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The Red Wall


Image: Jan Woolf and others

Starmer’s plans to woo back working class voters ‘oop north’ through risible courtship rituals of PATriotism is misjudged, PATronising and insulting.  Had Jeremy Corbyn not slipped another EU referendum into the 2019 manifesto, he’d have won the election, despite the establishment’s press campaign and bogus anti-Semitism smears.   So before we hear about any more flag waving from Sir Kier…

I revisit my essay, a work in progress…much like a country outside a neo-liberal block (spelling deliberate). 

The National Question…

…this business of our relationship with our country –  the ‘ish’-ness of us – is important.  But we’re in a pickle with it, no?  Orwell is still right – 

‘England is perhaps the only country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In leftwing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings.’

 George Orwell – The Lion and the Unicorn

But those 4 ‘Pursemen of the Apocalypse’ the freedoms of movement, capital, labour, goods and services which apply to all EU member states, sent a British electorate to vote with their gut as well as their heads. For it came down to this  – in whose interest is the EU?   Most thought it wasn’t in theirs, and so the nation spilled its guts on June 23rd 2016.

 So what’s a nation when it’s at home?

 ‘… a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.’  Vladimir Lenin – Thesis on the National Question 1913

It’s a given that this common culture is dialectically formed; affected, changed and enriched by immigration and integration. Enrichment from other cultures is part of who we are collectively, and is natural.  It is natural too to love where you were born and grew up, feeling rooted; this is part of our social survival, in order to defend ourselves, family, street, town, and country – a thing we helped shape.

It’s Janus face, Nationalism, is unnatural, something ugly, fabricated by the powerful, and mobilised in their own interests, as I believe it was in Ukraine to give NATO and the EU a base on Russia’s border.  Even if you disagree with this analysis, the facts stand. And so what of Nationalism and its penchant for electing those who haven’t moved on from the infantile state of Omnipotence.  I put the cat Donald Winnicott among the pigeons here, His theory of the Parent-Infant-Relationship (1960) presents the thesis that happy citizens need competent managers in government not strong leaders with fucked up childhoods.

But in a progressive sense it’s the beating heart of the liberation struggle – think Vietnamese, Irish and Indians kicking out their colonisers.

Socialists are internationalists, but so are Neo-Liberals, the former in solidarity, the latter pushing for markets by any means necessary.  I quote that clever priest Giles Fraser.

The bastard conqueror is international finance that ignores borders, locates itself offshore to pay no tax, and has the EU in its pocket.’

Giles Fraser Guardian 11/2/16

Attachment to country settles our souls as infants, and, all being well, makes us happy and better placed to welcome others into it.   What sort of mother would consciously starve her children?’  A government that imposes austerity on a country can’t love it, unless doing the bidding of a higher authority.   Food for thought down among the food banks.

I reject bucolic backwardness  – narrowness of intercourse is narrowness of mind.  But we do need to re-define the nation as a progressive thing – as it had to be in WW2 – all social classes fighting fascism together, the working class using democracy to change the patrician order afterwards, and establishing a welfare state, of which I was a beneficiary.

The late Bob Crow spoke eloquently about how rail privatisation broke up and sold off an industry, weakening the power of the organised working class. I just picked up a leaflet at Cricklewood station (my train cancelled, so plenty of time to read it) calling for a return to public ownership of the railways.  I thought back to my teaching days, taking a group of kids to the National gallery. On turning a corner, to see Whistle Jacket – a fine chestnut horse rearing up.

“Who did that?’ One said, gobsmacked.
‘George Stubbs.’
‘Oo does it belong to?’
‘You.’ I said.

They looked harder, in a different way.  I was an organiser of the Free for All museums campaign for the removal museum charges, so this was quite a moment.  Good luck Jeremy Corbyn, in re-nationalising the railways.

A nation is formed not only by its ruling class, but by its workers in tension with it.  This has nothing to do with the ill thought out, SPAD penned  ‘British values’ of Blair and Brown. Or the hilarious tests taken for British citizenship, ‘How many national parks are there in the UK?   The answers to which few British people know. Remember the romantic silliness of John Major’s old maids cycling through the mist to evensong?  Most politicians get this wrong, because their organic link is to their backers, often the corporations and banks, rather than their country.  There are exceptions of course – Nye Bevan’s Welfare State, Barbara Castle taming of the beasts of our motorways, Ken Livingstone’s Freedom Pass.  

No good either sneering at people as populists, with the insulting meaning the media has given it.   When the Beatles topped the charts, back in the day, was that populist? No, it just meant that lots of people liked them. Are we afraid then of lots of people thinking the same thing?   Consider Jung’s collective consciousness, but remember that a strong welfare state is the antidote to fascistic politics.

I recently overheard a Danish woman describing parts of her country as an existential limbo, where things are going no-where for a whole lot of people in ‘bullshit jobs on low pay’.  But proud that her country can still provide lifelines for 1000s of refugees.  Ask them about the national question. 

That so many Brits voted ‘off piste’ in the EU revealed how peessed off they were with neo-liberal politics.  Understanding the National Question has never been so important for true internationalism.  By god it has to be, at a time when religion is becoming powerful again.

Parochialism? 

The Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, wrote in 1952 that…‘All great civilizations are built on parochialism…Parochialism is universal; it deals with the fundamentals.’  

Sounds like a contradiction, no?   Kavanagh goes on…

‘But only if you don’t fully grasp its meaning. Parochial literally means ‘of the parish’, denoting the small and the particular and the specific. It means knowing where you are. It can also mean insular and narrow-minded, but it doesn’t have to, any more than cosmopolitan has to mean snobbish and rootless.’

I read that on a plane to Delhi in 2015 – feeling the traveller’s excitement and nervousness of going somewhere far away for the first time, alone.  Seeing my country disappear in a patchwork of fields, ribbons of river dribbling into the ocean I’d never loved it so much.  If I’d been soldier looking back at those white cliffs, I’d be hallucinating blue birds too.   

Paul Kingsnorth writes;

This negative meaning of parochial has attached itself to the word because contemporary globalised culture – neo liberalism – is resolutely anti-parochial. It sets out to destroy local particularity and our attachment to it, because if we remain attached to it we may not buy into the placeless nowhere civilisation that is being built around the globe in the name of money. At its best, a radical parochialism may be the most effective means of resisting this global machine… without a parochial culture, there can be no culture at all.  Guardian 13/3/15  

This is both primal and sophisticated – and essential for art, so consider this 

‘Most Irish peasants before the famine never moved beyond ten miles from home – a days walk there and back again.  This induces either stifling boredom and monotony or intimacy of outstanding depth.’   

Rebecca Solnitz Wanderlust 2002  

 The art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon Art of Germany BBC4, explained how the beautiful carved wooden sculptures of Southern Germany depended on familiarity with the local lime wood tree.  A sculptor, about to demonstrate told AGD  ‘I am about to carve an idea.’  Something lost in the translation, for sure – but I was struck by it.  Should we be re-carving the idea of the National Question?  For a question can be an idea, if hewn from the right material.

 

 

 

Jan Woolf 2018

 

 

 

 

 

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Wandering Soul

I pray ….when I’m an old man
those gods above & beyond
in the depths of obsidian sky
shall steal my meandering soul 
give it to a Gypsy woman
to suckle upon her breasts
under that Bohemian moon
until crepuscular stardust beckons
returning to my body
arising Phoenix ashes 
of another forgotten morn

 

TERRENCE SYKES

 

 

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Evolution-ish

 

In 1903, at Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge,
The skeleton of a man was discovered
During the course of improvements to drainage.
At the time, unsubstantiated claims were made
Concerning the age of the find:
From 40,000 to 80,000 years old.
In fact, the skeleton was from the Mesolithic period,
And was estimated, via radiocarbon dating
Available to scientists from the 1970’s onwards,
To be a mere 10,000 years old.
Nicknamed ‘Cheddar Man’, the bones comprise
The oldest, almost-complete skeleton of Homo Sapiens
Ever found in Britain.   

After ancient DNA was extracted,
A portrait of ‘Cheddar Man’ began to emerge,
And it defied, quite fundamentally, all expectations.
Imagine the surprise when it was revealed
Our long-dead ancestor was black –
That is, dark-haired, dark-skinned, but blue-eyed.
The assumption that humans who’d moved into Europe,
Out of Africa, 45,000 years ago had quickly adapted
To have paler skin, in order to better absorb UV light,
And thereby avoid vitamin D deficiency,
Was, effectively, blown out of the evolutionary gene pool.
The fact that this discovery proved consistent
With other European Mesolithic human remains,
Strongly suggests, if not conclusively proves, 
That black Britain emerged long before white Britain: 
An unpalatable thought for all those
Of a certain ideological disposition,
And a salutary reminder, if such were required,
That actual facts, rather than assumed prejudice,
Can be a bit of a bugger if you happen to be
A member of any number of organisations
That proclaim a racially pure, pale-skinned heritage.

‘Keep Britain white’, scream the pseudo-warriors,
Afraid of the dark, but with placards held aloft,
As they gather to protest their inalienable rights:
To be as ugly as hate, and thick as a brick,
Keen, no doubt, to demonstrate the ‘Best of British’
To other members of their clan, and to the world at large.
These semi-evolved, intellectually-challenged Übermenschen,
Proud of their fantasy heritage, dismiss all talk of
‘Black Lives Matter’ – a movement which calls for
An equivalence of regard, not a form of supremacy –
Preferring instead the nitpicky, thoroughly disengenuous,
‘All lives matter’, as if, somehow, white lives 
Don’t matter enough already, free – as they are –
From both blatant and micro aggression,
And utterly unlike the lives of those
More obviously descended from Cheddar Man.

Beneath the skin, we’re all black.
Best evolve a little,
Acknowledge this simple fact,
And grow up.

 

 

 

Dafydd ap pedr

 

 

 

 

 

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Blast Circumference

Feeling anxious, dizzy, disoriented,
unable to identify your own face?
The life you used to live
stretches out far below you
like canvas on a vast frame,
primary colours bleeding through,
the purpose and the will,
core exposed and clear this area.
He is coming and one by one
all living primates leave the picture,
hoof prints in the lower chambers
and below that, flood water.
Do not descend. Do not enter.
The gravity here is punishing,
words too heavy to speak
or lift. They hang in the air
and bend in the heat,
rotting like chunks of meat.
The world you knew is a noose,
familiar tools round upon
themselves with use.

 

Tim Cumming
Illustration: Atlanta Wiggs

 

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Sunday Sermon No 9

Tracklist: Ennio Morricone – The Strong
Al Green – Something
Julie London – Louie Louie
Chuck Berry – Night Beat
Fairport Convention – Who Knows Where the Time Goes
Simon and Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence
John Barry and his Orchestra – Goldfinger
Rev. Ballenger – This Train
Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity – Take Me to the Water
Marvin Rainwater – I Gotta Go Get My Baby
The Band from the Levee – Riders in the Sky
Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra – St. James Infirmary
Donald Byrd – Chant
Lou Reed – Satellite of Love
Nico – I’ll Keep it With Mine

 

 

Steam Stock

 

 

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they never go away

songs get you
         don’t they
you think
         you’re doing okay
misery more or less
         under control let’s say
loss and grief
         not present every hour
of every day
         you’ve found a foothold
in a warmer world
         you suppose
and then
         bamalama-bamaloo!
out of the blue
         a half–remembered song
comes on the radio
          not even on
a music station
          but aired
for some other
          impenetrable reason
and the first notes
          never mind 
the first words
          immediately loosen your grip
put you back in the pit
          and you have
to climb out
          and start over again
and again
          for pain it seems
never sleeps 
          never dreams

 

 

Jeff Cloves
Illustration: Atlanta Wiggs

 

 

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Freedom Of Speech Is Dead, Long Live Medical Tyranny

News Article Image

I have been meaning to write Freedom Of Speech Is Dead, Long Live Medical Tyranny for a while now, but administrative burdens around Corona restrictions and Brexit have been keeping me very busy… just as they are meant to!

But thankfully, I have freed myself from my administrative yolk long enough to put this information together for you. Please read it and share it because there will be no easy way for others to find this information unless you do.

And please know this… I am undoubtedly harming my business by publishing this information on my website. Google sees EVERYTHING. But, the truth and our well being are far more important to me than the profitability of my business… truth and well being are what Wild As The Wind is all about.

However, whilst I run the risk of disappearing from search engine results pages forever through sharing this information, you, by contrast, will not be so adversely affected. Your online presence will not be harmed if you pass this information on. So please share it with EVERYONE!

I will also share it, but Facebook has already advised me that my reach has been severely restricted due to having a number of third party posts taken down on the basis they ‘contravene community standards’.

One was about the therapeutic benefits of Vitamin C for Viral Infections, and another was around the dangers of certain vaccinations. Only yesterday I had a post about mask wearing receive a ‘False Information’ warning, with the content clouded out, but still clickable, despite appearing to be anything but…

 

Here’s the actual video so you can decide for yourself if it has merit or not. This chap is a real doctor trying to reveal the truth about masks…

Freedom Of Speech Is Dead, Long Live Medical Tyranny

This article is all about taking a look at the big picture where news delivery and news content diversity is concerned… joining the dots to reveal the real truth of the situation.

The mainstream news is chock-full of information about people dying and that vaccines are our only hope. Discussions revealing how relieved everyone is because vaccines have been released are being featured everywhere, unconstrained by the boundaries of the news, spilling over into normal programmes… Radio 2 and 6 Music regularly allow phone-ins and features to be hijacked by talk of vaccines and health passports… all glowing and often effusive!

All this amid the stark absence of any mainstream news coverage or radio programmes discussing the importance of diet and supplementation to build up natural immunity. There has been no mention of how to boost our immunity in even the simplest of ways. There’s been no talk of herbalism, homoeopathy or all of the antiviral essential oils and antibacterial essential oils which are available to support immunity. There is clearly ZERO balance to news reporting… at all!

This is an immense disservice to the populace for which there should be an enquiry, with those who have failed in their duty to serve the public made accountable for their gross deficits.

And just for the record, the fact checkers used by platforms like Facebook are fundamentally flawed. There are so many conflicts of interest, vested interests in specific outcomes, and tech giant funding of fact checking sites that it makes a nonsense of everything… There’s proof of this in the second Full Measure video entitled ‘Follow The Money’ below, as well as in the video which immediately follows..

This Who Checks The Fact Checkers? video highlights a lawyers take on what is going on… Explanations about the quality of Facebook’s fact checking start after 10 minutes.

The Internet Is Key For News Delivery

More, now than ever, we need the internet to be impartial and respect freedom of speech. Each passing year we rely more heavily on the internet for the creation and delivery of news, so we increasingly need the information we are being delivered to be balanced and as objective as possible…

Ofcom, the regulatory body for the communications industry, published the following findings in 2019. Clearly these statistics were collated before any lock downs took place.

Ofcom :: News Consumption in the UK: 2019 

  • 49% of all adults say they use social media for news vs. 44% in 2018
  • 83% of young people aged 16-24 are more likely to use the internet for news
  • 82% of people from a minority ethnic background are more likely to use the internet for news

Of those using social media for news nowadays, three-quarters claim to use Facebook, with around one third using Twitter and three in ten using WhatsApp and Instagram. Compared to 12 months ago, more social media news users claim to be using WhatsApp for news (from 22% to 30%), Instagram (from 21% to 28%) and Snapchat (from 14% to 17%), while Reddit has also gone up slightly (from 4% to 6%), but Facebook has remained steady at 73%.

When social media users were asked how they find out about news when they are online, 41% said they mostly get news from social media posts. In addition, an increasing proportion of social media users are actively consuming news across a range of different news posts, being more likely to do things such as make comments, share or retweet content. However some still struggle to remember the original source of the news stories posted on social media.

Men are more likely to use Twitter, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Reddit and Viber than women, while women are more likely to use Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat than men.

News Consumption Post Corona

According to Nielsen, marketing data specialists:

All over the world, people have flocked online as a key news source to understand the latest updates on the COVID-19 global health pandemic. For media sellers, this means audiences are growing, and for ad buyers, reaching their desired and highly engaged audience has never been easier.

Ofcom :: News Consumption in the UK: 2020

Thankfully, there is a decline, (if marginal), in the consumption of news via social media in 2020. Could this indicate a loss of faith in these platforms for the delivery of accurate and balanced news? Or, is it because news was being so heavily censored on these platforms in 2020?

TV remains the most-used platform for news (75%), followed by the internet (65%). However, compared to 2019, fewer adults claim to use social media (45%) for news and it has returned to 2018 levels. Use of TV is most prevalent among the 65+ age group (92%), while the internet is the most-used platform for news consumption among 16-24s (79%) and those from minority ethnic groups (74%)

Additional Reading

OFCOM :: Covid-19 news and information: consumption and attitudes

Alternative Health Sites Are Being De-Platformed

Leading complementary health websites are being unceremoniously slung off social media sites… permanently losing their accounts which they have worked tirelessly to establish over the years.

Many complementary health businesses have advertised heavily to achieve user Likes and social media account prominence. All of the thousands of hours and thousands of pounds invested have been lost in an instant when the social media platforms pulled the plug.

Many alt-health sites are scrambling to alternative platforms which promise less censorship and a desire to uphold freedom of speech… but the big tech giants are giving them the big squeeze!

Parler isn’t the only platform to be lost. AllSocial, which heavily resembled Facebook, (minus the fact checkers), disappeared, never to return, in the autumn of last year.

Now BitChute and Telegraph are being put under immense pressure… only time will tell if they pop…

Biggest Alt-Health Site In The World Ousted From Facebook

Dr. Josh Axe is a very personable naturopathic doctor who is married to a personal trainer. They have been referred to as the Ken and Barbie of the alt-med world. They had an adorable baby girl in 2019.

Josh Axe is anything but controversial. He has simply been sharing what he has learned as a doctor with his massive online audience… Or, at least, that was the case until he hit the headlines for finally causing some controversy for the first time in his life!

Dr. Josh Axe Got Axed From Facebook

This will not end. If you go against the grain of accepted narratives, if you offer health options outside the pharmaceutical paradigm, you will eventually face the ruthless fist of censorship from the technocrats that are hijacking the internet.

Dr. Axe is one of the more tame health channels, he doesn’t speak about anything radical, he offers natural health advice. But apparently according to Facebook he was providing misinformation.

Wild As The Wind is still on Facebook… but only just…!
 
I posted this article 24 hours prior to taking this screen shot. The post didn’t generate a content preview or show any images, as is customary when a link is published on a FB post. Because of this I had to modify the post, adding a blue clickable link at the beginning of the text. This post has one share, 7 comments, and has 59 engagements but has only been seen by 76 people. Wild As The Wind has hundreds of subscribers. It is unheard of that a post getting this much interaction has so little reach!
 
Freedom Of Speech On Facebook

Why We Should Be More Careful With Our Data

It seems that all of the amazingly brave work and actions of people like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have passed a lot of people by.

This is not only a grave shame, it is potentially the precursor to the ultimate cause of the biggest loss of civil liberties and human rights ever witnessed in human history.

The irresponsibility of the many have placed EVERYONE at risk.

The tech giants have no regard for our privacy because our personal data makes them ALL POWERFUL.

Online Censorship

Google and YouTube Will Pay Record $170 Million for Alleged Violations of Children’s Privacy Law

The tech giants enjoy monopolistic status, which despite anti-trust legal challenges against Google, from the European Parliament and over 40 states in the USA, the birthplace of many of these tech behemoths, they remain blithely unaffected.

In fact, rather than feel in any way inhibited by certain sizeable factions of the world’s population pushing back against their unbridled and unconstitutional powers, the tech giants like Facebook, Bing (Microsoft) and Google are censoring freedom of speech online and unraveling the fabric of democracy around the world.

Tech giants are not arbiters of fairness. Tech giants are in business to make money and exercise their own mandates. Google has been exposed for manipulating search results time and again, and has been ordered to pay millions in compensation for doing so. Facebook is being accused of the same, but both remain brazen in the face of undeniable proof.

Just watch this 20 minute presentation by the British Investigative Journalist and author, Carole Cadwalladr, entitled Facebook’s role in Brexit — and the threat to democracy

The Censorship Issue Has Come To A Head

I am a pacifist, and abhor violence. So, I in no way condone the actions of those who stormed the capital after Biden was declared winner of the US election.

I am also no fan of Donald Trump.

However, I am a staunch advocate of the freedom of speech, and this latest incident is being used to kill it dead for the foreseeable future… We MUST NOT let that happen!

Many are embracing this new censorship, because they wish to control rather than tolerate, and because they fail to see the panoramic implications of silencing a particularly irksome voice.

Let’s not forget, Trump narrowly lost this latest election and he won the one before. His voice reflects the thoughts of almost half of the the population of the most powerful nation on earth. In silencing Trump we silence them. And in silencing them, we hide from plain sight all of the potential threats and dangers the maladaptive thinking of this huge cohort poses to the rest of society.

Plus, any form of censorship sets a very dangerous precedent. When we start placing caveats on free speech democracy is over!

A few have spoken out against the violation of free speech this tragic incident has spawned. Even Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, expressed grave concern via his Twitter feed on January 13, 2021…

“Having to take these actions fragment the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption, and learning. And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.

Sadly, I believe this rampant censorship along with the termination of Parler, a transglobal social media platform, which was one of the most downloaded apps in 2020, amounts to the profoundly cynical exploitation of tragic events in order to further clench the fist of digital control held by the big league corporate players within the digital space.

The Google’s, Facebook’s and Amazon’s of this world can very clearly see how their empire’s will fall… and cynical moves like the de-platforming of a popular forum that champions free speech whilst threatening to undermine their comprehensive control will be dealt with swiftly and effectively… Queen of Hearts style…

Off with their heads.

The following video contains an interview with another Google whistleblower, Zachary Vorhies, who specifically left Google to speak out about their censorship practices.

 

Modern Medicine Controls The Mainstream Media

In this section of this article I will appear to digress… but sadly, I am only illustrating another facet of the same issue…

What is so important for us to realise now is that we have made ‘modern medicine’ somewhat omnipotent. We have allowed it to be one of the leading advertisers in the mainstream media, which in turn confers incredible powers… most markedly, the power to heavily influence the mainstream news narrative.

I raise this issue in an article about the apparent dangers of Retinol despite it’s liberal use within the skincare industry.

…no matter the industry, the fact is that profit is being put before people EVERY TIME. And, sadly, this even includes our current medical model, which, when all is said and done, is being driven by the egregiously profiteering pharmaceutical industry…

Isn’t it time we routinely question what we are being told by the people who stand to profit most from our ignorance?

As well as questioning the narrative, it’s also important to follow the money… “Advertising spending by the pharma industry in the US alone was $6.4 billion” in 2018, according to Nielsen, a leading global information & measurement company.

In 2019, Lindsey Tanner wrote the following in the Associated Press News:

Ads for prescription drugs appeared 5 million times in just one year, capping a recent surge in U.S. medical marketing, a new analysis found. 

The advertisements for various medicines showed up on TV, newspapers, online sites and elsewhere in 2016. Their numbers soared over 20 years as part of broad health industry efforts to promote drugs, devices, lab tests and even hospitals. 

The researchers estimated that medical marketing reached $30 billion in 2016, up from $18 billion in 1997. Spending on consumer-focused ads climbed fastest. But marketing to doctors and other health professionals still grabbed the biggest share with the bulk of it paying for free drug samples.

I conclude thus…

When one industry, namely the media, is so reliant on the revenue of another industry, in this case big pharma, then that industry is afforded unprecedented power of influence over the narrative of the day.

Perhaps this is why coverage of the Corona story was spearheaded by the business news channels before being picked up by general news…? Surely this would indicate a commercial imperative behind the narrative, as does all the talk about the use of improperly tested vaccines

Couple this marriage of convenience between mainstream media and modern medicine with the entry of big tech into healthcare delivery, replete with their known predilection for censoring dissenting voices, and you can see how a totalitarian state is born. And, one in which even the sovereignty of our bodies is under threat!

Health freedom is a fundamental right, so why are modern medical modalities being made mandatory?

Big Tech Has Captured Modern Medicine

There is no more proof needed than the patently clear indicator big tech has bought into medical healthcare delivery than the omnipresence of Bill Gates in the debate around the SARs Covid Vaccine.

I discuss the dire implications of Bill Gates being the key funder of the World Health Organisation, and his wholesale investment in vaccine development in We Are Being Played & Vaccines Will Be Our Reward. Please read this important article to understand why affording an unelected individual, with no medical training, carte blanche to influence medical healthcare delivery, is one of the most dangerous consequences of living in an age where money talks louder than sense!

Neo Liberal Capitalism has a lot to answer for!

In I’m the Google whistleblower. The medical data of millions of Americans is at risk the following statement is chilling…

When I first joined Nightingale I was excited to be at the forefront of medical innovation. Google has staked its claim to be a major player in the healthcare sector, using its phenomenal artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools to predict patterns of illness in ways that might some day lead to new treatments and, who knows, even cures. Here I was working with senior management teams on both sides, Google and Ascension, creating the future. That chimed with my overall conviction that technology really does have the potential to change healthcare for the better. But over time I grew increasingly concerned about the security and privacy aspects of the deal. It became obvious that many around me in the Nightingale team also shared those anxieties.

But, this is, of course, only the latest manifestation of how technologies are driving the modern medical trajectory.

The following is an excerpt from :: How emerging technologies are driving a revolution in healthcare

Robotics surgery, virtual nursing assistants, disease diagnoses … and so much more, the digital health landscape is today something that Scotty would be proud of – and there’s a lot more to come. From Artificial Intelligence to Augmented Reality to Virtual Reality, if we want to see where emerging technologies are having the biggest impact, healthcare has to be in the running. So just how are industry enterprises taking advantage of these complex, but increasingly must-have, technologies today – and what does the near future hold? Read on!

But, despite this and the fact that the US is the most powerful nation on earth, more babies die in America than any other Western country, and healthcare delivery standards of the US are considered to be equivalent to the healthcare provisions of Slovenia.

Plus, US healthcare has a tendency to bankrupt it’s patients, which surely can’t be good for anyone’s health?

A new study from academic researchers found that 66.5 percent of all bankruptcies were tied to medical issues —either because of high costs for care or time out of work. An estimated 530,000 families turn to bankruptcy each year because of medical issues and bills, the research found.11 Feb 2019
 
 
For those who haven’t quite figured it out… the point I’m making here is that we are putting profits before the welfare of people… And, then there’s this to drive the message home…
 

Pricey Technology Is Keeping People Alive Who Don’t Want to Live

Some medical technology is improving life and worsening death.

And finally on this point, as featured in the ultimate article of the Covid-19 Crash series… a supremely important discussion between Glen Greenwald, Edward Snowden et al.

Glen Greenwald, who aided Julian Assange, and Wikileaks, to deliver a huge amount of data to the public, including the video which showed Reuters journalists being knowingly gunned down by the US Military, draws our attention to the following…

…we are being trained to see each other as “vectors of something deadly”, instead as friends and neighbours.

This is the old divide and rule principle very much taken to it’s logical conclusion. It is divide and rule in it’s most extreme form.

This really is a must see video:

Covid-19 Crash Update

Wealth & Power Is the Driver

I make the case for greed being the precursor of the move toward a more totalitarian state in my recent article :: Our Economy Is Way More Sick Than Us!  

And, this incredibly well researched article in The Intercept, by James Risen, offers a real clue as to what is really going on during Covid-19 lockdown.

It amply serves to illustrate our inexorable move towards totalitarianism…

Under Cover of Covid-19, Donald Trump Ramps Up His War on Truth-Tellers

Freedom of speech is fundamental to civil liberties! This is why the fight for Julian Assange is so incredibly important on a political level as well as on a human and personal level.

Some Solutions

The Brilliant Naomi Klein

Russel Brand mentions the great insights and ‘solutions based thinking’ of Naomi Klein.

We Are The Many!

Whilst we tend not to be great are protecting our personal data we thankfully remain forever nosey… so, if it looks like a news story is being thwarted by the tech giants, then we clearly have an unending desire to get to the bottom of it!

An article in The Economist, Social media’s struggle with self-censorship, begins…

Tech giants are removing more content, but are they making the right choices?

And quickly moves onto the Hunter Biden story…

Within hours of the publication of a New York Post article on October 14th, Twitter users began receiving strange messages. If they tried to share the story—a dubious “exposé” of emails supposedly from the laptop of Hunter Biden, son of the Democratic presidential nominee—they were told that their tweet could not be sent, as the link had been identified as harmful. Many Facebook users were not seeing the story at all: the social network had demoted it in the news feed of its 2.7bn users while its fact-checkers reviewed it.

If the companies had hoped that by burying or blocking the story they would stop people from reading it, the bet did not pay off. The article ended up being the most-discussed story of the week on both platforms—and the second-most talked-about story was the fact that the social networks had tried to block it.

Nice work everybody!

We Will Not regain Our Democracy By Playing The Same Game As Them

We are the many didn’t fare so well with GameStop…

Whilst the GameStop story made for an interesting and entertaining aside, and had an outcome with a twist that some wouldn’t have guessed beforehand, (there’s an idea for a movie in there somewhere!)…. any cynical soul that has realised that democracy is long since dead, could have revealed, with exorcet accuracy, exactly what would happen…

A recent article in Open Democracy :: Trump’s election didn’t cause the GameStop surge. They are symptoms of the same problem :: led with this opening comment:

Both Trump voters and Redditors saw a chance to fight back against a system they believe is rigged against them.

Open Democracy have written a great precis of the story, so I’ll just copy that here:

The extraordinary GameStop story started in the middle of January, when a group of people on the ‘WallStreetBets’ subreddit (WSB) noticed that stock in GameStop – a US chain of videogame stores – was undervalued because some hedge fund managers were holding incredibly large short positions.

These Redditors decided to buy the stock to force the hedge fund managers to cover their shorts, which would drive the price higher, meaning the Redditors could sell for a large profit.

Short squeezes happen all the time – usually a result of rival hedge fund managers attacking each other. This time, though, it was a case of David vs Goliath – and David was winning. The opportunity to join the fight and use the financial system to fight the establishment was very appealing, as the trading volume shows.

The thing is boys…. the system IS absolutely rigged against you, so you will never beat them at their own game! You were just playing by their rules for as long as they were willing to let you!

Very quickly, the establishment came to the defense of the hedge fund managers. Powerful brokerages including Robinhood, TDAmeritrade, and WeBull halted buy orders, which meant retail traders [not brokers or hedge-funders] could only sell their positions. These actions drove share prices down from highs of almost $500 on Thursday 25 January – up from around $20 at the start of the month – to $193 by 28 January.

Other companies took drastic measures too. Discord de-platformed WSB – blaming hate speech on the subreddit – though it U-turned a day later and announced it would instead be helping to moderate the server. There were also attempts (since corrected) by the Financial Times to falsely connect WSB to the alt-right and the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021.

The upshot of it all? The establishment cheated the little gut in broad daylight! And, just as there’s no recourse for the businesses who invested heavily in platforms like Facebook, only to be turfed off when their hard work paid off and they got big enough to influence the narrative, there will be no recompense for all the amateur traders who lost their shirt on GameStop,  because the rentiers moved the goal posts when it looked like the amateurs were about to cleave back a tiny fraction of the trillions the establishment has defrauded the little people of since the introduction of Milton Freedman Neo Liberal Economics.

So, if we can’t beat them at their own game, (and who wants to anyway? The world that they imagine is certainly not the world I want to live in!) then we are going to have to do things differently. This means cutting off the fuel to their fire!

We stop buying their stuff.

We stop using their services.

We stop taking them seriously… an idea is only dangerous if we take it seriously.

Instead, how about we do the following?

  • Stop trying to make a quick buck at someone else’s expense.
  • Stop trying to circumvent the need for hard graft in appreciating conceivable gains…. it is the journey and not the destination which is the reward!
  • Stop manufacturing value in something which inherently has no value.
  • Learn that these pursuits will not make us happy.
  • Understand that greed is a mental illness.
  • Know that enough is enough in every sense of the phrase.
  • Learn that happiness is a feeling and not a thing!
  • Learn that taking responsibility is the most freeing thing we can do.
  • Learn that taking responsibility is us empowering ourselves with the ability to respond.
  • Learn that only through sharing and collaboration can we destroy the power behind ‘their’ efforts to divide and rule.
  • Learn that choosing tolerance and free speech will liberate us from our own desperate need to control as well as liberating us from those who would control.
  • To love another is the greatest risk we can ever take… so if you’re an adrenalin junkie you don’t need to free fall from a plane… just fall in love!

The Real Story

Dr Zach Bush is one of the most sane and optimistic voices within medical healthcare at the moment. This video is VITAL VIEWING for anyone who wants to understand why medicine needs to take a very different direction to the current course it is on.

A bit more Russell Brand…

 

 

Disclaimer

The information provided is not intended to replace the medical directives of your healthcare provider. This information is not meant for the diagnosis of health issues. If you are pregnant, have serious or multiple health concerns, consult with your healthcare provider before using essential oils or associated products. If you experience any complications or adverse reactions contact your healthcare provider.

Deepen your knowledge by using the Wild As The Wind Recommended Resources

Another resource you may find useful can be found by following the link below. *Please note, I use sources from the Recommended Resources list as well as sources from the Healthcare and Skincare Information Sources list when researching articles for the Wild As The Wind Blog.

Best Healthcare and Skincare Information Sources.

Wild As The Wind use a number of resources when deciding which essential oil formulas to put together for optimal healing and efficacy, as well as to support any health claims we may make.

We use the industry ‘bible’ on essential oil safety: Essential Oil Safety: A Guide for Health Care Professionals [2nd Edition] by Robert Tisserand and Rodney Young, to establish the safety of the Wild As The Wind formulations.

We owe a particular debt to GreenMedInfo, and, of course, the teachings of Valerie Ann Worwood, Julia Lawless, Shirley Price and Patricia Davis.

Many of the scientific studies used to inform the claims made on this website are via GreenMedInfo, as well as via Dr. Josh Axe as well as, on the odd occasion, Dr. Eric Zielinski

Other resources include:

  • PubMed
  • WebMD
  • Robert Tisserand & Rodney Young
  • Dr. Robert Pappas
  • Dr. Maria Lis-Balchin
  • Robbi Zeck
  • Dr. Mercola

 


Rachel Wild
www.wilddigital.co.uk

Reproduced with kind permission

www.wilddigital.co.uk/freedom-of-speech-is-dead-long-live-medical-tyranny/

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100,000 Dead

 

He was pleased to be Pfizered at Francis Crick
Sensible St. Paul, the Nurse, presiding
He was on the database and got notified
Then punched the buttons to sign in
Computer says no.  Little England,
Full of shrinking boundaries,
Until locked behind doors
A pair of eyes; all that’s left of your face
American forms; 31 months of 12 days in each year?
The British day and month of birth rejected
“Check your first & last name & birthdate”

In the middle of these killing fields;
Covid deaths over 100,000
St. Peter standing at the gates of heaven
No easy routes around the danger & Covid fear
Speak truth to power; no more idiocracy

He read & signed the Reg 174 vaccination indemnity waivers
Volunteers, Covid PPE’d; cheerful, distanced, welcoming, relaxing
The label on the vial said five doses of 0.3 mL
Newly trained; asked to get five jabs per vial, six if she could
She tried to get the sixth, no luck
Filled in a form, said wait for ten minutes
Another volunteer, another vial
Nurse struggled with the syringe: found the last dregs,
The sixth dose nectar; and he was Pfizered
Afterwards, he sat 15 min. in the grand Crick Theatre
Given a glass of water, a biscuit, a warm goodbye, a card
“See you for the second jab in ten weeks!”

 

© Christopher 2021  [email protected]

 

 

image.png

Over 100,000 Covid deaths and much long-term disability is a systemic and moral failure. 
Our everyday lives have been and continue to be utterly changed.   No man is an island. 
The careless and inept at the top of government and elsewhere will become accountable. 
In their souls, in their hearts and in our minds. 
This will be our burden. 
That will be their greatest burden as long as they live.  

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SAUSAGE LIFE 165

 
 

CLICK FOR BACK ISSUES

 

Bird Guano

The column which likes to listen to the radio with the sound off

 

READER:  How’s your new novel coming along?

MYSELF: I finished the first draft and I’ve just started getting encouraging replies from publishers. Here’s just one of them:

 

Dear Ms. Guano (sic),
thank you for your submission. I am returning the advance manuscript of your projected novel The Tattooed Lady with the following comments added by our chief reader:

 1). Dan Fortune, the corrupt detective inspector, is not a believable character, particularly on page 43, where we are asked to picture him alighting from his personal helicopter on top of the Guggenheim Museum in New York with Lord Lucan, yet only two paragraphs later he is in Kabul hocking a stolen Toulouse Lautrec painting in order to buy opium.

  2). Dame Horsedrone-Milquefloat, the “lady” of the title, is clearly established as a member of the upper aristocracy, yet iat the beginning of chapter 3 we are asked to picture her playing darts. The reader’s suspension of disbelief is further tested when she suggests to the chief murder suspect Lord Haha, that he take part in a charity bungee jump from a huge crane suspended 200ft over the Victoria Falls dressed as chicken,

 3). I remain unconvinced by the ending, which implicates not only Lord Haha, but also Michel le Marécage, the sous chef in the restaurant car, Nanook Xeno the sword-wielding eskimo from chapter 8 and the menacing figure in the gas mask who haunts the corridors of Dame Horsedrone-Milquefloat’s country residence, Laundry House.

Although your proposal does not conform to the coming season’s retail profile my view is that with a small degree of major rewriting there could be a smash hit summer holiday blockbuster just waiting to get out.
Sincerely, Lou Mogulstein, commissioning editor, Lacklustre & Lacklustre (publishing) Inc.

 

READER:  Very encouraging. I expect you’re already working out what to spend the huge advance on.

MYSELF:  I’m going to start with a Harley-Davidson

 

SOCCER BUNG SCANDAL ROCKS WARRIORS

Recently appointed French manager of Hastings & St. Leonards Warriors FC, Gus Toylet, (pronounced Toy-lay) has had his contract terminated after only one game. The controversial former coach of FC Lautrec Épagneuls, whose radical ideas for the future of soccer include Trampoline Football, featuring twenty five metre wide goals, and the appointment of female referees wearing burkinis, was sacked after being caught in an elaborate sting, secretly taped by Hastings Observer journalists disguised as nursery rhyme characters. We obtained this edited transcript of the recording from a source within the Observer who would only identify himself as Jack Sprat. We apologise for the poor sound quality.

TOYLET:  Good morning gentlemen, apologies for my informal dress.

HUMPTY DUMPTY: Good morning. We are from a middle eastern betting syndicate, and we would like to offer you £1,000 to put itching powder in your goalkeeper’s jockstrap before next Saturday’s game against Cockmarlin Thunderbolts.

TOYLET:  Make it £1,312 and you’re on.

LITTLE JACK HORNER: £1,312? Why such a precise figure Mr. Toylet?

TOYLET: Toy-lay if you don’t mind. It’s what I owe the bookies after my debut game against Upper Dicker Macaroons. The result was all sewn up until midfield enforcer Nobby Balaclava accidently scored for us in the 89th minute when a miskick by Craig Cattermole glanced in off his toupée. Had things gone as planned, I can assure you I wouldn’t be sitting here discussing bungs with a giant egg and man dressed up as a boy with his thumb in a pie. I mean, for all I know you might be undercover journalists.

LITTLE JACK HORNER: Ha ha!

HUMPTY DUMPTY: Ha ha ha!

 
 
 

DICTIONARY CORNER:

Bullion (n) 1,000 mullion

Receipt (n) To change the position of a dinner guest.

 

ASK DR.GUANO
Unqualified advice for the medicinally challenged.


Dear Doctor G,

having trawled the Internet with my symptoms, I have come to the unhappy conclusion that I may have ants in my pants. Is there a cure?
Marigold Lockjaw, Smithereen, County Cork.


Dear Marigold
,

the only known remedy for the condition braccae formicae involves the introduction of a giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) directly into the trousers, which, depending on the degree of infestation, will consume the ants within a day or two. Afterwards, the anteater may be slaughtered and mounted by a qualified taxidermist, or kept as a pet. Please note that the Armadillo, another ant-feeder, is not a suitable substitution, due to its viscious temper and sharp pointed claws. The same applies to termites, which will eat the ants, but quickly establish a colony of their own in your pants. I hope this advice has been useful, and wish you and your trousers a happy and prosperous ant-free future.
Dr.G

 

STROMBOLICAL

The new 14th hole at Hastings mini golf course is already causing controversy. Called simply Krakatoa, it consists of a fibreglass volcano which erupts when the ball is successfully propelled into the hole, expelling gobs of molten lava and noxious plumes of gas. Labour members of the town council claim it is in contravention of health & safety laws, whereas conservative members are of the persuasion that it encourages natural selection. 
Krakatoa replaces an old favourite, The Pit & Pendulum.

 

HAIR APPARENT

Craft Beards, the gluten-free barber franchise which opened its first branch last week, had bewhiskered hipsters queuing around the block after announcing their introductory half-price offer on facial topiary. Customers were invited to have their face-fuzz expertly teased into 20th Century US Presidents, Classic Art Deco Buildings, or any character from Frozen, for the bargain price of £25.
Hipsters of the more hirsute variety were delighted to see that the price of Craft Beard’s most exclusive and luxurious beard-theme, Gazelle Pursued By Jaguar was, for one day only, slashed from an eye-watering £500 to a mere £75.

 

NON-EXISTENT GAS FOUND IN CHIMNEY

The primary source of chemtrails, the fictitious vapours thought to effect the intellectual processes of gullible idiots, has “almost certainly” been found, East Sussex police chief Hydra Gorgon told IT this week. A team of detectives, having worked on the baffling case for several months, have finally traced the deadly imaginary gas to the laboratory of Hastings boffin Professor Gordon Thinktank. The lab’s still-smoking chimney stack was under armed guard yesterday and surrounded by scene-of-crime tape.
From a cell in Hastings police station, where he was remanded in custody by magistrates, the undeterred scientist has kept himself busy applying for patents on two of his latest inventions: Bright orange toupées with flashing lights for bald exhibitionists, and a new type of confectionary for combating obesity, which he calls Schrodinger’s Cake. The professor claims that not only can you have the cake, but you can eat it too.

