leave him; that he married her. Is there any point to all that? We heard it all before in Foucault's Pendulum, and he was a philosopher of high order, a trophy for the Europeans in their war with the west. Choose this and be amazed. No one dies here. We all stop dying. There are no accidents.
'Problems of me - I need you.'
The day has finally arrived, Mark Benton's Agent has learnt how to say 'No'. The guy turned up in a dream I had last night as 'Manic, record-shop owner'. Occasionally I dream about a fruitless search round some sort of shop - usually a record or toy shop. This time I was searching for any records by Virginia Astley but they all seemed to each have many different stickers which contradicted each other, though some of the cardboard sleeves had pictures of groups which obviously included Ms. Astley. Mr Benton was in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries last night playing himself as usual. Take a rest man! TILM are not usually my thing, but I was distracted from my book, which I should have read in another room, and found it quite gripping yesterday. That surgeon should have got hers.
I wish it would rain.
The day has finally arrived, Mark Benton's Agent has learnt how to say 'No'. The guy turned up in a dream I had last night as 'Manic, record-shop owner'. Occasionally I dream about a fruitless search round some sort of shop - usually a record or toy shop. This time I was searching for any records by Virginia Astley but they all seemed to each have many different stickers which contradicted each other, though some of the cardboard sleeves had pictures of groups which obviously included Ms. Astley. Mr Benton was in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries last night playing himself as usual. Take a rest man! TILM are not usually my thing, but I was distracted from my book, which I should have read in another room, and found it quite gripping yesterday. That surgeon should have got hers.
I wish it would rain.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Mob Rule?
I am alone on acres of carpet, legs in the air and happy like you would not believe. Somewhere in the house there is a responsible adult but they could be on the moon. I love it here; so much to do and so much to see. What to play with next? Who do I love the most and where is tomorrow when you want it to turn up so quickly? I am too small to see over the window sill so the whole of outdoors is just daylight and trees, the country stretching away to the distance under threat of rain. The wind has the trees in some sort of riot, making shadows and white noise to end everything. This is me right back at the beginning, the start of memory. Well the start of memory that means something. Maybe I can go back further but that would just be fragments. This is the first day I can remember getting up, what the bedroom looked like - it was a bunk bed - where I had my breakfast, what I played with and how I was annoyed at going to bed before the light had gone. Maybe there is some hook which gives a sentimental quality to reminders of these first memories; trees swishing and the promise of drizzle in early spring are always triggers for some deep regret as missing opportunities then which would seem so inappropriate now. I often wonder about what it would be like to have my mind now trapped in the small boy I was.
That's something else - sometimes I think I was a girl like in the Dali painting, or maybe one of twins who only half survived. At this age I thought all children stayed children forever and had no thoughts about where adults came from and with my mother being a doctor. Adults were simply vehicles for food and shelter and combatting boredom, I loved them in a very simple way because of that. I want some sort of retrospective camera to let me take photographs of the world then. I see it from child's eye level now. All that having to climb on the furniture to see out of the window. The real trouble now is that I have no idea when I became me now. All the time I think that I ought to grow up soon, like I keep thinking I should stop buying Private Eye. And then all the serious things creep up on me and the thought that I am still six or younger vanishes under the complexities of reality. Funny as well, that I cannot see where my brother is. He joined me as co-pilot on many games until he learned to fly and make money himself. But this day he must still be toddling or asleep or out.
And then more things, like the thought of my parents having anxieties which I could not understand. How did they live through the cold-war? All that was filtered out and maybe it drove them mad or worse but I never saw any of it except afterwards. All this caused so many problems. But that is not relevant to this rainy-day memory is it? I am lying on the floor with my legs in the air, drawing or drinking tea and talking.
I am alone on acres of carpet, legs in the air and happy like you would not believe. Somewhere in the house there is a responsible adult but they could be on the moon. I love it here; so much to do and so much to see. What to play with next? Who do I love the most and where is tomorrow when you want it to turn up so quickly? I am too small to see over the window sill so the whole of outdoors is just daylight and trees, the country stretching away to the distance under threat of rain. The wind has the trees in some sort of riot, making shadows and white noise to end everything. This is me right back at the beginning, the start of memory. Well the start of memory that means something. Maybe I can go back further but that would just be fragments. This is the first day I can remember getting up, what the bedroom looked like - it was a bunk bed - where I had my breakfast, what I played with and how I was annoyed at going to bed before the light had gone. Maybe there is some hook which gives a sentimental quality to reminders of these first memories; trees swishing and the promise of drizzle in early spring are always triggers for some deep regret as missing opportunities then which would seem so inappropriate now. I often wonder about what it would be like to have my mind now trapped in the small boy I was.
That's something else - sometimes I think I was a girl like in the Dali painting, or maybe one of twins who only half survived. At this age I thought all children stayed children forever and had no thoughts about where adults came from and with my mother being a doctor. Adults were simply vehicles for food and shelter and combatting boredom, I loved them in a very simple way because of that. I want some sort of retrospective camera to let me take photographs of the world then. I see it from child's eye level now. All that having to climb on the furniture to see out of the window. The real trouble now is that I have no idea when I became me now. All the time I think that I ought to grow up soon, like I keep thinking I should stop buying Private Eye. And then all the serious things creep up on me and the thought that I am still six or younger vanishes under the complexities of reality. Funny as well, that I cannot see where my brother is. He joined me as co-pilot on many games until he learned to fly and make money himself. But this day he must still be toddling or asleep or out.
And then more things, like the thought of my parents having anxieties which I could not understand. How did they live through the cold-war? All that was filtered out and maybe it drove them mad or worse but I never saw any of it except afterwards. All this caused so many problems. But that is not relevant to this rainy-day memory is it? I am lying on the floor with my legs in the air, drawing or drinking tea and talking.
Eppur Si Muove
It is unfortunate that I was stirred this morning in my anti-paranormal fug, by music from U2 who, as is clear from their latest album, are still driven by religious feelings. The Guardian has a list of responses from eminent scientists regarding what they think everyone should learn about science. I have found myself feeling slightly weary of Richard Dawkins' verve regarding Darwinian natural selection over Creationism and Intelligent design though I still agree with him completely - well put my trust in his obviously vastly superior intellect. It sounds like some form of religious statement about him doesn't it. Oh dear! He's not the Messiah! He's a very naughty boy!
We watched the new Quatermass yesterday and it was very good up until the final 15 minutes. Production was impeccable allowing for it being live but it suffered from having to stick reasonably close to the original script which made the ending somewhat less than satisfying; all smiles without any real proof that the world was safe. And some of the extras took it upon themselves to swear a lot in the background. Now if it had been written by John Wyndham, the ending would have been a corker.
I have decided that today is Talk Like A Triffid day.
Knock Knock Knock Knock - Swish.
It is unfortunate that I was stirred this morning in my anti-paranormal fug, by music from U2 who, as is clear from their latest album, are still driven by religious feelings. The Guardian has a list of responses from eminent scientists regarding what they think everyone should learn about science. I have found myself feeling slightly weary of Richard Dawkins' verve regarding Darwinian natural selection over Creationism and Intelligent design though I still agree with him completely - well put my trust in his obviously vastly superior intellect. It sounds like some form of religious statement about him doesn't it. Oh dear! He's not the Messiah! He's a very naughty boy!
We watched the new Quatermass yesterday and it was very good up until the final 15 minutes. Production was impeccable allowing for it being live but it suffered from having to stick reasonably close to the original script which made the ending somewhat less than satisfying; all smiles without any real proof that the world was safe. And some of the extras took it upon themselves to swear a lot in the background. Now if it had been written by John Wyndham, the ending would have been a corker.
I have decided that today is Talk Like A Triffid day.
Knock Knock Knock Knock - Swish.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
A Flickr And A Wave
I have just been putting search terms into Flickr and watching what almost turns into a movie when combined with the music in the headphones (Currently Tour De France Soundtracks by Kraftwerk) The beauties of technology still make me stare like a small boy sometimes. There is nothing to fill the future for me so I have to occupy myself. Still no score for Six Pianos from Boosey and Hawkes. It looks like it will be a book again. My daughter got 12 books out of the library at the weekend. I nearly had my arms wrenched out of their sockets carrying them to the car. The library has suddenly increased the maximum number that anyone can borrow to 20 which means that we could have 80 books at any one time if we wanted to. Can't think where they'd go if we did; the house is already full of large, primary-coloured bits of plastic which make a pitiful hash of distracting NOS from the cardboard and paper which he prefers to play with. I am thinking of taking all the toys outside and to see if he notices. He does spend a lot of time practicing saying his sister's name at the top of his voice whenever she is out of the room. Where are we going today? Oh well, I do have to decide whether to take May 6th off and stay up for the excitement that is the due the night before.