 

Sausage Life!

 
 
 

click image

ASK WENDY

unqualified advice for the terminally confused

 

Colin Gibson

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Gods Retiring


There is a Christian view?
I took mine early, caring for
what hadn’t been.

Who turn
themselves back
to dust.

When Soul Survivor
had its first celestial
applicant.

A surprise
to some there is more
than one.

Without age, how
does this get pushed back in
times of austerity?

When these too are ripe for
fleecing from their funds yet there is no number
to ring relentlessly.

It is only on the third page of reckoning
that Greeks and a former sporting star
are mentioned.

A Real Person walking
amongst Them still had to go
because of pain.

Ray’s immortal
gateway was being
Beloved.

As fickle as any
vacuous celebrity, a comeback
is never out of the question.

 

 

Mike Ferguson
Illustration Rupert Loydell

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Graceful

Robert Montgomery

 

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A Hobby Horse on Holiday

 

Cracked mirrors dribble tequila from hare-lips.

 

There’s a littoral landscape spreading inland;

 Space shifters building castles with sand.

 

Television is an unoccupied classroom:

 Families gather round for faggots in foil,

  But information is incompetent.

 

Between now and navigation

 Contours have dribbled,

  Memory has sprung a leak,

   Persuasion is antique.

 

Dividing leprosy and liver sausage

 Is a choked thrill on the sun-spotted savannah.

  The brass bust of a lonely man

    Gamely scribbles in his Mongolian diary

     What he gone done next week.

 

Bisecting the rhythm and the river

 Is a bridge over Old Father Time.

  Impala scamper on the plain;

   Papa looks at his watch.

     In Paris the arcades are full of glitz,

      And there’s a crater as big as the Blitz.

 

Place has no place in geography;

 Everywhere is only a footstep.

  In the queue for the black market,

    A promising claimer catches

     His foot in the stirrup pump.

 

Between the fly-spotted atlas

 And Sunbury-on-Thames

  Is the rugged slate of winter:

    A roof with no house.

 

The wireless is no piano,

 Though the news is black and white:

   Night o’clock shutters the sky.

 

There’s a bruised bitumen ribbon sneaking home

 Past roadside caravans on bricks braising hearts.

 

A ravine is no place for a wedding

 

 

 

Julian Isaacs
Illustration Nick Victor

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Petrarch’s PlagueLove, Death, and Friendship in a Time of Pandemic

 

The Italian poet and scholar Francesco Petrarch lived through the most deadly pandemic in recorded history, the Black Death of the 14th century, which saw up to 200 million die from plague across Eurasia and North Africa. Through the unique record of letters and other writings Petrarch left us, Paula Findlen explores how he chronicled, commemorated, and mourned his many loved ones who succumbed, and what he might be able to teach us today.

Francesco Petrarch

Portrait by Altichiero da Verona of Francesco Petrarch, from a 1379 copy of the latter’s De viris illustribus — Source.

What will we remember of this year of COVID-19 and how will we recall it? In 1374, during the final year of a long and interesting life, the Italian humanist and poet Francesco Petrarch observed that his society had lived with “this plague, without equal in all the centuries”, for over twenty-five years.1 His fortune and misfortune had been to outlast so many friends and family who perished before him, many of them from this devastating disease.

One of the most eloquent voices of his time, Petrarch spoke on behalf of an entire generation of plague survivors, following the pandemic of 1346–53 and its periodic return. He skillfully wielded his pen to express his society’s collective grief in the most personal and meaningful ways, acknowledging the effect of so much pain and loss. In the immediate aftermath of the particularly devastating year of 1348, when plague engulfed the Italian peninsula, his good friend Giovanni Boccaccio in his Decameron sketched an indelible portrait of young Florentines fleeing their plague-ridden city to wait out the storm by telling one hundred tales. For his part, Petrarch documented the experience of plague over several decades, probing its changing effects on his psyche. The Black Death sharpened his sense of the sweetness and fragility of life in the face of the endemic reality of disease that came in so many different forms. He had big questions and was in search of answers.

 

“The year of 1348 left us alone and helpless”, Petrarch declared at the very beginning of his Familiar Letters, his great project to share carefully selected versions of correspondence with friends.2 What was the meaning of life after so much death? Had it transformed him, or for that matter anyone, for the better? Could love and friendship survive plague? Petrarch’s questions allowed his readers to explore how they, too, felt about these things. He gave them permission to express such sentiments, indeed took up the burden, which was also his literary opportunity, to articulate the zeitgeist.

Petrarch was famously a self-professed wanderer who rarely stayed in one place very long. He alternated between periods of self-imposed isolation in the countryside and full immersion in the life of cities, even during the worst outbreaks of disease. This mobility made him an especially unique observer of how plague became a pandemic. At the end of November 1347, one month after Genoese ships brought plague to Messina, Petrarch was in Genoa. Disease spread rapidly by land and sea — through rats and fleas, though at the time it was believed to be a product of the corruption of the air. Petrarch’s awareness of the course of this pandemic comes through clearly in a letter written from Verona on April 7, 1348, when he refused the invitation of a Florentine relative to return to his native Tuscany, citing “the plague of this year which has trampled and destroyed the entire world, especially along the coast”.3

 
Florence plague Boccaccio

The Plague of Florence as Described by Boccaccio, an etching (ca. early 19th century) by Luigi Sabatelli of a plague-struck Florence in 1348, as described by Petrarch’s friend Giovanni Boccaccio (pictured with a book bearing his initials) — Source.

Returning several days later to Parma, still a plague-free zone, Petrarch learned that his relative the poet Franceschino degli Albizzi, on his way back from France, had died in the Ligurian port of Savona. Petrarch cursed the toll that “this pestilential year” was now exacting.4 He understood that the plague was spreading, yet perhaps this was the first time that the escalating mortality struck close to home. “I had not considered the possibility of his being about to die”.5 Plague now touched him personally.

As the year progressed, Petrarch felt increasingly surrounded by fear, sorrow, and terror. Death came suddenly and repeatedly. In June, a friend who came to dinner was dead by morning, followed by the rest of the family in a matter of days. In the poem “To Himself”, an effort to capture the strangeness of this experience, Petrarch imagined a future that would not understand how awful it had been to be alive in “a city full of funerals” and empty homes.6

Petrarch talked of retreating from the plague-infested cities with his closest friends. After bandits attacked two of them as they traveled from France into Italy, murdering one, nothing came of it. Perhaps the survivors recognized the folly of an idealistic plan that simply did not fit their dispersed circumstances. In July 1348, Petrarch’s most important patron, Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, died of plague, along with many members of this distinguished Roman family whom he served in Avignon. The poet was now out of a job, more restless and unmoored than ever.

Petrarch deeply mourned the “absence of friends”.7 Friendship was his joy and his sorrow. He compensated for this loss by writing eloquent letters to the living as well as rereading his favorite missives to the deceased, preparing the best ones for publication. In an era of almost instantaneous communication via email, phone, and social media, it is easy to forget how important correspondence was as a technology to bridge social distance. Letters, as Petrarch’s ancient Roman hero Cicero famously declared, made the absent present.8

The act of correspondence could also, of course, bring anguish. Petrarch worried about whether friends were still alive if they did not respond quickly. “Free me from these fears as soon as possible by a letter from you”, Petrarch encouraged one of his closest friends, nicknamed Socrates (the Flemish Benedictine monk and cantor Ludwig van Kempen), in September 1348.9 He fretted that “the contagiousness of the recurring plague as well as the unhealthy air” might precipitate another untimely death.10 Communication may not have been swift but it was nonetheless effective and, ultimately, reassuring.

 
Florence plague Boccaccio

Portrait of Petrarch by Giorgio Visari, 16th century — Source.

At the end of this awful year, Petrarch predicted that anyone who escaped the first assault should prepare for the viciousness of plague’s return. This was an astute and ultimately accurate observation. During the following year, Petrarch continued to enumerate plague victims as well as the cumulative effects of quarantine and depopulation. He wrote a poem commemorating the tragic death of Laura, a woman he had known and loved in southern France, only to discover that the person to which he’d sent the poem, the Tuscan poet Sennuccio del Bene, later died of plague as well, making Petrarch wonder if his words bore the contagion. Another sonnet was required. The act of writing, which had initially been impossibly painful, began to elevate his spirits. Life had become cruel and death unrelenting but he compensated by taking pen in hand — the only useful weapon he had besides prayer and the one he preferred. Others advised flight and proposed temporary public health measures such as quarantine, but Petrarch seems to have felt that he might think and write his way through this pandemic.

Everywhere he traveled, Petrarch observed the absence of people in the cities, the fields that lay fallow in the countryside, the disquiet of this “afflicted and nearly deserted world”.11 By March 1349, he found himself in Padua. He was dining with the bishop one evening when two monks arrived with reports of a plague-ridden French monastery. The prior had shamefully fled and all but one of the thirty-five remaining monks were dead. This was how Petrarch discovered that his younger brother Gherardo, now celebrated for his courage and caring, was the sole survivor of this pestilential holocaust. The hermitage in Méounes-lès-Montrieux, which Petrarch visited in 1347 and wrote about in his work On Religious Leisure still exists today. He immediately wrote Gherardo to express fraternal pride in having a plague hero in the family.

In October 1350, Petrarch moved on to Florence and it was here that he first met Boccaccio. By this time the city was no longer the epicenter of the pandemic, but its effects were still tangible, like a raw wound, or more accurately a lanced yet still pustulating bubo, that had not yet healed. Boccaccio was in the midst of drafting the Decameron. Although there is no record of the two writers discussing how to write about plague, we do know that Boccaccio avidly consumed Petrarch’s poetry and prose, copying lengthy passages in his notebooks at many different moments throughout a long friendship that lasted until their deaths one year apart. It was Petrarch’s early plague writing that spurred Boccaccio to complete his own take on how 1348 became the year their world changed.

Around 1351, Petrarch began to memorialize those whom he loved and lost by inscribing his recollections of them on the pages of a much-treasured possession — his copy of Virgil’s works adorned with a beautiful frontispiece by the Sienese painter Simone Martini. He began this practice of commemoration by recording the death — from three years earlier, in 1348 — of his beloved Laura, the subject of so many of his poems. Petrarch resolved to use every ounce of his eloquence to make her eternally present in his poetry but also in his Virgil. On its flyleaf, he inscribed these unforgettable words: “I decided to write down the harsh memory of this painful loss, and I did so, I suppose, with a certain bitter sweetness, in the very place that so often passes before my eyes”. He did not want to forget the searing pain of this moment that awakened his soul and sharpened his consciousness of the passage of time. Boccaccio was among Petrarch’s friends who wondered if Laura ever existed outside of his poetic imagination, but he never questioned Petrarch’s determination to remember that year as transformative.

 
Simone Martini frontispiece for Petrarch Virgil

Simone Martini’s frontispiece for Petrarch’s copy of Virgil — Source.

Petrarch Laura

Wenceslaus Hollar’s imagining of Laura, 1650 — Source.

Among the other inscriptions in Petrarch’s Virgil — now held by the Ambrosian Library in Milan — is notice of the death of his twenty-four-year-old son Giovanni on July 10, 1361 in Milan, “in that publicly ruinous though unusual outbreak of plague, one that found and fell upon that city, which up to that point had been immune to such evils”. Spared the devastation of the first wave of plague, Milan — where Petrarch had been living since 1353 — became the focal point of a second pandemic in 1359–63. By 1361, Petrarch had left for Padua, but his son stubbornly chose to remain behind.

In 1361, following his son’s death, Petrarch once again took up his pen. He began his Letters of Old Age, as he called his second collection of correspondence, with a letter to a Florentine friend Francesco Nelli bemoaning the loss of his beloved friend Socrates in that year. Socrates had been the person who informed Petrarch of Laura’s passing, and Petrarch added a note in his copy of Virgil about this latest plague death to pierce his heart. In his Letters of Old Age, he wrote: “I had complained that the year 1348 of our era had deprived me of nearly every consolation in life because of my friends’ deaths. Now what shall I do in the sixty-first year of this century?”12 Petrarch observed that the second pandemic was worse, nearly emptying out Milan and many other cities. He was now determined to write in a different voice, no longer lamenting but actively combatting fortune’s adversity.

During this second pandemic, Petrarch launched a fierce critique of the role that astrologers played in explaining plague’s return and predicting its course. He considered their self-proclaimed truths to be largely accidental: “Why do you feign futile prophecies after the fact or call chance truths?”13 He chastised friends and patrons who revisited their horoscopes, considering them a false science predicated on the misuse of astronomical data.

As plague spread through the urban centres, a physician friend encouraged the poet to flee to the country air of Lake Maggiore, but Petrarch refused to succumb to terror. Remaining in cities, he began to spend the bulk of his time between Padua and Venice. When plague reached the Venetian Republic, friends renewed their entreaties, leading Petrarch to comment: “it has very often happened that a flight from death is a flight to death”.14 Boccaccio came to visit and decided not to tell him of their mutual friend Nelli’s demise, leaving Petrarch to discover his most recent loss when letters returned, unopened.

Plague returned to Florence with a vengeance in the summer of 1363. In this heightened atmosphere of renewed anxiety, Petrarch redoubled his criticisms of astrologers who deluded the living with predictions of when the latest pandemic would end. An anxious populace hung on their every word. “We do not know what is happening in the heavens”, he fumed in a letter to Boccaccio in September, “but impudently and rashly they profess to know”.15 A pandemic was a business opportunity for astrologers who peddled their words to “parched minds and thirsty ears”.16 Petrarch was hardly alone in pointing out that the astrologers’ conclusions had no basis in astronomical data or the spread of disease. They sold false hope and certainty in the marketplace. Petrarch longed for a more reasoned response to pandemic with better tools than the science of the stars.

 
Holbein astrologer and death

Death pays an astrologer a visit, in Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death series, 1523–5 — Source.

What then of medicine? Petrarch was famously skeptical about physicians who claimed too much certainty and authority. He believed that physicians, like everyone else, needed to acknowledge their own ignorance as a first step towards knowing anything. Ignorance itself was “pestiferous” — a disease to be rooted out and eradicated even if there was no vaccine.17 While professing great respect for the art of healing, he had no patience with what he slyly dubbed “pestilential incompetence” in his Invectives against the Physician.18 Plague alone did not reveal medicine’s failure but it brought its limits into stark relief.

Petrarch befriended some of the most famous physicians of his age and stubbornly debated their advice regarding his own health as he aged. “When today I see young and healthy doctors falling ill and dying everywhere, what do you tell others to hope for?”19 Petrarch expressed this sentiment in a letter to the famous Paduan physician and inventor Giovanni Dondi upon hearing of the premature death of the Florentine physician Tommaso del Garbo in 1370. Del Garbo wrote one of the most important plague treatises of the fourteenth century, dedicated to preserving the health and well-being his fellow Florentines after his experience of the first pandemic. Ultimately, he succumbed to this disease.

In the end, physicians were as human as anyone else; their learning did not confer any greater immortality on them or their patients. Petrarch continued to live, following some but not all of the medical advice he received, especially for the discomforts of scabies, a skin ailment he described as quite the opposite of “a brief and fatal illness” such as plague — “I am afraid that it is a long and tiring one”.20 Although he did not believe that medicine had any special powers of salvation, he respected the combination of learning, experience, caring, and humility that were the hallmarks of the best medical practitioners. Like his brother Gherardo, who cared with faith rather than medicine, and unlike the astrologers, who manipulated data to fulfill their prognostications, good honest doctors were also his plague heroes.

Writing from Venice in December 1363, Petrarch noted some flattening of the curve where he was but did not think the plague had ended elsewhere. “Still it rages widely and horribly” he wrote.21 Offering a vivid portrait of a city unable to bury its dead or properly mourn, he observed the latest tragedy but no longer openly grieved. It seems he was learning to live with plague.

In 1366, Petrarch brought to conclusion his Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul, which included a dialogue about plague. “I dread the plague”, proclaims Fear, ventriloquizing the escalating anxiety about this “omnipresent danger”.22 Petrarch’s Reason pragmatically observed that fear of plague is “nothing but a fear of death”.23 In a moment of dark humor, he joked that it was better to die in so much good company during a pandemic than to die alone. As for the survivors, Petrarch could not resist pointing out how many of them were undeserving of their good fortune. The good perished while “this vermin, so hardy that no plague, not death itself can exterminate them”,24 endured. No one said plague meted out death with any justice.

 
triumph of death fresco Palazzo Abatellis

The Triumph of Death fresco by an unknown artist, in the Regional Gallery of Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo, Sicily, ca. 1446 — Source.

A year later, in 1367, Petrarch returned to Verona – the place where he’d joyfully rediscovered Cicero’s lost letters in a monastic library in happier times, and where he’d heard of Laura’s death, so many years ago. The city had suffered greatly during the second pandemic but there were signs of revival underway. Nonetheless, he could not say in all honesty that Verona, or indeed any city that he knew, was as magnificent and prosperous as it had been before 1348. The medieval Italian communes were economic powerhouses whose business dealings traversed the entirety of Eurasia but this prosperity was imperiled. Once again, he found himself thinking about how his world had changed — and not only because of plague. War, politics, the decline of commerce, the sorry state of the church, earthquakes, bitterly cold winters, and general lawlessness were also to blame. He saw the late medieval economy contract, observing the rippling effects far beyond his own world. As he wrote in a letter reflecting on the twenty years since the 1348 outbreak, “I shall admit that I know not what is happening among the Indians and Chinese, but Egypt and Syria and all of Asia Minor show no more increase in wealth and no better lot than we do”.25

Petrarch knew that “plague” was a word of great antiquity, but he considered the experience of “a universal plague that was to empty the world” to be new and unheralded.26 He also understood that plague “really does not disappear anywhere”.27 It had been a twenty-year scourge. He composed this anniversary letter for one of his few remaining childhood friends, Guido Sette, who was archbishop of Genoa. By the time the courier reached Genoa, Sette was no longer alive to read his words. Once again, Petrarch’s pen seemed to foretell the end of another of life’s chapters.

In the spring and summer of 1371, plague returned to the Venetian Republic. Petrarch rebuffed further invitations to escape the maelstrom. He acknowledged how dangerous the cities had become again, in the “jaws of a plague, raging far and wide”, but he had found “a very pleasant, healthful place” from which he would not budge.28 By then Petrarch had retired to the house he built in the picturesque hill town of Arquà (today known as Arquà Petrarca, not far from the COVID-19 hotspot of the Veneto), just south of Padua. Even the impending approach of war did not deter his resolve to remain in the home where he spent his remaining years with family, writing letters to friends and perfecting his collection of poems, nominally in honor of Laura’s memory but also about the nature of time and mortality.

 
Petrarch writing

Detail from a fresco showing Petrarch in his study, attributed to either Altichiero da Zevio or Jacopo Avanzi and painted (shortly after Petrarch’s death in 1374) as part of the original “Hall of the Giants” at Padua’s Palazzo dei Carraresi (now in Palazzo Liviano) — Source.

In this bucolic setting, Petrarch continued to receive unhappy news from plague-ridden Italy. Another childhood friend, the papal legate Philippe de Cabassoles, passed shortly after they exchanged letters reaffirming the power of their lengthy friendship. Petrarch once again recorded this loss in the pages of his Virgil. In October 1372, he wrote a letter to his physician friend Dondi consoling him on “sickness and deaths in your family”.29

Petrarch never explained what finally led him to acknowledge in 1373 that he had read his dear friend Boccaccio’s Decameron (completed twenty years earlier). He claimed that a copy mysteriously arrived at his doorstep, yet it seems impossible to believe that he had not known this work until then. Petrarch declared that he skimmed rather than imbibed the Decameron: “If I were to say I have read it, I would be lying, since it is very big, having been written for the common herd and in prose”.30 No one should believe this disingenuous dismissal of the defining book of his generation. It was a joke between two great writers.

Petrarch forgave the author’s moral lapses in the most salacious tales because he appreciated the seriousness of its message, about how human failings — greed, lust, arrogance, and the corruption of church and state — helped to incubate a pestilential world. He especially praised the book’s beginning, admiring the magnificent perfection of Boccaccio’s vivid description of Florence under siege during “that plague-ridden time”. Petrarch paid his friend the ultimate compliment by translating the final tale (regarding the patience and fortitude of a young peasant woman named Griselda married to an arrogant nobleman who tested her in every possible way) from Tuscan into Latin to make it more widely available to readers unfamiliar with the author’s native language. “I have told your story in my own words”.31 Yet in some sense, Petrarch had been doing this ever since 1348 by collecting his own plague tales, finding different ways to express the full spectrum of emotions that this disease evoked.

 

Illustration from a lavishly illustrated late 15th-century copy of Boccaccio’s Decameron — Source.

When plague returned in 1374 to Bologna (where Petrarch had studied in his youth), he encouraged his friend Pietro da Moglio to flee and join him in Arquà. The famous rhetoric professor declined, citing Petrarch himself as his inspiration to remain in place. In response, Petrarch observed:

“Many are fleeing, everyone is fearful, you are neither – splendid, magnificent! For what is more foolish than to fear what you cannot avoid by any strategy, and what you aggravate by fearing? What is more useless than to flee what will always confront you wherever you may flee?”32

 

Nonetheless, he wished for his friend’s companionship in the “wholesome air” of Arquà, without promising that it would remain a sanctuary.33 Echoing the predominant understanding of plague as an illness spread by the corruption of the elements that produced miasmas of disease, Petrarch remarked that air was “a treacherous, unstable element”.34

Petrarch died in July 1374, but not of plague, having finally succumbed to various ailments that tormented him in his final years. In his will he left 50 gold florins to his physician friend Dondi for the purchase of “a small finger-ring to be worn in my memory”,35 and 50 florins to Boccaccio “for a winter coat for his studies and night-time scholarly work”.36 Boccaccio would outlive his friend by little more than a year, passing away in December 1375, probably from heart and liver failure.

 

Six Tuscan Poets by Giorgio Vasari, 1554. To the left of a seated Dante is Petrarch in clerical garb and holding a copy of his own Il Canzoniere with a cameo of Laura on its cover. Between Petrarch and Dante can be seen the head of Boccaccio, the other three being Cino da Pistoia, Guittone d’Arezzo and Guido Cavalcanti — Source.

Petrarch’s writings — in both form and content — would go on to greatly influence fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italian literature, history, and philosophy, and the Italian Renaissance in general (indeed some have described him as the “father of the Renaissance” for articulating so eloquently why antiquity mattered for his own times). Today, in the midst of a pandemic, it is his engagement around the effects of plague which resonates most acutely, as may also have occurred during other disease-ridden periods since the fourteenth century, when readers rediscovered Petrarch’s plague letters, dialogue, and poetry. Revisiting Petrarch in these months has made me wonder how we will remember 2020, a year in which disease once again connects many different parts of the world. Our family and friends do indeed create a strangely personal landscape of pandemic but we also bear witness to the larger forces at work that created our moment. Who will write its story?

Fourteenth-century Italy was the first society to document in great detail the experience of a disease that transformed their world. By contrast, Thucydides’ description of the Athens plague in 430 BCE takes up only one chilling passage. Petrarch allows us to see not just what but also how people thought about disease. He astutely recognized the importance of having this public conversation, and through his dedication to recording his reflections, and eliciting them from others, he left a rich documentary record that we can still benefit from today. I find myself wondering about the nature of the record we’ll leave behind of this time. Our archives, though they’ll no doubt be extensive, are unlikely to capture how we interact and communicate with each other in private, on Zoom for example, the way that Petrarch’s letters managed to do.

Some things, of course, we do better today. In general, we resist disease better than people did in Petrarch’s time — the direct result of better diet, sanitary living conditions, modern hygiene and medical innovation. Nonetheless, the uneven experience of COVID-19 has exposed persistent vulnerabilities that we ignore at our peril. The cruelty of the disease has been to strike certain places, certain families, particular groups of friends and communities, and the medical profession caring for them especially hard. We need to learn how to handle this kind of sudden loss. We need to come to terms with its differential impact on all of us. And we should probably be prepared for more. Petrarch might observe that the premodern experience of disease has never entirely gone away.

So many people whom Petrarch knew well, who defined the inner fabric of his world, died in successive waves of plague. An awareness of human mortality was hardwired into his consciousness in a way that it is not for most living today — at least those privileged to enjoy relative health and prosperity, and a life free of all but the minimum of violence, which, of course, is not true for all. Petrarch used his considerable literary talents to capture the essence of this experience. His understanding of the value of love and friendship intensified because of plague, becoming richer and deeper because everything was so imperiled. The dead did not vanish as long as he kept them alive. In a far more personal and affecting way than his friend Boccaccio, he transformed the losses that plague inflicted indiscriminately on friends and family into works of art that still inspire. Had he lived through the AIDS crisis, Petrarch would have understood why a generation responded by making art, film, poetry, and novels as an expression of their pain and anger, and to ensure that the dead were not forgotten.

There is a moral resiliency to his message worth remembering as the first wave of COVID-19 subsides. Petrarch never once offered any reassurances that things would get better. Instead, he responded creatively and thoughtfully to unexpected challenges, assuming that they would end neither quickly nor easily. His words, echoing across a chasm of more than six hundred years, continue to seek an audience. Amidst our own anxieties about what the future might hold, his is a voice from the past, speaking to posterity, challenging us to be creative in our own response to a time of pandemic.

 

IF YOU LIKED THIS…

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Covid Music and Arts #7&#8

 

More music and arts stuff sourced and collated by Alan Dearling to bring cheer to the world, as we remain in an increasingly locked-down, Covid-ridden world.

*********************************************
 

This was shared with me by my friend, Jacqui Jam, via her friend, Kym.

Feel the vibe…Some love and positivity from Ian. Fab antidote to the fear and hatred doing the Covid rounds:

https://www.facebook.com/kymsgardencafe98/videos/2337530316393812

 

Get yourself lost in the world of London-based singer/songwriter Kings Elliot as she faces some of the hardest home truths.

Born out of a loneliness which has seen been exacerbated by the world around her falling into lockdown again, Kings Elliot draws on her experience living with borderline personality disorder, depression and anxiety to create.

Raised in Switzerland her lyrics are composed around her most personal thoughts and fears and then set to cinematic soundscapes which add atmospheres of both calm and chaos to her frustrated words.

“I tried wrapping a very sad truth into a soothing lullaby,” Elliot explains of the track she’s chosen to share on-line first. “The song isn’t only about self-loathing but also about accepting the part of you that you’d rather escape from. At the end of the day, you are all you have.”

https://youtu.be/N9jBlg-GUYM

 

1968: John Lennon talks to ‘Release’

Here’s a rather wonderful and quite rare clip from 1968 after his National Theatre play opened. He spoke to ‘Release’ about his writing process and calls all rulers ‘insane’ and ‘maniacs’… Everything is ‘sound’.

https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/338414700824929

 

‘Oh Well’ – Belfast Busking. Dea Matrona Band, Xmas Eve 2020

These ladies tell us: “We’ve had the best craic busking in Belfast over the past few days. Thanks so much to everyone who stopped and watched. Hope everybody has a great Christmas. Here’s a clip of ‘Oh Well’.”  Made me a happier bunny than before I found them… lots more of them on youtube and beyond.

https://www.facebook.com/deamatronaband/videos/1307643752941830

The band appear to be a total throw-back to late ‘60s psychedelia. We need more of this!

Here’s their own ‘Siren Song’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr6u5r4xHuY

And from 2018, again live on the street in Belfast, they absolutely stun with their Abba cover. Just marvel at the bass solo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgG_SM39_3U

Plus their take on Van the Man’s ‘Gloria’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur4iLsXmoeU

 

‘Check the sound. Vilnius sound system culture’.
 

I was sent this link from Paulius. He told me that it was mostly filmed pre- the pandemic lock-downs. It’s a film about sound systems in Vilnius, Lithuania. The folk who build the banks of speakers, dj and run events. In the film the sound systems seem more like descendants of the Reggae sound systems I worked with in London in the 1970s and bands like Zion Train who use a lot of toasting and dj-ing. I’ve seen live quite a lot of bands and performers in Lithuania including Uprising Tree and Ministry of Echology.

The film lasts 26 minutes and contains English subtitles.

Youtube film link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ__j68dAGs

 

Continental Drifts are my favourite UK music promoters. I’ve known Chris Tofu, one of their key movers and shakers since his days with the Tofu Love Frogs, new Travellers’ festies and East London squats. Up until the Covid lock-downs, I’d been privileged to take photos and review many of their events including Toots and the Maytals’ big celebration of black music in the UK at Alexandra Palace and the annual London Re-Mixed events.

They run operations from the barge Judith – go and find out more about their community-focused and radical take on music promotion: by the people for the people.

Web site: https://continentaldrifts.co.uk/

 

Alan Dearling collates another collection of music, arts and more to keep us just a tad more cheerful in tricky times.

Isolation Blues from Ian McLaren:  https://www.keepgoingtogether.co.uk/post/day-73-isolation-blues-ian-mclaren

This is rather lovely. Hawaiian Delta-blues. “Remember doing nothing is a valid action too.”

Ian is a Perth-based (in Scotland) bluesman and fronts the band, ‘Wang Dang Delta’. Ian says: “Lockdown tune no 28 is a wee bit of a cheat. I enjoyed my Lockdown tune no 9 so much, I wrote another verse, then roped in my good friend Alan Sutherland to play some piano remotely and then blended all the parts together.  It is a wee jazz blues number I rustled up entitled Isolation Blues. Inspired in part by my granny and grandpa (on my mum’s side) who did the very thing described – did the dishes after every meal (Alice washing and John drying) before setting the table for the next meal. Proper crockery with side plates etc. No wonder I am so well mannered. It’s also a commentary on life in the slow lane, when the faster lanes have, for now, all been coned off.”

 

‘Translate’ is the new, sometimes challenging third album from Norfolk synth wizard, Luke Abbott. A swirling mix of electronica, at once both jazzy and experimental. At times a strange tableaux mix, with an edginess verging on complete distortion. Somehow, ‘Kagen Sound’, the title of the first track, seems to catch the spirit of the Abbott Soundscape.

Dislocated, and other-worldly:  https://lukeabbottmusic.bandcamp.com/album/translate


How the Beatles Rocked the USSRBBC docu. Great stuff on how the Beatles did their best to destroy communism (the ‘Monster State’). Or, more accurately, the people of Russia saw them as icons of freedom against oppression: https://youtu.be/9sw6OCDiKLQ

I have quite a lot of Russian friends and also many mates who grew up under the repressive Soviet control of the Baltic countries. Nikita Kobrin in Vilnius is one, and he is still a complete Beatles’ fanatic.

Go on a high resolution journey through The Louvre in Paris. A real treat for the senses. And an antidote to the current lockdown restrictions. Enjoy!

The Louvre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vuFh6NNa70

Simon Le Grec playlist:

ambient dance beats… pitched somewhere between intelligent background, the dance floor, and the chill out zone. He’s absolutely huge in continental Europe, especially Germany. All are Simon Le Grec originals:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZVKvd3geks

 

The Fourcast is the new podcast service introduced by Jon Snow from Channel 4 News. It’s an innovative way of catching up with some investigative journalism, including stories that are just too much on the cusp of the political nerves to be broadcast mainstream. Well worth dipping into now and again for a different and possibly new perspective on news items and issues.

https://www.channel4.com/news/the-fourcast

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Telling the Truth: The Death of Francis Bacon, Max Porter

The Death of Francis Bacon, Max Porter (Faber, £6.99)

Max Porter came to the public’s attention with his wonderful Grief is The Thing With Feathers, an exploration of mourning that made metafictional use of Ted Hughes’ Crow poems. His second book, Lanny, received high praise but left this reader cold: it seemed more League of Gentlemen than the folk horror or emotional occult exploration of English village life and community it was touted as. Now Porter has turned his attention to Francis Bacon, an artist whose work we share a love of.

In a Guardian interview Porter admits to ‘a long and uneasy obsession with the paintings of Francis Bacon’. Whilst Porter suggests that Bacon’s images are ‘honest’, something I’d agree with, he goes on to buy in to the prevailing myth of violence and horror that critics lazily associate with Bacon’s art, stating that ‘[t]he pictures seemed, more than anything else, to be telling the truth about the brief ludicrous reign of animal terror, human life. Bacon was ripping the artificial skin off things.’

I don’t buy this. Bacon is a master of painting actual flesh, just as it is: the mess and slide and movement of skin stretched against bone; compare a self-portrait by with a photo of Bacon and you’ll see why I say that. If you have a fluffy fairytale idea of self-image and human bodies then you might balk at Bacon’s  images, but I’ve never seen what the fuss is about when people say how nihilistic and negative Bacon’s work is.

So, I wasn’t sure what to expect of this new novella, but I had high hopes. It tries to fill the last few days of Bacon in hospital prior to his death. Actually, it tries to fill the mind of Bacon as he drifts through his memories, remembering and sometimes responding to critics’ comments, inhabiting his own paintings and painting processes, reliving and recalling his sexual and emotional encounters and relationships.

It does this through fragmentation and juxtaposition: though well-spaced out on the page, this brief book is dense with reference and allusion. It slips and slides from quoted reviewed to empty hospital room, to biographical moment, to replying and rebuffing the critic whose review we last read, to abuse, to silence, to sleep, to image. Sometimes it buys into Bacon’s bullshit about chance and luck (we know now he did undertake preparatory sketches and was a very informed critic and editor of his own work), sometimes it awkwardly puts Porter’s description of a painting into Bacon’s thoughts. Sometimes, despite rereading, I simply don’t get the allusion and have no idea what is going on.

I’m actually disappointed with the book, however much I try to like it. It feels like a simplistic collage exercise to be honest, and doesn’t seem to offer anything new about Francis Bacon, a painter whose work I return to year after year after year. Yes, it’s a clever piece of ventriloquism and suggests some of what Bacon may have obsessed on over the years and as his death approached, but truth be told the interviews and critical writing about his paintings, not to mention the art itself – even in reproduction – are much more lucid and revealing than this rather slight volume.

 

 

 

    © Rupert Loydell 2020

 

 

‘”Francis Bacon was my guy”: Max Porter on his life-long obsession with the artist’ is at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/22/francis-bacon-was-my-guy-max-porter-on-his-life-long-obsession-with-the-artist

News of the Royal Academy’s now postponed exhibition ‘Francis Bacon: Man and Beast’ can be found at https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/francis-bacon

 

 

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BLACK LIGHT

We know nothing anymore but the dead stars
– Breton & Soupault.

The Oracle of the Abyss: Fire and hands reach out weary travelers beware the Endgame Monster. Black light shines abandoned industry stargate disaster, just it’s so damn weird behind the scenes at The Hotel Angela like a shifting mosaic: windows – night – open. Carnivora Obscura; the secret thoughts of Ultra in Soho.

My astral fire is always The Harrowing of Hell, or, as Lautreamont would say:

let us disappear gradually

For at the End of the Era there is no other way – No other way. Autonomy lesson floating faces in time after time, disinterested observers watch over experiments in love. Cryptic-Gothic and Psychic-Astral here everything is floating, sunlight refracts wavering water the burning glass turquoise wavering pleats evoke the Eye of the Spirit Mercurius. And in his hands a filmic sunset, beyond drowning candleholder, a serene cata­clysm. Angel of Death approaching rigid shamanistic machinelike birdlike ornithomorph crucified and the missiles streak upward into the night and we know nothing but the dead stars and the song of the vulture fearful Last Word ground-burst scream Black Angel implacable song. Intimate Cosmologies:

The Terrible Ascent of Number 115 against all odds race against time always that accursed vision before us White Earth world ice, glaciers and colossal distances extraordinary thoughts such furtive fetish underground thoughts undulata.

The Vision of the Mechanical Bride

Inner-outer space no more no less p1asmic the floating burning image machine entrails of tubular desires separate mirror of decorated flame black outer depths alchemical image of Anna Belle Grey defies all natural law, raises the anger of the cowering, fearful populace to grotesque visions of unspiritual flight, distant eruptions, azure silence, falling technological nightmare. The Tower and the outstretched arms, pulling down and out of frame. Fleeting History (Historia Abscondita) hideous legend, standing stones, vile totems of blackened power; hardcore firing up and out, ultra castle, flesh and besieged soul; pink, icy, gilded death or devotee of doom (toodle-oo). Externity visionary hemispheres intertwined flare into the sky as panels fall apart open never again between our familiar worlds.

 

 

A.C. Evans

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Riders in the Sky

 
 
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The Sound Of Shellac Norway

“Music is the universal laws promulgated..:” -H.D.Thoreau-

“…each generation claims the right not only to emphasise the present, but to re-estimate the past….”
-L. Untermeyer-

 
 
 

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Ovrkast discusses his latest album, Try Again, plus appearances from Boom Baptist and Isaiah Mclane

 
Christian Strøm
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Marcus Aurelius Discourse on Vintage Guitars/Marcus Aurelius Anonymous

 

The real guitar exists within your mind   –
No-one is the Maker
But soul and sweat of experience
The beautiful terrible memories   –

If you allow all this into your hands
Your fingertips and grip   –   it is no matter
Maestro if you fail as a musician

Whatever you touch will bloom
Because such simple discipline
Brings you to the unity of all things

Patience with persistent application   –
These are not among the modern virtues
And what are they but crass desire of fame?

This wood and wire you call your instrument
This Gibson Goldtop 1954   –

I’ll take it with me now to pay your drug debts

 

MARCUS AURELIUS ANONYMOUS

 

Misfortune follows those who crave
Exposure to inordinate attention

For whom the notorieties of fame
Are never quite enough

But they persist to make themselves
Lightning rods unsheathed

Attracting every passing storm
Electric with celebrity

‘Give me shelter’ some will say 
‘Shelter from the storm’

I dedicate to them my ‘Meditations’   –
Where the eye of the storm is still

 

Bernard Saint
Image: Claire Palmer

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IN THE GARDEN (St. Ives)

I broke the back of a
statue, a curved thing
stained with air, in the
garden near the glass-
house. Turned my head
to follow the slope of it,
and the whole dynamic
of the piece collapsed
around me.

Erect, the glint of the
metal brought me back to
the position I was at when,
eager to shift, I lifted my
eye from the steel to the
drifting of dry light;  from
a substance to a feeling.

Later, in a square shop
near the harbour I saw a
canvas leaning at the
door. It was a Lowry that
gleamed in the low sun
coming off the sea. The
colour in it reminded me
of the verdigris on the
statue in the garden
which I’d turned my head
from and broken the back of.

 

John Gimblett
Illustration: Atlanta Wiggs

 

 

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Re-write the Language

 

The top note to self  in my notebook, after my co-critiquing session with writers Anne Aylor* and David Wilson**  was  rewrite the language.

This is profound.

Not rewrite the play.  No. My drama Blood, Gold and Oil is a work in progress, much like the Middle East itself.  It’s about the present, and TE Lawrence’s take on things should he return as a ghost.   I told you so in so many words, and what if Gertrude Bell and others of her class hadn’t drawn the line the sand after WW1: blue zones for the French, red for the British.  

Good writing friends will tell you if something isn’t working. A lot of Lawrence’s florid writing wasn’t serving the play, because I’d been turning it into speech and dialogue.  The National Theatre of Brent  (remember them?) used this to good comic effect. It’s fine to read writing aloud at literary occasions or speakers corner. But a play isn’t speakers corner.  Characters don’t speak how they write, if they write: yet I’d used quotes from Seven Pillars of Wisdom because I think he is a better writer than me.  Bollocks.  Lawrence had never written a play,  nor had I written a war memoir.  So, where Lawrence wrote –

‘We moved space and time both.  The Turks could not catch us, so they tried bombing us from the air. But how do you bomb a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas. Guerrilla tactics are a complete muffing of air force’… ‘And when we took Damascus, it was charged against me that the British petrol royalties in Mesopotamia were become dubious, and French colonial policy ruined in the Levant.’

I write

‘Using guerrilla tactics we folded time into space. The Turks couldn’t catch us, so tried bombing us from the air. But how do you bomb something intangible, without front or back, drifting about like vapour? …And when we took Damascus, I was accused of ruining the profits of British Petroleum, and French colonial intent.’

Characters have to solve their own problems, and no one goes around quoting chunks of their own book in a soliloquy. How characters write is not how they would speak.

So what’s all this got to do with lockdown?   Enough. When this is all over we’ll find that people have written about all sorts of things. 

* Anne Aylor  –  No Angel Hotel.  The Double Happiness Company.  anneaylor.co.uk

** David Wilson – Left Field.  davidwilson.org.uk

 

Jan Woolf

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Marcus Aurelius Laptop Shop/Marcus Aurelius Breaks for Naked Lunch

 

Computer screens may carry many toxins
The air within your home is never still

Screens were made for modesty in my day
Now that sound intention is inverted

Narcissists insist you buy on-screen
Anything they sell   –   a nothing thing

Yet you work unsocial hours
Ensuring that your children might excel

On newer screens that calibrate their work-rate
Covertly as their contents celebrate

Soporific trifles of celebrity misdoings
The cosmic mind become a factory-farm   –

What pumped-up hyper-cannabis is this?
What lock-in bends you to its brew of bitters?

 

MARCUS AURELIUS BREAKS FOR NAKED LUNCH

 

If a man should visit from a distant star
His candid observation might set straight
Matters we accept in dull compliance

Concerning Poetics for instance
That consummate parasite
Of Persuasion   Occupation   and Control

Its strategy to prey upon the adolescent host
By paralysing Reason in its shell
Injecting a conviction it ‘sustains’   –

Historians conjecture I enjoy
Opium as daily medication

They are the ones who seek relief
From pain of selfhood staring at a screen
Hallucinating universal fame
Drip-fed micro-acids of celebrity

 

Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

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SHADOWS OF PARIS 

 

stones of a winter moon
cast shadows upon twilight 
upon these paris streets
cutting wind 
across the seine 
sears into the soul 
ranks of poplars 
quake & quiver
quite bleak alleys 
alphabet of light sought
upon the closure
 of this day 
grammar of the landscape
guides where & when 
the language fails 
where ancient shadows fall 
when we were young 
before the stars 
fell from the sky
and fog & doubt 
plague amongst quays 
while I merely cower
sipping absinthe 
amongst the ruins 

 

 

 

 

TERRENCE SYKES
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Creating a Demand



Once again we are faced with
the nightmare of history. “It’s
the expectation that our food
is safe,” she said. Meanwhile,

he insists that the dialogues
are repeated using the same
intonations. Now, what is the
background? Controlling these

fires is almost impossible but
anything nautical is good and
most puzzling of all are the
larger planets. “It was a kind

of sculptural thing,” he said.
This machine folds up for easy
transportation but there is too
much information and it’s hard

to decide what may prove useful.
“It was a time not only of style
but of innovation,” she said. Here
we have a ship’s compass and

here we have a telescope. “What do
you make of the night sky,” he said. 

 

 

Steve Spence

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Covid Mask: The Psychology of Surrender?

 

 

Wearing ‘the mask’ is for those who suffer feelings of fear and/or guilt. Think about it.

One might reject such a notion “No, no, I’m just worried about being fined, that’s why I wear it”. Or “I don’t want to take any risks, the health authorities wouldn’t tell us to wear masks unless there was some protection benefit.”

Are these valid responses? Both are based primarily on fear. Fear of what an authority might do if one was to disobey the rules, and fear of sickness should one not follow the authorities’ instructions.

But who are ‘the authorities?’ And are their demands backed by empirical evidence that the wearing of a mask is a proven defence against infection by Covid? Will our mask wearer ask these questions? And if not – why not?

“Well, I do wonder what it’s all about – but there doesn’t seem to be much point in questioning it, does there.”

Right, in effect this is an admission of intellectual laziness coupled with an egregious obedience to the commands of ‘the authority’. This is the state of mind of those unwilling to think for themselves.

Allowing one’s self to be herded because one does not want to question the command, is a psychological sickness which presents an open book for the unchecked spread of fascistic authoritarianism.

I wonder how the same person would react if told to crawl to the shops on hands and knees, because ‘the authority’ said that these particularly pathogens only travel at head height?

Let us go back a few steps and imagine, for a moment, that this person has just enough suspicion concerning the motives of ‘the authority’ to check the medical records for evidence that the mask actually works.

Let’s see what the reaction is upon discovering that there is no evidence existing which confirms health protection is achieved – and that includes for the vaccine – but that there is evidence of health risks associated with extensive mask wearing.

What does our fellow human being do then?

“Yes, I saw that, but everyone else is wearing them – and, well, I don’t want to upset others by not wearing it..”

So now we must add ‘deference to other herded humans’ to the growing list of reasons for not taking control of one’s destiny, but instead, lowering one’s head and running with the crowd.
Being led and not knowing where one is being led, but ‘trusting’ that it is somehow going to be OK. Better not rock the boat. Everyone else is masking-up, why be ‘different’?

Why not be different?

“I don’t want to draw attention to myself, you know, and then it’s being responsible to wear the mask, to show you wouldn’t want to infect anyone else.”

Yes, the contradictions implicit in this false logic are blatant. You know the masks don’t work; are likely to make you sick; cost money; are supposed to be frequently changed; washed, dried, disinfected – and so on – but nevertheless you feel you must wear one – because ‘that’s the only responsible thing to do’ and everyone else is doing it..

Is this the final curtain-call for a significant number of the supposedly sentient cognitive species known as homo sapiens?

I don’t know about you, but I feel a pit in my stomach seeing so many fellow humans behaving like lemmings.

I like to see the human face. Not all are pretty, but each is different and expresses character. So what to feel when confronted by herds of bank robbers marching towards one with more than half their faces masked-over?

I look at their eyes, because that’s the only animated bit left visible. What do I see in these eyes? Predominately I see fear and surrender.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe shame. Maybe in some cases, a certain sick kind of pleasure – like with some young people “Why do I wear it? It’s cool, something different, you can get some funky designer masks – quite distinctive. Yea, nice.”

Do you believe it works?

“Sure, it works if you feel it works; kind of protection against others isn’t it..”

Sure it is, youthful narcissist. Protection against others – sure – sick people everywhere, got to protect yourself; survival of the fittest – let’s not take risks.

But mostly I see fear and guilt in the eyes of masked men and women. I see a coward, peering out into the world and trying to look and be ‘normal’. That infamous word ‘normal’. Yes, the ‘New Normal’ as announced by Klaus Shwab of the World Economic Forum. Mein Herr ‘Great Reset’, totalitarian pseudo-visionary of a fascist nightmare.

He must be pleased, so many people behaving ‘properly’, getting adapted to fitting into his New Normal. Silent cyborgs, lost and anxious, but still managing to keep up the appearance of ‘normality’.

So determined not to think, not stand-out from the crowd. Cannon fodder for the Zero Carbon Smart City, Green New Deal, New World Order prison camps of tomorrow.

A future specially constructed for the walking dead, minds gone to waste from lack of use, plugged into a state of the art computer so the act of thinking can be done for them by the master programmer.

A sub-human race sold out to the machines it made to relieve it of the need to think. Is that the future I see in the introverted eyes of the masochistic mask wearer? Do people subconsciously want to suffer? Is this a remnant of the Christian doctrine that one must suffer atonement for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?

Whatever the cause, it is for those who have meekly detoured from walking the path of life in favour of stepping onto the conveyor belt of a cyborgian slave cult.

In the midst of these most virulent and dark deceptions pulled on humanity, there is but one recourse that will bring back the light: having the courage to totally reject this state of mindless obedience – which has got a large segment of humanity into an unprecedented and abject state of spiritual poverty.

Finding a sufficiency of ‘fire within’ to burn-off the dead corpuscles of self afflicted conformity – that is the call. To bravely reject ‘the great lie’ currently running riot in all corners of the world.

Save yourselves. De-mask – return to humanity – and stand firm for truth, good people of Planet Earth!

 

Julian Rose

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

 

 

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Save Stonehenge

 
 
 
 

The battle to save Stonehenge WHS is on: legal claim submitted

The Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site Group is overwhelmed by the generosity of over 2,000 donors who have met their stretch target of £50,000 within a month! Thank you all so much for your wonderful support. BBC online news reported this fantastic achievement on 31 December.  This is however only the beginning.  Read the update here

The A303 Stonehenge Examiners recommended refusal. Why?

Since the decision by Transport Secretary to drive a chasm through Stonehenge World Heritage Site we have faced a flood of communications via various platforms expressing grief, shock and bafflement not least because the independent Examining Authority recommended it be refused permission saying that the effects on the WHS and historic environment would be ‘significantly adverse’  and ‘irreversible’. READ MORE

ACT NOW: Write to the Prime Minister, & to your MP!

The decision to go ahead with the A303 Stonehenge road scheme must be challenged whilst there’s time.

Write to the Prime Minister and your MP. It is more effective if you can compose an email of objection to the A303 Stonehenge road scheme in your own words.  Some ideas of WHAT TO SAY 

Leading archaeologist speaks out


Professor Mike Parker Pearson, leading expert in British Neolithic archaeology, speaks out … READ MORE 

What are we campaigning for?

We are campaigning to stop the Government’s proposal to widen the A303 trunk road to the south west… READ MORE 

Stonehenge: More than just a monument

For many people Stonehenge is a famous monument to visit on a trip to England. For others Stonehenge is a special place of spirituality, for quiet contemplation, communing with ancestors, for healing and celebration.  This article, however, is an introduction to Stonehenge and its landscape: a unique  READ MORE

Please can you donate to the campaign?

To campaign against the devastating ‘expressway’ we need money.  Our work is donated voluntarity but we need to pay for publicity, professional advice and numerous sundry items. To donate please link here. 

Michael Wood “There’s still time to reconsider”

Historian, broadcaster and author Michael Wood defends the Stonehenge landscape from the gouging and tunnelling for the widening of the A303 … FULL DETAILS 

Sir Tony Robinson responds

Tony Robinson and others explain why they are objecting to the Stonehenge scheme. These points were made at the 2017 consultation but they are still valid since the short tunnel remains the preferred route.

Watch more campaign videos here.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee advise UK

Stonehenge was designated in 1986 by UNESCO as “Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites World Heritage Site”. The Statement of Outstanding Universal Value explains why the WHS is of such importance to mankind… READ MORE

 

 
 
 
 
 
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ROOTS

The old tamarind tree stands watchful still

With wrinkled bark and bowing boughs,

The leaflets quivering in twilight zephyr

As bells of homebound cattle resound.

The bower guards the broken steps

To the pond where our women bathed

Swimming to pluck shapla* flowers

That adorned the playful girls’ wet hair;

I had worn a crown of shapla too

A queen beneath the ancient tree,

With lulling midday drone of doves

And ducks wading in tranquility,

As gorgeous purple dragonflies

Would descend to flirt with jasmine leaves.

How trembling leaves keep weaving now

Chiaroscuro of timeless moments

Into sinuous tuber roots that stretch

Far to urban haze and pain –

Connecting my dimming vision,

To the gentle yet so strong,

Resonating invigorating strain.

Voices of my grandmothers –

Powerful and resilient,

With tales of battles fought and won

Sacrifices made with ease, by

Ancient women in dazzling gold

and vermillion like fiery sun.

Blowing the conch shells piercing darkness

Ululating, lighting lamps

to greet the armoured goddess amidst

Beating drums and strong incense,

In natmandir** beside the tree, that

Spreads its roots through generations –

Roots that hold and rejuvenate

This wasted modern existence.

 

*Shapla: Lotus like aquatic flower

**Natmandir: Privately owned temples of noble aristocratic families.

 

 

 

Dr.Piku Chowdhury

BIO-NOTE

Dr.Piku Chowdhury, Teaches in a post graduate Govt.aided college, Research guide, Editor, Author, painter, translator, singer, poet, photographer, mental health facilitator.

 

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i.m. Elizabeth Rudd

And what was she,
At first?

A baby, a daughter,
A sister, a cousin,
A friend.

And then?

A teacher, a mother,
A wife
But always his bride.

And what is she now
To those left behind?

The moon,
Unseen,
That’s drawing their tide.

 

 

 

Kevin Patrick McCann
Illustration Nick Victor

 

From Still Pondering   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Still-Pondering-Kevin-Patrick-McCann/dp/1788768671/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Patrick+McCann+Still+Pondering&qid=1573366856&sr=8-1

 

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Primer

The grounds, the preparation,
the grind, the extraction,
the stretch, the pitch,
the breath and the touch,
the syncopating rhythm,
cones of pigment spilling
from the settlements
of mesolithic tribes
squatting in the belly
and rising up the sides
of skyscrapers into
the night, seeing neon,
seeing signs in light
pricking darkest obsidian.

 

 

Tim Cumming
Illustration: Atlanta Wiggs

 

 

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Covid points of view:

 

Alan Dearling has assembled some reports and posts on the Covid pandemic, vaccinations, curfews, restrictions, and views on ‘personal freedom’ and ‘safety’. He has anonymised the identities of a number of commentators. For the last six months (or perhaps more now), Alan has, with sadness, been predicting the spread of civil unrest, riots and increasingly polarised opinions in more and more fractured societies and communities across Europe and beyond.

NBC reportage of the riots against Covid curfew and vaccinations in Amsterdam and Eindhoven:

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/protesters-torch-covid-test-center-in-holland-on-first-day-of-curfew-99949125643?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR1d0lSC5C286pXOjxcN9JGTIHfNopDcL7KFIQ6AD8H6ld3V_-gYgROSMFs 

NHS England on Covid vaccinations: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/coronavirus-vaccine/

 

Tipi Dave: 

I’ve thought long and hard about the situation facing the world by the pandemic.

As I see it, vaccination would be in effect a protection from a virus by infecting me with it.

My decision not to have it may be seen as selfish, but my reasoning is along the lines that the world is already far too overcrowded. I’m prepared to take my chances. If my fate is to catch and die from anything, be it Covid or something else, so be it. I don’t judge those that want to have the vaccine. Some may consider me selfish, but if they have the vaccine, me not doing so won’t make any difference. I have considered a more drastic form of suicide, but as I’ve already said, I’m happy to leave it to fate.

Love and respect

Jail tales from Australia video (posted on UK FB page) with this comment: Scum ? won’t be long before they try this shit in the UK!

https://www.facebook.com/JailTales/videos/300431261213815

 

Andy Worthington (real name and personal opinions) 

So this morning I received my first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which I was given because I’m in a high risk category as someone with a rare blood disease. I received my vaccination at my local doctors’ surgery in Lewisham, and it was a very well-organised affair, with numerous volunteers helping the NHS staff administering the vaccines. In case anyone needed reminding, this is the NHS organising itself to do its job, and getting wonderful support from local community volunteers.

This is in stark contrast to the private companies who have been given eye-wateringly huge amounts of money by the Tory government — like the £22bn spent on the failed ‘test and trace’ system, “helmed by Conservative peer Dido Harding and mostly run by contracting giants Serco and Sitel through thousands of call centre workers”, as Wired explained in November — and who have mostly failed to deliver anything of value.

So how am I feeling? Well, a little tired, I must admit, but otherwise fine — and I did quite spectacularly fail to take it easy after the vaccination, cycling into the City and the West End this afternoon in search of my daily photo for my ongoing photo-journalism project ‘The State of London.’

It’s reassuring to see the vaccine being rolled out so successfully, with over 5.4 million people now having received their first vaccination, and I can only hope that those opposed to vaccinations, and caught up in all kinds of fears about it, realise how damagingly counter-productive their position is. Vaccines have eradicated smallpox worldwide, and have massively reduced instances of polio, as well as delivering numerous other triumphs in the global struggle against disease.

The world is a much safer place, from the point of view of health, because of vaccines, and yet the anti-vaxxers seem, explicitly, to be willing us to return to a world in which we are ravaged by preventable diseases, and suffer many more deaths as a result.

For ‘The State of London’, see:

https://www.facebook.com/thestateoflondon/

Fred says:

Having just searched for #greatreopening on here and Twitter there seems to be a small but vocal support for this on the 30th January…looks like there’s a Telegram group for it also.

This is undoubtedly a dangerous idea. Trying to get businesses to open en masse on one day, before it’s safe could have a devastating effect on virus numbers, the NHS is struggling enough as it is.

None of us are enjoying this situation I’m sure, and despite difference of opinion we’re absolutely in this together. I loathe the Tories and they’re doing a terrible job at controlling the pandemic in the UK. They’ve let the virus get out of control, but so have some of the public to an extent it’s true.

God knows I look forward to the day we can go out and have fun again, but only when it’s safe for everyone to do so.

Alan Dearling adds, re-The Great Reopening:

We will be lucky if much will be open in the UK even by the autumn of 2021. More people in hospital ICUs, more deaths, concern over how effective vaccines will be both to protect individuals and also the spread. Same around the whole world. This is totally fake news

Marcus: Here is a good collection of why lockdown causes more damage than good:

https://HealthTruth.info/weve-got-it-all-wrong…/…

Janet:

I spent about 4.5 hours out and about getting shopping, short walk for my doggy and then dropping flowers off for a friend in town today who is poorly and waiting for test results after numerous scans and tests. Shopping was ‘essential to me shopping’. More paint and DIY stuff, dog food, groceries and a few little bits on my travels for Dad’s birthday next month. Supermarket hopped through 7 different stores. Exhausting! Probably not entirely ‘legal’.

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WARRIOR

I watch the funeral pyre on TV burn
and imagine the stink of human flesh.
Bill always used to laugh with us about
wanting a Viking funeral on the creek –
a warrior on fire drifting out to sea,
or to leave his corpse out for the birds;
of course we took him to the crematorium,
same as everybody else. Does planning
our own departure help those left behind
or give us some vestige of control
from beyond the grave? We joke, too,
about haunting those we love, a threat
made in vain as we choose the poems
and songs we want used to say goodbye.
I’ve now lived longer than my father,
step into the unknown years he never did.

 

Rupert M Loydell

From The Geometric Kingdom, a book by Maria Stadnicka & Rupert Loydell,
available at:

https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/the-geometric-kingdom-by-rupert-loydell-and-maria-stadnicka-54-pages

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Interview with Gerard Johnson

Interview with Gerard Johnson

Words by Joshua Phillip

In this interview I talk with Gerard Johnson, writer and director of the BIFA nominated film MUSCLE starring Cavin Clerkin, Craig Fairbrass, Lorraine Burroughs, Peter Ferdinando, Sinead Matthews, and Polly Maberly.

 

MUSCLE was shown in BFI, Curzon, and Art House Cinema in December 4th, 2020 and is available for purchase on DVD February 1st 2021.

Gerards other films include Tony (2009) and Hyena (2014).

I heard you mention that Muscle was inspired by a man you saw in a gym. Can you explain what happened?

I’ve seen lots of Terry’s over the years in gyms. There were a couple of guys in an LA Fitness in Piccadilly that gave me a lot of inspiration though. One looked like the devil and would shout across the gym at people if they had any kind of incorrect form, another guy ex-soldier who had been to Iraq opened up to me in the sauna. 

Taking that idea and starting on the film project to Muscle, what were the first steps you did after that experience in the gym? Where did you begin?

I wrote a little treatment years ago around the time of Tony (my first feature). It was in the back of a drawer until I met Producer Matt Wilkinson and he asked me if I had anything knocking about. I pitched it and he loved it so then I wrote the script.

What did it take to write the script and what conditions do you like to write under?

I wrote Muscle before I had kids so it was a fairly straightforward daily writing process. Muscle was a very enjoyable script to write and I had a lot of fun with Terry and Simon. It was a joy to write.

When writing the script was there any food you would fuel up on? Would you drink lots of water and coffee?

Lots of water throughout the day. Bulletproof Coffee to start the day though. Then always a break for a nice long walk to clear the head.

What did you learn about health and nutrition and exercise when researching the film?

I knew quite a bit before I started on Muscle, I’ve been going to gyms on and off since I was a teenager really so had a fair bit of understanding of nutrition and supplements etc.

What supplements do you use?

Not really any at the moment unless you count alcohol?

We actually see the physical transformation of Simon played by Cavin Clerkin as the film progresses. How did you achieve this?

We shot the first block for a week and then took three months off so he could just go for it. He had a personal trainer and was training everyday, plus he was eating six meals a day and taking loads of supplements, He had never done weights before this film and now he’s addicted to it.

One image that stood out in particular to me was when Simon is walking across a field that has industrial towers in the background. It suggests the extension of masculinity on the planet. Was that intentional?

Wasn’t intentional but I like it!

Craig Fairbrass as the very complex character Terry. Talk about him?

He is a very complex character that’s for sure. They are always the most fun to write, I drew on people I knew from my past. He is very damaged goods I would say.

Talk about the filming

I see filmmaking as getting your troops together and going into battle. Everyone needs to be on the same page and ready to follow you into the unknown. Very exciting times.

Why did you use the greyish blackish film texture? I thought it was incredible by the way. Especially in contrast to the way you used the beams of light that you shone into certain scenes.

Thank you! It was always the intention to shoot in b/w and I love how it has turned out. In between the stunningly beautiful shots it gives sense of oppressive dread which is what I was going for.

How often do you go to gym?

Not at all at the moment as all the gyms are closed due to the pandemic. I’ll hopefully get back into it this year at some point. Fingers crossed.

 

 Rorschach Art Publication Site 
rorschacharchives.blogspot.com

 

 

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SAUSAGE LIFE 164

 
 

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Bird Guano

The column which thinks taxidermy is the new tattooing

 

READER: I’m having a tattoo as it happens

MYSELF: Where?

READER: Where else? At Sailor B Wear, the coolest tattoo parlour in town.

MYSELF: No, I meant where on your body?

READER: Oh, erm…….I haven’t decided yet. Somewhere discreet, somewhere no-one would normally look.

MYSELF: Your face?

READER: Very funny. I’ll pretend I never heard that.

MYSELF: I’ll pretend I never wrote it.

 

ON THE TOWN

THE INTERNATIONAL TRAVELLING EXHIBITION OF SCISSORS

Upper Dicker Kitchen Museum 27th Jan – 3rd March

From cruel Victorian chicken-pruning scissors to the mighty shears employed in the topiary of the labyrinthine hedges of Henry VIII’s Hampton Court maze,  Upper Dicker’s Kitchen Museum presents a fascinating look at the history of a little-explored subject. In this international travelling exhibit, majestic Ming Dynasty nail scissors made for the empress of China and inlaid with ivory cut from the tusks of the imperial elephant, rub shoulders with the US army-issue electric clippers which dispatched Elvis Presley’s famous quiff in 1958. I urge all scissor fans to attend this compulsively interesting show, if only to gargle with helpless laughter at the tiny ornate eyebrow scissors of Marie Antoinette, or gasp in amazement at the eormous Proboscis Monkey nasal hair trimmers carried by Georgian explorer Sir Eric Rumsfeld-Barbican’s footman during his early explorations of the Mongolian interior. All in all, to anyone fascinated by the world of scissors, The Upper Dicker Kitchen Museum would be an essential destination, were it not for the current restrictions. Upper Dicker Kitchen Museum is closed until further notice.

 

BOOK REVIEW

The Cunning Mandolin by Rob Dulle.

*****

Rob Dulle, much-published novelist and poet in residence at Sunderland University’s Mackam College, has a lofty reputation to live up to. This, his latest opus, will be warmly welcomed by his fans as a masterful return to form, following his detour into magical realism and Arthurian fantasy in the 2017 deckchair blockbuster Pearls on a Random Brooch.

The Cunning Mandolin is however, a novel with Dulle written all over it. All the familiar tropes are here, from the curious stammer-afflicted cocktail waitress with a grudge against Jehovah’s Witnesses to the Mexican pool cleaner suspected of money laundering and poultry bleaching. Chapter one begins with all guns blazing; an unidentified body is found gagged, bound and concealed in a septic tank at the residence of high court judge Justice Cyril Hyphen-Hyphen who had recently convicted popular TV ventriloquist Charlie Chutney on charges of putting libellous words into other people’s mouths. Unconventional private investigator Melton Mowbray (who also appeared in Dulle’s DIY novelette The Lady Varnishes) has a hunch which takes readers on an improbable wild goose chase involving herring forgery, a plot to invade Albania by post and a pair of Scandinavian pub quiz cheats. Recommended.

 

 

VIDEO LINK

POISON PEOPLE

Guano Poundhammer

 

click image

ASK WENDY

unqualified advice for the terminally confused

 

BLIMEY!Fascinating items from around the globe

 

JAPAN: Turkish plumber Mustapha Habababa murdered Yoko Nagasaki, a Tokyo cinema usherette, after a simple misunderstanding. The Turkish word for hammock is exactly the same as the Japanese word for ventriloquist.

UK: Barnacle Bill, a 4-year-old Bedlington terrier brought 27 miles of the A324 to a standstill when he mistook a 45-tonne articulated lorry containing toxic waste for a tennis ball.

NEPAL: A woman in Pangapanga, arrested for playing the accordion whilst menstruating, has had her left foot amputated and turned into an umbrella stand for elephants.

USA: A 72 year old man in Nosferatu, Texas, has divorced his wife of 47 years, after discovering her secret hoard of over 53,000 Bombay tram tickets concealed in hollowed out pumpkins.

 

NEW LOOK WARRIORS

According to entrepreneur Sir Leonard Pastry, Hastings & St.Leonards Warriors FC’s recently appointed director of football, the Covid-stricken club will be looking forward to the rest of the 2020/21 football season under the dynamic stewardship of his Pink Panther Entertainment Group, an internationally established company with its finger firmly inserted in a number of lucrative pies. “Unlike most other football clubs, the current pandemic restrictions have made little difference to the Warriors’ average match attendance,” Sir Leonard told me over socially distanced Oeufs Caledonia in the newly decorated Covid ‘n Coffee Players Lounge, “and going forward, we have ambitious plans for the club’s post-pandemic future.” Through a metal grill in our table’s six-inch Virus-proof glass panel, the pink-masked entrepreneur outlined his plans: “For example”, he told me, “my wife, Lady Cruella Pastry, who is a keen self-publicist, will be marketing her range of upmarket nail polish, Talonne, in several shades of pink. Its unique pyramid-shaped bottle, with the distinctive staring-eye cap will be embossed with the club’s new logo, a pink panther with three legs, representing The Isle of Man, where I keep my money”.

There have been reports however of unrest amongst the playing staff concerning the Warriors’ new flourescent pink strip which claims to combat floodlight failure. Welsh wizard Craig Cattermole told us: “Where I come from, men are men and have well-modulated baritone voices. Since I moved to The Warriors from crack South Wales club Caerphilly Sentimentalists, I have naturally become more urbane and sophisticated, and will occasionally eat quiche, but I draw the line at wearing pink.” Goalkeeper Tim Smegma was more pragmatic, adding: “As a goalie, I get to wear a different coloured shirt from the others, so I’m not really all that bothered. However, I do refuse to eat quiche as a matter of principle.”

Critics have pointed to a recent sports-related endeavour undertaken by the businessman which also attracted some notoriety. His much-trumpeted event The 2020 Pink Panther Charity Celebrity Crazy Golf Tournament fell flat on its face when the only “celebrities” to turn up turned out to be none other Sir Leonard himself and his chauffeur Frank “Lardy” Goosefat, a former gangland enforcer and Olympic Crazy Golf medallist.

 

STOCK PRICES

Domestic Molecule down 3 (48)

Argumentative Calliope Shortfunds down 5 (57)

Marigold Mustard Futures down 44 (12)

Moose Derivatives up 37 (85)

Ham Stallions up 42 (77)

Rumplestiltskin Clown Shoe Trade-offs down 6 (2)

 

Sausage Life!

 
 

CLICK IMAGE FOR TRAILER

 
 
 
 
 

http://www.enemy-of-art.com/

colin gibson
 
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Ross Beattie presents It’s Psychedelic Baby podcast

PLAYING TRACKS BY

Mountain- Never In My Life
Helicon- What You Love Will Kill You
Mamuthones- Fear On The Corner
Alien Mustangs- Hypnic Trip
Renaldo & The Loaf- Here’s To The Oblong Boys
Beev Rations- Beef Ration #69
Exoterm- Manufacturing A Smile (Exits Into A Corridor)
Our Solar System- Babalon Rising
JÜ & Kjetil Møster- Hassassin
White Canyon & The 5th Dimension- Empty Box
Martin Rude & Jakob Skøtt Duo- The Rest Of The Way
Current 93- Diane
Paul Leary- Born Stupid
Bill Stone- Charlotte’s Town

Feel free to submit your music directly to Ross for upcoming podcast at: [email protected]

Ross Beattie – Poet, hermit, professional drop out – Originally from London now lives in the Highlands of Scotland and produces independent radio programs and podcasts as The Night Tripper.

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A little movie trip around Berwickshire Coast film locations

 

With local resident, Alan Dearling

Firstly, a hands-up. I’ve not been able to access viewings of all these films and TV programmes. And in a few cases, I don’t want to! But, it has still been interesting to try and piece together this collection – all of which include at least momentary glimpses of the Scottish/English border coastal areas, from Berwick-upon-Tweed in England to St Abbs in Scotland. It’s been fun and interesting talking to lots of locals in order to put the article together.

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The Witch’s Daughter is a children’s novel by Nina Bawden. It was first published in 1966. It has been dramatised for television twice, firstly with Fiona Kennedy as Perdita (1971) in a four (or possibly five) part BBC mini-series. It was an early example of ‘fantasy’ filming by the BBC. Scenes were filmed in various locations around St Abbs, based on a TV script written by Alistair Bell.

The main character, Perdita, an orphan, supposedly lives on a remote island in the Hebrides. It does not seem to be available on-line or video and I haven’t found any stills. Cast and filming info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398611/

Link is a 1986 British horror film starring Elisabeth Shue and Terence Stamp along with a trio of simian stars (Apes, to me and you), which consists of the Link, Imp and Voodoo. The title character, Link, is a super-intelligent yet malicious chimpanzee (played by an orangutan) who lashes out against his masters when they try to have him euthanised.

It was directed by Richard Franklin and written by Everett De Roche from a story by Lee David Zlotoff and Tom Ackermann. The score was provided by Jerry Goldsmith. It was filmed in St Abbs.

Web link to trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSyfkUQ71Yk

ITV’s Taggart 1996 ‘Dead Man’s Chest’

Local legend has it that when the swashbuckling stars of Taggart finished filming their latest episode, the cry was: “Come on me hearties, let’s have a party.” At the time, the cast feared the piratical tale would be the last before the popular cop series was scuppered.

How wrong they were, for another Taggart film was actually already in the can. Reports at the time inform us that a wild dawn ceilidh went ahead, as the stars and camera crew – convinced that this was their swansong – decided to go out in style. Almost all of the filming of Dead Man’s Chest, a quirky tale based on the classic ‘Treasure Island’, complete with buried treasure and dastardly deeds, was done at night at St Abbs, on the dramatic south-east coast of Scotland. Which meant that as they acted out this ‘yo-ho-ho’ yarn, the cast and crew’s life had been turned upside-down. They started work on the filming around 6 pm and filmed right through until 6am.  A modern take on Long John Silver and Blind Pew!

James Macpherson, who plays Detective Inspector Mike Jardine, said: “After filming we were ready to loosen up with a couple of drinks, even though it was 6am.” I don’t know where they managed to find a couple of guys to play ceilidh music at that hour, but they deserve brownie points for ‘attitude’. It was a very strange situation – the sun was just coming up on a beautiful morning and we were having this wee party. “I remember telling my co-star, Blythe Duff, to remember this moment because it was quite magical.”  Link to Part One of the three-parter: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7tt9gh

One More Kiss 2000

This is a romance directed by Vadim Jean who was responsible for ‘Leon the Pig Farmer’. When Sarah (Valerie Edmond) receives life-changing news, she leaves her life in New York behind and returns to her home town in the Scottish-English Borders. Here, she reconnects with her childhood sweetheart Sam, played by heart-throb, Gerard Butler. Shot on location on both sides of the border, in Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, ‘One More Kiss’ features several scenes in Berwick and Burnmouth on the Berwickshire Coast.

A video link which is actually a music promo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0TRUmKKjVA

Women Talking Dirty 1999; UK release 2001

This film got mightily panned by critics and audiences alike for the excruciatingly bad Scottish accents. But popular with streaming service audiences. The stars are ‘A-listers’, including, Helena Bonham-Carter and Gina McKee. It’s a women’s Romantic-comedy affair, based on the novel by Isla Dewar. It includes some filming from Coldingham Bay and St Abbs.

Link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0DHui91tV4

Dangerous Liaisons 2003

Josee Dayan, JLA/Hamster Productions – this is a 2003 French mini-series, apparently about 270 minutes in length. It received good reviews, but hard to obtain a copy. I’ve ordered one, but it is taking its time to reach my letter-box.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317875/

From online sources it tells us that this TV mini-series of Choderlos de Laclos’ classic 18th century tale of seduction, betrayal and revenge, has been re-located to the modern 1960s world of Parisian high society. Quite a cast list, starring Catherine Deneuve, Rupert Everett, Nastassja Kinski, locations include St Abbs Head, St Abbs village and Coldingham Bay in the Scottish Borders.

And a music video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=denHHkJcSc0&list=PLD6tcwEfy8YlsM2F3XqUq0YZYQMHZVWRR&index=178

Man to Man 2005

Friends of mine in Coldingham, Rod and Sandy, were both extras in this French film. There are lots of shots of local Scots chasing Pygmies through forests and of scenes around Manderston House. Starring Joseph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas, it’s an unsettling film about the ethics and morality (or lack of!) in Victorian exploration and science, where Pygmies were at one time seen as the ‘missing link’, rather than humans. It’s all a bit over-blown but it includes a worthy message directed by Régis Wargnier

Web link to trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfj0Xda5FZM 

 

Solomon Kane 2008

A big budget, £40 million. It failed to recoup half of that at the cinema box offices around the world, but went on to top dvd sales and streaming lists. The film world has changed. It was originally planned as part one in a trilogy of films to be made by English-born director, Michael J. Bassett (formerly a female TV presenter MJ Bassett) based on the writings of pulp magazine fiction maestro, Robert E. Howard (his titles included ‘Conan the Barbarian’, also filmed by Bassett). It’s a somewhat weird mix of genres, think Comix-based Gothick Witchcraft Horror meets Indiana Jones, and then throw in Predator and a few zombies.

James Purefoy is excellent as the sword-duelling master of the Dark and the Light. Apparently he did most of his own sword-action and horse-riding stunts. Plenty of rollicking fight scenes, hangings, mutilations and witch-hunts in medieval film-sets reminiscent of Ken Russell’s legendary, ‘The Devils’.  St Abbs Head doubles as the site of Axmouth Castle, an imaginary hereditary home of Solomon Kane’s dynasty, supposedly on the south-west coast of England. St Abbs will forever be used as a film-set for folk diving off the high cliffs – jumping or pushed! Web-link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lalm_kkczVM

Ken Follett’s Eisfieber (Whiteout) 2010

I’ve not seen this. It didn’t get very good reviews.  It’s all about lab tests on rabbits and the escape of the ebola virus. A made for German TV film in two parts, much of it is set and filmed in Scotland. I believe that St Abbs and Coldingham feature as well as Edinburgh. Directed by Peter Keglevic and starring Heiner Lauterbach, Isabella Ferrari, Tom Schilling, Matthias Brandt, Sophie von Kessel, Katharina Wackernagel and Anneke Kim Sarnau. Wikipedia states that the German-Italian prestige production cost seven million euros to make. I cannot locate an English language trailer. Go test your German! https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10156040689449636

Shades of Love TV series 2010

This is based on the romance writings of Rosamunde Pilcher. It features a Scottish laird’s life and loves. It features Rebecca Night as Laura Aird and Charles Dance as Edmund Aird. St Abbs is the local village near the Aird’s estate (actually Manderston House, over towards Duns). Not really my cup of chai!

Web trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUBxEPSDG0I 

Ghengiz Khan invades Japan (not the title)

A replica ‘junk’ was around Eyemouth’s harbour for many years until the recent demise of the Maritime Museum. It was apparently used in the BBC film-come-documentary about the Great Khan. I’ve watched it, but cannot spot the boat. I can vouch that’s it not in ‘Genghis’ either, the 2012 Mongol Film Group production.

 

Railway Man 2013

 

Eric Lomax, the author of the autobiography (played admirably by Colin firth in the film), was a resident of Berwick-upon-Tweed before and after his incarceration in Japanese labour camps in Burma and Thailand. It’s a powerful story of tenacity and hope. And very much about forgiveness and reconciliation. An Australian-British production. Well-made, poignant, and at times heart-rending. Quite a lot of filming took place in and around Berwick, especially of the famous Stephenson Bridge. Nicole Kidman plays the wife who supports Eric Lomax through his nightmares. Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky, who has since made the film, ‘Churchill’.  

Web link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px04904hm88

Whisky Galore 2016

The film is the second adaptation of a book by Compton MacKenzie, whose story was inspired by the sinking of the cargo ship SS Politician off Eriskay in 1941. The cargo included more than 250,000 bottles of whisky, and hundreds of cases of which were hidden by islanders. Lovers of the original film may have their collective noses out of kilter, but it is hard not to like this film, especially if you like to see Scottish locations. The remake stars Eddie Izzard.

Tourism body VisitScotland created a map of the filming locations. St Abbs Head was used in three scenes: Waggett (Izzard) drives with Dolly; Waggett drives to the cave, and the islanders drive to rescue the whisky.

On the web, a rather nice trailer for film made for the drink, whisky across Scotland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI0n5Y8l6X0

 

Vera, ‘Parent not expected’ episode for TV series 10 broadcast in 2019/20

I’ve not seen this, but the village of Burnmouth was closed for quite a few days while the shoot took place.

It’s described by the ITV as: Episode 2 – The body of 19-year-old apprentice electrician Dennis Bayliss is discovered, washed up on the shore of a north Northumberland rural estate.

Link to the ITV hub: https://www.itv.com/hub/vera/1a7314a0042

Outlaw King, made for Netflix, released 2020

This is sometimes confused with Richard Gray’s ‘Robert the Bruce’ starring Angus MacFadyn. It is definitely a different movie.  I was around Bridge Street in Berwick-upon-Tweed during some of the filming. Old Bridge was used and the Quay. Unfortunately, my own photos are on a different computer drive – which I cannot access during lock-down! And the film has not been released on dvd as yet. Looks quite good. Web trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHpO9AG_dkE

Avengers: Endgame 2019

A major block-buster of a film. In fact, it is currently the fifth-highest grossing film worldwide of all-time at 2.8 billion dollars! Wikipedia tells us it: “…is a 2019 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the direct sequel to Avengers: Infinity War (2018).”

Lots of CGI is in evidence, but St Abbs became the basis of New Asgard in Norway, and ever since the release of the film and despite the Covid pandemic, it has acted as a magnet for tourists, who keep on stealing, or attempting to steal, the new village sign! Such is power of attraction of super heroes, including those played in the film by Robert Downey junior, Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans. I’ve not seen it…

Weblink to the official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcMBFSGVi1c

Bay of Silence 2020

A European mash-up mix of horror and mystery in this film where St Abbs and Lower Burnmouth become Normandy! It’s a bit messy with hint of Euro-glitz added to gothick horror. It involves a story-line of child abuse, sexual exploitation, photography and madness. Watchable and at times confusing. Brian Cox is the actor who is most familiar to UK viewers.

Official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7mVOJrl1z4r:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Here We All Are

Robert Montgomery

 

 

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Fighting a Corona Phantom

The Great Covid Hoax

Covid 19 is a phantom. Slaying a phantom is what the mythic Spanish hero Don Quixote attempted to do by ‘tilting at windmills’ he imagined to be monsters. But now almost everybody has got into the act, because they have been ordered to follow Quixote’s example by the perpetrators of the grand hoax called Covid -19.

The more one slashes at the phantom with one’s trusty sword, the more tired one gets, because a phantom is a phantom – and a sword does no more harm to it than shooting bullets at a hurricane does to annihilate the eye of a storm. Nevertheless, a large percentage of mankind – under instruction – is doing just that, and after a while it gets tiring.

Yes, phantoms are phantoms. One can try to concrete them in or wall them out. One can try to ‘isolate’ one’s self against them; wear masks to scare them away; avoid others who may be harbouring phantoms under their clothes, all this and more – but do they care? No, not one iota!

People get scary feelings when talking about ghosts. Especially on cold winter evenings when the lamps burn low and the last embers of the fire are dying-away with the clock creeping up to the witching midnight hour. And this ghostly virus called Covid-19 is inciting the same kind of feelings in susceptible people all over this planet – even when the sun is up and the sky is blue. A particularly menacing apparition, wouldn’t you agree?

However, those who invented this chimera are not phantoms. Nor are they stupid. They saw a big chance to scare the pants off people and took it. They needed to scare the pants off people to get them to ‘obey’. A scared person will do almost anything he/she is told to do if they think their life is threatened. And what the perpetrators did was to take an existing viral infection called ‘flu’, give it a new fancy name and get governments and global media bosses to agree to run with the deception.

It wasn’t that difficult to do, because most of those involved in these professions already live in a phantom world themselves. This was just one more scam to sell to the great listening/watching passive public.

The ‘master perpetrators’ thought this ruse up decades ago. They only needed to give a small tweak to the old flu causal agent to make it seem like a new ‘deadly strain’ and get most of the medical profession hopping around like kangaroos in the arctic circle, searching desperately for the source of something that had become instantly labelled ‘a global pandemic’, but whose real title was ‘global hoax’. A ‘plandemic/scamdemic’ as others have astutely observed.

My God, how the spooks got running once this ‘pandemic’ thing took-off. It seemed like all the lascivious news editors of the world’s media (6 corporations own 90% of it) fell on ‘the pandemic’ as a free gift from hell. One could almost see their eyes turning red with glee at this unprecedented chance to scare their followers witless.

But the stats tell the real story. The flu ‘with a twist’ – unpleasant and occasionally dangerous as all flu’s are – comes up with the same morbidity numbers as the standard winter flu. Statistically they are as near as damn’ it identical. And there lies the nature of the phantom. Even when there is a small variation, it’s because the number of (deeply flawed) PCR tests have increased, thereby upping the false positives.

With Ministers of Health, Economics, Digitalisation and who knows what more – all equally devoted to adhering to the divide and conquer advice of the deep state placement at the head of the World Health Organisation, ‘we the people’ had almost nowhere to turn to get a handle on this madness. All ‘traditional’ sources of information – already steeped in the role of printing and broadcasting lies rather than truths – remain to this day wedded to government edicts, regardless of how utterly fatuous and devoid of reason they are.

Fortunately, a smallish percentage of the populace can still smell a rat once it’s out on the loose. Fortunately this includes real doctors, real scientists, the occasional mainstream news columnist, broadcaster/publisher and really quite a lot of individual entrepreneurs committed to genuine investigative journalism.

However, since the deep state control system has its minions placed in all social and economic key positions of authority, those ready and able to convey truth are forced to find other ways of getting their messages out.

This brings me to a prescient point: since ‘mainstream’ is locked into making phantoms seem real, and since most of the human race are addicted to their mainstream lie machines, the emergent ‘movement for truth’ is going to have to self organise in order to form the foundations of a de-politicised and de-corporatised society/community which completely parts company with the poisoned status quo.

We pursuers of truth are presently on our life-rafts, dazed by the rapidity of the phantom’s progress in barring our very real freedoms of speech, movement and thought, while simultaneously performing a further turn of the fascist screw on our capacity to remain sane and healthy in body, mind and spirit.

While Klaus Schwab and fellow trolls at the World Economic Forum announce the dystopian details of the Six Great Falsifications known as ‘The Great Reset’ : Zero Carbon, Green New Deal, Fourth Industrial Revolution, Agenda 2030, Transhumanist Smart Cities and New World Order – we are rowing our life rafts through the rip-currents towards solid land.