Och A Vay.
I have just been putting search terms into Flickr and watching what almost turns into a movie when combined with the music in the headphones (Currently Tour De France Soundtracks by Kraftwerk) The beauties of technology still make me stare like a small boy sometimes. There is nothing to fill the future for me so I have to occupy myself. Still no score for Six Pianos from Boosey and Hawkes. It looks like it will be a book again. My daughter got 12 books out of the library at the weekend. I nearly had my arms wrenched out of their sockets carrying them to the car. The library has suddenly increased the maximum number that anyone can borrow to 20 which means that we could have 80 books at any one time if we wanted to. Can't think where they'd go if we did; the house is already full of large, primary-coloured bits of plastic which make a pitiful hash of distracting NOS from the cardboard and paper which he prefers to play with. I am thinking of taking all the toys outside and to see if he notices. He does spend a lot of time practicing saying his sister's name at the top of his voice whenever she is out of the room. Where are we going today? Oh well, I do have to decide whether to take May 6th off and stay up for the excitement that is the due the night before.
Och A Vay.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Conversations With Starglider
We were rebels when I was at college. We used to dial up Prestel during peak time. This came to me yesterday when I was trying to think about the whole Internet at once. I remember thinking how endless Prestel seemed. Not that endless it seems from the website but at the time having all that information available in one place seemed like science fiction. There is a bit in Arthur C Clarke's book, The Fountains Of Paradise where the main character uses some sort of information booth which is obviously some sort of Internet. It is quite weird to see that this idea which I felt fitted perfectly with the time setting of the novel - some 150-200 years into the future - is so far behind what is already available to us now with out handheld devices. Reality is some way ahead of a lot of the nuts and bolts of 'true' science fiction ideas of the last couple of decades. If only some of the big ideas were as far forward.
For example, the glossing over of the continuously pressing social problems of the world. It seems we are going to live in some sort of Utopia (A word which I think was defined as ironic and then re-assigned after the invention of the word Dystopia) where all the world looks socially like the America of now but with flying cars and clean streets. Where are all the other great cultures of the world. After all, half the world is China and India. That given, the troubles of Christianity, Islam and Judaism - alphabetical order you will note - seem like playground squabbles. You may be sensing the underlying bubbles of anger that this provokes in me. Of course it is very difficult for me so see the world in any way other than from my WASPy point of view but at least I am aware of the other things.
I just wrote a very pretentious paragraph about morality and religion which I have deleted. I think you can guess what I was trying to say so I will just leave it at that. The Quakers might just put up with me but let's face it I'm bound for Limbo.
We were rebels when I was at college. We used to dial up Prestel during peak time. This came to me yesterday when I was trying to think about the whole Internet at once. I remember thinking how endless Prestel seemed. Not that endless it seems from the website but at the time having all that information available in one place seemed like science fiction. There is a bit in Arthur C Clarke's book, The Fountains Of Paradise where the main character uses some sort of information booth which is obviously some sort of Internet. It is quite weird to see that this idea which I felt fitted perfectly with the time setting of the novel - some 150-200 years into the future - is so far behind what is already available to us now with out handheld devices. Reality is some way ahead of a lot of the nuts and bolts of 'true' science fiction ideas of the last couple of decades. If only some of the big ideas were as far forward.
For example, the glossing over of the continuously pressing social problems of the world. It seems we are going to live in some sort of Utopia (A word which I think was defined as ironic and then re-assigned after the invention of the word Dystopia) where all the world looks socially like the America of now but with flying cars and clean streets. Where are all the other great cultures of the world. After all, half the world is China and India. That given, the troubles of Christianity, Islam and Judaism - alphabetical order you will note - seem like playground squabbles. You may be sensing the underlying bubbles of anger that this provokes in me. Of course it is very difficult for me so see the world in any way other than from my WASPy point of view but at least I am aware of the other things.
I just wrote a very pretentious paragraph about morality and religion which I have deleted. I think you can guess what I was trying to say so I will just leave it at that. The Quakers might just put up with me but let's face it I'm bound for Limbo.