A land destined to serve as the fresh foundation from which to kick start (once again) the evolution of truth, trust and global human emancipation. The real evolutionary dynamic of humanity, presently cut off from its true path by the predators of chaos, destruction and fear.

The nearer we get to that promised land the clearer our sense of direction becomes; the more settled our emotions, the more calm our thoughts and the more lucid our vision.

It becomes possible to recognise, quite clearly, the darkly malevolent nature of the power structure we have been, wittingly or unwittingly, contributing to for much of our lives. We can begin to understand how it is actually the direct expression of a demonic state of mind, reinforced by Satanic and Masonic initiates whose rituals are played-out in all the main capitals of the world, many centres of government, the church as well as at corporate banker elite secret society gatherings.
It is this explicitly anti-human cabal which has ‘been in charge’ for as long as one cares remember and long before that.

What the Covid phantom did was to bring it all out in the open. Unable to resist the tantalising ‘control prize’, the forces of darkness have – maybe for the first time – come out ‘en masse’ into the open. Now they are throwing their weight around mercilessly, resorting to genetically modified vaccines and enforced home imprisonment in an attempt to wrap-up their mission to capture the planetary soul and to achieve a permanent lockdown of the insuppressible power of love and light.

There are many tiers to the darkside pyramid of course. Many on the lower tiers know not what goes on above them. Our political figureheads are not at the top end. They are simply ever open to being manipulated by those that are.

For example 33% Masons have the ability to manipulate dark power, but many masons think they are part of an organisation dishing-out benevolent gifts to those in need. It is this type of ‘unknowing’ that keeps mankind in slavery to the masters of deception. The largely hidden puppet-masters who tweak the strings of the unknowing and the uncaring.

‘The darkest hour is just before dawn’ and that dawn is closer than most think. We can already see the outlines of the shore beckoning beyond the stormy sea. We must be bold in our determination to reach that shore – and to blow aside all the phantoms that try to obscure our innate capacity to be united – as creative masters of our own destinies.

 

Julian Rose

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

 

 

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Only Yesterday (Sometimes I Forget)

 

Shovelling the coal inside the firebox
Hot sun, white light
Red and yellow snaking flames
On the footplate
Grimy fireman, flat cap
Salt and pepper hair.  Furrowed craggy face
A hissing plume of steam darts across the cab
He pulls the cord, the whistle shrieks
I am on my way
Ch    ch   ch  ch   ch   ch  ch  ch  ch
Dense grey clouds of smoke
ch  ch chch  ch  ch  ch chch ch chchch chchch         
Fill the space
Above the tender and the carriages 

I, still, on the rough hessian seat
Going backwards.  Look…
A startled rabbit
The horses staring, motionless.
A white and wavy trail of steam
Disappearing against the blue sky

In the distance a tiny stone church
Closer, a lake, lush reeds, a bridge,
A  hillside rutted path 

I remember going to the shop
Holding mama’s hand
Lone Star 000 steam engine train set
I got it for my birthday!

My tiny miniature railway
Laid across the lino floor 

I’d drawn my world, the roads
The shops and houses
Cars, level crossing and station
Multicoloured painted
Plastic people standing there

 Now I was the engine driver

Taking ma and pa
Brothers and sisters
In cream & brown slam door carriages
To the countryside on a great adventure 

Tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleat tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut tuddleatut

 

©Christopher 2017/2020  
compilation [email protected]  

 

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Tap, tap tapping on the window  

Close your eyes,
open your wings.
Fly my little bird.
Don’t look down.
You’ll drown in something less pleasant
than gas and air.

‘Hold your fire,
he’s coming in’.
The joke is lost on this crowd.
Stoney faced,
Sitting.
Hoping for day time telly.
Getting only hard tech,
Splitting them in two.

‘Raspberry coulis never tasted so good,
as when spooned off the bill
of the cuckaborough’.
No words,
for what the world
took a lifetime to create.
Evolutionary,
slowly creeping.
Blink and you miss it.

Lusting for ice cream
In Yum, Yum cottage.

A futile dawn of senseless options.
Cloud break,
bathing children,
In warmth and beauty.
Noising up the neighbours,
who live by buying pensions,
insuring the insurance.
Double glazing the dog,
to stop it chasing the vet,
who has a clean car
on a new plate.
Smug as crushed powder,
daring us to fall fast first,
in to the experience
hat ripped the guts out of us,
last time it tried us.

There in your wasteland,
You felt like you really had something.
Love never entering it,
Never leaving.
Indestructible,
unforgettable.
Smacked,
on all fours,
taking it hard.
Like a pin.
Don’t look me in the eye
I’m liable to cry.

Loquacious to the last,
gushing froth.
Guffawing.
‘No Gawping’.

‘Let the spirit flow
through you,
within me.’
Entangle,
salt triangle.
Only magic means anything.

‘Did you move a finger,
When the wizard called?’

Say something profound,
like egg custard tart.
Stop editing your work.
Only when I’m lonely,
do I cry.

‘Other people make me angry.
I’m really quite nice.
If I miss the beginning of Emmerdale,
I’ll knock your block off’.
Prison dinner queue banter.
Compulsory laughing.

‘I wonder, my good man,
could you tell me.
Is this the road to ruin?
(Intentions laid on sharp
in a roman style).
‘Go back to where you’ve come from.
You’ve such good teeth.
There is nothing for you here.
‘oh, no, no, you misunderstand.
I’m here to pick up my son’.

Knock me to my knees.
Tell me my father died.

It’s a trifling matter.
Vienese fingers,
custard.
Two bowls of Nana’s,
and driving is out the question.
Reckless peak experience.

‘If the patterns in the glass,
hold more fascination,
than the world beyond it.
Ask a passenger to locate,
a safe place to stop’.

And relax.

Now is not the time.
We’re turning the power down.
Atomic drift weaving,
through the gaps.
It’s roomy.

‘Don’t hold me like that,
you’re off the hook’.
His face was a picture,
nailing water to the wall.

Particulate processing.
The aether is thinking.
Ticking,
finer than a Swiss watch.
What a tone.
The gap the pendulum gorged.

Staring in to the abyss.
Knowing we’d cut the rope.

The cat made it’s home
among the diamonds
and the chandeliers.
Only the grand piano foxed it.

Quick!
Belly crawl under the wire.
We’re all friends here.

 

 

 

 

Ben Greenland
Picture Rupert Loydell

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Do your own Lockdown Art

 

Red cabbage recipe. Chop one in half and shred it finely. Fry in olive oil with a chopped red onion, cooking apple, teaspoon of cinnamon, grated fresh ginger and inch of salt.  Add a handful of raisins and a quarter pint of vegetable stock.  Simmer for 15 minutes.  This will be very nice with a baked potato, and a lump of protein like a sausage, some chicken or freshly slaughtered tofu.

Meanwhile, take the other half of the cabbage and study it intently.  With some felt tips pens to hand, lose yourself in it – imaginatively speaking – for a while, and see which major piece of expensive world art hoves into view. Colour it in. 

For me, it was The Munch by Edward Scream (apologies to Barry Humphries).

Cost of The Munch?   £75 Million.

My version?  –  Half a red cabbage – 50pee.  Let the bidding begin.

 

 

 

Jan Woolf

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SONGS OF HIGH FIDELITY

Listening alone at midnight,
across the pantheistic line,
far above the Celtic Twilight
seeking how to best divine
songs
of high
fidelity.

In the east the voices’ calling
telling of new chords that ring,
through a west, with choirs falling,
asking me why I still sing
songs
of
high
fidelity.

Yet the tune lives on with those
who disregard celebrity
who from birth to death  have chose
in a kind obscurity
songs
of
high
fidelity.

 

 

 

Mike Mcnamara

 

 

.

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What Year Is It?

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THE SOUL IS A GLOVE

 

         

On Living Words’ BRINGING THE INSIDE OUT: The words of people living in, working in and visiting care and nursing homes across the UK during the Covid Pandemic,2020  (LW 2020)

Words on the wind in this God Scented Volume
As those lost in Care Homes and those seeking them
Draw them out. Living with Words’ enterprise restores pride
Across this pandemic as voices already misted emerge
Through cloud to write poems in which the inner heart

Achieves shout. With forewords from Dementia Research
Practitioners and Trustees, the trust in us lays with reading
As we encounter the cries from the wordless through those
They leave behind while still here. And so the poems and pieces
Astound as they capture the heart and mind’s private language

That while it may be lost to translation finds through fresh silence
Its own unique way to trounce fear. And to express it of course
As Covid’s second shield separates them; a second remove
Behind plastic as well as the wall of self that’s been built.
But here, these words carved from care challenge and choke

On contagion as personal landscapes keep shifting. In the lands
We have fashioned we are all homesteads fatally loosened,
The Untalking Heads’ houses in motion, falling in stges, as if
We were freeing ourselves from the silt. They are a lot of Anons
In this book, as people lose themselves and their title.

They have only these thoughts now to flag them as they encounter
The mind’s battlefield. Such as Poem 1’s WELL,I FEEL in which
The Inside moves Outside, and ‘all that stopped’ echoes Beckett
In his search for the winning word that won’t yield. Ceri Clarke
Talks of her Mum wanting a hug, breached by plastic.

So often a touch through Dementia does more than a word
Ever can. Corona has stolen so much from those already
Made victim. This  book is their Bible and the prizes within
Warm the hand. From windows to the passing of crackers
To smiles the miles they move grow enchanted. As people
We knew become spirits, the material world starts to shine
As  observations are placed inside the patient shape of a poem.
Nurses observations, sons, daughters and Doctors too, all entwine
To show a fabric of love which can never fade, or be mastered,
Despite the war raged within them the patients in waiting

For the waters of Lethe do not drown. Each of the present
Mourners who write represent these soon swimmers, recalling
Them from the shoreline as simplicities stay profound.  From
Living Words founder Susanna Howard, to Anil Sebastian,
Suzanne Elliot, Kathleen Crymble, Leanne, Lainey and Jenny,

Chloe Crawford, Ian McOnie and Samantha Jones.
Mrs Warrior 113, Margarita Warburton, Peter Jones, Abi Watt,
Hollis Jones, Janice Dye,  each write towards reason and each
Of them heal the lone. As does Oliver Senton, Jill Longman,
Sally Ann Hughes and Lynne Ellis, Irene McGinnery,

Naomi Daglish, Barabara Osborne, Jennifer Carson,
Kunle Olaifa and June. Karen Potter, Liz Clarke,
Shaiza Quraishi, Kay, Zoe Aldrich, Jacqui Offen,
Seth Munday, all of them singing the song of love,
Through paused tunes. Megan Whitworth, Ceri Clarke,

Barabara, Susan McCallum, each raising voices
As the untethered hearts strive for speech.
This important book almost burns with recovery’s need
And through sadness and yet its fortitude forces
The surrendering soul to still reach.

As in Anon’s, Part of the Pictures:

I feel
Feel part of things
What others do 

All in one order
Look inside yourself
Try and do it without…
Gotta work on it
Explain

You will feel its touch through these words anonymous
Angels seek action. For those we lose to Dementia, become
Ghost and guidance as their outer self simmers and their inner
Light finds fresh flame. This warms the hands so quickly cold
Under Covid, making kind of glove from the essence that while

Captured and held stays untamed. Mary Obgoboh has a phone
So that she can ‘spoke to her children,’ As the words go they engender
The electric connect around love. There is resignation and hope
As memory forsakes method. In 90, Anon says ‘it does me some good..’
Not the way it stays in,’ But perhaps in how it is seen from above.

As well as how well experience is played on these pages.
As Lainey says, ‘We’ll Get Through this,’ And maybe we all will
In time. Certainly time has meant less than ever before
For the healthy, and so perhaps those departing, these still
Travelling souls chart our climb. They are teachers it seems

In how to survive and grow close to the souls that first
Formed us and found us first, the Mums, Nans,
The husbands, the wives, the Dads and Grandfathers.
The old and part faded to be handled now by the Nurses
With achild’s kid gloves to calm them and adult poems

That finally understand, Read these words. Live their lives
As they do, too, now in secret. For still somewhere within
There are stories that only they know. Silence spans.
Living With Words in their wake is a call to arms within Covid.
Living with words and without them is the language that God

Truly planned.

 

                                                                           David Erdos, January 22nd 2021

 

 
Links to buy book – 
Or from Canterbury Christ Church University bookshop: https://bookshop.canterbury.ac.uk
 
Many thanks, again – and very warmest wishes to you at this present time
 
Susanna

Susanna Howard 07967502506                                              

Living Words – Founder, artistic director

pronouns: she/her 

Bringing The Inside Out – The words of people living in, working in, and visiting care homes during the pandemic. OUT NOW. “a legacy for our current times” Alison Steadman 

Living Warriors mental health films featured on BBC 

Single released: https://youtu.be/cW9bTTbmBDg

Elder magazine article: Click here

FolkeLife Article: https://folke.life/folkestone/creative-2/susanna-howard/

On the Independent’s Happy List 2019 – ‘celebrating 50 of the most inspirational people whose kindness, ingenuity and bravery have made Britain a better place to live.’

YouTube: https://youtu.be/pH133-t6_nQ

Created Out Of Mind, Wellcome Hub – Team member

Normal? Festival of the Brain, Folkestone – Co-curator

If you can, please help us with fundraising, either by Donating directly, HERE. 

Or, at no cost to you, by letting companies donate to us as you shop online.

Click HERE:

 
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Street writer part sixteen – The Great End

 

Now we reach the end of take 2 of the street writer column.

I’m not sure if there will be more after this one.

So I thought I would call this one ‘The Great End’ and leave a little wisdom.

Well, some so-called wisdom ha ha.

I’m not a philosopher or a prophet by any means, modes or the way but… HERE WE GO!

When you start off a piece (a poem, a story, a film or even an article) the main aim is to have that Great End!

The beginning can start off whatever way you want it to.

For the middle… you can basically talk about whatever bullshit you please.

But, that end line has to be perfect.

That end line is what everybody takes away with them after they’ve read it.

They take it into their private and personal and creative lives.

That end line is what every writer should live for…

For example: everyone loves to begin a book, by the time they get to the middle it’s like being in limbo but… everyone (and I mean everyone) loves to end that book to give them the self-satisfaction they completed it and they got something from it.

Especially the end line…

It took me a hell of a long time to figure this out (mainly as a poet).

When I did find it out I was complimented by a local and seasoned poet in Belfast called Colin Dardis who said ‘Jesus man your poetry has come a long way’ and I replied ‘I found out it is all about the last line.’

I guess that is about the one and only so-called piece of wisdom I have found throughout my REAL writing career that has been going on for almost 7 years.

Again, I am no philosopher, prophet, saint or a god but…

What I have truly found throughout these several years is: if your work is strong enough, it will stand all on its own and say something more than you could ever explain it.

For me, honestly, that is where I get most of my delight.

It’s like a little silent voice.

Almost like a god.

Like the one we know now (but that could change in good time).

I have two poems in store for this last article.

‘a good last line’ and ‘judge like a poet’s last line’

Love

PBJ

<3

 

A good last line

 

The last line

A good last line

For the writer

Is a melodic ending

For his story

But it is

A brand new start

For them

 

Judge like a poet’s last line

 

That man

That woman

You look at

And you’re disgusted

They have good hearts

As a local alcoholic

Waves out a lorry

Onto an empty road

With his girlfriend

Who is twenty years younger than him

Or the man

Who smokes a cigarette

In a mild sun

After his first pint

He would kill for his family

Out of loyalty

Or the fat chick you think is ugly

Or the screaming child

You think needs discipline

They have all lived on greener grass once

So before you are judged

By what you have judged

By your god on your deathbed

Instead

Think or do something more omnipotent

When you meet them the next time

Judge them

Like a poets last line

 

 

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meet the world’s richest person

 

now and again
I put my name
on the net
to find out
about myself:
to seek confirmation
that I still exist

this narcissistic trait
has not diminished
down the years
but you never know
what you might
encounter
I tell myself in excuse

the last time I looked
I found this invitation:
meet the world’s richest person
it remains unopened:
I do not ever 
want to meet 
this remote bloke

for this person will 
undoubtably be a bloke
and much like
Richard Branson 
and his self-justifying ilk
so why should I
want to meet?

we all know
the very rich
can only exist
at the expense
of the very poor:
the evidence 
is everywhere before us

I don’t want to meet 
the world’s poorest person either
if I can avoid it
so what to do?
put my narcissistic shoulder
to the wheel is I suppose
better than nothing

 

 

 

Jeff Cloves

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Machiavelli/Omerta

 

 

Machiavelli advised the Prince
‘Hand to your associates
A secret paper dagger   –

Choose a fictional failing
Have it known
Such a theme of weakness or remorse
Hurls you helplessly
Into intemperate moods   –
That you no longer function
Neither rage nor reason
But are a malleable person

See who will draw from his sleeve
This paper-soft stiletto
Wielding its imagined might
As if to find the heart

Might you call him ‘friend’?
Many a friend of princes
Conceals such seed of enmity   –

Then furnish them all
With harmless paper daggers
That point towards their own hearts
When unsheathed’

 

OMERTA

 

Long black lustrous limousines
Their occupants all wearing
Discreetly detailed tailoring
Exclusively in black   –
A winter day cortege

Their path is set and safe
Then after death
No trace

A coffin placed in a family vault
A vault in a family graveyard
Visited but rarely
Only by family members

For this serene event
What veil?
What quite unquiet secret is required?

 

 

BERNARD SAINT    

Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

 

About the Author

‘Roma’ is published by Smokestack Books

‘He is a neo-classical undeceivable poet. These poems stay with you’   
Grey Gowrie, former Chair Arts Council England

‘A fine intelligent eye for the parallels of Ancient Rome and the Modern City’                     
Alan Brownjohn, former Chair The Poetry Society

‘An elegant evocation of Rome’s paradoxical past and present, anchored by the figure of Marcus Aurelius’
Elspeth Barker novelist, journalist, broadcaster                  
                         

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Born 1950 into a rural working-class family, his poetry first appeared in U.K. and U.S.A. magazines and journals from 1964 onwards. Both a literary and performance poet with many public readings and some BBC radio in the 60s and 70s ‘British Poetry Renaissance’; these saw him often in the company of earlier generations of poets including John Heath-Stubbs and Anne Beresford, in whom he found greater affinity. Tambimuttu, the editor of Poetry London in the 40s and resurgent 70s, noted favourable comparisons in his work with Keith Douglas.

In a long career of readings he has variously performed under the aegis of ‘New Departures’, ‘The Poetry Society’, ‘Aquarius’, ‘Angels of Fire’, The Cambridge International Poetry Festival, The Aldeburgh, and The William Alwyn Festivals, and, locally, ‘Ouse Muse’.      

He has taught at Antioch and Johns Hopkins Colleges (U.S.A.) in their London and Oxford summer schools, but preferred inner-city work as an I.L.E.A. special needs tutor in psychiatric hospital settings.

He trained in the Jungian approach to Arts Therapies for groups and individuals, working in N.H.S. Psychiatry and in The Robert Smith Alcohol Unit, in both settings as practitioner, supervisor, and also in private practice.

Main Poetry Publications:

                          Testament of the Compass (Burns & Oates 1979)

                          Illuminati (Greville Press 2011)

                          Roma (Smokestack Books 2016)

                          Saturae & Satire – poems of John Heath-Stubbs (Ed.) (Greville Press 2016) 

                          Welcome Back to the Studio (Cassette only) (Lyrenote 1988) 

Some Anthology Inclusions:     

                           Poems of Science (Penguin 1984),

                          Transformation (Rivelin Grapheme 1988)

ON ‘ROMA’

Alan Morrison reviewing at length in The Recusant ..

‘An ingenious polemical comment on contemporary narcissism and celebrity anti-culture through the prism of Roman philosophy….’

‘Saint resuscitates the First Century ethical sagaciousness of Marcus Aurelius as a template from which to deconstruct the materialistic sham of Twenty-First Century Western Society….’

‘One detects the often gossipy and quotidian tone of Catullus and Cato but also the elegiac school of Roman love poetry of the likes of Ovid and Propertius….’

His latest major book was ‘ROMA’ from Smokestack Books 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pandemic Lockdown Blues


 

 

 

 

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PAINTING THE MOON

 

To Erich von Däniken the pyramids are evidence of extraterrestrial intervention. The Grateful Dead played on the slopes of the Great Pyramid in order to tap into those ancient cosmic energies. While ‘Saqqara – the oldest necropolis pyramid in Egypt, is where my journey back to ancient Egypt began’ says Esbe, about the step-pyramid tomb of Pharaoh Djoser, built in the City of the Dead some 4,700 years ago, by High Priest Imhotep. Yes, we’ve seen ‘The Mummy’ movies.

But listen to her breathtaking ‘Saqqara’ album, and it’s hair standing up on the nape of your neck time. A jewel from the sky as Folk-clever as breath from the dunes. New fusions of ancient musics. And great tunes too, both majestic and epic, yet touch-sensitive personal. The instruments soar and pulse with non-western drones while vocal sounds startle as they soothe. Desert jazz with multi-sampled strings, entrancing world electronica, zithers, the magic beat of djembe, conga, and tabla, upright, electric and electronic throb. Kate Bush and sometimes Enya with Shahin Badar (from the Prodigy album). The sensual “Carry Me Away” uses the found-sound rhythm of a sampled helicopter thrum, while “My Love Knows No Bounds” has crickets and exotic birds twittering over the underlying hypnotic groove of sampled thunderclaps and jazz bass. It’s difficult to know where to begin, for there are immense soundscapes at work here.

Was there never a Rock music phase for Esbe? Was she never an Indie kid…? ‘I feel I missed out!’ she admits. ‘I began life as a classical musician and didn’t really listen to Pop music at all, apart from that which we all seem to know. I discovered Jeff Beck a little while ago, he was on TV last year in collaborations. OMG what a fantastic musician! I’d donate a small portion of a limb to work with him!’

 

More to the point, ‘Egypt is brill’ she enthuses. ‘Spent a whole day in Cairo museum where all the Tutankhamen treasures are. The outside stuff’s pretty awesome too! It’s fantastic. When the world opens up again you must visit Egypt, you won’t be disappointed! Try travelling by train back from Aswan, the sleeper is like being an explorer in the nineteenth-century. I’ve always been drawn to North Africa and the Middle East – where modern life connects with our shared origins.’ On ‘Saqqara’, she travels further east for the thematically-linked Sufi-inspired “Qawaali Dance” and “Qawaali Siesta”, which bookend the album, luscious devotional voice-strings dialogues that use her voice as an instrument. Sprays of delicate sounds plugged directly into the whirling cosmic firmament of eternity. Blending the dancing hypnotic repetitions of “Eyes Of Blue”, to the EDM-pulse behind “Bedouin Prince”.

Did the inspiration for the album come from listening to live Egyptian musicians while she was there? ‘No, not really! Mainly I heard what the bus drivers had on the radio, which is somehow more the real deal. I have listened to recordings though.’

Esbe has long curtains of Cleopatra hair, and dark eyes. Surely she must have been the child prodigy spotted for her musical talent at school, and from there whisked off to the Royal Academy of Music? ‘Ooh I don’t know about that. I grew up in NW London, Hatch End-Pinner, very conventional, but I was adopted and I traced my natural mother. Turns out I am half Turkish-Algerian! with some Polish ancestry too (what she terms ‘my nurture/nature of north African, Polish, Lithuanian Jewish roots, with a little Roma further back’). But I did sing solo in school assembly. Nearly missed the audition in primary school as I was on lunch detention. Said I needed the loo to go and sing! I’d been playing guitar for a couple of years then went to the academy at thirteen, Saturday mornings before going full time. I then performed with my duo partner for a couple of years but only enjoyed the songs we did due to guitar nerves. We did my arrangements of Bach etc but he played lute so we broke the programme up with Purcell and Dowland. That’s when I started singing a bit. I’d always improvised on the quiet and thought I’d write them down and hence started recording.’

Her love of European and Middle Eastern roots is reflected in her albums, ‘Desert Songs’ (2018), which sets her musical arrangements to a selection of poems from the eighth-thirteenth centuries – including those by celebrated Sufi mystic poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, ‘I do read poetry, but I must confess it’s now mainly when I’ve been reading with a view to setting it to music.’ Plus ‘Mystra: Songs from Byzantium’ (2018) reviewed as ‘a work of startling scope and imagination… (the) breadth of Esbe’s vision (is)… hugely enjoyable… (with the) capacity to delight and perplex…’ (‘RNR’) and ‘engaging music that incorporates poetry and phonetic vocal sounds… twelve enchanting songs take us to another time’ (‘Northern Sky’), ‘Ten Songs’ (2019), and ‘Far Away: And Not Crying But Singing’ (2019), which includes outstanding track “Obsession”. Also listen out for the ‘Dub Colossus Salome Mix’ of “Don’t Say Maybe”.

Acting Devil’s Advocate, what strikes me very strongly about so-called World Music is that we listen with Western ears. To a musician from outside that cultural tradition there’s a lifetime of learning that goes into their music, which we can never hope to understand. ‘You’re very perceptive, that’s a very good point. But we only have the one set of ears so I guess enjoy and make of it the best we can.’

And that’s a very good response. Do you see yourself as part of a ‘movement’ or genre? Do you consider there are there other artists working in a similar area? ‘I don’t try to follow any ‘conventional’ sound groups. I’ll create grooves from anything I think works – as the great Cole Porter said, anything goes. So there’s Pop-Classical north African-Indian musicians and etc, all hopefully blended well.’

The electro-hiss of standout track “Paint The Moon” is set against the blood moon night sky once associated with the Biblical end-of-time itself. Her voice flies. ‘The song is a reflection of the moon as ‘it-she’ watches what we’re doing to this glorious planet. The moon cries red tears,’ Esbe explains. ‘I wrote it both as a paean for a departed lover, but also something bigger, a plea by a moon saddened at the natural world’s depletion by humankind, as in the lyrics ‘paint the moon red, with tears of pain, you’re calling my name…’ The song was written around the riff using fifths – the rhythmic sections. But I wanted the plea to be plaintive so I lost the groove there. It might sound strange but I actually heard Ed Sheeran’s ‘The Shape of You’ – my groove cheekily sounds a bit like what might happen if Ed meets some Nubian friends!’ A pause. ‘On second thoughts, about the Ed Sheeran reference – it’s a bit odd, especially as I don’t sound anything like him. You were surprised too, so it’s probably not a good reference after all – and people might expect a very different album! Haha. I should have taken heed, had a coffee or watched TV, before pinging my reply.’

Are you a more cerebral than emotional person? No offence intended, but do you respond to music intellectually rather than intuitively? ‘No offence taken. I’m cerebral, but emotionally driven. So when composing or doing anything creative, I respond completely on the emotional level as to whether it’s ‘right’. Totally intuitive and not bothered by what it should be. But otherwise I’m very organised and focused. I hope that’s a good combination for both writing and producing.’

We should all operate on such enlightened principles. ‘Thank you but I’m not special. I think it’s how all classical musicians are because we have the practice thing and discipline drummed into us from an early age – ‘scuse pun!’

We are all special, in different ways. Esbe’s music is unique. ‘Talking of other projects – I have the sixth album ready to finish mixing for 2021, I’m just about to record vocals for the next one, I have two very fruitful collaborations on the go, and am really keen to premiere a more classical piece a bit like ‘Peter and the Wolf’ for young people, but Covid-19 got in the way! I’m also trying to get another project about mankind’s destruction of the natural world off the ground…’

We talk about her marmalade cat, about Audrey Hepburn, about our (separate) shopping visits to Borough Market, and about why her Facebook page is Esbe Esbe…? Is that to differentiate her from the Los Angeles Esbe? ‘Ah yes, the other Esbe, who’d have thought there’d be two? No it’s because you had to put two words in and I just use the same one twice! But no worries. That’s a nice thought to sleep on. It’s been a long week and my book is calling . . .’

You’ve got a book too…? WOW! ‘Ooh no the book I’m reading – the last one was the ‘Jamestown Brides’ which I only knew about because a friend from our allotments wrote it! It’s very interesting if you’re looking for a bit historical reading. But I do have other projects on the go. Thank you for your response and interesting chat. Let’s continue…’

 

 

BY ANDREW DARLINGTON

 

ESBE ‘SAQQARA’ (New Cat Music)

(1) My Love Knows No Bounds (7:07) ‘nights sleeping under the stars and dreams of those who walked there three thousand years ago’

(2) Carry Me Away (4:42) ‘Cleopatra sings of her love for Mark Anthony… whilst looming swooping helicopters above fill the air with dread.’ The rhythm is a pulse, like an accompanying chorus for the singer

(3) Qawaali Dance (4:02) ‘I fell under the spell of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the renowned qawaali singer and of the interplay between the rhythm and melodic phrases characteristic of this form of devotional song’

(4) Eyes Of Blue (5:28) ‘I see the swaying hips of a dancer before the campfire’

(5) I’ll Fly (3:43) ‘The sun rises as a young slave woman from Saqqara sings of love and her yearning to escape.’ Using two versions of a minor scale offer a duality of history and culture, the melody also uses the whole-tone scale, so loved by Debussy and Ravel for its harmonic ambiguity

(6) Paint The Moon (3:53) ‘A riff using fifths underpins the upbeat groove. These are separated by pared-down sections, giving the vocals a sense of yearning’

(7) Bedouin Prince (4:08) ‘the jazz inflections of the track follow the loose groove, with a liberal sprinkling of strings and improvised vocals’

(8) Qawaali Siesta (5:15) ‘Slower and more filmic, I used expansive strings, courtesy of Spitfire Audio… (it) dreamily ends with all the tracked vocals slowly falling to the key note, lazily landing at different times but blending on the low middle C’

(9) My Love Knows No Bounds: Radio Edit (3:50) ‘Samples of a thunder-clap, crickets and exotic birds all lend their natural rhythm to the hypnotic groove, underpinned with jazz bass’

(10) Eyes Of Blue: Radio Edit (4:03) ‘In a region where eyes and hair are dark, blue eyes represent the height of exoticism’

Composed & Produced by Esbe

Mixing, Paul Chivers, Mastering, Toby Mills

Cover photo by Christina Jansen, photo editing by Esbe

www.esbemusic.uk

 

Expanded from an interview first published in:

‘R’N’R’ Vol.2 No.84 (Nov-Dec)’ (UK – November 2020)

 

 

 

 

 

ANDREW DARLINGTON

 

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Interview with Johnny Harris

 

Words by Joshua Phillip


In this interview I talk building’s, use of space, character building, controlling energy, and Jawbone, with actor, writer, and producer, Johnny Harris. Photo above is for Troy, shot is by Patrick Toselli. 2nd is This is England ’86 shot is by: Dean Rogers, and the last image is Jawbone shot is by: Lee Cogswell.

Thoughts on buildings and use of space?

I trained as a master locksmith and carpenter in my teens and so developed a love for quality craftsmanship of all kinds. I really appreciate beautiful buildings. I spent five months filming in Italy recently and was living in the centre of Rome. It was truly beautiful. I would go out for walks of an evening just purely to look at the beautiful architecture all around. The sheer scale of it all and the attention to detail. Beautiful Piazzas. Cobbled Avenues. Cathedrals. Fountains. I realised more than ever that ones surroundings can really affect the soul and spirit of a person. I’m not a fan of Brutalism. I’ve listened to those who say that they are… and how they find that type of architecture interesting, but I’ve lived in those buildings and they’re simply not spaces to nourish the soul. Some are well maintained, like The Southbank Centre for example, but the ones that l’ve lived in were always dilapidated, oppressive, and soul destroying environments. I grew up in an area full of these immense, monolithic, concrete blocks. Some of them have been demolished recently and replaced with green spaces and it’s a massive improvement aesthetically. I love parks. I love the foresight of those who realised we need these beautiful green spaces within our cities. My local park has been a revelation during this quarantine period. Just a simple, beautiful, green space to be able to stroll around, or sit down and relax in. A place to breathe in fresh air. It’s been uplifting to see others out exercising and enjoying themselves too. I think a lot of people have really come to appreciate our parks during this period.

You left school at 13, took up boxing and won the ABA National title at 16. Lived in Paris till 20, then studied acting at Morley College for the next 3 years. What made you decide to live in Paris, what was that experience like and why did you then take the decision to take up acting?

I actually started boxing a couple of years before that, so by the time I’d reached 13 years of age it had already become my passion.That was part of the reason I left school so young. I didn’t enjoy secondary school at all. I went to an inner city comprehensive with huge class numbers and an unruly atmosphere. I just found the whole thing really hopeless and uninspiring. My local boxing club was the very opposite. It felt vibrant and alive and safe. It was the first place that I felt I could really exert all of this energy that I had racing around inside of me. I won the Junior ABA National Title aged 16 and then a year later I met my first girlfriend. She was a French girl studying in London and she was just a really beautiful person. I fell in love for the first time. She had to return home to Paris for her studies and so I gave up boxing and went over there to be with her. It changed my life. I lived in Paris for a couple of years and I worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant on the Champs-Élysées. I met so many amazing new people. It completely opened my mind. It was during this period of my life that I first became interested in art, culture, and classic literature. I developed a real love of European cinema while living there and also became friends with a group of street-mime artists. I loved hanging out with them and watching them rehearse and perform. I just knew by that point that acting was an art form and that I really wanted to understand it. I found it magical to watch. I think my experience as a young boxer… and then going on to live in Paris had helped me develop enough courage to at least give it a try. I returned to London and enrolled in acting classes at my local adult education centre, Morley College.

What did you learn about acting at Morley and working in Fringe theatre where you started out?

So many things. My tutor at Morley College was a wonderful man named Craig Snelling. He taught me different techniques, methods and theories. The breaking down of scripts and scenes. We’d do amazing character based work that I used to absolutely love. Craig taught me about the importance and the power of subtext. What’s NOT being said in a scene is often so much more dramatic and powerful than anything someone is actually saying. I’ve learnt to love the subtext. It’s still the driving force for me. The thing that I’m searching for when I’m considering, or studying a new screenplay. What’s going on in-between the lines. What was just as important as all of the theory and the techniques that Craig was teaching me however, was his passion. He’s the most unashamedly enthusiastic man I’ve ever met. His passion and love for the work we were doing was totally infectious. He taught me to be unashamed of who I am. He encouraged me to celebrate and honour all of the life experiences, energy, and emotions that I’d been bottling up inside. He showed me how to use it all within the safety of a performance. I felt vulnerable and fearful of revealing those parts of myself at first, but then I would see Craig’s reaction and I just began to grow. I’d found a way of expressing myself… and it was exhilarating! My training at Morley College came to an end and I started out by performing in tonnes of plays in Fringe Theatres all around London. Unleashing all of that energy. Putting all that learning and education into action. Perfecting techniques, learning new ones, experimenting, making mistakes, gaining experience, growing in confidence, making friends. They were wonderful times!

Right, so you’ve a big scene to film. You’ve learned your line’s. You’re ready. What are you doing right up till that first shot and how are you controlling any nervous energy if you have any?

It’s an ever evolving process. I love that about the whole thing too. There’s no right, or wrong and my preparation for one scene might be completely different to how I prepare for another scene. Screen acting is very different to stage acting. For example, if you’re performing in a leading role, you’ll often be filming for 14 hours a day with lots of repetition, so preserving your energy and maintaining your focus are both very important.  Obvious things like a good nights sleep and a nice breakfast are fundamental. I also like taking my time, so I’ll often arrive nice and early. Then it’s simply about becoming focussed. That’s why you have a trailer, or a place that you can sit quietly and prepare in the morning, or maintain your focus and energy in-between scenes throughout the day. I’ll often put some music on to evoke a general mood, or to stir up specific emotions maybe… and then I’ll slowly start to build towards the scene. I’ll look over any notes and observations I’ve made in my script and maybe have a chat with my director, or fellow actors. I’ll then begin a process that includes a physical and vocal warm up. The aim is to be alive and open to absolutely any single opportunity that may arise within a scene. That simply takes focus and freedom and can only come from being relaxed and well prepared. Knowing everything to the point of not knowing it anymore. Knowing the lines to the degree that they can leave your characters mouth as naturally as if they’ve just sprung from his mind for the very first time. Embracing and embodying the physicality of your character to the point that his ways have now become your own. You don’t even have to think about the way he walks, breathes, or speaks anymore. Knowing and feeling the subtext that’s running through him. Those unspoken secrets that are driving him, or holding him back. I believe in energy too. If a scene is very poignant and still for example, then it’s difficult to create that energy within the scene if there’s a maelstrom of activity on the set just beforehand. A good director will have everyone helping to create the right energy throughout the set and it’s a beautiful thing when that happens… the entire cast and crew all tuned into the same frequency. It’s a very powerful and beautiful thing. You can physically feel it. Then it’s time. Everything is now clarified down to this moment. The scripts are written. All the preparation’s complete. The sets have been designed and constructed. The costumes created. The make-up applied. The lights, the sound, the cameras… all ready to go. Now it all comes down to what happens between those two words “Action” and “Cut”… and at that point the floor is yours. You’re ready to play.

You wrote and starred in Jawbone. What inspired this story?

Jawbone was many things. I’d say it was more of an abstract self-portrait than a biography. An exploration of my ‘self’ in all its different forms. Each character was a representation of a different part of my own masculinity. I think ultimately it was closure. My own strange way of saying thank you, or goodbye to a part of myself that I personally needed to acknowledge. It was also me expressing myself as an artist. As a performer, I’d become frustrated with the lack of opportunity to play leading roles at the time, and so I became inspired to write one for myself. It was also very much a love letter to all the people who’d helped me throughout my life.

What was your creative process when you wrote the script for Jawbone?

It was the first screenplay I’d ever attempted to write and so I decided to rent a room in the small seaside town of Whitstable. I knew no one there and so I‘d have no distractions. I filled the place with inspirational images, reference books. I took lots of classic movies and I made a playlist of very specific music too. Songs that evoked memories and feelings that I knew would be relevant to what I was trying to express on the page. Then I just holed up in that room and I didn’t leave until the first draft was completed. I returned to London a few weeks later with the screenplay and we began producing the movie. The script then evolved and developed over the next few years, as we built the team and raised finance. The seventh draft of the script was the one that we were finally ready to shoot.

And to build the character that you played in Jawbone, what did that require?

We needed a very specific body type for the character of Jimmy McCabe. He had to convincingly hold his own in an unlicensed fight and yet also represent decades of alcoholic drinking and malnourishment. The audience had to believe both. I’d not boxed, or trained for over 25 years, so there was a physical transformation needed. I approached the former World Boxing Champion Barry McGuigan and his son, the esteemed trainer Shane McGuigan to see if they would help me prepare for the role. The McGuigan family and their team did an astonishing job. For two years, they had me training alongside World Champions like Carl Frampton, David Haye, George Groves and Josh Taylor. They gave me complete access to their world, which was invaluable. They even supplied us with an office space above their gym, so I could train downstairs during the day and then go upstairs and write in the evenings, or in-between sessions. The make-up designers also played a very important part in the process of building Jimmy McCabe. As my body was beginning to change shape, they were designing and making some beautifully subtle prosthetic pieces that helped to alter my face too. Slight swellings and scar tissue over and around each eye and cartilage across the bridge of his nose. Each swelling, broken bone, or piece of scar tissue became another subtle clue as to who this man was… and how he’d lived his life.

What is your favourite sound?

Silence.

What book’s and subjects are you interested in?

I’m currently reading ‘Why I No Longer Talk To White People About Racism.’ By Reno Eddy-Lodge and ‘Mere Christianity’ by C.S. Lewis. I’m not a member of any religious denomination, but spirituality and love interest me greatly. Exploring both of these in all their forms is a great joy in my life. They’re bigger than me… and I love that. I find it humbling. There’s not many subjects that don’t fascinate me. I’m blessed in that I still feel a great sense of wonder about the world. The mystery of it all continues to inspire me.

 

 

 

 Rorschach Art Publication Site 
rorschacharchives.blogspot.com

 

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Sleeper (Wigan, August 1987)

 

 

 

 

Kevin Patrick McCann
Illustration Nick Victor

 

From Still Pondering   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Still-Pondering-Kevin-Patrick-McCann/dp/1788768671/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Patrick+McCann+Still+Pondering&qid=1573366856&sr=8-1

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Covid Balm: Soon May the Wellerman Come

Alan Dearling shares some links to this sea-shanty on-line phenomena, now dubbed ‘Covid balm’ for the masses

I watch too much news at the moment. I think the world has divided into two groups: those who are somewhat desperately trying to keep abreast of every change in the pandemic market-place, and those who have buried their ostrich heads in the proverbial sand. And so, watching Channel 4 News, I was surprised and then delighted by this musical item about a singing postie, Nathan Evans from Scotland, and how he (at the time of broadcast) had had nearly 5 million views of his rendition of the sea-shanty, known as ‘The Wellerman’. Rather wondrously,  it has left much of the world singing along, re-mixing, mashing-the song up! Getting interactive…

Channel 4 broadcast: https://www.channel4.com/news/the-scottish-postman-who-turned-a-sea-shanty-into-a-viral-sensation-on-tiktok

Here’s more of the ‘musical balm’ for Covid times with the inimitable Jon Snow taking centre stage in the (full version) Great fun!:

https://www.nme.com/news/music/watch-channel-4s-jon-snow-perform-tiktoks-viral-sea-shanty-craze-2857885

Nathan Evans, the Scottish postman, is in the centre of an ever-changing group of accompanists.

This is the mash-up that probably helped to create or spread the sea-shanty hysteria:

The Kiffness mash-up/remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgsurPg9Ckw

And from Nathan:

“When they were originally sung they were designed to keep everyone in time with the work they were doing,” Nathan recently told BBC Radio 4‘s Today programme.

“So I think it’s the fact you can get everyone involved, everyone can join in, you don’t need to necessarily be able to sing, the words are simple and it is just the beat and the voices. I think it’s a bit of everything that appeals to everyone.”

According to Google Trends, Nathan’s performances have led to ‘sea shanties’ enjoying their biggest-ever popularity in the search engine’s history.

There’s also a part in the Wellerman story for Bristol-based, The Longest Johns. They are a well-established sea-shanty group and they allowed Twitch to use their sea shanties as background music for free in late 2020. And they also contribute to ‘I can sing a song’: https://www.polygon.com/2021/1/12/22226992/tiktok-sea-shanty-wellerman-longest-johns-of-thieves 

 

From there, so many versions of the song have proliferated, including Promise and Frankline Uzowulu from Houston singing along with Nathan in a car, and whose version swept from Twitter and TikTok across the USA and the international internet. But, I cannot find a link that works… AND can be shared here! Sorry.

 

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Shuggie Bain. Review

Shuggie Bain, the 2020 Booker Prize winner by Douglas Stuart (Picador)

In review by Alan Dearling

Over what should have been the Christmas festivities I was living for a few days in Shuggie Bain’s world. It’s an enveloping, transformative, technicolour account of the monochrome life in Glasgow’s bleak housing estates – the places where the schemies live. Shuggie’s world is one of bullying at school for being a ‘poofter’, a mother, Agnes, both proud and beautiful, plummeting into the gutters of swirling special brew and vodka. It’s brutal, yet it glows and bubbles with life, vigour and hope. The pits and the ship-building yards are slag heaps and rusting graveyards. The poorest and most dispossessed have been decanted into out-of-the-city new housing schemes. Places that were once the bastions of the future, architects’ dreams full of hope for a new future, that have shrivelled up, decayed and died. High rise tower blocks and shops boarded up with metal plates, perhaps taken from the dregs of the ship-yards. As Shuggie notes, just one Paki shop left to serve a community that lives on ‘tick’.

Author, Douglas Stuart is Shuggie Bain. It’s a very Scottish, a very Glasgow book, much of it is in dialect. The book is dedicated to the memory of his mother. Agnes in the book, a mum who daily retrieves her black seamed tights, her tight skirt and high heels, applies her make-up, slips on her angora jumper and old mink coat – her persona. She was better than the rest. She never loses that belief. And, she is the worst and most bitter drunk. Raped, beaten-up, abused, forever a loser in love, she also gradually loses her children. Her life, the first and last cigarette of the day, the first dregs out of the bottom of last night’s can. A half-life, exchanging her body in the back of a succession of black hackney-cabs for another succession of carry out tinnies. Shuggie is the product of her communion with one of the drivers, Big Shug.

This is a Dickensian style book. Brilliant in its dreich darkness. Human, engaging and all-encompassing. It is life as observed by the most abused kid on the scheme. Shuggie is the kid who doesn’t fit in, not in his own head, not with his siblings, and certainly not with the other kids on the street or at school. Sometimes he attends school, most times he’s too busy running messages for his ma. Picking up the benefits book and collecting the money that he or his mum turns into another carry-out to oblivion. Or, bunking-off and wandering the laundry rooms of tower blocks and searching for tiny glimmers of nature amongst the greyness of each day. It sounds depressing and degrading. It is, but the writing, the images of near-destitution are somehow glorious, hopeful and redemptive, closer to Oscar Wilde’s, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

I’ve lived more than half of my working life in Scotland. My work for many years was in youth social work, trying to provide life-lines, last-ditch half-chances for kids like Shuggie, his brother Leek and Shuggie’s only friend, Leanne. I still live on a scheme, but I have escape routes, and always had them. ‘Shuggie Bain’ is real and memorable. You can live for a few days in the words and images it evokes. A testament to optimism, even if it is just a trip to the Bingo, the East End of Glasgow and the Barras and life seen through the bottom of a glass. In the end it is about humanity, about the human spirit. About survival. It’s about Scotland the indomitable. Pride, prejudice, religious bigotry, alcoholism, sexuality, growing-up in poverty, brutality and kindness.

For the bairns (Douglas Stuart calls them ‘bearns’) of the present, past and future on housing schemes and in poverty:

 Fortitude and Resilience = Survival.

Courage, ingenuity and being gallus, (potentially) = Escape.

Of its kind, it’s a masterpiece. If you’ve only seen the soaps on the TV and don’t have personal experience of the real day-to-day lives of the UK’s poor…Read it…

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Wanita Winter Holiday Mix

Song list:

1. Beatnik’s Wish by Patsy Ray & the Beatniks (Jawa Jones)
2. I Know What You Want for Christmas by Kay Martin and Her Bodyguards (La Vamba)
3. Two Winters Long – Irma Thomas (Ms Phyllis)
4. Christmas Calling by Valerie Masters (Laura Lurex)
5. It May Be Winter Outside by Felice Taylor (DJ Honey)
6. I Don’t Intend To Spend Christmas Without You by Margo Guryan (Les Petits Feet)
7. 8 Days of Hanukkah by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (Ms Soul Turner)
8. Aguinaldo Antillano by Celia Cruz (Lamento Naufrago)
9. Santa Claus by The Headcoatees (DJ Ultrachick)
10. (I Want) A Beatle For Christmas by Patty Surbey with The Canadian V.I.P.’s (Becky Boop)
11. Christmas (I Can Hardly Wait) by The Courettes (DJ Mette)
12. Christmas Wrapping by The Waitress (DJ Nico)
13. Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag by The Bad Girls (DJ Morticia)
14. Sleigh Ride by The Ronettes (Killer Kim)
15. Noël Sans Toi by Sylvie Vartan (Rita & Mona)
16. Merry Christmas by Tammy Wynette (Sunday Girl)
17. What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve by Ella Fitzgerald (Lucky Cat Zoe)

 

Wanita
Thanks to Zoe Lucky Cat Baxter

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Trees

 

 

Robert Montgomery

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Ah-Ha Moments

poverty is so metaphysical 
I overheard in the food stamp line

so that is why I feel
like Buddha

meditating
sitting

at the table
with no food to eat

ooom is merely
mooo spelled backwards

 

 

 

 

 

TERRENCE SYKES

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Oedipus with Fish Fingers

Antigone with fish fingers. Oedipus as a corkscrew. And a Greek tragedy that becomes a Greek salad.

Every tragedy needs its satyr play. After drama welcome relief is needed. After a hard day watching humans wrestle with the gods of Olympus, what the good people of ancient Greece needed was massive phalluses, the clangour of drums and horns, and actors in ridiculous goatish masks to ease the holy terror they had experienced over a whole day (usually three plays’ worth) of drama.

Fast forward two thousand years. When Peter Hall and John Barton brought their nine-hour Trojan War epic Tantalus to The Barbican in 2001, it came with no such final treat. The 12-hour original had been trimmed after its première in Denver the year before, the two titans of classical theatre had roundly fallen out over the changes, and there was no space left for a theatrical joke to lighten the atmosphere.

Famously, in 1968, the celebrated theatre director Peter Brook tried to honour the original practice of ending with a song and a dance. At the end of his production of Seneca’s Oedipus (a Roman play) at the National Theatre, a New Orleans-style jazz band processed into the auditorium along with the dancing cast, and a giant golden phallus was unveiled onstage as the final chapter of the entertainment. The purists (historically wrong as they may have been) hated it.

But undeterred by this historical precedent, The Barbican in 2001 decided that something was required to accompany Tantalus; not in the actual auditorium, perhaps, but at least in the building. A programme of additional events which they called ‘Myths and Monsters’. Enter Ken Campbell, theatrical master of the provoking and unexpected, to provide a suitable event. Fresh from his revival of the 24-hour play-cycle The Warp (Tantalus was only ten hours? Virtually a sketch) and at The Barbican a few years earlier, the legendary KLF’s century-topping show 1997 (What The F***’s Going On?), Campbell gladly accepted the challenge. The only problem was that he found the old Greek plays a bit, well… boring.

Campbell was not the man to call on if you wanted the obvious solution. When Mark Rylance invited him to host the celebrations for Shakespeare’s birthday at The Globe in 2005, he accepted on condition that he didn’t have to do any actual Shakespeare. Not that he was deliberately contrary, as some thought – he’d just ‘read different books’. His bottom line was always that it had to be exciting, something special, a ‘thing’.  For the Barbican, he was inspired by an American performance he’d seen in Central Park in which all the parts were played by Barbie dolls, and by the noble tradition of flea circuses. So he developed a few simple rules for his team. Each actor would have an identical tabletop (schoolroom standard, 110 cm by 55) as a performance space, and no more than fifteen minutes to tell the story on it of a classic drama of their choice. How they did that was completely up to them.

The collection of performers, as ever with Campbell, was eclectic, a mixture of the professional and the divinely inspired. Claudia Boulton, veteran of the original Warp and founder member of feminist mischief makers Beryl and the Perils delivered The After-Dinner Agamemnon, the Greek leader as wine bottle being savaged by a corkscrew Clytemnestra; Jacqueline Haigh, screenwriter and self-appointed goddess-in-training, channelled Romeo and Juliet through her knees, including a tiny penis keyring attached to her shin that fell out of Romeo’s breeches when the lovers’ lips met; Uke Bosse, now a professor of game design in Berlin, explored Antigone, mostly with fishfingers and a lot of ketchup (it got bloody), and had a Pokémon figure standing by in case audiences lost focus. Delighted children and confused cultural tourists, gathered beneath the mighty pillars of the Barbican foyer, could wander from table to table and spend an afternoon watching a feast of free mini-spectaculars. I was one of them, and the glorious once-in-a-lifetime anarchy of it is with me still.

Michael Mantus, aka Iggy Shark (he now runs a boarding house on a Greek island) & Firak di Bello, an Italian fire dancer and Butoh specialist, started in chefs’ hats, with a blindfolded speech in ancient Greek to draw a crowd, then silently chopped their way through the Oedipus story, the characters (Oedipus as a bunch of cherry tomatoes, his wife-mother Jocasta a block of feta) ending as a full Greek salad which they served to the onlookers. Jonny Benzimra, American political campaigner and fixer to the stars, chose The Trojan Women, with a shaving foam Menelaus, a hairspray Helen and Ribena-carton soldiers squirting juice through their straws. It got messy; a post-show handshake was often politely declined. Michelle Watson, performer and poetess, a papier-mâché amphitheatre framing her face, chose Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Greek-set Shakespeare), and told the story through the brushes and make-up of the dressing table. And Niall McDevitt, flâneur and poetopographer, delivered a new version of the Orpheus myth: in rhyming couplets of Bislama pidgin (official language of the Pacific island of Vanuatu), his face painted blue, with Orpheus himself as a golden guitar-wielding proto-Hendrix.

Neville Hawkins, the last of the line-up, had only come to London six months earlier, fresh from a radical arts training at Dartington college. He, along with Iggy and Firak, was pulled into Campbell’s orbit after a pitch meeting in a deserted cinema in Chalk Farm. Ken had just taken on the Barbican gig, and offered fifty quid that night for the best idea for a tabletop play. Knowing nothing of Greek tragedy, Nev pitched a Subbuteo match with football commentary, the story of Posh ‘Jocasta’ Spice and David ‘Oedipus’ Bex, with the title character played by a Becks bottle. He and Jonny Benzimra shared the prize money in the pub next door. At the Barbican, the winner each time, twice daily, was the play the audience clapped loudest for. Memories are hazy as to who won the champagne bottle prizes.

Tabletop theatre may sound like a niche genre. But flea circuses were popular from the 1820s for a century and a half (and may have existed up to two hundred and fifty years before that). Toy theatres and shadow play boomed in the nineteenth century, for children and families alike, but though they were championed by artists from Lewis Carroll to Orson Welles, the rude rise of ‘realism’ (whatever that may be) led to their decline. But fashions go, and sometimes come again. In 1998, Andrew Dawson & Gavin Robertson brought a show to Edinburgh called Space Panorama, re-enacting the whole Apollo-11 moon landing on a tabletop in 26 minutes, using two hands. At the time, I’d never seen anything like it; such a big story on such a small stage (Dawson later did Wagner’s Ring cycle in 30 minutes, but that’s another story). The raucous Barbican explosion came just a few years later.

Forced Entertainment, the genre-busting British theatre seekers, have made a typically unique impression in the pandemic world of online theatre performing their Tabletop Shakespeare, clear and succinct hour-long versions of the plays streamed from the performers’ own homes. But it was originally a live show which had its UK première, at The Barbican, in 2016. Six of Willy Shaker’s tales, compressed to 45 minutes each, on a metre-square table. Whether the company knew anything of the theatrical precedents for such work under the same roof (their show had opened in Berlin the year before), the idea of the tabletop extravaganza had clearly seeped into the fabric of the building.

And, in subsequent years, beyond (the randy leapings and honking discords of the satyr play are hard to contain). After the Barbican charivari, Boulton went on to extend her show into a full tabletop Oresteian trilogy, with eggs as Libation Bearers and black pasta for The Furies, and played it all over the world, from Texas to – genuinely – Timbuktu. Benzimra squirted his foam again in New York, at the Bindellstiff Family Cirkus and even in Central Park where the seed of the idea started, accompanied by his ventriloquist’s doll Sedgwick (Campbell had a ventriloquial phase too, and that really is another story). Nev Hawkins took Campbell’s attitude of ‘art for the people’ even further (as he put it, talking about Ken, ‘he really put himself out there, and put himself out for people’): his socially-engaged methods have helped to form the 16-piece Orchestra of Love and Redemption, a group with mixed experience which he describes as ‘an epic community band’. And Jacqueline Haig made a whole new food-based tabletop piece, Get Fruity, a family drama involving a grapefruit, a coconut and a banana coming to a violent end in a blender. They loved it at Glastonbury.

Craziness that’s great to watch but difficult to contain – perhaps that’s what Peter Hall didn’t want in his ten-hour drama. The action spilling out of the auditorium into people’s lives and laps; the breaking down of the separation of audience and actor. But in recent years that’s exactly where drama has been heading. The Fun Palaces movement has brought crafting, storytelling and song into any space willing to open its doors; the expanding popularity of improvisation gives any enthusiast the tools of building narrative and finding comedy gold; even the Arts Council is on to what’s up, and has said its strategy for the next ten years ‘will value the creative potential in each of us, provide communities in every corner of the country with more opportunities to enjoy culture, and celebrate greatness of every kind’. Of every kind. That’s crocheting alongside opera, storytelling with string quartets, carnival and children’s shows sharing space with the Rembrandts. The purists will hate it, Bowie with Beethoven and Hergé with Turner, but it’s too late.

Lockdown has accelerated this process. The Tories may seem not to care if the arts wither, but it doesn’t matter. In the short term of course, there will be redundancies and hard times (the results of the Cultural Recovery Fund distribution notwithstanding) – but the genie’s out of the bottle. Everyone’s making art, paid practitioners and enthusiasts alike. And hard times make us even more inventive: plays in back gardens, in the woods, online raves, improvised cartoons, Shakespeare on kitchen tables. New stories are everywhere. Punk is back, and it’s in everything. The whole world is a tabletop tragedy now, fish fingers and all.

 

Oliver Senton
Illustration: Claire Palmer

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The Coffee Bar

 

Fragment from a student’s note book

                    In Duke’s Coffee Bar on Duke Street:    
                     Lunch time.
                    
Marge, the waitress, squirmed suggestively among the tables with a tray of cheap meals: bacon and egg, beans and chips, shepherd’s pie, the gravy seeping darkly through the light pallid coating of instant mashed potato. She served up white coffees, black coffees, glasses of milk and cans of fizzy drink with a larky “Righto luv” to all concerned.
                  
Customers sat eating and talking, eating and smoking. The noonday sun shot in bars of aquamarine light through the tinted slats of the venetian blinds. It was both humid and shady inside, beneath the staircase that came down into the centre of the room.
                   Harry Duke, proprietor, ex-traffic cop and fork-lift driver stood behind the counter spooning instant coffee into dirty, white cups and taking orders for lunch. Opposite him sat a regular customer, George, The Historical Botanist, trained at Kew and Wisley back in the days when men were men and winter was winter.
                     George was personally offensive to many people, inarticulate of speech and lumbering of manner, he was large – stout you could say – and quite tall. He wore National Health glasses with wire frames and small, round lenses that heightened his air of a mad surgeon run-to-seed. He always wore a tatty old blue mac that fell to the pavement, and he always carried piles of books wrapped up in polythene bags. Every so often Harry Duke would give the public health officials a call and they would descend on George in is his decaying tenement in the suburbs and give him a bath and a lecture on personal hygiene. George, however was incapable of understanding, or deliberately obtuse, for it never did any good. Timid, lumbering and, unknown to himself, something of a cult figure for the employees of the municipal public library opposite Duke’s Bar where, ensconced for hours in the reference section, he researched the classification of toadstool spores
                      In a window seat sat a skinny blond-haired library assistant with delusions of sensibility. He dipped a hard biscuit into his watery coffee as he tried to build up a neurosis about ‘other people’ and the age in which he lived. He wondered, was his worldview in conflict with the zeitgeist? He covered his face with his hands. “I hate people… I hate people,” he thought.
                     Meanwhile in a corner, near a juke-box usually playing Telstar or something by the Beach Boys, a group of students were discussing the latest novel taken up by the ‘underground’, some mystic fable, the transcendentalism of which chimed-in with the aspirations of young people bored by the dry, stuffed-shirt humanism of their parent’s generation; they tried to cultivate pantheistic visions without understanding their addiction to mysteries, marvels and ‘cosmic’ wonders.
                   “Bloody long-haired layabouts” thought Harry Duke, lurking behind a machine that dispensed orange drinks – a plastic tank with transparent sides containing plastic oranges floating in a synthetic sea that might be fruit juice. “Bloody long-haired weirdos,” muttered Harry.

© A C Evans

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HOW TO DISMANTLE A SCULPTURE


The sculpture should be dismantled progressively, with every step introducing new components and mechanical connectors which are to be detached from previously built art.

Taking sculptures apart can be fun and a learning experience, as my class found out at a Take It Apart Party. Students found magnets, small speakers, spirals of wire in a cone shape, and lots of soldered pieces inside. Dismantling turned out to be at least as much fun as putting it together.

Offer multi-step dismantling instructions in vector graphic format, grouping the graphic primitives into semantic elements representing individual parts, mechanical connectors (e.g. screws, bolts and hinges), arrows, visual highlights, and numbers.

The order of dismantling is not crucial, but top down is a good way to go. Begin with the easy-to-remove external accessories, using an open-ended wrench to disconnect. If bits do not spring loose easily, give them a gentle tap with a hammer, then lift them clear before abandoning the project.

Loosen all of the bolts and disconnect it from its mount. Push. Apply excessive pressure.

We are taking things apart because we want to.

 

 

   © Rupert M Loydell
      Bansky image

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CATULLUS/PRIAPUS

Catullus be cool
Adopt a stoic stance   –
Sex was never meant to satisfy
And tactically
In nature’s constant dice-game
What could be the point?

Survival of all species
Relies on reproduction
Keeping every being love-enamoured   –
We are that human animal
Especially ‘successful’
From mating all year round   –
And this with scant respect
For sober boundary   –

Stags lock horns and tigers jaws
To claim exclusive love rights
But only in due season   –
Meanwhile the flea will outperform
All-comers and run high-jumps

This prolific parasite surpasses
Every man in ceaseless generation
Although   –   I grant you this   –
He has advantage over us
He is not   –   as we   –
Perpetually
Preoccupied in wars

 

PRIAPUS

 

Don’t sit in your trap watching telly
A budgie in its cage with a little bell
A cuttlebone   a plastic wheel   a Hell
Of entertainment   –

Get out and clear those English weeds away
From your laughable landfill garden
That’s where you’ll find me
Pagan and ignoble   –
Of all your Roman gods in plaster cast

Trust me   –
On the first full day of Spring
With a lucky drop of sun
Even you may find rejuvenation

 

 

Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

.

 

 

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New Year Resolution: the Rebirth of Conscience

     

From High Newton reservoir number 1, January 9th 2021


Just a few days ago, not entirely out of the blue and amidst the coldest fortnight for a long time, we received a notice to quit. Although – to be fair – we’ve been given a few months to do this, it comes at a point when we were beginning to see light at the end of a tunnel. Now, after two and a half years, all K’s work to sort various pieces of complex administration regarding our youngest children and school, has been virtually reversed. We will be back to square one. As I warned a few family and friends, my communications may become more erratic and aggressively worded!

No doubt we are better off than countless thousands in this northern county alone – for whom, like us, it’s only the truth to say, that in winter, much of the time, we survive rather than live.

Although our house is not without its defects, we had come to love it for its windows and light. By modern criteria, perhaps due to all its glass and high ceilings, to heat it to a comfortable level of 13 or 14 degrees (we should all be wearing jumpers indoors in winter) would be worse than uneconomic, it would be an ecological insult. The two attic bedrooms are uninhabitable for almost half the year: too cold for four months; stifling for two. The west facing render in particular, for all that it looks convincing, is no longer waterproof, while being built on a marsh, the house attracts constant rising damp. If sea-level rise predictions are even slightly correct, before long the house will be under the tides.

Unearthly Edinburgh, 19th December 2010


Reading the superlative Municipal Dreams by John Broughton[i], (who describes himself near the end of his book as “a Labour foot soldier in the dark years of Thatcherism”[ii]) I was reminded of a world with far better intentions towards housing the less wealthy. Also, of a world where conscience was more to the fore. That William Beveridge’s report of 1942, ‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ (described by Broughton as a “rather dry and bureaucratic tome”) could sell 630,000 copies in the middle of a war, puts us to shame!

Edinburgh, 19th December 2010

 

For my first sixteen years of life I lived in council property. Initially a very old house in London, later a newly built semi on the edge of a Buckinghamshire town. Getting a council house these days is virtually impossible. What a waste that the power to requisition empty properties for council use, granted in 1939[iii] as the war began “but maintained through the post-war housing crisis”, wasn’t retained long term. Inevitably the Conservatives (“with greater care for the interests of property” as Broughton so tactfully phrases it) put paid to this in 1955, no doubt concerned at the terrible plight of their rich cronies. Without council housing, these days the most reliable option if you don’t want to be pestered, is (or was), the big, privately owned, rural estates – whose houses and cottages were reasonably priced if situated in the middle of nowhere. Remaining highly suspicious of private, individual landlords, eventually we ran out of options. Generally, with the rural estates, once you were in, they might not do anything, but at least they left you alone. Or perhaps we were lucky? That was why we stayed 13 years in the same North Devon house.

Edinburgh Waverley, 20th December 2010


In the no man’s land of winter shoots, against the rain of falling shot and crash-diving pheasants[iv], you had to wear a thick hat and keep your eyes shut when hanging out washing. This was perhaps what kept our Devonshire rent fixed? Then, one day, the immersion tank started to leak. Eventually the estate plumber turned up, a new man appalled to discover our glorious treasury of Bakelite switches[v] and ancient wiring. Much of this, dating back to the 1930s, was more than 60 years old. A rambling four-bedroom house built largely of cob, the whole of the upstairs had only two plug sockets. The place had become an “illegal liability”. It would require a complete rewire . . . after which disruption, no doubt the rent would increase. It was time to move on.

 

The next house we lived, was also owned by an estate, this time in Northumberland. Were they suffering from rural depopulation to advertise so nationally? Or was the house haunted by a desolated farmer or mining captain (instead of the grouchy seaman of Gull Cottage in the Ghost and Mrs Muir[vi]).  

Involving an almost 800-mile round trip to see it, was a reckless gamble. But the head of the estate was keen on families . . . and the atmosphere of the house open and friendly. Naturally, it proved utterly unheatable. If you were more than 10 feet from the fire, the average winter temperature was 7 to 10 degrees. Sometimes it was warmer outside. The boiler simply had no effect. Our bedroom frequently went down to 4 degrees at night while our elder son in the loft had to tolerate minus 1 on several occasions. Despite double glazing, the wind just went straight through that house – and sometimes in south-westerly gales, the rain as well[vii]. The area was reputed to be windier than Cape Horn – though at least we didn’t have the wave-thrashed ocean to contend with. But it was a great place to be, the light extraordinary, the landscape unforgettable. For the first two winters, we were snowed in for more than five weeks. After North Devon, that Northumberland house came the closest to becoming a home – and we stayed seven years. Previous tenants lasted a year on average. One winter in other words.

As happens every winter, despite two big dehumidifiers doing their best, at our current house the mould is taking over. Supposedly renovated not long ago, done up as all too many rented places are these days, to give a transient appearance of luxury – this skin-deep wash of (usually) magnolia, is merely an excuse to bump-up the rent. A pit of pointing, a roof check perhaps, then internal decoration, preferably in spring. The decorators know it’s totally superficial, but when the inevitable damp and mould return with autumn, the tenant becomes responsible. And when the tenancy ends, unless five or more years have passed, the tenant takes the blame. The cost of the next round of camouflage can be taken from their deposit.

Living on a rural estate can be reminiscent of that noxious hymn, All things Bright and Beautiful[viii], with its now usually suppressed third verse: “The rich man in his castle /The poor man at his gate / God made them, high and lowly / And ordered their estate”. Like the queasy situation of Government and Subjects, in Northumberland, the tenants talked about the landlord behind their back, cursing their uselessness without ever considering rebellion, despite the general feeling of being a mass of peasants versus a handful of bastards. Realistically though, if you were happy to improvise your own repairs and improvements, the squires and their minions were content to ignore you, which always suited us. Plus, the houses looked real inside.



 Unearthly Edinburgh, 19th December 2010

 

Private landlords are just not the same. It always feels like they’re breathing down your neck, calculating whether or not they can make more money by swapping you for a wealthier or more absent dupe. Many large estates I expect now operate similarly, though I’m sure there are honourable exceptions . . .

Our current kitchen is fitted with a stylish sink-surround made in wood – designed to look good forever . . . as long as you don’t use it. The new dishwasher, never turned on, was no inducement to us, though it is the perfect place to store unopened packets of cereal. We keep our coal in the bath of course.

Trying to be positive, obviously we should see our notice to quit as an opportunity . . . If we had the money . . . If it wasn’t the beginning of lockdown number three . . . If there was much chance of finding somewhere better (or just somewhere without a wooden draining board) . . . If stupid Brexit hadn’t stopped us from moving abroad . . . If we had no family . . . If we were dead! . . .

 Carter Bar, 19th December 2010

 

Another advantage of our remote house amid the Northumberland moors, was the possibility of journeying into Scotland and Edinburgh – probably our favourite city. One pre-Christmas we booked a cheap Travelodge room on its southern edge. It was a long walk into the centre in snow and ice, but the room was a generously sized corner one with space for an extra child on the floor. As it turned out, severe winter weather made this trip almost impossible. Only after some furious digging were we able to get our 45-year-old Triumph through the drifts concealing the track to the lane. When the snowfall worsened nearing the border, we were on the point of turning back. Following a snowplough up to the blue sign and the monolith which designate Scotland, we descended very carefully beyond – since the plough, belonging to England, had stopped at the summit and turned around.

Carter Bar, 19th December 2010

 

The Travelodge itself radiated a feeling of siege, only a few guests turning up. Soon the red Triumph was buried in white. But as some of the photos here show, this was a trip of a lifetime, well worth every skidding loss of traction and twinge of frostbite! The magnificence of Edinburgh was escalated to something almost hard to believe – beautiful, evocative, unearthly. Our return journey was calmer, though just as cold, the wipers seizing across the high moors. For miles we saw no other vehicle but a removals van of all things. We worried that even if the border wasn’t closed, and the A68 with its fierce dips and blind summits[ix] remained navigable, we’d never get back up our rocky track. In the event, we only managed this by shovelling a narrow passage and then charging the slope at about 40 miles an hour, just making the bend before the car began to slip. Fortunately, there the track flattens out and with the help of some loose grit (not salt), we made it home.

Edinburgh, 19th December 2010

 

Which returns me[x] to the almost universal desire for a stable home – as well as the often ill-considered slogan urging us to “live in the moment”. Both apparently conflicting desires can easily be corrupted by the competitive Big Grab we live in. Both can contribute to the death of conscience. Moving house is extremely wasteful of both time and money, yet when it’s chosen, it’s possible to remain driven, even enthusiastic. A new environment is always stimulating to living in the present, however misguided or half-baked that notion is. Yet the whole moving process, the sorting and lugging (which we always do ourselves), the reams of paperwork, the psychological resettlement, all these things and countless others, often destroy the sense of a fresh start – destroy the peace of mind necessary to learn anything from its moments. Though I naturally endorse the aspiration behind the notion of living in this hypothetical moment, how long is a moment. A day, an hour, a minute? And how easy is it to reach exuberance or flawless spontaneity without stumbling upon or lighting the fuse of the headless chicken? The concept is largely a rhetorical idealisation. Barring the visionary-type experience there are no such isolated moments . . . and the true visionary ‘moment’ is about all moments eternally. It can only be labelled a ‘moment’ once circumscribed in retrospect. Carpe Diem wisely hedges its bets . . . and in any case isn’t quite the same thing. So what moments are aspirants thinking of? The ecstasy on the dance floor? The perfect family Christmas dinner? Love blooming by a rainy harbour? All these examples are justified and can have a high value, but they only exist through longing, memory and anticipation, through hope and trust. It’s these before and after connections, which turn water into wine. Relaxing by ‘going with the flow’ or surrendering to nothingness can also be valid – though probably closer, like so many other ecstasies, to dying in the moment? Hedonism itself is a form of recklessness unto death – justified perhaps in the current human situation – but rarely the ground base for anything worthwhile. So many of those higher moments we love, while they may seem to crystallise as a ‘moment’ are in fact vitally based on our history, our being at ease with a group of friends, or alone with a better-known self – our personality, our consciousness in reference to the world around. All these moments depend upon past and future.

Return journey to a home that no longer exists 21st December 2010


A week or two afterwards, by mid-January, already the idea of the festive season can seem stale. Yet if it worked, expectancy and contrast, will have been the major reason – with food and drink providing a useful contribution. It’s a frosty walk that makes the fireside glow, and the memory of home (if you’re lucky enough to have one), the anticipation of return, that heightens the journey. The garbled traditions[xi] stretch back to the beginning of recorded time and forward to the promise of the future.

At the moment it’s impossible to say where we will be next Christmas – as a race or as a family. A state only worsened by a lack of conscience and communication.

The excuse for our notice is (inevitably) the covid fiasco, but thanks to a tradition of restricted communication between landlord and tenant it can only come across to us as a rich person’s whim. There could be more to it than that. But if they had cared to ask about or understand our situation . . . or explain theirs, either communication might have forestalled the rebirth of class conflict or resentment. Not that it’s a case of class here, just of money. If the situation were reversed, if our ancestors had bashed theirs on the head, instead of the other way around, would we have grown as lacking in conscience? As it is, I think I’d find it hard to be so unthinking towards even the most impoverished criminal or aristocratic parasite[xii].

Jedburgh post box, 21st December 2010


Unfortunately, the Good Law Project[xiii] from whom I receive regular communiqués, has its work cut out, since so many laws (generally made for the rich at the expense of the poor), abet the death of conscience. I was reminded of the idea of the death of human conscience, by some lines in Shabby Tiger[xiv], a TV series from 1973, controversial at the time, which despite a certain variability and some wooden acting, still largely holds up. Based on the novel by Howard Spring[xv], Shabby Tiger is set in the Great Depression, but the concern for the death of conscience presented, was no less pertinent in the early 70s.

Now, with the apparent exception of the type of sentimental lip service we currently pay to honouring key workers and the NHS[xvi], it seems that outside of individuals, conscience is moribund unto extinction. For forty years at least we have been in dire need of a revolution. But society has long encouraged the private feathering of nests. Our material desires have become a habit we can’t kick. We have been whitemailed into silence. All radical change, all serious equality postponed or cancelled. Meanwhile, the divide between rich and poor only widens.

Return journey to a home that no longer exists 21st December 2010

 

Even the situation of Plague Island UK[xvii]– gathering extreme gravity if you believe the news – is unlikely to be stimulant enough to trigger more than the odd disorganised riot. The promises of an effective vaccine are likely a chimera that only desperation has made acceptable. Even resisting the satisfying paranoia of conspiracy theories, it’s convenient for our corrupt nadir of a  government that COVID 19 and 20, 21 and 22, undoubtably stemming from our own incessant meddling and greed, came along just when it seemed that ecological groups, old and new, were gaining popularity and might have had some impact. Hopefully they still can. Saving the Earth can appear apolitical enough to gain support across the board, but down the line it’s obvious that long term life on the planet and Neoliberalism are absolutely antipathetic. The global corporations and the excessively rich have to go. It is their aspirational influence and example, their lack of conscience, that lies behind almost all our trouble.

In an ideal world, if we could edit our possessions, I’d be happy to move every two or three years, partly because there are so many types of house I’ve never lived in, and so many areas to explore. Even moving within ten miles in an area where your key reference points might stay the same, can provide a huge change of angle.

Its clearly obvious that the more stuff you own, the more the stuff owns you. Yet it’s difficult to disown, especially the personal things, the photos and souvenirs of other times and places. Second-hand books for example, generally have no value anymore. Going to charity, before long they are liable to be pulped. It’s hard to give them away knowing this.


So, first we have to save the planet, and then, thoroughly restructure our society – reset its whole sorry table of values. As for “put them up against the wall and pull the trigger”, since I managed to avoid using the saying about rolling stones gathering no moss, I think I can resist voicing that primitive righteous urge. What is needed above all else is the rebirth of conscience.

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,

Cumbria, January 2021

 

[email protected]

 

NOTES

[i]    https://www.waterstones.com/book/municipal-dreams/john-boughton/9781784787400

[ii]  Municipal Dreams by John Broughton, Page 219

[iii]   Municipal Dreams by John Broughton, Chapter 4, The Needs of the People, pages 92/3. See also:  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/19/municipal-dreams-john-boughton-review 

[iv]   Free pheasant was a good winter supplement once the gamekeeper showed us how to deal with the victims. Most of the dead birds otherwise went uneaten – disgracefully shot merely for the ‘sport’. With the onset of corporate entertainment, the gamekeeper lived in constant anxiety for his beaters. Many of the ‘guests’ had never held a shotgun before, they were literally clueless and after lunch were drunk into the bargain . . . 

[v]   Which I had to tape shut to stop the children unscrewing them live. 

[vi]   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039420/ See also: https://internationaltimes.it/home-is-where-christmas-is/

[vii] On one night of driving rain I collected 14 gallons of water in buckets, until the wind shifted further north. It only needed a slight shift to the windowless side of the house to defeat the rain’s ingress.

 [viii]  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/hymn-not-so-wise-and-wonderful-1599499.html

 [ix]   Rather than the A1, I suspect it was the A68 John Buchan had in mind during the excellent car chase which occurs in the Lochinvar chapter of his adventure story, The Island of Sheep, (1936).

 [x]   A central element in both the Italian Digression and Home is Where Christmas Is?:              
https://internationaltimes.it/home-is-where-christmas-is/

 [xi]   ‘Ingredients in a bowl of spiced punch with numerous, irreconcilable, elements’ – from Home is Where Christmas Is?: https://internationaltimes.it/home-is-where-christmas-is/

 [xii]   Not all landlords are parasites perhaps – only the majority.

 [xiii]   https://goodlawproject.org/

 [xiv]  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161191/

 [xv]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabby_Tiger

 [xvi]  Who deserve a 15% pay rise at the very least: “Claps don’t pay the bills!”

 [xvii]   www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/23/people-seem-more-afraid-life-on-plague-island-uk

 

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The Cotswold colony that so impressed Gandhi that he came to visit

 

 

The Whiteway Colony was a cooperative community with pacifist ideals and attracted radical thinkers from around the world

 

Over a century ago, radical thinkers built a socialist utopia in the heart of the Cotswolds.

Some 129 years later the cooperative community at Whiteway Colony, eight miles from Stroud, is still going strong with 150 people calling it home.

The 41 acre ‘colony’ was started in 1898 by a non-conformist Quaker journalist, Samuel Veale Bracher, and other middle-class progressives who rejected the idea of private property.

In the beginning the founders freely allocated land to people who were willing to cultivate it and help the colony prosper. If people wished to leave, they would give the land back to the community.

All property was shared and the founders allegedly burnt the land deeds on the end of a pitchfork in a symbolic rejection of the principle of private property.

 
Early settlers building the Colony Hall at Whiteway

The early colonists were Tolstoyans and followed the philosophical teachings of the famous Russian writer. The Whitewater colonists identified themselves as Christians but did not affiliate with any institutionalised churches.

 

Preferring a simple and healthy rural life, the early colonists were often vegetarian, didn’t smoke and abstained from alcohol. They spurned wealth and luxury and embraced an agrarian life based on egalitarian ideals, sharing provisions and sustaining themselves by working the land.

They considered themselves Christian pacifists and believed in non-resistance in all circumstances. Their non-conformist lifestyles attracted condemnation from many social commentators at the time because they refused to recognise the jurisdiction of the state and the authority of police and law courts. The community was the subject of considerable gossip and disparagement because of its unconventional lifestyle and the local press made efforts to smear them by accusing the residents of running a nudist colony.

 
Rae Kleber of Whiteway Colony in the 1920s

For the first few decades, everything was shared and anyone was welcome to set up home at the Cotswold colony. Over the years, the community became a sanctuary home to immigrant anarchists, conscientious objectors and refugees from the Spanish Civil War. The colony continued to grow as families took root and their open door policy provided safe haven to radicals and freethinkers from all corners of Britain and beyond. The colonists built a school, library and, in 1969, even a swimming pool.

Gandhi wrote about Whiteway Colony in 1909, impressed by its peaceful ideals and vegetarian diets. It’s been recorded that he visited the community during his extensive travels in Britain. It’s also believed that it was during this same visit to Gloucestershire that Gandhi purchased his iconic rimless spectacles from an opticians in St Aldate Street in Gloucester.

 
File photo dated 20/05/1930 of Mahatma Gandhi. Winston Churchill was in favour of letting Gandhi die if he went on hunger strike while interned during the Second World War, according to documents published Sunday January 1 2006. The prime minister believed the Indian spiritual leader should be treated like any other prisoner if he stopped eating. Churchill’s combative views are revealed in newly-declassified records from meetings of the War Cabinet, which also demonstrate Britain’s confusion about how to deal with the icon’s style of peaceful opposition. See PA story RECORDS Ganhi. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Photo credit should read: PA

Government officials were so concerned about what went on at Whiteway that they allegedly sent spies to infiltrate it. In 2000, The Citizen reported that files from the 1920s, released to the public record office, revealed that officials were so concerned about its operation that they paid a man and woman £400 to go undercover and join the socialist fraternity to see what was happening in the camp.

The authorities hoped they would find evidence of ‘unspeakable activities’ but no proof was ever found.

 
The Colony Hall in 2016

The colony continues today and there are descendants of the original settlers still living there. But now all the properties are privately owned and many families run successful local businesses. The Sunshine Health Shop in Stroud was first opened by Lilian Wolfe, an early member of the self-sufficient Whiteway Colony and it continues to trade in the town 90 years later. The influence of the Whiteway Colony led to Stroud becoming one of the birthplaces of the Organic food lifestyle.

 
Artist cum-blacksmith Alan Evans at work in his forge on the Whiteway colony. Alan was born at Whiteway and is one of three generations of Evans family craftsmen and women at the colony

Today Whiteway Colony occupies the same 41 acres of communally held land with which it began but colonists now live in their own privately owned homes as individual families. With no spare land remaining, a person must buy an existing property to become part of the community.

In 2017, there are over 150 residents of all ages living in 60 homes and there is still a strong community spirit. Community activities are organised at a monthly meeting held at the original Colony Hall where all decisions affecting the colony are made.

Traditions that originated with Whiteway’s founding fathers are still respected and adhered to and visitors must request permission to visit the site by penning a letter to the Colony Secretary.

Home Office sought to wipe out ‘beastly’ commune!

Home Office officials tried to shut down a prototype “free: love” hippy commune in the 1920s, according to official papers released yesterday. Files from the 1920’s released to the Public Record Office showed that officials regarded the Whiteways Colony in Gloucestershire as a security risk. The commune had been created in the Cotswold Hills near Stroud around the turn of the century, attracting an assortment of socialists, pacifists, “free thinkers and refugees.” “Manners had they none and their customs are beastly,” wrote an official in 1925.Police paid a husband and wife £400 to infiltrate the commune in the hope of finding evidence of their unspeakable activities.The couple emerged claiming that “promiscuous fornication “ was indeed a feature of life in the colony, but they were unable to produce proof. The Home Office could not even work up popular agitation against the commune, as local residents viewed members as cranks rather than as objects of fear.
Morning Star March 12 1999

 
 
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Polish Veto

 
 
Translation from the Gorale press conference:
 
https://www.activistpost.com/2021/01/polish-highlanders-veto-lockdown.html
 
Follow POLISH VETO!
 
Zakopane 11.01.2021 – mountains – South of Poland – Góralskie/highlanders/ VETO! We open businesses! No more destroying Polish entrepreneurs!
 
brief:
…If we do not protest at the moment, we will not come back to life in a month… there will be nothing to return to, because corporations will buy Polish business….
 
We have NO demands to the government…. the right to work is based on divine natural law…  They/government/better pray to God for forgiveness because we will not forgive them anymore…
 
… there is no pandemic and there is nothing to vaccinate … statistics tell the truth… we have more deaths due to the collapse of the health service….
 
We want to liberate people from fear…
we are not afraid of the police, the checks, the mandates…police can see what’s going on. We all ride on one trolley. It is in the interest of all of us to halt this path to self-destruction.
 
…People  think  that  it  is  role  of  the  highlanders = górale to
liberate Poland… we gave the impulse courage …
 
 
It is only the words from the TV/not law/ that tell us to limit our lives……the government breaks the law, it breaks the Constitution…
 
IN POLISH:
Zakopane 11.01.2021 – Góralskie VETO! OtwieraMY biznesy! Koniec niszczenia polskich przedsiębiorców!
 
 
==========================
Międzynarodowa Koalicja dla Ochrony Polskiej Wsi – ICPPC
34-146 Stryszów 156, Poland tel./fax +48 33 8797114  [email protected]
 
 
==========================
ICPPC – International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside,
34-146 Stryszów 156, Poland tel./fax +48 33 8797114  [email protected]
 
 
 
==========================
ICPPC – International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside,
34-146 Stryszów 156, Poland tel./fax +48 33 8797114  [email protected]
 
 
Przeczytaj – “Zmieniając kurs na życie. Lokalne rozwiązania globalnych
problemów”, autor: Julian Rose www.renesans21.pl
 
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Controlling the Message

A successful recording is a brilliant
contrivance but we are fumbling
badly and the bite of this fish can
cause serious damage. “Because it

was not, it did not,” she said. An
escape through a sewer and then
we’re all at sea. Are you shocked
by the level of violence? “We are

trying to control the message,” he
said. What are your political views?
Are we in a state of panic? You may
have a good gut instinct but it’s not

going to save you on this occasion.
“We need to be completely involved
in whatever game it is we’re playing
or we’re not doing it right,” she said.

Such reflected light gets completely
lost but from time to time an expand-
ing trio are becoming stars. Where do
these sentences come from? Can you

be in the same band twice? Perfect sound is
a chimera because sound itself is an illusion.

 

 

Steve Spence

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Clyde and his Wolf

 

Uncle Clyde asked if I stepped only on the red doors laid with the others as a path all the way from Grandma Fergy’s shack to his front porch. I told him I wasn’t sure and may have put my foot on at least one which wasn’t that colour. He said the wolf chained up at the back his place would snap at and likely take a chunk out of my ankles if this was true. When I didn’t answer and started crying he explained there was an option. I asked what this was. He told me my other uncle would take me into his basement and give me a crew cut sitting in a barber’s chair brought back to Niobrara from Chicago. I went for the haircut and when this was finished I guessed having my head scrubbed raw after that trim was better than being attacked by a wild animal. 

 

Mike Ferguson
Illustration: Atlanta Wiggs

 

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Covid ’21 – Clean Sweep or Catastrophe?

2021 starts with a bomb. A Watergate style watershed with no cover-up. Donald Trump wishes to go down in history as the President that incited a second US Civil War. His impeachment and prosecution could be pivotal in the direction we take world affairs, should we grasp the opportunity before us.

He has been labelled a fascist, since some of his words could be interpreted as inciting supporters to storm Congress. This exposes him not as a crafty diplomat, but a chancer that will stop at nothing if he can get away with it. But he is only getting in line with a lot of despotic leaders, he possibly envies, from the start of this century. 2020 saw many parallels and analogies drawn – aside from the Corona virus pandemic – with political and economic moves leading to and emerging from the Second World War. A rise in right-wing movements and policies within so called democratic countries; countless uprisings, public outrage and conflicts in the majority of countries in the world; callous protectionist power and money grabbing by the wealthy; partisan politicians systematically dismantling public services and social cohesion – local retail, food production, power, travel, property, land, health services, allied and national borders and people against people – all for privatised multi-billion dollar contracts with multinationals father afield, that we suddenly want to draw closer to in the name of independence. All of this increased dependency upon mercantilism boosting the carbon footprint, whilst claiming ecological advancement; continuing to subsidise oil and petrochemical industries even as oil prices became negative and blaming export partners for their pollution of air, sea and land.

If we ever get to reflect back on this century, we may well put it down to the panicked scrabbling of a clueless squandering post-WWII generation, with its immovable glorified colonialist / imperialist mentality and bigoted hypocritical offspring invoking the memory of their glorious patrons and trying to emulate them to make Britain or the US ‘great again.’ Unable to generate a single independent original thought, they clone political ideologies to match shifting trends. Is this the legacy of hopelessness that will be left to younger generations? We should surely be wiser than this by now, but history is never learned from, it is selected for proven outcomes. Our younger generation will need to use every educational advantage open to them to combat this, should we still have an ecosystem that is redeemable.

This flies in the face of the historic achievements of that same post-war generation that established the welfare state; free health treatment for all; inclusion of multi-ethnicity; human rights; working rights; international laws and treaties; international commerce and global partnerships in trade, science, education, media, communications and multiculturalism. The things that made Britain and the USA great in an inspirational sense, once we can outlaw the processes that supported the inequalities those movements exploited, along with its remaining prejudices. And it has to be said, the global economy is no mean feat; some of the global giants making this accessible to all. It is as futile and ignorant to deny the beneficial aspects of globalisation, as it is to simply call all Trump supporters fascists. It’s downright lazy denial to adopt a side and slug it out.

But Covid-19 persists, setting in stark contrast the damaging way we have constructed our daily lives by leaving everything to those who have the stomach and expense to form the mechanisms of our economy and those who care for it’s fallout. We reduced our choices and now are forced to face them. Against all available evidence, to survive we must believe rapid change could still work, but with no confidence that realistic agents of change exist. Of course, they do. This is why our collective Covid threat provides a unique opportunity, from necessity and greater education and experience, to turn things around instead of excusing the infringements and worsening abuses upon our lives that are commercially exploited during panic periods. Similar to how prostitution and rape become synonymous with war, where power imbalance and scarcity are the determining factors.

 

While the pandemic and economic crises loom over us like dark obelisks, money somehow trickles around them like a stream altering course. Money gets away with everything unchallenged, as if it is not a culprit, as if there could be nothing wrong with it as it still sustains lives. What else can? This is the core question not being asked, almost as if to do so you must be insane, despite the insanity caused by money. Imagine the emancipation if there was something else. But aren’t people the problem causers, not money? This is the thinking that perpetuates the abuse of our world and holds everyone hostage. Even the necessary agents of change shackled to this mentality. This is why the Green New Deal and Blue Economy are doomed, inhibited by monetary dependency and commercial / political will.

You only have to think of any exchange where money is involved to know how it alters behaviours, perceptions and relationships; how and whom it rewards. Money is more than a currency; its greatest issue is how it motivates. And again people will say ‘well it’s worked for centuries.’ Yes and how has it worked? Has there been nothing wrong with that? Of course we know what’s wrong with it, but no-one has presented a realistic alternative. Actually they have, right under our noses, and it has worked successfully within monetary economies since money was invented and throughout history. 20th Century technical development of monetary exchange enables us to monitor and value an even more reliable and insuppressible alternative to monetary currency. Its only current drawback is that it is publicly disregarded as valueless, expendable and invisible for accounting purposes. Yet canny capitalists everywhere exploit it.

Clean sweep, new broom

Trump’s impeachment and criminal prosecution is recognition that we have been too tolerant. It is a line in the sand that could set a precedent. It says that someone regarded by some as the most powerful individual in the world can be held culpable. In this most damaging age we need to reassess and expand what the parameters for that culpability are and form a global accord for it, since the action of one affects the actions of all.

There is far more to this ‘new reality’ that we can appeal to in positive ways, things that have connected us. We need to do this in a concrete legal process, making it criminal to undermine any person’s right to survival. Rather than empty hypocritical green wash from Cop 26, this international accord should address the subjugation of human and species survival in favour of damaging commercial strategies and practices. It is clearer than ever, money is not dictating our survival but the destruction of our biosphere. Until this becomes truly illegal, including corporate and multi-national economic strategies, we face a bitter resistance to change.

So what can facilitate this sea change in how we interact? What is about to be described is not a dream-world born of elevated principle. No social conscience required for this transformation. No ideology. They are things everyone everywhere accept are realities now. They are doable with the right backing and crucially, the majority of humankind desperately want them. What we need is a global cooperative war-like effort to combat our own extinction, dropping protectionist national policies and those who are fixated with them. They can offer nothing better than further obstacles and decelerated demise, if that. Despite all the amazing practical work of the United Nations; you only have to sit in on a UN ECOSOC or DESA video-conference to witness the deft display of diplomatic backsliding back-slapping, from expert representatives and member state leaders lying through their self-congratulating teeth. But do not dismiss the options for real change as fairy-tale, without first examining the specialists and experienced individuals that could make this possible in a very short time and have already shown practical success. It is only the scale of operation and its rapid expansion that needs to be accommodated practically, whilst allowing for the broadest flexibility. The motivation is there and UN contributors may have genuine concern, but it is money that blockades their actions.

How do we put the past three decades right? 2021 gives us an opportunity for a clean-sweep with a completely new broom. Not a resurgent socialism. Not a re-establishment of left-wing ideology, or moderate right wing posing as centre-left, always in an internal and external tug of war whilst making compromises with the right. It needs to be a new impartial, inclusive, non-prejudicial opportunity for ALL, to solidify the efforts Covid-19 has enforced upon everyone indiscriminately. To reassess the bigotries and corruptions that led us to this point, to say “no more insanity, enough is enough” and invest in all the existing advancements and proposals that can alter our entire global system for beneficial mutual outcomes. To dissolve the factors that separate people via race, colour, creed, or standing and expose such for the facile prejudices that we all know they are. But rhetoric isn’t sufficient. It needs to be practical experience. Will money achieve this, balking the trend of rewarding opposite strategies?

Addressing the inequality of money

It’s time to admit, the only way it can be done is by circumnavigating the prejudicial monetary system for a freely accessible economy that empowers every person indiscriminately. One that is paid for by the labour expended, to earn it. The non-monetary economy eliminates any need to address monetary disparity, because it means every individual doing various daily tasks immediately earns as a self-rewarding automatic process. It is not money.

It’s natural to be curious what form this currency will take. That will be determined by society, but it is best if it works the way most commerce already works, so it is not too much of a stretch of the imagination; using existing agencies, processes and technology. As a self-generating, perpetual process of computerised numerical accountancy, that empowers individuals of any circumstance with economic security from the second it is implemented, when unused it can simply be an adjusting numerical accruing balance. When spent it can take on tradable value for transaction purposes, assessed and agreed by society with NO exchangeable monetary value. It will require no material form of ‘currency.’ This is nothing new, except the concept of it not having value.

Having zero value enables it to avoid all the peripheral influences that affect monetary markets, allowing society to flexibly determine its parameters; what it is able to do and what rates can be earned for different levels of labour, if it decides upon a tiered or nuanced system relating to labour time or energy. This way it can offer grater incentives for more essential work. It needs no international exchange value and encompasses all forms of labour, including care and self-care as an automatic self-contained human right set in law. Making it non-exchangeable with money with no material currency and no centralised supervision makes it invulnerable to embezzlement and theft. If it helps, think of it like a numerical password to gain access to something, or a combination for a particular case, padlock or safe. The numerals need no value, but act as a facilitator for transaction.

It can be truly independent as it requires no ‘hand-out’ from any agency, crucially bypassing the current financial oppression of the elite; yet it can exchange for goods with anyone who has a parallel non-monetary account, including them. It holds even more trading value for formal businesses as they can earn a premium for employing the system and reduces their operating costs to zero. It needn’t require experts or mathematical gurus to construct this economy for us, but it can employ developed technologies; biometrics, GPS, magnetic coding, blockchain technology, contactless payment and statistics. It merely needs collective adoption at scale to form an immediate global economic force that makes the monetary economy look miniscule, so it then dictates to corporations the whole global commercial set-up and motivations. It will actively involve every individual, giving us a stake in our own future.

If current governments and corporations wish to tag along, they have the most to gain by officially adopting it. Especially where it equips people to become a majority-represented civic state, dictating its actions. It can resolve the financial difficulties imposed by the Covid-19 restrictions to the economy straight away, because it does not deduct from the monetary economy or from any other individual’s account. It also releases the burden on taxation.

It can facilitate an immediate truly global cooperative war-effort on Covid-19 that doesn’t advantage one status of people, or nationality above another. A colossal expansion of vaccine production and research, alongside needed health requirements, expertise, support, training and more rapid immunisation of all people under a temporary but global lockdown, providing non-working people with a universal basic income costing nothing, until it can be confirmed the virus has no more hosts. This is far more desirable and leaves no footprint that would result from running increased fiscal deficits, or ‘printing’ Fiat money. It comes from the same place – nowhere – but without the negative consequences.

It is a lie that multi-million/billion dollar industries need public engagement to maintain profitability for a year or two and that they are necessary to sustain national economies. Financialization will keep them rich even if most people die. That is a working example of a self-perpetuating non-monetary process, in the sense that the money doesn’t exist to cover those figures, whether in the red or black. It doesn’t need money or even exchange to carry on functioning, yet it is used as a form of power exchange and influence. Nobody is ever likely to call in those colossal debts, while they profit from them.

Addressing political injustice and appropriation

Political justice can start with the impeachment and successful prosecution of Donald J Trump and resulting custodial sentence and seizing of his assets; as a message to the democratic world, that other despots abusing democratic systems, at any level, are culpable and will answer for their crimes. Especially for any selfish manipulation of the Covid pandemic response for personal political or commercial gain that causes avoidable deaths. Or unjustified war-mongering; something that is already an illegal use of tax in the UK. It is unacceptable that people in power have to be indulged in the cavalier use of that power whilst endangering people through incompetency or worse, premeditated political gamesmanship.

This needs to become ratified in international law, to make criminal any national pursuit that harms the global environment, or threatens a community’s right to survival. National sovereignty is a mirage except where it becomes despotic. Rulers like Assad in Syria have defied logic and the wellbeing of their own people, employing genocide and civil destruction for personal gain and becoming pawns in a wider resurgent Cold War, sustained by western democracies. Only the global economy, seeking allies for fossil-fuel sharing and financialization make this possible. The argument over whether to have a sovereign state or a republic is a puerile one, designed to generate conflict where no conflict needs exist. Both are subject to the same economic factors and co-exist peacefully in some parts of the world. Some sovereign roles have had to adapt to public perceptions and shifting trends. As a matter of historic fact, they are small enterprises that can be overthrown in a moment should the public will or desperation exist. Whether we retain sovereignty or not, without taking any action the parallel non-monetary economy acts to equalise out the level of economic disparity and individual accessibility to personal needs and aspirations, without conflict or insistence on some Utopian ‘equality.’ It affords equality of individual potential and hope.

International ecological law must make all national individual leaders culpable and answerable to the global community. Since the global economy is what currently threatens our existence, disregarding all boundaries, then international laws regarding our biosphere must also disregard national boundaries and sovereignty, where necessary enforcing compliance with green objectives.  Independent national political will is inadequate to the task of addressing global issues. Again, the parallel non-monetary economy provides more profitable commercial strategies, for despots or progressive monarchies alike, that do not negatively impact upon the general pubic. This is a negative narrative about this aspect of survival, when really it may turn out to be a more positive dialogue, where those ruining the ecosystem more may actually have motivation to turn it around and have a greater influence on its recovery. Money and what it rewards prevents them. The insanity for them is that they are currently sacrificing broader profits for money.

The implementation of this parallel economy should include a disbanding of non-representative minority party-politics and peer privilege. Peers could retain their ‘royal club membership’ (honours) and be influential in the political process, but with the same rights and power as everyone else. It will reward all voters for engagement, not simply as an incentive to contribute but as an intrinsic part of the political process of dissemination of information and decision-making, through local and regional public assemblies, whether present or remotely contributing. The whole nation, with education uncoloured by political allegiances and agendas, can make better-informed collective choices and reverse previous government decisions that turned out harmful to public interests. Because it isn’t money, the parallel economy can accommodate reimbursement for any government waste or misuse of taxes, or damage to livelihoods due to political strategy, without deducting from the public purse.

It will include not just free but rewarded education at any level. It can make standard, education of the hypocrisies of war, nationalism, patriotism, sexism and racism with positive contributions, and expose the glorification and honouring of conflict as the selfish fallacious indulgence it is. This does not mean disrespecting the sacrifice of service-personnel, but the greater honouring of what individuals gave their lives for and their bereaved – both combatants and the millions of innocent bystanders that had no power and no choice – no longer just hypocritical ritualistic lip service supporting continued exterminations of elderly people, women and children.

Infrastructure regeneration can occur, no longer inhibited by the monetary economy. Rapid expansion and deployment of services; supported local and high street retail, even if it is initially supplied via international trade deals and mercantilism until all the constraints surrounding mercantilism are dissolved and industry flourishes locally again.

Rapid repatriation and dilution of conflicts and harmful oppression will reward all; enabling people to combat that power, not through arms deals but better achievable incentives for prosperity than war offers, for people both sides of the divide. This will include true international cooperation for peace-making and economic incentives.  And expanded services not in evasion or deflection but in community authorisation, autonomous political representation and all the supported systems and rights mentioned above, legalised for every individual. 

This development has to happen utilising rapid-growth green industries, devaluing all fossil resource based industries, giving greater profitable incentives for eco-friendly farming, alternative power and food production advancements, requiring a fraction of the land mass levelled for mass production now. It will incentivise the Blue-economy, not by subsidising it, but by making it more profitable than money could ever make it, simply by collective choice.

We will then see what multi-nationalism is really all about and the validity of people from every walk of life and experience, to promote all the things this century has highlighted we commonly need and open up truly what we can collectively achieve.

Why can this happen now?

There is far more that we could address on top of these basics. But these can happen because the desperate need and the practical processes to address them already exist. Neoliberalism, global monopolising and political protectionism are what have suppressed all these options and are set to carelessly destroy them. The 21st Century will be seen as being the start of the end and loss of everything, only if we allow money to continue to dictate. It is up to us to take what is at our disposal now to counter the trends of division in a practical, non-prejudicial, non-ideological way.

Covid-19 epidemic has illustrated to us that the parallel non-monetary economy already practically exists. Behind the scenes, everyday people have been working at these solutions and they are astonishing. It is the only immediate option to form an immensely profitable economy, that initially bypasses all the destructive economic influences and influencers, but re-incentivises their commercial opportunities. Because the parallel non-monetary economy offers vast profits alongside boosted monetary profits, whilst re-evaluating money in any full or partial transactions the PNME is implemented in, it relaxes the grip and the tensions sustaining the global protectionist strangle-hold over scarce resources. More importantly, it facilitates all the advancements and remedies every person is now dependent upon for survival, not only of Covid-19 but the unimpeded development of conservation in every field known to humankind. A Fifth [Eco] Industrial Revolution, if you will. It is easy for us to see it, because it is well within grasping distance.

So what is our choice for 2021 – Catalyst or catastrophe? Some argue that this abuse of power has been the status quo through the shifting sands of time, but it is beneath our dignity; it is beneath our intelligence and imagination; it is beneath our achievable prospects and advancement. It serves only a tiny minority of human beings, threatening even their survival and what’s more, it is totally avoidable. We can nod our heads, singing “yeah, yeah” to Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Excuse Me Please’ then sit back and wait for someone else to provide something… or we can come together and get on with it.

___

 

[For detailed practical processes and information on all the above proposals and movements, please consult – ‘A Chance For Everyone: The Parallel Non-Monetary Economy’ – Kendal Eaton (Sounding Off Publications 2020).

 

Download available for FREE / pay what you wish; or hardcopy from Amazon – http://achanceforeveryone.com 

Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/641184856394195 

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SHIFTING BASELINE SYNDROME 


   The process by which our perception of the ‘natural’ world
   becomes degraded as the ‘baseline’ shifts with each generation. 

       for Peter Fiennes 
 
When you said ‘Shifting Baselines’ I believed 
You were paying deference to those 
Hard Bop inventions of Charlie Mingus,  
 
Ron Carter’s steady licks alongside Miles,  
Or Jimmy Garrison’s pulsating sound 
On John Coltrane’s sublime A Love Supreme
 
But you were talking about how, today, 
‘Natural’ would be seen by those before us 
As ‘spoiled’, and what we see as ‘neglected’ 
Our children will soon see as ‘natural’… 
 
The way that the sound of the A38 
At the end of the garden has replaced 
The ambience of birds, with countless tyres 
Thrumming their hungry pulse against the pitch. 

 

 

Andy Brown

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IT Founder Jim Haynes RIP

James Haynes (10 November 1933 – 6 January 2021) was a figure in the British “underground” and alternative/counter-culture scene of the 1960s. He was involved with the founding of Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, the paper International Times and the London Arts Lab in Drury Lane for experimental and mixed media work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Haynes

“Begin life in Louisiana 1933, pass early teens in Venezuela, three years in a boarding school in Atlanta, attend university in Louisiana (L.S.U. and Tulane), do military obligation and in 1956 settle in Scotland.

Attend the University of Edinburgh, start The Paperback Bookshop & Gallery (1959), The Howff (1961), a folk-song club, the Traverse Theatre (1963), co-organize The Writers’ Conference (1962) with John Calder and Sonia Orwell, the Drama Conference (1963) with John Calder and Ken Tynan and participate in the creation of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Move to ‘swinging London’ in 1966 and there co-create the London Traverse Theatre Company with Charles Marowitz, Michael Geliot, and Ralph Koltai. Co-launch the newspaper “I.T.” (with Barry Miles, John Hopkins, Jack Moore, and Michael Henshaw), the Arts Lab mixed-media space (with Jack Moore, David Curtis, Biddy Peppin, Pamela Zoline and others). Producer by now of over 250 theatre shows I am awarded The Whitbread Prize in 1966.

Co-founded Suck magazine (1969) and the Wet Dream film festival (1971).

Moved to Paris to teach Sexual Politics and Media studies in University of Paris “Vincennes” 1969.

Started Sunday dinner parties at my home 1978, 40 years later still going on.

Meeting Jim, documentary film opened at Edinburgh Film Festival June 23 2018.

The Arts Laboratory

Back to fast and loose (my dead gallery)

 

 

The Arts Lab after moving out

 


28th Oct 1969

ARTS LABORATORY,
182 Drury Lane,
Covent Garden,
London, W.C.2.
28th October, 1969

 

Dear Friends,


Please accept this duplicated newsletter from me with some news which should interest you. The Arts Laboratory Located on Drury Lane for the past two and a half years is closed. The Arts Lab was many things to many people: a vision frustrated by an indifferent, fearful, and secure society; an experiment with such intangibles as people, ideas, feelings, and communications; a restaurant; a cinema; a theatre (Moving Being, Freehold, Poeple Show, Human Family, etc); underground television (Rolling Stones at Hyde Park, Isle of Wight, Dick Gregory All-Night Event); a gallery (past exhibitions include Yoko Ono & Lennon, Takis, et al); free notice boards (buy/sell, rides to Paris); a tea room; astrological readings; an information bank (tape,video, &live-Dick Gregory, Lennie Bruce, Michael X, Michael McClure…); happenings (verbal and otherwise); music (live and tape including The Fugs, Donovan, Leonard Cohen, Third Bar Band, Shawn Phillips, Kylastron, etc.) ; books, magazines. and newspapers (Time Out, IT, SUCK, OZ, Rolling Stone); information.


People flowed through — young,old, fashionable unfashionable, beautiful, bored,ugly,sad,agressive, friendly–five bob if you can afford it, less if you can’t. A few people in a position to help financially took but nover gave. They asked, “What’s the product? What’s its name?” The real answer was Humanity: you can’t weigh it, you can’t market it, you can’t label it, and you can’t destroy it. You can touch it and it will respond, you can free it and it will fly, you can create it and it will grow, if you kill it — it’s murder. The kids here don’t believe it’s the end and they’re right for it will reappear in another form.”We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to tho wind and are scattered,”


Some facts: The Arts Council gives £13,5OO per annum to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh which I founded and directed and which is only one third the size and scope of the Lab. The kitchens of the Royal Opera House are given some £37,OOO per annum by the Arts Council. The Arts Lab received no support from the Arts Council. I have been asked to join the Arts Council. I am £8,OO0. in debt.


The future: My future plans and the future plans for the Lab are clouded. I might move to Paris or to Amsterdam or to both cities. I have been invited to lecture at the new University of Paris at Vincennes. The Lab has been invited to present a season of London theatre, film, music, experimental television, etc at La Lucernaire, a theatre in Paris, in December.


The loss does not diminish the scope of the experience, I have learned. The fullness and unpredictability of the future out-distances the past. Perspective brings understanding – a property of future and past. The future has a delightful habit of turning into the present.


Blessings and regards,

Jim Haynes


Future address:
Post Office Box 2080,
Amsterdam

To visit Jim Haynes’ website please click here

 

RIP Jim Haynes, the man who brought the Swinging Sixties to life in Edinburgh – Aidan Smith

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/rip-jim-haynes-man-who-brought-swinging-sixties-life-edinburgh-aidan-smith-3092453

Jim Haynes, counterculture trailblazer and co-founder of Edinburgh’s avant-garde Traverse Theatre – obituary

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/01/13/jim-haynes-counterculture-trailblazer-co-founder-edinburghs/

 

Jim Haynes obituary

Indefatigable leading light in the arts counterculture who founded the Traverse theatre and campaigned for sexual liberation
 
 
 
 
.

 

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Parallel lives


We feel squeezed.
We feel confined.
We feel imprisoned.

We feel depressed.
We are beginning
to climb the walls now

We are bored…

Despite the row upon row
of books, DVDs, old CDs,
the Internet, the iPads,
the calls, texts, chats
on Zoom, the live-streaming,
the neighbours.

Despite the promises,
the life-lines,
the injections,
the grants,
the stocked
supermarkets,
the central heating,
the NHS.

Our hope,
our motivation
beginning to go.
Everything
is the same.
Lonely, lonely,
we moan,
day in, day out:
no tangible contact,
no lightness,
no spontaneity,
no future plans,
no fun.

Life shut down,
reduced to a daily
walk, a sleepless night,
another repeat
on the goggle-box.

But this is LUXURY,
this man-made version,
compared to the lot
of the poor
‘battery’ hen –
forced to ‘live’
in a space
the size
of a sheet
of A4…

No choice
but to balance
on a sharp wire
mesh, that cuts
and wounds
her tired,
broken feet,
that burns
her thin, buckling,
deformed legs,
with the acid
of weeks
of uncleared
urine and faeces.

No A & E.
No “intensive care.”
No “critical care.”
No “universal credit.”
No help. No mercy.
No compassion.
(No awareness.
Blind eyes, deaf ears.)
No way out.

A feeling hen
her bright
young mind,
her keen
young senses,
born for dust bathing,
for short flights,
for community life,
for roosting her clutch
of male1 and female chicks,
for self-selecting
her food, foraging
in the woodlands,
in the long grass –

who can hear
the free birds
just outside,
who can sense
the warmth
of the first sun,
who imagines
and remembers
(her ancient species
Consciousness,)
that tender touch
of the new Spring blades,
that revivifying blaze
of GREEN!

But who will never,
never, never get to see
or feel any
of it.

Just her day
of violent death,
to look
forward
to.

…a broken neck,
a gushing throat,
the scalding tank.

All this
for a cheap egg?

All this
for a fluffy sponge?

All this
for a cut-price,
bargain box of nuggets?2

From terrible truth… to happy ending! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDLq8Xm5gQ0

16 billion newborn male chicks are ground up alive (“macerated”) or dumped into plastic bags and left to suffocate because they cannot lay eggs.

2 6 billion, of the over 50 billion chickens killed each year across the globe, are egg layers.  Having laid over a trillion eggs, after just a year, they are killed for their efforts.  Left to their own devices, chickens have a natural life span of 10 years.

http://www.animalethics.org.uk/i-ch7-2-chickens.html

 

 

Heidi Stephenson

 

 

.

 

 

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Surviving in a Ruthless World: Bob Dylan’s Voyage to Infidels

Surviving in a Ruthless World: Bob Dylan’s Voyage to Infidels

By Terry Gans (Red Planet Books 2020)

Some thoughts and meditations from Alan Dearling.

A new book about the many devils in the detail of one of Bob Dylan’s oft-forgotten albums.

It’s a strange forensic trip into every conceivable nook and cranny of the words, recording sessions, notebooks, scribbles and the ‘vagueness’ (as Joan Baez calls it) that surrounds His Bobness. Investigative author, Terry Gans calls it the, “Mystery and magic” of Bob’s art. Consider it an academic anorak investigation. But it’s a lavish production, hardback, and including some high quality photos.

There’s much in this book that is fascinating for the disciples of Bob. It links Bob’s time on his co-owned yacht, ‘Water Pearl’, as it sailed around the Caribbean islands. Much reggae was listened to. Gans tells us, “…he allowed the sounds of the Islands to seep into the rhythm of his writing and the music he envisioned for the writings.” As a reader of Gans’ book, and one quite interested in Bob’s writings and mystique, I went on the voyage with a developing sense of awe, frustration and marvel. ‘Infidels’ was recorded in a series of sessions early in 1983. It was developed by Dylan for his recording label, CBS Records, as an antidote to the previous run of three albums, regarded widely as Dylan’s Gospel (born-again)Trinity of albums: ‘Slow train coming’, ‘Saved’ and ‘Shot of Love’. Did CBS co-head really phone Bob and say of the next album: “No fucking religion – not Christian, not Jewish, not Muslim. Nothing?”

On the yacht, Dylan had filled a lot of notebooks with jottings, potential lyrics, song structures, titles and more. These and much other material are now housed in the Bob Dylan Archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, established in 2016. It also houses all the published lyrics for ‘Infidels’, the session recordings and many images – Terry Gans was granted access to this diverse and richly confusing treasure trove on Bob-stuff. He also interviewed some, but not all of the key players – neither Bob himself, or, musician and the co-record-producer of ‘Infidels’, Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler.

The structure of the book is not one designed or suited to the casual reader. It’s far more akin to a university thesis; the product of a research project. This makes it hard work. Eighteen main potential tracks, 16 originals from Dylan (and dozens of other covers, jams and snippets) were recorded at the Power Station Studio in Manhattan by Bob (playing guitar, harp, piano and more) with an elite core group of musicians: Mark Knopfler – guitars; Alan Clark – keyboards; Mick Taylor – guitars; Sly Dunbar – drums,  and Robbie Shakespeare – bass. A formidable team and a departure for Dylan. Likewise, this was his first album using digital techniques of cut-ins, multiple overdubs and quick fixes. A heck of a lot of new recording toys for Dylan to tinker with. Perhaps too many! Yet the actual digital recordings were onto 32 minute long master tapes.  Only eight tracks made it to the album, which was originally intended to be titled by Dylan as, ‘Surviving in a Ruthless World’, which became ‘Infidels’, but Gans really offers no clue as to why.

At an early juncture in the book, Terry Gans suggests that you go and listen to the album. Stream it if you must. And he repeats Frank Zappa’s wise words that talking about music is like, “…dancing about architecture.” I’m not sure this book really adheres to that suggested dictum, instead providing microscopic analysis of every version of the lyrics, recordings and ephemera. Each of the potential 18 tracks forms a chapter in the order in which they were first recorded. Published lyrics first, followed by extensive notes under the headings: ‘writing’ and ‘recording’. It’s often a seriously challenging ‘read’! For me, this is wryly evidenced in Terry Gans’ final comment on an oft-bootlegged version of the rather wonderful song, ‘Blind Willie McTell’, a song left off the album. Gans suggests: “It is interesting to listen to, but horrible to hear.”

The ‘meaning’ of Dylan’s songs has filled many books. From ‘Dylan on Dylan’ (Cott, J., 2006), we can learn much about how the more we read them, the more obscure the lyrics often become. We are “…prisoners in a world of mystery”, as Dylan sings in the song ‘Highlands’. And, “Even if I could tell you what the song is about I wouldn’t.” He’s the ultimate chameleon – the ever changing and evolving poet and scribe – saying, “I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.”  

Terry Gans offers plenty of detail concerning the words and recording sessions from ‘Infidels’. There’s a lot on religion and interpretations of songs as metaphors for the state of Israel. He also offers some pretty obscure information on the tracks that didn’t make it on to the album that was released. And he speculates on the very different album that could have been created in the CD age without the 42 minutes vinyl time constraints. Whether they are ‘insights’ is in the eye and mind of the beholder. Gans suggests that. “We guess. We surmise. We speculate. And we project.” ‘Infidels’ contains much fine playing, some memorable songs such as ‘Jokerman’, ‘Sweetheart like you’, ‘Neighborhood Bully’, ‘License to kill’ and ‘I and I’. The ‘Jokerman’ video is worth watching, a clever mash-up of art, Dylan and some cut-up icons of history: http://www.bobdylan.com/video/jokerman/

And the live recording with a pick-up bunch of musicians for TV show, ‘Late Night with David Letterman’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP–PD1BcGE     (the ‘Infidels’ tracks come later in the video, so scroll forward).

This is very Dylan – and definitely and defiantly not what you would expect from an artist promoting his new album. ‘Contrary’, might easily be Bob’s middle name!  That much does come over in Terry Gans’ minutely detailed new book.

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THE CIRCLE (1977)

The Zen,
The bloody fingered
Bean cans frozen
On a Brooklyn tip.
The crash pads I never
Really knew,
The dreams we shared
Together as
Lovers of obscurity
I love you,
Oh, I
Love you all the same.

The hooded
Monks who chant
The mantras piercing
The subconscious mind,
The Imitation of Christ
Lies abandoned by
The garden wall- for
What?

The once original
Phrases that have now
Become a bore,
I really want
To say
Them all again.

 

 

 

 

Mike Mcnamara
Illustration Nick Victor

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BAPU: BY CJ STONE

With Chandira Hensey

No stars were harmed in the making of this story. All astrological references are completely made up.


It’s a year ago that Bapu died: January 8 2020.

His brother Noel was with him. When he arrived at the bedside, Bapu was wearing one of those positive-pressure masks to aid his breathing. The machines that had been supplying his medications and support systems were gone, but the empty racking on which they had all been mounted was still in place. The lighting was soft and there was an air of calm and serenity in the room. “He looked a damn sight better and more at ease than the last time I saw him,” says Noel. “He had been washed and shaved, and looked about as presentable as I could have hoped for.”

After bracing himself, Noel sat down on his right and took his hand. He spoke quietly, and Bapu opened his eyes and looked at him. He smiled and mouthed silently: “Thanks for coming.” A while passed, Noel chatting quietly about this and that: his family and friends and what was going on in their lives.

Bapu only opened his eyes a couple of times after that. Each time, Noel thought he looked a little more impatient. Both of them knew what was about to happen.

Bapu’s lungs had been destroyed from the years of chain smoking. His body was completely fucked. He needed the machine to breathe. There was no hope of any recovery. The next time the nurse appeared, Noel asked for the mask to be removed, which it duly was. He had spoken to the doctor about this the day before, and he knew what the outcome was likely to be. The nurse sat with them for a few minutes and then left. After about 5 or 10 minutes, Noel could see that Bapu was taking shallower and shallower breaths. The nurse kept looking in on them as he grew weaker and more distant. Eventually Bapu took his last breath and Noel knew that he had gone. A minute later, the nurse appeared and said that his heart had stopped. Noel said that he knew.

Bapu passed away peacefully at 19.43 BST, in the critical care unit, Frank Stanshil ward of King’s College hospital, Denmark Hill in London. I’m sure there would be an astrological significance to this if someone were to do a chart. We have natal charts, why not mortal charts, to tell us where we would go next?

Noel says that just after Bapu’s heart stopped a bright light, like an evening star, appeared towards the bottom of the empty equipment rack by the bedside. The nurse had gone and Noel and Bapu were on their own. Noel smiled and said: “Was that you, you bastard? Had to have the last word, didn’t you?”

That tells you a lot about their relationship. They were always fighting as kids and loved to insult each other, in that way that people from working-class families often do. To outsiders it would have sounded like they were aggravated or annoyed, but the insults came from a place of deep, unstated affection. Really they loved each other, as only brothers and rivals can.

Bapu’s given name was Hugh James Davey. He was named after their father, so his family called him Jim or Jimmy to avoid confusion. The name “Bapu” was acquired in India. It means “father” and is a common honorific given to gurus, sages, prophets and people with a spiritual calling. That was how Bapu saw himself. He was always looking for disciples, but he never really found one.

I met him back in the 1990s in Glastonbury. He had this rumbling, earthy voice, and a distinct northern accent. I found out later that he was from Middlesbrough. His head was shaved, except for a little topknot at the back, in the Krishna devotee style. We were in a mutual friend’s kitchen, drinking beer. I was always a cynic when it came to new-age philosophy and had made some disparaging remark about astrology. People laughed and tutted and turned to Bapu for an answer. Bapu said that he could prove me wrong. He asked what my birthday was and then told me exactly what was in the heavens on the day of my birth: what planets there were, and in what positions. He did all this from memory. He didn’t quite convince me that astrology was real, but he certainly convinced me that he had an extraordinary memory for the layout of the stars on any day of any year, as far back as 1953, my birth year, at least. He was a professional astrologer on one of those astrology phone lines. Made quite a decent living out of it by all accounts.

We became sort of accidental friends. This was more by location than by having anything in common. He lived at one end of the A2, in New Cross in London, and I lived at the other. He liked to get out of the Big Smoke occasionally, to breathe some sea air and drink a pint (or several) on the beach. So he took to driving down to Whitstable every so often. We would meet at the Neptune, a pub on the beach, and drink ale. Afterwards we would eat fish and chips and then he would drive himself home. He liked his beer strong, so I always wondered how much danger he put himself into on these journeys, but he never seemed to get himself into any trouble.

The problem with Bapu was that he only had one subject of conversation: he only ever talked about astrology. Whatever the story, he always had an astrological angle on it. The war in Iraq? This was because of the conjunction of Uranus with Neptune. The election results: Saturn opposes Mars. The USA bombs Libya? Mercury retrograde. And on and on like this.

I never knew what he was talking about half the time. I was always having to ask him what he meant by this or that cryptic piece of information, and I was never any the wiser after he told me.

It always struck me that there was a circular logic to what he was saying. He argued back from conditions in the real world to what was happening in the sky. He was always right. He was always right because he couldn’t possibly be wrong. There was no way anyone could argue with him. You would just have to take his word for it that these particular stellar arrangements meant what he said they did.

Personally I found the philosophy unhelpful. So what if Mercury conjuncts Venus in Sagittarius – or whatever it was – causing Gordon Brown to bail out the banks? It wasn’t really an explanation, was it, and it didn’t give us any clues as to how we deal with it. It all seemed horribly fatalistic to me. There you are, that’s the sky: that’s our fate, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Life. Death. War. Politics. Economics. History. Art. Poetry. What you ate for breakfast. How big a shit you had. Whether you would fall in love or not. Whether you lived or whether you died. All of it was preordained by the shape of the sky at any one moment and which, let’s face it, has been moving around in an entirely predictable way from the beginning of time — which means the whole of life on this earthly plane is just a mechanical process reflecting the complex iterations of the planets against the eternal backdrop of the stars. I never bought into it myself.

On the other hand, I had to admit that he had a peculiar insight into the workings of the human soul, and he could sum up people, precisely, in a very few words. I witnessed this a few times. He would take someone’s hand, or ask them a question about their time and place of birth, and within a few seconds he would say something that would knock your socks off with its accuracy. It was uncanny, it really was.

The most extraordinary example of this was when he met Jon Harris for the first time. It was in the George Inn in Southwark. There were a couple of us gathered around the table. He asked people what they were into? That was a common question of his, and I heard him ask it on a few occasions. He meant: what is your philosophy? What are the motivations that make your life worthwhile? Once you had answered, it allowed him to talk about astrology.

Eventually he took Jon’s hand. He was looking at Jon’s little finger and saying how straight it was. “He’s a very straight man. You have good friends, Chris.”

Suddenly he said, after finding out Jon’s place and date of birth: “Do you have a staff?” It was this that made me and Jon both laugh out loud. Yes, Jon has a staff. It’s not a staff you can lean on, at least not physically. It’s a sort of gnarled, twisted knot of a thing, about three or four-foot long, that Jon has carved and polished and mused on over many years. It is central to everything that he does. Whenever he does a ritual, he brings his staff along. Whenever it is mentioned, he raises it in the air and says: “All Hail the Staff!” He has taken that staff all over the country, to the highest peaks of England, Scotland and Wales as a part of him sealing his ritual identity as the High Priest of the Church of the Burn in this the Magical Land of Albion.

Does he have a staff, indeed? If Bapu had told Jon his mum’s maiden name, or the day he got married, or the names of his kids, it couldn’t have been more startling.

Bapu said: “It is like your spine. It holds you up.” And he was right again, not only metaphorically but physically too. It does indeed look a little like a spine, albeit one belonging to a hunchback. It has a gnarly sort of gravity to it.

Was it the stars that gave him this insight or was it something else, something inside of him? A non-local grasp of the strange magical processes that underlie the human condition. I tend to favour the latter explanation, and it was why I remained friends with him despite our differences. It was not the only time I saw him do this.

He was always entertaining, and he used to say the most peculiar things. I wish now I had taken a note of some of them. They were so strange. There was something about the way his brain worked that was not like other people’s. It was associative rather than logical. Magical rather than grammatical. It was like he was wired up differently to everyone else. He thought in metaphors, not sentences. In describing someone he would create a word-picture that summed up their characteristics. There was a peculiar kind of garbled poetry to the way he talked which often made me laugh.

After a while it became apparent that he did indeed have something slightly wonky in the brain department. He said that he had died at birth, strangled by his own umbilical cord. He had been dead for several minutes and his brain starved of oxygen before they managed to bring him back to life. He said he had suffered brain damage and claimed he was on the autistic spectrum. That explained a lot. It also told us why astrology was so important to him. People on the autistic spectrum often have difficulty relating to other people. They love patterns and puzzles and simple facts and can have extraordinary memory retention, such as the ability to look at star charts and remember them in vivid detail. Astrology allowed Bapu to have endless conversations with people without having to understand them socially. It was the perfect architecture for building a conversation. Everyone likes to talk about themselves. Tell them their Venus conjuncts their Mars and their Saturn opposes their Sun, explain what this means — and watch them do the rest. All he had to do was feed them the technical details.

I think this was the point that I forgave him his astrology, and, indeed, gave in to it. It was just his way of relating, that’s all. Without it, what else was there to talk about?

So we carried on being friends for many years. I was at his wedding/handfasting. The whole of the druidic, magical tribe were there. It took place in Avebury in 2003.

I’ll let Chandira, Bapu’s friend of more than a quarter of a century, take over at this point:

CHANDIRA

Bapu showing his arse at Glastonbury festival

I moved to Glastonbury in the spring of 1995. I was 23 years old and fresh out of living a very conventional life that just didn’t pan out for me.

I was lucky enough to find a great room to rent with a very lovely landlord, Ian. A few months in, Ian was kind enough to get me a ticket to Glastonbury festival. He wanted to encourage and support me by getting me a job at the festival as a tarot-card reader. I had only had a few years’ experience with the cards at that point and had never read for money, but I had a knack for it that Ian recognised, and wanted to support.

Anyway, the day of the festival rolls round and, as I’m leaving, Ian says to me, in very conspiratorial tones: “Whatever you do, avoid a man called Bapu, he will eat you alive.”

So I got to the festival. I nervously looked around for a place to put up my tent. There was one spot left, next to this old beige VW camper van. Bapu’s camper. I put up my tent, deliberately avoiding my new neighbour, as instructed by Ian. I spent a very uncomfortable night, being as I was mostly unprepared to camp in what turned out to be a very cold and noisy field. I lay awake shivering all night, finally getting off to sleep about 3am. I was rudely awakened about 7am by Bapu loudly and unceremoniously unzipping my tent and sticking his big bald head in.

Jesus, you’re a RIGHT little princess, aren’t you! You kept me awake all night!” With that followed the offer of a nice hot cup of tea, and a blanket, and an invitation to sit in his van for a bit and warm up. And a long explanation about empaths.

We had the best festival ever, and I made more than a few friends that week that are still with me almost 25 years later, more than half my life. In that time I have learned many, many lessons from Bapu, some hilarious, some hard, some deliberate, some inadvertent, a lot astrological, some painful, but always, always, with love. The name “Bapu” means “father” in Hindi. He has certainly lived up to the name.

Bapu has always been there, in so many ways I can’t even explain. We always, from day one, had a very psychic connection. By that, I mean that more often than not I would dream about him — and he’d call me the next day. Or I’d be going through some thing, having some kind of bad day, and the phone would ring, and I’d hear: “Aayyup, everything OK, girl? What’s going on?” He always knew. I kept a lot of the voicemails he left me over the last few years, and some are hilarious. He’d always say to me: “I miss your voice”.

So many weekends between 1995 and August 2000, before I moved to the US, I’d jump on the several buses up to London and spend a few days in his flat in New Cross, either glued to his little computer screen, sitting on that old sheepskin rug on the floor, looking at astrology charts; or we’d zip about the countryside in that VW van and visit various gatherings, festivals, and friends together. I’d always spend a few days there when I was visiting home, too. He took me to see the Tower of London and Crown Jewels once, and he even made that a lesson in “sovereignty and owning your self-worth”. And we did have a laugh that day, playing tourists.

One day we went to Longleat to visit his friend Ivan, who was busy building a stone circle on the grounds for Lord Bath. Bapu stopped the van by some trees and said: “OK then, lead me to Ivan!” I found a small leafy path through the woods, several lefts and a few rights later, there we were, in a small clearing, looking right at Ivan’s cosy bender. I’d led us right there. Today’s lesson? Trusting my sense of direction and gut instinct. I think the greater lesson, though, was learning that somebody actually had faith in me and could see me for who I was. Things were always like that with Bapu — there was always another layer, a deeper layer than what was on the surface.

My last visit with Bapu before I left to live in the US was memorable. His parting “blessing” for my journey was to wish that I had “a good shit, every day”. When I have thought about that over the years, that’s definitely been one of the best blessings you could wish for a person. Life without that gets pretty uncomfortable, pretty fast. I have often reflected on that fact.

Bapu’s handfasting weekend in 2003 was a riot. He picked me up from the airport a day or so before,and drove me down to Margate to meet his bride, Christine. She was of course, lovely, and a very gracious hostess. She was an interior designer, with an immaculate home, white carpets, and a gorgeous ocean view. Bapu was complaining about being made to go outside to smoke cigarettes. He left me there and drove back to London to get ready for the big day.

The morning of the handfasting, Christine, Chris and I drove to Avebury. That was a lovely journey, but it seemed to take HOURS. We arrived at Avebury, eventually, me worried that the bride was going to be late, and the place was PACKED. Pretty much everybody there was there for Bapu. It was a magical day. Lots of laughter and love, flowing freely; as was the beer, when we all piled into the pub afterwards.

The ceremony was wonderful. I remember Bapu strolling majestically into the circle, looking like the king himself in his brown robe and staff, accompanied by the one and only King Arthur, and his merry band of friends and brothers. I was there with Christine while she was waiting for him, looking like a queen. There was definitely something somehow bigger about that day than just an ordinary wedding. It was my first visit home since had I left for the States and it was a heck of a welcome home.

Bapu wasn’t easy to get on with. You see it so many times: somebody dies and the friends left behind suddenly only have nice things to say. He would have hated that. He was a very difficult person sometimes. He had Asperger’s, and his social skills weren’t really all that. Actually, he really didn’t give a shit what anybody thought, sometimes. Most of the time. He was always right, no matter what. I was usually OK with that, and could deal with him, but a lot of people weren’t. He could have made life a lot easier for himself than he did, but he never wanted to compromise on his own view of it all.

That’s the Asperger’s. It gives you a very fixed view of things. Astrology was Bapu’s gift, that came with the autism. You had to speak his language. If you didn’t, he could get frustrated. I was at a festival with him once — might have been that first Glastonbury — and he was wandering around buck-ass naked, with just a short T-shirt on. Shorter than it needed to be. There were people there who were definitely offended by that — I mean, think of the KIDS!! But his response was that it was a hot summer day, human bodies are natural, and that uptightness was not. He really could see no problem with his wandering around with it all on display. After a while, I couldn’t either. He was just like that. Of course. It wasn’t offensive, it was just a body. His body. And he most definitely was not ashamed of it. His attitude just kind of wore off on most people he was around, after a while.

But people didn’t always find that easy. I am guessing my old landlord Ian didn’t. The last few years, Bapu’s health got progressively worse. Being a chain smoker and drinking a few cans of beer most nights, he had never been in the best of health, but the last few years really took a toll on him. He hated doctors. I really think that some people are allergic to them, and he was one of them. So persuading him to seek treatment, or spend any time in hospital, or get any kind of help, was hard. He had SO many moments of us all thinking that was it — from which he’d rally round, like nothing had really happened. He had a stroke a few years ago and was hospitalised for a while. I sent him some money for groceries or whatever he needed it for. He bust himself out of hospital, filled his petrol tank, and drove straight to Avebury.

Of course. If you’re Bapu, that’s what you do.

 I will never forget he said to me once: “Thank you. You’re the only person in my life who hasn’t ever ’ad a go at me about the fags.” Like I would have ever got anywhere if I had. I took that lesson on too, though, and he was right. Nobody learns by being nagged. People learn by being loved and by appreciated for who they are. He taught me that one an infinite number of times, and I will miss my dear friend, brother and mentor with all my heart.

So yes, that was me in the car with Chandira and Christine. The two of them came by my flat on the way to Avebury. It was such a surprise to see Chandira. I’d known her in Glastonbury some years before, when she was a librarian, and I was using the library. I never knew she had any connection to Bapu.

It was, as she says, a wonderful weekend, and I have always felt privileged to have been part it. Bapu was in full magical mode, dressed in a robe and dispensing blessings to all and sundry. He was so happy. He was beaming love everywhere and to everyone. I never saw him like that before or since.

What Chandira highlights in her story is the central problem in Bapu’s life. “He was always right, no matter what.” He could give advice but he never could take it. He saw himself as a guru, a teacher; but to be a teacher, you have to be willing to listen and to learn. He never was. It was a one-way street with Bapu. He could dole it out in bucketloads, but he couldn’t receive it. It was like a curse, one of those classical curses: like Cassandra, cursed to always tell the truth but never to be believed. In Bapu’s case, he was cursed to always give advice but never to accept it, always to know what other people should do — but never himself. For himself, he always made the worst decisions. In the end it cost him his life.

He wasn’t with Christine for all that long: maybe a year or two. She couldn’t stand his smoking, for one. She was scrupulously clean and she didn’t like the smell. She made him smoke outdoors, which was a problem, given that she lived on a third-floor flat. He promptly turned that into a complaint about her nagging. But it was much more than that: it worried her. He had a terrible cough. She must have known it would kill him in the end, and she didn’t want to have to bear witness to that. She gave him an ultimatum: it was either her or the cigarettes. He chose the cigarettes.

The irony of this was he hated junkies. He’d been at war with his neighbours for years because he thought they were dealing from their flat, and he fell out with a friend of mine because he smoked dope incessantly. But Bapu was a junkie too: a nicotine junkie. He smoked maybe 60 a day and his chest rattled with phlegm every time he coughed.

He went down hill rapidly after he and Christine split up. There were a series of problems, including a couple of strokes, and he started walking with a stick. He would arrange to meet up with Christine on the beach whenever he came to visit me. She would always turn up. Bapu would ask after her love life and it was always awkward and strange. He was so very gracious and noble about it, in that hip, free, alternative way that old hippies always try to affect, but you could see it was eating him up. Personally, I hate that pretence of non-jealousy. Admit it, Bapu: you want her back but you are too much of an idiot to do anything about it.

And then at a certain point he lost his job and had a life-changing illness. One of his lungs collapsed and he was rushed into hospital. As Chandira said, he hated hospitals. As soon as he was able to, he escaped. What this meant was that, instead of allowing paid professional care staff to look after his needs, he threw himself on his friends. It was us who had to carry the weight. He told me he was going to die. He’d read it in his stars. It was near his birthday, December 20, and he wanted to go to Avebury to die. Avebury was his favourite place.

Iwent up to London to help him. It was the first time I had seen his flat. I’d only ever met him at Christine’s before or on the beach. Talk about a contrast. She had white carpets. Bapu’s place was filthy. Piles of clothes everywhere and nowhere to sit. Inches of dust on everything, A brown-stained toilet and a yellow-stained bath. Thick black cobwebs hanging on the walls and from the ceiling. Cigarette ash and dust all over the carpet and the smell of stale smoke. Everything was stained brown with nicotine. The sheets on his bed had obviously not been changed for months, maybe even years. There was a layer of grease on all the surfaces in the kitchen.

There was a roll of grimy toilet paper hanging next to the toilet. He told me me proudly it was two years old. “You can use it if you want. Never use it myself,” he said. He used the Indian method, he said; that is, he washed his arse with water, after which he would wash his hands with disinfectant. Quite why he thought this was preferable, I don’t know. Perhaps he wanted to save money on toilet paper.

He was sat in a ripped T-shirt with nothing on his bottom half, ordering me around and, when I didn’t do whatever it was to his exact requirements, he told me off: “This soup is cold!”

“You said to do it like that.”

“Well you can just do it again and get it right next time.”

I had to hang around all day while various people came through the door. I was negotiating with his neighbours and the staff on the estate where he lived. It was a housing co-op, very right-on. They told me he had been insulting everyone before he’d been taken in to hospital. That’s why he’d lost his job on the phone lines too: he’d started insulting the clientele.

I found that quite funny. Imagine ringing up a new-age airy-fairy phone line expecting some sort of high-minded spiritual advice, only to get Bapu snarling down the phone at you, telling you to stop whining, you fuckin’ baby. It was obvious with the collapsed lung that he was wasn’t getting enough oxygen and had literally gone out of his mind.

I spoke to the social services to try to get him some homecare and to various other agencies. I spoke to his doctor. Every time anyone came in, Bapu was insulting them, ordering them around imperiously from his chair in the middle of the room, sat there in his holey T-shirt with all his bits showing, like the King of the Trolls in his grubby cave. I was so glad to get out of there.

After that there was a phone call. It was the ambulance. They were knocking on his door as they’d been called out by one of his neighbours, but there was no answer. I told them that from what I had seen of his state he couldn’t possibly have left the flat, so they broke the door down. He was nowhere to be seen. Later we heard that he was in Avebury. He’d managed to get into his old banger and to drive all the way there, despite being hardly able to walk. He’d gone there to die, according to his prediction.

He landed in someone’s drive with a boot full of beer and then refused to move. He was there for a few days. Later again he was arrested; he had stopped the traffic on the A4, got out of his car and was lurching about in the middle of the road. The police took him in to hospital. Later again there was another phone call. It was Bapu, speaking from the hospital. He wanted me to drive over and pick him up. “Please mate, get me out of here, I’m begging you.”

He managed to make his own way home by catching a train.

So now began a new phase in his life. He was so badly disabled he needed a careworker. He could hardly get from his seat to the bathroom, couldn’t bath himself, couldn’t shop or cook. He hadn’t died on his birthday, as he’d predicted, but his life had changed irrecoverably. He never left that flat again until he was carried out of it on a stretcher into a hospital, where he died.

That was his greatest fear, and the reason he hated hospitals so much. He always said he would die in hospital, and he was right.

I’d developed this theory about Bapu many years before. I called it the Macbeth Syndrome. If you remember, in Macbeth the eponymous hero is given a series of predictions by the Weird Sisters on the heath. They hail him as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and as king. He is already Thane of Glamis and is soon to be Thane of Cawdor — but instead of lying back and waiting for the final prediction to come true of itself, he sets about making it come true; he kills the king, thus creating the tragedy around which the whole play revolves. This is what I call the Macbeth Syndrome, the tendency, once a prediction has been made, to start acting in ways that will make it come true. In a way, that was the story of Bapu’s life.

In fact, the thing that was disabling him was a hernia. It wasn’t really all that serious. He could have had it treated, but he refused because of his fear of hospitals. As the years went by, the hernia got worse and worse, making him more and more disabled, and it was the hernia that killed him in the end.

My relationship with him changed too. No more sitting on a beach, watching the sunset, drinking pints of ale and talking about the stars: instead, our relationship was confined to that grubby flat of his, and me doing him favours. Not all that often, I have to say. I couldn’t bear to sit in his flat. I would feel sick just walking through the door.

He carried on smoking and drinking, against everyone’s advice.

I heard that he was in hospital on December 9 2019. It was a memorable week, for all sorts of reasons. I was on retreat, in a monastery in Crawley. For most of the previous two weeks I’d been travelling up and down to New Cross to help sort him out with stuff. He needed something to help him to breathe, something to help him keep warm. A bunch of other things. I was travelling by bus, having given up my car by then. It took several hours.

“Why don’t you go into hospital, Bapu? It’s not fair of you to expect your friends to do all the work for you.”

As always he refused. As always he knew better than everyone else.

He was ringing me up all the time, asking me to do this or that for him. In the end I stopped answering his calls.

Then, on the Sunday, in a pub in Clapham, there was a call. It was an unknown number. I answered the phone and the name Bapu was mentioned. The pub was too noisy so I couldn’t quite catch what was being said. It took till the following day to find out. I was walking through the woods near the monastery when I finally got round to answering the call. It was Bapu’s careworker. Bapu was in hospital in an induced coma having suffered a catastrophic collapse of his vital organs. I knew immediately he was going to die.

That week will go down as one of the strangest, most bleak times in my life. I was isolated with a bunch of monks who didn’t talk, in a monastery miles from anywhere, my computer crashed, my friend was dying, and then Labour lost the election. All in the space of a week.

The last time I saw Bapu was the day before he died. Once again I was the nearest person to him, despite being 60 miles away, so was the one who was visiting most often. He’d come out of the coma by then and could nod and smile and make hand gestures. I went up a few times, held his hand and talked to him, passed messages on from his friends. His eyes lit up and a lovely smile came over his features whenever I mentioned certain people’s names. It was obvious he had loved them all.

This next bit is very difficult for me. I was about to leave. I asked Bapu if he wanted me to come back tomorrow? He shook his head and gave me this look. It was unmistakable. His lips curled with such anger, such scorn. He would have bared his teeth if he had any. I didn’t know where it came from or what I had done. The anger was almost palpable. There was no denying it. He made this hand gesture, putting the fingers and thumb of one hand in a circle as if clutching something, and then moving it back and forth. He was calling me a wanker.

That was the last time I ever saw him.

I spent days trying to work out what had happened, why he had suddenly shifted on me. What a legacy to leave your friend. Earlier he’d tried to get me to get him a cup of coffee. He was cheerful… or as cheerful as you can be trussed up in a hospital bed with tubes down your throat. I scoured through our conversations to try to figure it out.

There was only one possible explanation. I’d spoken to one of the nurses about his family earlier, saying they were not the sort of family to show their affections openly. As I said at the beginning, they were more inclined to insult each other than to say corny stuff like “I love you”. That was true. But Bapu had only just reconciled with them after years of estrangement. He was the black sheep of the family, the crazy hippie, the mad astrologer magician with strange habits and a flat full of idols. The rest of them had lived conventional lives, with regular hours and mortgages. I guess I shouldn’t have spoken to the nurse. I guess it was a bit crass and a bit clumsy under the circumstances. But I’d been up to see him a number of times and it was not always easy to know what to say. It’s hard sitting by the bedside of a dying man. All the normal props of conversation were missing. We couldn’t even talk about astrology. I guess I just blurted something out unthinkingly, which had led to this: my last moment with a friend of 25 years or more, being called a wanker and told to fuck off.

So that’s it. You can’t get more final than that.

But there is one more thing. He did actually leave me something other than a bad memory. It’s a statue of Shiva that he had obviously bought on one of his trips to India. Shiva in the form of Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance, made of polished brass which catches the light, just over 10 inches tall. Exquisite, graceful, energetic, wild, expressive, Shiva has four arms and three eyes, with a nest of dreadlocks flying out from behind his head and a snake around his neck. He is dancing on a corpse in a circle of fire, poised in a classical dance pose, making these precise hand gestures. He’s not calling me a wanker.

I knew it was coming. Before he went into hospital, Bapu had said he was going to leave me something. I was supposed to have received it at his funeral, but of course that never happened because of Covid. His brother finally sent it towards the end of the year. It arrived on Christmas Eve and was the best present I ever had.

I’m looking at it now. It’s sitting in front of me as I write these words. It is speaking to me. I wanted to ask its forgiveness for having said such a stupid thing the last time I saw my friend. It’s too late to ask Bapu’s forgiveness. But the statue just stands there in its eternal poise, a benign look upon its face.

It’s no use asking me for forgiveness, it says. You have to forgive yourself.


CJ Stone is an author, columnist and feature writer. He has written seven books, and columns and articles for many newspapers and magazines.

Read more of CJ Stone’s work herehere and here.


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The captured prince

Mother, vaster than their home
was absent.
He looked to see if any of the furniture
was out of its place.
The glass etched tray and gin bottle
stood on the sill of the high window.
Carefully undoing the bottle lid
He took a long pull of the liquid
Carefully refilling the bottle with water.
He stood quiet as a post.
Warmth and heat entered his young body.
Mouth open he surveyed the Edgware road
The view glimmered and shimmered softly.

 

 

 

 

 

Nick  Victor
Photo Jane Johns

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The farmer runs into his wife’s flesh

 

What Is a Dry Orgasm? Facts About Dry Orgasm With No Ejaculation

 

The farmer’s wife runs outside
into the night-time dry citrus orchard,
naked, shivering in her feverish heat,

and the farmer runs behind her
panting, calling her name,
but is it really hers? Sometimes
the farmer doubts that tag.
In the darkness the crows caw

as if to usher in the morning
that will bring senses to the farmer’s wife.
Tomorrow is Sunday. The market will
sweat beneath the inadequate shades.
The farmer runs into his wife’s flesh.
She shivers, pants, cries. Her name runs far,
beyond the reaches of hearing.

 

 

 

 

Kushal Poddar

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Without Honours (1986)

The interviewer
Waves in for close-up
As an old woman
Mimics foreign words
Her father overheard
In France,
A few miles behind
Allied lines
Seventy odd years ago:
Breaking his stride
Outside the high walled courtyard
As a boy, not seventeen
He later learned,
Pleading in English
Is hauled out
To a pock marked post
Facing a Khaki line,
Moments later
He is silent,
A single volley’s echo
Hammering the sky.

She turns
To face the camera,
Her voice blurs
In re-creation:
“I want me ma,”
She cries.

 

 

 

 

Kevin Patrick McCann
Illustration Nick Victor

 

From Still Pondering   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Still-Pondering-Kevin-Patrick-McCann/dp/1788768671/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Patrick+McCann+Still+Pondering&qid=1573366856&sr=8-1

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In close proximity (for PS)

 

Abyssinia

Abyssinia

Punk Poet Priestess

Priestess Punk Poet

Poet Priestess Punk

Symphony Hall

Free Money 

behind doors closed

bag dress Jolene 

Central Park

Levi jeans new

searching out the infinite eyes

time on your side & place

Elgin Theatre put a face

to who you were

destined to be

New Year’s Eve

Palladium

Fuck the Clock hallucination

Bowery Ballroom

Tea Room proprietress infatuation

all alone and lonely

all alone and lonely

in amongst the crowd 

the mother you are Meltdown

Writing Room Boathouse

someone triggered 

in close proximity

facsimile

facsimile 

Banga Bath

with daughter on the street 

I have lost my page

Central Hall

I have lost my page

age and rage

rage and age

age and age and age . . .

 

your face I see every time

who are you to me?

you are who to me?

who to me are you?

I will wake up

I will wake up

I will wake up

 

Eventually! 

 

 

The Red Propellers

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Pay with a Poem

Robert Montgomery

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Steams Groove 5

Tracklist:
Les McCann – Harlem Buck Dance Strut
American Gypsy – Inside Out
Frankie Smith – Double Dutch Bus
Minnie Ripperton – Everytime He Comes Around
The Turtles – I’m Chief Kamanawanalea (We’re the Royal Macadamia Nuts)
Lyn Christopher – Take Me With You
Idris Muhammad – Could Heaven Ever be Like This
Lonnie Liston Smith – Expansions
Marva Whitney – Unwind Yourself
The Isley Brothers – Fight the Power
Marvin Gaye – Main Theme from Trouble Man
Marvin Gaye – “T” Plays it Cool
Pleasure – Joyous

 

Steam  Stock

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Alan Rickman RIP

 “Remembering Alan Rickman, an extraordinary actor and man. Your fans, your friends, your family, will keep you in their soul always and forever, with love and respect.
I miss you Alan”

 
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
 
 
Elena Caldera
 
 
 
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Mild Davis

 by Pascal Wyse and Joe Berger

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Greenpeace UK urge ban on supertrawlers to protect marine areas

 

Hi claire,

A few days ago, Boris Johnson went on TV and said this: after Brexit the UK “will be able to ban huge hoover trawlers that come in and hoover up everything off the bottom of the sea”. [1]

Well, it’s been a week since Brexit, and Johnson’s had months to plan for it, so it’s time for him to turn those words into action. To start with, the government must immediately ban destructive industrial fishing vessels from the UK’s Marine Protected Areas.

300,245 people have so far called on the government to ban industrial fishing in Marine Protected Areas. Can you add your name to help ramp up the pressure?

Every year, industrial fishing vessels like supertrawlers and bottom trawlers spend thousands of hours fishing in the UK’s Marine Protected Areas.[2]

These areas were set up to safeguard important marine habitats and iconic species like dolphins and porpoises. Supertrawlers and bottom trawlers threaten the health of these sensitive ecosystems – they have no business being anywhere near them.

The government has repeatedly said that once Brexit is done they’ll be able to increase marine protection here at home. Whatever your view on it – now that Brexit’s done there are no more excuses for inaction. Let’s hold them to account on this and make sure they don’t break their promise.

Call on the government to ban supertrawlers and bottom trawlers from Marine Protected Areas:

 
 

Thanks for your support on this. I hope you’re doing well at this really difficult time.

Philip

Oceans Team, Greenpeace UK

[1] Greenpeace UK urge ban on supertrawlers to protect marine areas

[2] Supertrawlers ‘making a mockery’ of UK’s protected seas

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Lockdown Chekhov

 


Photo: Jan Woolf. Amiee Lou Wood as Sonya and Toby Jones as Vanya on my MacBook Air. 

I watched the recent production of Uncle Vanya on my computer just before the announcement of Tier 5, that is starting to feel like a 5th act in a play.   Or is Vanya a 5 tier play?  There were lots of tears in it, dealing as it does, with everybody’s lack of fulfilment, and Vanya’s love struck niece Sonia, watching the love of her life (Dr Astrov) walk out of the door.  She has to return to her miserable uncle’s side when he learns that the estate he’s given his life to, is to be sold to fund his professor brother’s upgraded lifestyle in the Moscow salons.  There is much to say about this play – how it captures and prophesies both Marx and Freud’s notion of the neurotic bourgeoisie always on the look out for something better. It was a very fine production, with stellar acting drawing on contemporaneously generated emotions, and some terrific eco-politics. But please don’t read this as a serious review, rather an intro’ to a beautiful speech.  Maybe it’s the lockdown play?  Locked down literally as the production at the Harold Pinter Theatre was due to go to New York last April.  Covid put paid to that, so it went on telly instead. I found Sonia’s final speech a glass half full of lockdown tonic.

VANYA. [To SONIA, stroking her hair] Oh, my child, I am miserable; if you only knew how miserable I am!

SONIA. What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, we shall see that life is beautiful; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile—and—we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. [SONIA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his hands. She speaks in a weary voice] We shall rest. [TELEGIN plays softly on the guitar] We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [She wipes away her tears] My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying! [Weeping] You have never known what happiness was, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. [She embraces him] We shall rest. [The WATCHMAN’S rattle is heard in the garden; TELEGIN plays softly; MME. VOITSKAYA writes something on the margin of her pamphlet; MARINA knits her stocking] We shall rest.

 

Jan Woolf

 

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THE DYING OF ELSIE TANNER


An unwashed plate. Egg yolk and bacon rind.
Last symbols of normality
amongst starched white sheets
and strange, crisp voices.

Fashions flash before you, favourite snaps
from a cherished album;
Manchester’s nightlife, neon lights, cabs,
a season on the Spanish Riviera.

The class of ’35… what happened
to them all? Too late now,
the working class girls.
Whose arm is it around you here?

You’re unsure, craving for a cigarette.
Dying is a silent movie
a black and white soliloquy
whispered to an empty house.

 

Mike Mcnamara

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Let us stay with you

 
   Let us stay with you now
   Throw our arms around you
   Hasten to your heartbeat
     ……………………………………………………………………
  
   Looking from the bridge, I see
   Ribbons of dreams
   Fluttering in the wind
   Hundreds of bright dragonflies
   Beneath the canopy of trees
   Circling above the stream
   Between stones & rocks
   In sun & shade
 
I look again, my eyes tease out
A dozen figures
Blending with the rocky floor
As water rushes in between
 
I see balanced stones & rocks
On one another
Now a family of tall creatures
Mother, father, uncle
Sister, cousin, friends and lovers
A garrulous family gathering
Taking care of me
 
 
©Christopher 2019  [email protected]
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My City

 

Before you go further, smiles drop from 
the bachelor’s pad and unclog the streets 
yes, it’s that easy and always
open for big hearts and minds of the commoners
they are nearly off the colour wheel,
Kolkata attains live without boundaries.

Sunlight falls straight down the boulevard
the midday breeze enters into a conversation
with the pedestrians
everything is happening so slowly,
the skyline is still forming and changing
but it looks pale blue.

Daylight breaking high above the Monument
expired words are buried in Maidan
shades of green keep shifting

 

Gopal Lahiri

 

Short Bio:

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 22 books published, including four jointly edited books. His poetry is also published across various anthologies as well as in eminent journals of India and abroad. His poems are translated in 12 languages.

 

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Bundle


January 1st 2021

 

Playtime as puppies, we bundled together,

Free from a tether.

This was our scrum down, our huddle of bums,

Arms around shoulders, our cuddles of tums,

Our primary school fun day, our game of rough tumbling,

Dumped inhibitions, it’s all up to us,

No monitors mooching and making a fuss.

End of term freedom, new sisters born,

Bristling haircuts, spikily shorn,

Clusters of skirts, embarrassing shorts, long trousers too;

Sprawl balling of bodies’ in hullabaloo.

No brakes to restrict us, we’re celebrating,

Chartists’ votes counted, feels so liberating.

Doing it our way,

For our Very Ecstatic day,

Cuddling pushes and tugs,

With British bull dog[ii] pin-down hugs;

We’re puzzles cracking Christmas in knotted arms and legs.

One second we’re nestling,

The next we’re all wrestling,

And feigning cruel clenches,

With headlocks and wrist-snapping wrenches,

Released with a twist to our whirring cartwheeling,

Bouncing for drop-kicks, sending pals reeling.

We’re swimming along through currents of strangers,

 Familiar friends, no chance of dangers.

Loved ones returned from our present past.

We engaged with clear headed James Connolly at last.[iii]

We felt the itchy worsted waistcoats of Tyler, Lilburne, Kett.[iv]

Snuggled in the flowing sashes of suffragettes,

Whisped the tickling tashes of Burns, Mann and Tillett.[v]

Whooping miners from the first deep mines smudged us in coal dust,

And throated the choir with the steel men in trust.

The match girls[vi] and mill girls joined in and flinging

Warm arms around us whirlygig singing.

Mudlarking the Thames, the Taff, canoeing the Clyde,

Dockers threw contraband sweets for our fairground ride.

Everyone kicked off our victorious dance with raucous songs.

The chimney sweeping kids and tanners,[vii] oblivious to their pongs,

Stuck out their chests,

They knew at last they are the best

And nimbly tumble through our joy,

Welcome, just about, to share our bath toys.

Winstanley[viii] with his Wigan twang,

Anne Askew,[ix] so pure she sang

The truth that no Church can

Interpret the word of god to man.

We are human, god is no more,

Our own humanity we must adore.

Some couldn’t understand how Cockney consonants got lost in Bow.

Some thought Cornish a bit creamy, slow,

Others thought the Geordie accent was Glaswegian squashed,

And East Anglian was Bristolian coshed.

And as for Scousers – they were like a crocodile of cycling kids with musical spokes

Clattering cracking fast firework jokes.

Young Welsh speaking shepherds whistled from the sodden Valleys,

Confusing the gangs from back to back, back alleys

Who’d never heard such alveolar, or glottal palatal fricatives,

With their bursting plosives

Crashing on the dental;

All the Essex estuary oiks went mental.

Highland Gaelic aspired across the glens, curled with supple seals and heather,

They found more words than us for types of snowy weather.

The Lancs rolled rs, the Dorsets all said Oy not I,

While, to mix it up, the Yorkies in place of yes said aye.

Big Bob[x] bundled in and we were properly hell raising,

No prisoners, all guns blazin’.

Stop the talkin’, start the shootin’,

When they’re down, just put the boot in,

First stranglehold, and upper cut,

Then finish ‘em off with a cracking head butt.

We discovered, as we carnivalled,

Our dialects kept us enthralled.

Our hoose and our harse, our owce and our hem

Were never a hice[xi] as it is for them

So dumb in their globalising syndrome,

Instead, this mongrel language is our only home.

All of us now, with you and me,

Together we are this shared country.

 

Doug Nicholls

 

[i] At primary school there’d occasionally be a ‘bundle’ in the playground. Everyone would suddenly jump onto each other to form a human ball of wriggling, giggling, flailing laughter and semi-serious fighting influenced by old school Saturday afternoon wrestling, all phoney pain and exaggerated moves. It was the opposite of social distancing and expressed a primitive desire to get physically close in the litter. I imagine in this account that kids and campaigners join us in the bundle from all over the country and our history as we tumble with pleasure for the newly free Britain on 1st January 2021.

[ii] British bull dog is a child’s game a bit like tag with cage fighting rules. Runners between two lines at either end of the field of play are all fair game for pinning down as cruelly as possible for three seconds by the initially randomly selected ‘bulldogs’ who menacingly shout British bull dog 1,2,3 as quickly as possible to give their supine prey no chance. If so pinned for three nano seconds, the victim becomes a new bulldog hunter themselves and chases others ferociously. The last toddler standing has the forlorn task of taking on the entire savage pack and usually gets flattened one step across the starting line.It was once a staple game in cub and scout groups , it was eventually banned in schools for its tendency to overburden hospital A&E wards.

[iii] The Scottish born Irish trade union and socialist leader.

[iv] Wat Tyler peasant rebel leader, John Lilburne Leveller leader, Robert Kett leader of the often neglected 1549 rebellions.

[v] John Burns, Tom Mann, Ben Tillett, socialist and trade union leaders.

[vi] The great Match Girls strike 1888 that inspired so many.

[vii] Leather tanners were not always welcome guests at parties due to the time they spent at work with gallons of urine and other unxious potions of animal fat and brains used in the tanning process.

[viii] Gerard Winstanley, leader of the Digger Movement in the mid seventeenth century and great prose writer of early pre industrial communist ideas.

[ix] One of the many Protestant martyrs whose role in creating our post feudal world and democratic character is often neglected.

[x] Bob Crow socialist and trade union leader who formed No2EU in 2009 and really got things moving.

[xi] Hice is the received pronunciation of house as in, snootily, the Hice of Lords. Christ Church College in Oxford is often referred to as the Hice.

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Step Forth Divine Human

 

 

The forces at work to subdue humanity into abject slavery are well aware of the rising tide of consciousness sweeping across our world at this time. They know their own existence is under threat due to the rising momentum of the aspiration for truth.

The human being must now stand-up straight, mask-free and proud. Because that is the only way he/she will be recognisable as a warm blooded, essentially compassionate living example of the species.

Those using the mask are already signifying obeisance to the lie. The mask is a symbol of retreat into fear. What’s more in the near future it will be revealed to be the cause of serious health problems in its own right. This is, of course, one of its roles within the ‘great Covid reset’. The genocide disguised behind ‘the mask of caring’.

Once the individual human being grasps the nature of this great deception, stands straight and declares herself/himself to be an expression of the divine omnipotence from whence all life emerges – and where all life is heading – then truly a new springboard for the flowering of mankind is announced.

For in our defeat of fear and all the ill-will presently being afflicted upon humanity, we will have vanquished the final obstruction to our emancipation and enlightenment.

All the ‘elite’ despotic criminals’ plans for the future of mankind presently on display as ‘New World Order’ ‘Great Reset’ ‘One World Government’ and ‘Transhuman Singularity’ will dissolve away into nothingness once the light of this great awakening quickens and penetrates the veins of our living planet.

It is not a question of waiting for some ‘outside event’ to bring-about such a cleansing. It is our courageous stepping forward in the fullness of our divine human nature which sparks the arousal of benign macrocosmic energies into their conjunction with our innately divine microcosmic mirror energies. The two must come to meet if we are to be the creators of the real ‘Great Reset’, which is nothing less than the defeat of the darkest lies that imprison us – by the light of abundant truth. The truth that sets us free.

Victory is assured. Do not hold back. Your soul awaits your command. Rip away the coward’s mask of victim-hood and cease hiding behind the falsification of your divinity. Step forth, cast aside those who hold this world to ransom. Brave spirit that you truly are, this is your greatest hour and our greatest victory.

 

Julian Rose

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and teacher. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly prescient reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

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Muscle bound

Elegy for the Sports Palace, 828 Valencia Street, San Francisco, 1972 – 1998

Weights clanged
on the concrete floor,
banging out the percussion line
under groans and grunts of
“EEYah!”
“Uh-unh!”
“Pssshah,” the sharp exhale
pushing a heavy lift.

At 6a.m. we could see our breath in
the Mission District storefront gym
so we came swaddled in baggy sweats.
We were the breakfast club at the Sports Palace—
Pete warming up for his construction job,
Joan in the process of becoming James,
Vito the counselor sliding out of his cherry
Ghia after working overnight at Juvie,
Sam and Jon who bickered
like partners in a bad marriage
after years as salesmen
for the same car dealer,
the 90-pound poet who lived
around the corner, and the stove-up
unemployed ex-Marine, ex-rugby player
known to all as “The Animal.”

We inhaled the rusty-nail smell
of the metal weights, the scent of menthol-rub
and sweat tinged with beer and garlic.
We used the old-school tools—
barbells and dumbbells and benches—
curling, extending, squatting, pulling and
pressing to exhaustion.

We challenged each other to
one more rep, razzed one another
on the lazy days. We heard about Jon’s
divorce, Vito’s latest gal and Pete’s
weeks of living on Top Ramen after he
hurt his knee at work and some fuzzbrain in
the Comp office lost his claim.

One day a few guys from the donut shop next door
tailed Joan as she left, taunting “What are you,
anyway? Maybe we should find out.”
The Animal saw this and hauled himself up
from the saggy-springed chair by the door
where he was resting with a crossword puzzle.
He charged out with Jon and Pete
in tow, and told those bozos loud enough
for the whole street to hear
that they’d be fucked
if they messed with his friend.

We should’ve seen it coming
when the plume-hatted ladies
from St. Mark’s A.M.E. across the street
started losing their Sunday parking spots
to real estate agents, when
the used-furniture store
went out of business, replaced by
a boutique named “Therapy,”
and the dive on the corner of 19th Street
turned into an oxygen bar.
Then my landlady hiked the rent
on my apartment and The Animal
got booted out of his.

But still, it hit us hard
when the Sports Palace lost its lease
after 30 years.

Sam and Jon and I went
up the street to the new gym with some of
the same people but it was just a gym.
Pete came back from his knee injury and got a new
new life teaching PE, and we lost track of
James and Vito.

One day a year later I rode by on my bike
and saw The Animal, khakis riding lower
on his butt than ever, weedy hair
overrunning his collar, staring in
at the little art gallery that filled the
space of the old Sports Palace
with splashy abstract canvases and
angular papier-maché figures in tangerine
and spring green.

I didn’t get back to the old spot much,
but when I happened by
a few years later
I saw the space vacant,
a sign advertising Thai-Malaysian takeout
still tacked over the door,
and the plateglass windows
staring blankly at three men
sacked out on the sidewalk,
not moving a muscle.

 

 

© 2020 Marcy Rein

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Insurrection against democracy

Thursday, January 07, 2021

(Above photo is © The Wall Street Journal)

At almost the last minute, the elders of the US Republican Party seem finally to be in revolt against the populist takeover of ‘the Grand Old Party’ (GOP), a takeover that began with Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. His semi-insider’s rebellion against Washington, which morphed into the Alt-Right Tea Party, has now hopefully ended with the failure of an armed insurrection seeking to prevent the democratic transfer of power to President elect Joe Biden.

Gingrich at least had an electoral mandate for a ‘Contract with America’ that threatened to limit federal government rather than overthrow it. However he also showed his contempt for Washington by bringing government to an almost literal standstill rather than budge on the assumed overriding legitimacy of his radical right agenda. Forward to the Noughties and Senator John McCain, a man with a ton of personal integrity, believed he could utilise the insurrectionary strength of the radical right-wing activists (who’d by this stage arguably taken over the grassroots of the GOP), by appointing their cheerleader Sarah Palin as his running mate. His failed presidential bid was the death-knell of her political career, but it also emphasised how much power this activist strain with an ingrained hostility to the workings of the federal state had in the Republican Party.

Then followed two terms of a Democrat president of partly African-American heritage, who tried to reconstruct aspects of the big state in medical care and who sought to roll back the imprisonment of US foreign policy to the preferences of unreliable Middle Eastern allies and armchair big power strategists. Obama himself symbolised something ethnically new, but his greater offence for some was returning the US to the politics of Robert Kennedy: radical amelioration. In the late ‘60s big spending Republican Richard Nixon utilised the social and economic fears of white working and middle class America but he would have barely understood the radical GOP elements that venerated Vietnam vet McCain would try to contain two nearly four decades later.

Yet this GOP trend’s name, the Tea Party, was a highly conscious evocation of America’s contemporary birth in trauma against established power: British colonialists in the original version, sclerotic federal state power in its more modern incarnation. That original American Revolution never wholly abandoned a suspicion of perceptibly overweening power, and this arguably ideological tendency would soon play its part in fuelling a civil war. America’s militia and anti-state tradition, born in revolt against the British, never completely died, finding an ongoing outlet in the constitutional right to bear arms.

Tea Party 2 never went away either. Donald Trump has always played to a GOP base that has continued to be driven by those who for the most part aren’t well off, are overwhelmingly but not exclusively white, and who strongly distrust federal government. The vocalised references heard in yesterday’s insurrection to wanting to take back control of ‘our building’ (the Capitol) may not have been informed by a deep appreciation of their nation’s history. However it reflected a deeply engrained wellspring of opinion in the US, one greater than Donald Trump’s articulation of it.

If the state is acting in a way that your American political tradition informs you is beyond its historic remit, and if those who will once again take over its machinery embody a political culture that favours centralising state power to further general liberty when you see state power as something that takes liberty away, then it’s time for action. The absurdities of alleged electoral fraud are as nothing compared to an electoral outcome that was ‘stolen’ in the sense that an American political tradition, a reimagined celebration of independence in 1776 (a date etched on many of the flags yesterday), has been defeated. This defeat has been wrought by those coming from what these insurrectionists see as an alien American tradition, one that in some of their eyes now even extends to the occupant of the vice-presidency too.

The politics of those who articulate their ‘imagined’ version of correct political tradition are rarely pretty. Arguably Trump is simply the most successful cypher for it in contemporary global politics. No fascist, this man’s ideological simplicities are grounded in a very genuine American political tradition of hostility to the centralised state even as he paradoxically displays an authoritarian’s disdain for ‘states’ rights’. While loving the shiny phallic delights of American armaments, and the money and perceived jobs that come with them, Trump has never been that keen on actually using them, unlike the great majority of his post-1945 predecessors.

Those in revolt outside and even inside the Capitol building yesterday can find many bedfellows across global politics. Only a few though can boast that their commander in chief is actually the nation’s too (if only for another two weeks in the US case, rather longer in Brazil and Hungary). However the politics of dissenting tribes, often organised in militias or at least rebellious groups, is a growing feature of politics globally. In the Middle East it arguably never went away, but it’s growing. In Iraq and Yemen for example it is rendering states an even greater fiction than they were under would-be strong men who were personally powerful while their governments barely functioned.

Virtual tribes in the west gain greater strength from the perceived outrages of the ‘other’ against which they essentially define themselves. Brexit Britain, at least for its more vehement supporters, is reimagined as a sovereign nation that has ‘taken back’ political control. However as the UK heads to its inevitable break up, power in its English rump resides with a largely unaccountable elite drawn from a mostly narrow and incestuous economic network easily able to incorporate a few wetbacks. For members of the UK tribe that defines itself against Brexit’s leaders and followers, then political majorities matter less than an imagined version of what is right, moral, even somehow more caring, regardless of the democratic inequities of European Council and European Commission decision-making.

The popular understanding and acceptance of democracy as an elected, accountable platform for the creation of politically acceptable compromise, is almost dead. Its procedures don’t have to be interrupted, as they were in the Capitol yesterday, by men wearing Ku Klux Klan or Nazi insignia for what the radical left once branded as ‘bourgeois democracy’ to be seen as at best ineffectual or at worst a tool of cultural or class enemies. Make no mistake there are many on the European far left who can only dream of a relatively safe opportunity to ‘occupy’ legislatures seen as the plaything of political enemies. The ‘greater good’, projected proletarian power, or a militant attachment to the UK’s inevitable ‘European destiny’ are all seemingly acceptable justifications to discredit democratic decision-making if the cause is supposedly just enough.

In writing this though I am struck by the fact that democracy in its indirect, representative, form is not proving able to meet one of the fundamental prerequisites of government: providing security and protection. Social contracts are often mentioned en passant by western politicians. However, as the arguable basis of governance, and of the slow and sometimes violent evolution of democracy in Britain for example, social contracts require an exchange of the state or sovereign’s protection for popular consent to their rule. The contemporary assertion of identity politics across the political spectrum throughout the west (and beyond) is evidence that the old democratic political compact has already broken down. The inability of so-called sovereign governments to meaningfully address global environmental collapse – surely the ultimate test of social security and protection for all their peoples – is making a mockery of the basis of democratic consent to political power. Without consent then what we in the west call democracy cannot function. Shared consent to our rulers, and shared agreement to the basis on which they rule over us, is ebbing fast, and not just among radical right insurrectionists in the US.   

  

 

 
Neil Partrick
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Viewing Distance

Which way are we facing?
What words are they saying?
Let’s reach for the border.
This is how far we can go.
Can we go further?
Where is your name on this?
Are you willing to use force?
I think we’re in shot.
I’m tempted to identify
the light source.
Viewing distance six paces.
Something’s about
to start, but what?

 

 

Tim Cumming
Picture Rupert Loydell

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The Death of Democracy

 

Washington D.C.,
January 6th, 2021,
“Democracy died here today”,
reads the epitaph

________

 

all that was wanted was respect,
if the purpose was to harm you weak little men,
you would have been harmed,
America sick,
for a generation or two,
liberty and justice gone,
replaced by red tape,
and gutless judges,
and bureaucrats,
just admit the truth,
the capitol is not the “people’s” house,
nor is the government,
it is yours,
you little men,
weak and corrupt,
we, deplorables,
tried and failed,
no longer to participate,
or vote,
we will hunker down,
and protect our own,
awaiting the revolution,
the same as our brethen on the left,
though bastards, they may be,
America dead for a number of years,
was buried yesterday.

 

Doug Polk

 

 

.

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THE DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA

The chair that your father once sat in is gone.
Got dragged off to the dump to be grabbed by some homeless men…
who tonight will sit in it around their campfire
recalling the horrors of their experiences
is various US wars.

They could be having such a fine (old) time
it ain’t cool spreading rumors…
but sometimes they get a little concerned
how no one is ever at home any more…
in America…in America
in the divided states of America.

Now the streets are all empty except for the sound
of some fool preacher on a PA about a mile away.
And though his sermon is surely as loud as its lonely,
don’t bother listening ‘cause nothing is ever said.
Why do they listen when nothing is ever said?

He could be having such a fine old time.
it ain’t cool spreading rumors
but still he gets a little concerned
how no one is ever at home any more…
in America…in America
in the divided states of America.

Hear them AKs a’popping
See our school kids a’dropping?
Our core of decency gone
See how the neighbors now look kinda wrong?
See how up becomes down,
And the whole world gets so turned around?
And did you notice
That wherever you go
up there on the TV
That goddamn Fox news
is ALWAYS on.

We could be having such a fine old time
it ain’t cool spreading rumors
but sometimes we get concerned
how no one is ever at home any more
how no one is ever at home any more
in the divided states of America
in the divided states of America
in the divided states of America.

 

 

from the album Misfit’s Jubilee
Jim White.

 

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Chillis.

They’re a vivid, corporeal crimson.
Rich, red as fresh blood spilt in
Himalayan streets, finger-thick,
clawed in a half moon. The depth
of cherries in colour, ripe red and
fiery though huddled in retreat.

Oak green stalks prick some of
them, twisting wisps of fine stick
something to tie them with. They
lie in a still brace of vividness,
almost asleep, barely touching.
I poke them gingerly, unsure.

Bring them to my nostrils, breathe
in carefully, like they might bite me.
The scent is feint, barely discernible
over the lingering ghost of thyme
in the kitchen. They feel waxy
to my skin; not unpleasantly so.

Each half dozen is unkempt;
each individual unique to its partners.
Flaming snowflakes, moulded,
twisted into lengths. Cool. They
change daily. These chillis are,
it crosses my mind, almost me.

 

 

   John Gimblett

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Street writer part fifteen – Learning to Be a Poet

 

I’m taking the example for this article from a time in my life I am not very proud of when I look back at it, like watching a girlfriend walking out your door and you know her beauty is never going to walk through that door again.

There was one time in my life where I was learning to be a street fighter.

I spent more or less four years in that game.

It all started from bullying and egos.

I remember a primary school teacher hitting me on the head with a large dictionary and it put the fear of god in me and I was scared to go to school because of that incident.

I was scared of him.

There was another guy where I lived who was seen as a bully and he threatened my sister one time and I walked out to confront him but I just froze when he said ‘what ya gonna do about it boy?’

Eventually a skater friend of mine when I was in high school fell out with me (I found out it was over girls in the end) and he used to try and entice me into a fight but I just couldn’t do it (even when his older brother threatened me).

The BIG event that got me the most was the carnival fight…

There was a guy who lived in my hometown who just did not like me at all (even though he didn’t even know me properly)…

He just disliked me!

I was at our local carnival one night and I was talking to an ex-girlfriend’s mother and as I walked out he was drunk with his boys. As I walked away when he caught my eye – he walked up to me and sprayed beer in my face and I continued to walk on. As I walked away all I heard from across the road was a young female voice shouting ‘PAUL!’ – I turned around and he was in the air trying to kick me like he was Jackie Chan – I grabbed him by the shoulders and told him I didn’t want to hit him – then one of his boys hit me with a WKD bottle and I thought it was him so I smacked him with one right hook and he went down. Next thing I knew I had all of his friends grabbing me and trying to take a chunk out of me. Eventually I slipped through them and got free and I ran home. As I stood at my bedroom window and looking for revenge that was the start of my street fighter training and I didn’t look back to see the beauty of life until four years later.

I engrossed myself in the training arts like boxing and wrestling and weightlifting and long distanced running.

I learnt a lot of this stuff from a man called Geoff Thompson who spent ten years on the door as a bouncer and he pressure tested what worked in a thing he called Animal Day training sessions.

Basically it is dirty boxing and wrestling.

I did these sessions with my father and his training partners.

I started off as an 8 stone teenager and when I ended it all I was tipping the scales at 12 stone of solid muscle mass with 5% body fat.

I ended it all in London.

I beat up a young guy in a gym in London at a mixed martial arts training gym and as I looked at myself in the mirror I looked like an ugly motherfucker while spitting blood down the toilet bowl.

I remember I was training with Geoff the next morning in Coventry and I was just tapping the pads with light knuckles and Geoff asked me what was wrong and I told him this was not for me anymore.

I became the thing I hated.

Also, I finished a book that night called: The Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda!

If you get a chance to read this I would recommend you do!

What I am trying to say is this:

If you are learning to be a poet, engross yourself in every bit of material you can get your hands on and smother yourself with it!

And if you find yourself in a similar place I was in: don’t waste your time because time is precious because you can never get that back.

So, waste your time learning to be a poet.

Believe me it’s better than punching people in the face or getting punched or choking people out into submission or lifting heavy weights until you get bell’s palsy (true story) or running until your legs seize so bad you think your knees are about to snap backwards and break them in the process (another true story).

I’m leaving you with a poem called: seeking him out.

Look for your truth through words not fists!

Love

PBJ

<3

 

 

Seeking him out

 

I sought him out over a young email

To learn to be a street fighter with my fists

Instead he showed me God

In many faces and in multiple books

Now I live by his soft love and words

Learning to be a delicate poet

Like a leaf falling onto my foot

And I turn it into tea

 

 

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THE ACTION

Of a few people

might be just

enough to do it.

 

Peter Dent
Illustration: Atlanta Wiggs

 

.

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Fare Well – Edinburgh’s Hogmanay 2020

Words – Jackie Kay
Soundtrack – Niteworks
Visual development artist – Gary Wilson
Drone display and film production – Celestial
Additional drone footage – Arms and Legs
Read by – David Tennant, Siobhan Redmond, Lorne MacFadyen

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sullen rain laments

sullen rain laments
….after traveling & travails 
from so far away & journeyed
upon waves & clouds & wind
only to plummet onto earth
as mere Icarus once fell from sky

 

 

TERRENCE SYKES

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Covid Connections: Sam in Portugal

 

Alan Dearling

Sam Wilkinson and myself have been orbital around the new Traveller festi-scene for many years. In more normal times, we used to cross paths at a variety of the smaller, more alternative festivals. Like some of the best things in life that we tend to take for granted, she’s just there…and the world is much the better for it.

Sam has continued to travel in Europe in a live-in vehicle during the whole period of the Covid pandemic lockdowns. I’ve not been travelling out of the UK and the last festival I worked at – was indoors in Stepney, London. That was ‘London Re-Mixed’ at the very beginning of March 2020. Since then, apart from one party night at the Golden Lion in Todmorden,  alongside virtually all other promoters, venue owners, bands, performers, sound and site crews, photographers and writers – it’s been business-as-‘abnormal’! On-line events, zoom calls, recordings done on phones and in home studios, and interaction mostly via social media networks. Strange times, unsettling and sadly riddled with bad-news stories of physical and mental illness and worse. Plus, more and more issues dividing individuals and communities, such as what constitutes a ‘substantial meal’, Covid passports, vaccines, Covid Tier levels, travel restrictions and bans, causes and effects of the virus and more.

 

I look forward to the times-a-changing and future opportunities to help in the building, creation and nurturing of a better ‘normal’, a more compassionate and creative, co-operative, eco-centric world.

A theme close to Sam Wilkinson’s heart-lands.

In the meantime, a few images which have been shared recently with me by real friends and colleagues, folk who I cannot meet up with in this dysfunctional time. Plus one or two of my own images relating to these extraordinary days, weeks and months that we are trying our best to live and survive through.  

Hopefully, one or two will raise a smile.

Luv Om.     Alan. 

  

 

 

Life on the Road during Covid-19 – Part 3: Portugal

 

Sam Wilkinson

 

A few months ago while on lockdown in Morocco I wrote a couple of pieces about how life was like on the road there for myself and my partner and the effect the pandemic was having in general to van dwellers. We finished off our Moroccan adventure with a few days in Essaouira and then a few days in Chefchaouen, both normally very touristy. We felt very lucky to visit just as lockdown was easing with no other tourists in sight!

Waiting for the Ferry to Spain

 

We were also lucky enough to make our way back to Portugal fairly painlessly with the help of the UK embassy who got us and our van a place on a ferry carrying mostly French nationals out of Morocco. Cases of Covid-19 were on the rise in Morocco as they started easing the lockdown, and we felt it was time to head back to Portugal which is where we are normally based most of the year. Portugal had done fairly well in keeping cases of the virus fairly low compared to other EU countries and deaths were also low. As we travelled through the south of Spain from the ferry we found people subdued, Spain had suffered many cases and deaths and their lockdown had been strict. The normal loud chatter of the Spanish in the bars was almost non-existent.

 

On entering Portugal things seem more relaxed and people generally happier. For us personally we were happy to be back in Portugal. It was mid-July and the summer was quieter than usual. There was a definite increase in the amount of rental campervans about for the whole summer. At a guess I imagine the growth in campervan holidays in general combined with the pandemic had led to an increase in people choosing holidays that are more self-contained. On the whole though, things were very quiet with what seemed like mostly Spanish tourists around.

A Quiet Beach

 

A lot of our friends from the alternative community in the western Algarve had been posting online their views on the pandemic, from it being a hoax, being planned, being no worse than the flu, to more outrageous claims like 5G causing the pandemic and even that 5G had been installed in the street lights of the village where we spend a lot of time. I had ‘un-followed’ many Facebook friends so as not to see the more outlandish claims. One friend had shared a video claiming that 5G was incredibly dangerous. When I questioned the contents of the video, particularly the people who claimed to be ‘experts’ and pointed out that the video-makers were right-wing Trump-loving Americans, he took offence and blocked me, but not before telling me he thought Trump had some good policies.

We were reluctant to go back to the village where we used to spend a lot of time due to all the people who seemed to have been sucked into online conspiracies. A lot of them were in denial about the pandemic and so had been having parties during lockdown and had not been social distancing at all. We were much more of the mind-set that although the governments worldwide were definitely not always giving out correct information, the laws that had been passed were not necessarily necessary and the advice confusing, we believed that there was a dangerous virus and we wanted to make sure we protected ourselves and others.

What made us believe this is that every government in the world agreed that there was a pandemic of a virus that looked like it was more deadly than the flu. When do all the governments of the world agree on anything? Trump and Bolsonaro were high profile leaders that downplayed the pandemic, but there was no denying that this was real and happening. We also made sure we took in a wide range of news reporting and looked up reputable websites and journalists as well as listening to experts in their field. We researched many website articles and YouTube videos that our friends sent us and many came from conspiracy websites, info-tainers, or, people saying they were experts when they weren’t.

So we arrived back in the western Algarve where we generally park-up over the winters and as there were so few tourists we parked at the beaches. Inevitably we bumped into people we knew which sometimes was OK with everyone being respectful and keeping a distance, but more often than not we were in the minority with our views.

A Quiet Beach Car Park

Friends tried to hug and kiss us, and the first couple of times it was so quick that we let it happen! Two male friends even tried to kiss me on the lips! We then became ready for the huggers and kissers and turned them away before they got too close, with the exception of a couple of very good friends. Despite not judging any of our friends on their views or saying anything negative to them we had a few snide remarks. One friend said, “They got to you then”, when we refused to hug him and another said, “Oh you’re one of them”, for the same reason!

We also were disappointed by some of our friends’ reactions to the Black Lives Matter protests. One friend when asked what he thought of the protests said they were all Marxists. Another, when asked whether he had seen the Colston statue being taken down during the BLM protest in Bristol said, “Are we going to take down all statues then?” When I said, “Yes, any which cause offence”, he didn’t understand that concept and went onto say, “Well everyone was racist before 1900.”

What has been interesting is how the alternative community seems to have been targeted by the right-wing and QAnon types on the internet. It seems that people who are anti-authority, who often do not believe what governments tell them and what mainstream media reports, are quite willing to believe a website with no authenticity or a stranger on YouTube with no reputable sources. We are trying hard not to let this become a divisive issue and have respect for other people’s views. We are trying to be compassionate and to understand that lockdown has affected people in a number of ways. Having said that, we are reluctant to mix with people who are acting as if there is no pandemic, and so we have shut ourselves off from some of the friends we would like to discuss things with.

 

We free-park in our van and have been in the same area in the Algarve since we got back from Morocco. We have found most other van dwellers respectful and not many people are mixing as much as they used to. There have been far less van dwellers around anyway so it’s very easy to keep distanced!

Parking in our Campervan

 

We have noticed the people in the supermarket who don’t wear their mask properly or who can’t seem to understand the concept of social distancing. We try at all times to remain cool and not get wound up by others’ unsociable behaviour. We did have a slight altercation while waiting at the checkout in a supermarket during the summer. We asked a couple who were right up behind us to keep their distance as per the store policy. They refused and said as they had masks on it was OK. We had to just turn our backs and ignore them as it could have easily escalated into an argument!

 

There has also been a big backlash against wild or free camping this year in the Algarve. Part of the south coast of the Algarve, all of the west coast and the west coast of the Alentejo is all part of a Natural Park. In the Natural Parks parking overnight in any vehicle is prohibited. Many people, not just campervans have always still parked overnight as the signs are unclear and it has always been tolerated. Portugal in general is a very laid back country and as long as you are doing no harm you usually get left alone. There has always been some moaning from some of the public in this area, but this year it seems to have escalated with lots of negative reporting against campervans in the media, anti- free-camping groups on social media and even local vigilantes waking people up in the night to evict them. I’m sure the pandemic has made feelings run higher than usual!

A few Campervans parked in the Natural Park

On a much more positive note there has been some good things to come from this time. My partner now has daily messages with his family in their WhatsApp group and weekly Zoom call with them all. People have had time to reassess their lives and do different things which can only be a good thing. Sadly, it seems everyone, especially politicians, are more concerned with the economy than the health of the people. I personally would be all for a UBI (universal basic income), rather than trying to get everything open again as soon as possible.

Personally speaking I had time to do more writing, update my website, build a website for the nFATs group and learn a musical instrument. One thing I now share in common with the comedian Bill Bailey is that we both learnt mandola during lockdown! While he is already a talented musician and can reel off some great stuff, I am still on 3 or 4 chord songs! I am getting there, can play and sing a few songs all the way through now and despite not being on lockdown any more I practise most days.

Sam Learning the Mandola

What cannot be denied and must be acknowledged in order to move forward is the ‘connections’ in the Covid-19 pandemic, how it spread and how it has, and is being handled, and Capitalism. How making money and politics have got in the way of actually caring for people. How Capitalism and Colonialism are inextricably linked and how Racism, Colonialism and Capitalism are all linked.

 

Quiet Bars and Businesses

People moaned at the Black Lives Matter protests happening during a pandemic but it was something that had to happen. It was no coincidence that it happened during a pandemic, a pandemic which has been proven to disproportionately affect BAME people more. In such a fractured time it was inspiring to see some positive movements with some white people finally realising the place of privilege they come from and actually listening to BAME people.

With Brexit looming the UK seems increasingly fractured. The Covid-19 pandemic will have an effect on the global economy but Brexit will very much affect the UK more than most other countries. Ireland could possibly also be hit quite badly by Brexit but that remains to be seen, as at the time of writing things are still not very clear. One thing is for sure is that there are new shipping routes opening up between Ireland and France to cut out the drive through the UK that many lorries used to do.

I found it very upsetting to read about the asylum seekers that were hounded down in the hotels they had been put up in during the lockdown by the far-right activists in the UK. The hateful way these people act is beyond my comprehension and as a UK citizen I’m absolutely ashamed that there are people that think it’s OK to act this way. The UK I’d like to see is a welcoming place for all, somewhere known worldwide for its kindness and compassion. Unfortunately all it is known for is its hatred and racism.

A vaccination is in sight, perhaps some will even be having it by the time this goes to print. I do not believe the conspiracy theories against the vaccine and I will have it if necessary. I have never had a flu vaccine as I felt I didn’t need it, but understand this is a different situation. I’m not 100% certain about vaccines in general but I wouldn’t call myself an anti-vaxxer either. I do believe that it’s important to get the correct facts and that are only from reputable resources not from someone on YouTube claiming to be an expert. From what I have read so far I am much more in favour of having the vaccine than not having it. I do also believe in personal choice and would respect people who choose not to have it.

Of course, a bit like the Brexit referendum, people need the true and proper facts and opinions from people who understand. If they don’t get that they may make the wrong choice. I still think many people were ill-informed and not given the whole picture during the Brexit referendum. If they had received accurate information there may well have been a different outcome. The same applies to the measures taken to try and stop or slow the spread of Covid-19 and to the vaccines. People need to understand more about where to find authentic facts and figures, reputable websites, peer-reviewed papers and opinions by qualified people.

Sam Enjoying the Beach!

At the end of it all, whether it’s the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter, Brexit or something else we must try and stand in solidarity with each other as fellow humans. We need to keep dialogue open with those with different views and try to come from a place of love and compassion.

 

 

Sam Wilkinson:

1 December 2020

 

 

 

 

Other work by Sam can be seen on her Positive Evolution website.

www.positive-evolution.org.uk

 

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Physical Form – NHS

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Revelation

 

 

The first day of autumn my father’s friend
accidentally revealed an old grave in his yard.
Nameless female grave – moon and stars
Carved in white stone. Below,
A little deeper in the ground he found a few bones too,
shoulder blades, knee parts.

I looked at my father as he descended
A bucket of cream on the table under the grapes.
It was soiled with earth; I took it
And I started to take off black crumbs with my fingertips.
A little further dry stalks of corn

Trembled as the sun set behind the clouds
And a shadow hung over our garden.
The more I wiped the bucket the darker the
Garden became. The wind blew.

It suddenly occurred to me that this unknown woman
Whose bones were now stacked in a bucket doesn’t want to be
Here, among us, who carelessly eat grapes.

Put the bucket down you will soil your dress, my father said.
And truly when I looked at my dress dirt was already there
Glued on the folds at the bottom.

I shook my dress, then blew into the bucket
Before I put it back on the table.

The sun shone on the garden again. And the wind stopped.
The cats clung to my legs as if they wanted
to say that everything was over long ago anyway.

 

 

 

 

Naida Mujkic
Photo Nick Victor

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The Hero

the hero fallen,
immediately shunned,
a warrior,
like no other,
fighting windmills,
and giants,
ogres and trolls,
tireless,
invincible,
until now,
shunned by this followers,
while giants,
trolls,
and ogres,
prepare to address old scores.

 

 

 

 

Doug Polk

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THE VISION OF MORGAN LE FAY

 

AC  Evans

 

 

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Robert Montgomery’s Studio

Robert Montgomery
Photo Nick Victor

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Illegal Gatherings of One

 

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HOW AM I COPING?

Ok, just got the news of a new lockup on 16th December. It had been expected but I was hoping it would be on Friday so I could still have lunch with my friend Pamela at the French House in Soho on Thursday. No such luck. Was planning on oysters. It was going to be my Xmas treat, but I had to kiss that one goodbye.

One of the main reasons the lockdown is upsetting is because many pubs and restaurants are going to go under. Will the historic French House survive? Doubtful.  So many jobs lost.

 I’d been going there regularly since the 60s when the good-natured Gaston Berlemonwas was the owner. He knew how to mix the best cocktails.

The French House had always been popular with actors, painters and writers. In other words, bohemians.  It was the days of the very long liquid lunch, and there one could enjoy good conversations with heavy drinking journalists, martini downing publishers, and famous barristers drinking champagne.

Struggling artists cadged free drinks from sloshed businessmen who hoped sooner or later to lay their hands on a painting which would make them a lot of money. Scruffy looking bards, whose nourishment seemed to consist of mainly vodka, flirted with gregarious, heavy boozing gutsy chain-smoking women out for a good time, who were to be found there. 

As was Jeffrey Barnard, whose weekly column for the Spectator principally chronicled his daily round of intoxication. His writing was once described by the journalist, Jonathan Meades, as a “suicide note in weekly instalments.” And there was the regular, Frank Norman, whose play about cockney low-life characters in the 1950s, Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’be, had won The Evening Standard’s award for best musical in 1960. Other regulars over the years have included Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Tom BakerMalcolm Lowry, Jay Landesman, Elizabeth Smart and John Mortimer.  

Before my time, when the pub belonged to Gaston Berlemonwas senior, the painter, Augustus John, drank in the company of Brendan Behan who reputedly wrote large portions of The Quare Fellow there. Dylan Thomas, it’s said, once left the manuscript of Under Milk Wood under his chair. Sylvia Plath is also reported to have visited the French House.

For me, it was the one place in Soho where people truly chose to share time and conversation.

Soho will never be the same when we go back to ‘normal’ times. Gone are the ‘normal’ times. It has all changed, we have changed, I have changed.

Not that I know quite how I’ve changed, but I feel like a limp wool doll that’s been turned inside out. I’m upside down.

Before the crown of all pandemics sequestered our lives, I didn’t watch TV programs a lot. Now, to pass the interminable time, I see much more stuff on my computer. Films, documentaries, Amazon Prime videos, Italian movies on YouTube — what have you. But I still don’t have Netflix. I feel that Netflix is a  monopolism, so I’m boycotting it, but who knows, as time proceeds and there is less and less material for me left to look at I might give in. After all, I buy from Amazon constantly, and that too is a monopolism. I am a contradiction.

I don’t feel like reading. My eyes hurt, the print is too small. And as for eating on my own? How does one cook for one? Take a cabbage leaf, add a baby tomato, a slice of potato . . .  Some of my friends make soups or vegetable stews which they put in the fridge to eat all week. But that’s not for me. Sometimes a yogurt with berries and nuts can suffice.  And yet, even though I don’t eat that much, I’ve put on weight. Coronavirus pounds. Surely a glass of wine in the evening and the occasional Bloody Mary are not the cause of me no longer being able to get into my clothes? But you know what? I don’t care. I’ve grown up in 2020.

I know I’m fortunate to be on my own. I’m an old cat with a sticky character and others enervate me. I’m aware there is a price to pay for having a sticky character. There’s a price for everything.

My cleaner came this morning. Her eyes a combination of fury and tears, and before she even greeted me, she cried out, ‘They’ve closed the schools!’ She has two young sons. She’ll come to me on Sundays now when her husband is home to take care of the kids. We all need to adjust. Somehow we adjust. It is what it is. Fucking awful, is what it is.

I wake up each morning with my heart in the pit of my stomach which is in a   knot. I turn on my radio. All the news is bad again. How am I going to get through today? Although I don’t even know what day it is as I seem to have lost all sense of reality as days melt into each other. I feel I’m in a Dali scenario.

Under the soothing hot water in my shower, I remind myself that here I am, in a privileged condition, so best stop complaining. You’ll get to see your grandchildren next year, I tell myself. The time will pass in a jiffy, treat it as the retreat you’ve always wanted to take and never have and now here it is. The good news is you have lots of time for writing. And don’t forget to follow the advice of Eckhart Tolle to be here now. Maybe I’m coming to terms with fate. What else can one do?

I castigate myself for moaning as my thoughts go to the masses of underprivileged poor who will not be able to afford to give their children a Xmas treat, who shiver in the hovels they cannot afford to heat, let alone pay the rent for. How many abused wives and children will suffer in this festive season? How many more homeless will hit the streets? How many suicides will there be? And to think that Dominic Cummings received a pay rise of at least £40,000 this year. Not that that seemed to put a smile on his surly face. Nor does Scrooge Rees-Mogg smile as he criticises Unicef who will now be feeding hungry children in South London. He accuses them of playing politics. Really? Has he any idea?  How many gifts will nanny be wrapping to place under his huge Christmas tree? How large will the turkey, so lovingly stuffed by cook, be a feast for the taste buds as it rests ready for carving on the antique family table?

Christmas promises to be a disaster. People are tearing their hair out. Total contradiction and confusion.  Celebrate with your loved ones, but don’t get on a train, it’s dangerous.  In fact, best stay at home. Do this, do that, be careful not to kill your granny and whatever you do, remember no hugs. Danger looms around every corner. We are in the unpleasant hands of a cheating populist government who does not know what it’s doing as death tolls rise. They’ve lost the plot and we pay for their stupidity. The Joker Johnson, at all times, fails in his duty to protect his citizens.

Weather permitting, I’ll take a walk on my own and talk to the ducks on the canal. Not that I mind being on my own, for some years I’ve spent Christmas alone. It’s ok, no big deal, 25th of December is just another day. When you get to my age you can be philosophical about it, especially as most old-time friends I used to celebrate it with have died. There is a mausoleum inside of me crowded with those dear departed. I think about them daily.

But wait a minute, hold your turkeys, Christmas has just been cancelled! With the excuse of the advent of a new, more virulent virus, we have been moved to Tier 4. Not going anywhere.

Grandparents are beyond desolation, disappointed children are shedding tears, fathers are cursing as they have another Gin, and mothers don’t know what they will be doing with all the food they have bought in anticipation of feasts.

A black mist of anger hangs over the depressed population. Our mental health has been fed to the shredder.

But don’t despair, the powers that be assure us. The brilliant news is that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel called The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID19 vaccine. It’s astonishing that they got it together at lightning speed, and is, indeed, great news. Doormat Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health, sheds tears publicly as he witnesses Margaret Keenan, a 91-year-old grandmother, be the first person in the world to receive a jab as part of a mass vaccination programme. ‘I’m so proud to be British,’ he says, unaware, perhaps, that the vaccine has been developed by the Turkish, Uğur Şahin and the German Özlem Türeci, daughter of a Turkish physician who immigrated from Istanbul. These two gifted emigrants are now amongst the richest people in Germany. For them, Covid-19 has not been an ill wind.

I was surprised to have already received a phone call from my surgery offering me a jab. Which I refused. This was  not an easy decision, but I’m not ready yet. I need to think about it carefully. At this point, I don’t want to put anything foreign into my healthy body. I use no allopathic medication but instead eat healthy food, make extensive use of essential oils, take a zillion supplements, do a zillion exercises. I haven’t been ill, not even a cold, in years.

My son is upset. “Mum, get the vax, if you get the virus you will probably die.”

“I won’t get it. I’m being very careful,” I try to reassure him. Wishing for a more ‘normal’ mother, he shakes his sceptical head.

‘You won’t be able to travel if you don’t get vaccinated,’ friends cry out. Maybe so, but in the meantime, I’ve booked myself a flight (before Brexit kicks in) to Tuscany for next year.

As for now, I’ll continue wearing a mask, keep a reasonable distance, wash my hands, rush through Waitrose, and remind myself, at all times, that there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

The fundamental question is whether our values will shift after we come out of the nightmare?

A renaissance must take place.  Principles will have to be reviewed. The powers that be will have to seriously understand that love, altruism, compassion, fairness, caring for those less fortunate than us, is fundamental. There are going to be new viruses just around the corner if people don’t change their behaviour and attitude to animals.  Huge amounts of money will have to be deployed to heal the climate.

If we don’t do this, it means we have learned nothing at all from this plague which surely has come to give us a lesson.

 

Hanja Kochansky

 

 

 

 

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Happy New Year!!!

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This is my Christmas card

 

This is my Christmas card.  An art magazine might write thus: ‘Woolf’s multi-media collage references classic Western midwinter imagery, with the contemporary and oh so topical stylised human figures photographed on her local pavement in Cricklewood.  Placed apart on a Yule Log of yore,  (a chocolate confection) they signify apartness, and the slight, touching lean of the figure on the left shows the emotional need for humans to be together from Solstice to New Year.  A devilish robin (or is she/he a saint?) keeps them apart, but looks meaningfully up. Up at the rescuing star of a collection of needles.  ‘The vaccine of hope,’ said Woolf in a recent interview; ‘the robin is saying ‘hang on there you humanoids, and eat your fucking cake.’  Of course, despite Woolf’s declared intention, others have suggested that the needles represent a ‘shooting up.’   Whereas the imagery of holly and berries are straightforward enough, the layers of ‘merde like’ icing are ambiguous. Is it the shit we’re all in at the moment?  Is this glutinous substance simply the mixture of icing sugar and cocoa etched into with the tines of a fork?  Woolf refuses to be drawn. The collaged text (a homage to Kurt Schwitters) is straightforward enough, and those who know their 20th century art history will see that the robin’s wings are cut from a work by Leger. The three balls floating off into the breadboard are there for compositional reasons, but the mysterious word ‘alamy’, aslant in the icing? shit?  will keep art historians guessing for decades as Woolf refuses to be drawn.’
 
 
Jan Woolf
 
 
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weak bladder blues/Adrian Mitchell got that jazz


 
    in fond memory of the great radical poet
    ‘little Adrian Mitchell – the fastest cock alive’

when I was young
a doctor told me: son
you have a weak bladder
and he proved to be right
now wiser but sadder
I’m the only known being
inside a human skin
who pisses out more fluid
than he can take in

 

Jeff Cloves

AM – also a sufferer – died 20 December 2008

 

 

 

 

 

Adrian Mitchell got that jazz

 

Adrian Mitchell got rhythm
Adrian Mitchell got soul
Adrian Mitchell got the blues
Adrian Mitchell jellyroll

Adrian Mitchell cakewalk
Adrian Mitchell cut-a-rug
Adrian Mitchell do the viper
Adrian Mitchell Jitterbug

Adrian Mitchell hit the high notes
Adrian Mitchell blow his top
Adrian Mitchell jump n jive
Adrian Mitchell bebop

Adrian Mitchell play it cool
Adrian Mitchell razamatazz
Adrian Mitchell  boogie-woogie
Adrian Mitchell got that jazz
Adrian Mitchell boogie-woogie
Adrian Mitchell got that jazz

 

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Magazine Publication Dates

This is our last publication of the magazine untill the 9th of January 2021.
Wishing one and all the very best of wishes.

 

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Covid’s Covert Reengineering of Humanity

Untested GMO Vaccination in ‘Human Laboratory’ Trial

The first Covid vaccines now being rushed onto the market are genetically modified products. However, they are not publicly referred to as such, because that would likely scare off a high percentage of would be recipients.

Nevertheless, the public has more than ‘a right’ to be informed what it is that is to be injected into their bloodstream. It should be obligatory upon those doing the injecting to convey this information. The phrase used by the constitutions of most countries – dealing with human health concerns – is that nobody should be pressured into accepting medical treatment without their ‘informed consent’ to do so.

An informed choice ought to be pretty simple once one realises one is being used as a guinea pig in a vast experiment on human health.

The microbiologist Professor Dr Sucharit Bhakdi and leading lung specialist Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, in their paper ‘Genetic Engineering Under False Flag’, reveal the composition of the Covid vaccine to be “largely new and highly risky genetic engineering interventions in complex biological communication processes of our immune systems.”

The vaccine’s composition, they point out, includes fragments of different genetic information to be introduced into human cells as RNA or DNA. “Recombinant RNA, which is introduced into human cells, also alters the genetic processes and can very well be classified as genetic modification of the cells or the organism.”

Dr Bhakdi goes on to state that it is impossible to verify what processes can be triggered within the body by the vaccine, and that damage to the human germ line cannot be ruled out, also leading to changes and damage being carried through to future generations.

While campaigning against GMO in Poland, the UK and continent of Europe, it became clear that most consumers are instinctively turned-off from buying and ingesting GMO foods. They will be doubly unhappy, one surmises, to think that they could be recipients of a GMO vaccine.

By getting this information out, many millions who have not done much thinking up till now, will think twice when realising that the hugely hyped ‘salvation via vaccination’ is to be achieved at the hands of a genetically modified product never before tested on humankind and carrying unique dangers for the stability of the DNA of the human genome itself.

So let’s take stock of where we are within this Covid madness.

The highly dubious World Health Organisation has been leading all and sundry into desperately chasing after a non-existent phantom pandemic, commonly recognised as a strain of the standard winter flu and no more dangerous. The Covid army have been using testing procedures that have proved incapable of giving an accurate reading, but instead produce random ‘positive/’negative’ results based upon the test’s (PCR) sensitivity to RNA particles that arise as a natural result of the immune system’s exosomes defending against an incoming viral threat.

Now let us remind ourselves, this bogus emergency is being used as a cover to enforce a global scale lock-down of humanity, the subsequent bankrupting of millions of businesses and the daily removal of fundamental human rights and civil liberties that are the cornerstone of a civilised society.

A scared and confused public, accustomed to allowing ‘authorities’ to run the show, are now being told they need to be vaccinated to give them sufficient immunity to prevent the phantom virus from afflicting them.

The ‘authorities’ have chosen a GMO vaccine because the effects of such a vaccine on the human metabolism are unknown and it will therefore be a useful experiment for the pharmaceutical industry – and the governments that rely on them for rolling-out their ‘health policies’ – to monitor peoples’ reactions and see what happens next.

The effects of lock-down, masks and distancing, constitute the socio-psychological end of this experiment: Who will crack first? How effective will the fear factor prove to be? How can ‘e’ education be tailored for making its recipients prisoners in their own homes? Is the human psyche sufficiently paralysed to continue with these policies even when no further effort is made to push the pandemic button? How deeply implanted can The Great Reset become under the smoke screen of Covid?

Next comes the physical part of the experiment. This is specifically intended as a depopulation tool. Depopulation has been high on the agenda of all Club of Rome and Bilderberger ‘leaders’ for decades. A genetically modified vaccine – if it does not kill outright – has the strong potential to alter human DNA, and this mutation will carry-on to be inherited by future generations. This will further enhance the control that ‘controllers’ exert over humanity, by subtly altering the body’s ability to reject new diseases, deal with existing ones and produce healthy babies, to name just a few of the predicted repercussions.

Masks cross-over between psychological and physical, negatively affecting both.

By starting off with injecting ‘vulnerable’ old people in care homes already weakened through lack of support, it will be possible to say that many later died of natural causes. That will be the ‘public’ story, but under the surface the deaths will be carefully monitored and analysed to see how ‘effective’ the jab has been at achieving what amounts to a covert eugenics operation.

Of specific note is the fact that the older generation have more experience and subsequent awareness of the games played by political cowboys and overt money maniacs than the younger generations. ‘The oldies’ present a greater threat to the success of the great dumbing down exercise without which the cabal’s ‘total control’ master plan cannot be achieved. Mass indoctrination is key to all aspects of the great Covid con, as any aware followers of ‘The news’ will surely recognise.

But all is not going entirely to plan. More and more doctors, scientists and health practitioners are coming forward to expose the full nature of the horror being perpetrated on humanity.

There is now a ‘World Alliance of Doctors’ and a growing number of class action court hearings being instigated against government agencies and individual ministers involved in promoting the grand lie named Covid-19.

Many millions of campaigners are involved in ‘I do not consent’ awareness raising events, stimulating the call for civil disobedience and defiance of the supposedly obligatory mask wearing and social distancing rules. The uprisings are gathering momentum all over the world – as it becomes clear that state fascism is being introduced under the veneer of Covid clamp-downs – and a totalitarian supranational authority is masterminding the activities of national governments while demonstrating its effectiveness as ‘the new ruler of the world’. The New World Order.

In a nutshell: in the past year an entire pseudo emergency world crisis has been black-magicked into existence. A world that fully reflects the stealth, deception and dark cunning of its originators. A handful of deceivers who have told us to believe a carefully prepared pack of lies and obey their instructions for how to respond to them.

Now to round-off the activities of this demonic and shambolic Covid con-trick, millions of eager individuals are going to get themselves vaccinated against something that has never been proven to exist and by something that has never been authentically tested or proven to be safe. Could there be a more bizarre state of affairs?

This is the greatest wake-up call we (humanity) will ever get. What we are faced by is the prospect of interminable, abject slavery at the hands of empathy dead control freak criminals – or – a fight back like no other, to depose these tyrants and establish a platform of uncompromising global justice and fraternity. We are in no position to hesitate.

Have no doubt, we are in charge of our destinies and collectively we are in charge of the health and welfare of this living planet. None of us can shirk these dual responsibilities. Commit now to unifying our individual will to overcome – with our collective sense of universal sister and brotherhood.

That is the wedding which will finally catalyse the break-through we know is our absolute imperative to make manifest.

 

Julian Rose

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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EARTH WORK

Scar curve in the flat grass-covered plain
seen from the hill above.
                                     River’s swing
was there once,
silting the curve’s inside,
cutting under the outer bank.

A cut-off piece,
a pond going stagnant.
Filling-with-dirt call it, and now
by relief of the low sun
I see where it was.

No one now alive saw water there.
Why do I
so like it? What pleasure,
this music of no resolution,
this tune of the filled meander!

 

 

 

William Gilson

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Home is where Christmas is?

 

A Christmas tree can be a time machine. Antique or even modern baubles, summoning a land of lost content . . . or so it seems in wishful memory – where happy moments are magnified, all pain and trivia tinselled away. But the Christmas tree is a paradox: cheerful hope and wistful melancholy combined. The distorted reflections in its decorations are either heartening or defeated. Deep purple is the most extreme perhaps . . . or green or blue, who can say – the mood changes as swiftly as the rules of covid. To look up through the wire and plastic branches of a fake tree, bedecked in glitter and lights, induces a simple childlike delight, a heathen joy, or a queasy question mark. Holding a twisted mirror to sincere religious belief, this spangled trophy can also appear a profound embodiment of the debased human situation. And the ghastlier a decorated Christmas tree is, the more dislocating its presence might become. To get completely carried away, a contemplation of this presence and its history can be like a journey to the end of the world, as well as “to a hypothetical paradise of dreams”[i]. I know I’m taking it too seriously, but haunted by rich moments of numinous glamour[ii], of man-made lights against the winter darkness, even if I’m forcing meanings upon it, the confluence of myths surrounding Christmas are second to none, and conceivably the decorated tree has become its apex? From Paganism to Consumerism, it symbolises the lot.

Don’t soft soap yourself with the natural beauty of a real tree! That is an evasion. A pointer towards higher things. One side of the coin only. Obviously, it has the smell of woods and pines, the sense of air, but how long does that last in the average, ridiculously overheated home? The fake green tree – an expensive one made to appear real – might also be a cop out? One of my sons once said to me: “As long as there is some white stuff for a day or so somewhere between 23rd and the New Year non-event, then I feel I have had a white Christmas”. In the future if we have to make do with stick-on snow, or snow in the mind’s eye, the fake white tree – of tree and snow combined – might give our blindness what it lacks. Once decorated, that ghost of Christmas, perfectly encompasses both our aspirational escape and our material tackiness – as well as being a distraction from our tendency to destroy everything. As K says about my £3.50 white tree with berry lights from a clearance sale last January: “it looks like a section from Hell!”. A section we welcome into our home. In the darkness, it can breathe heat and fire (if not enough to keep us warm). While she has disowned it, the younger children love it. They haven’t seen Hell yet! Like me, the no-longer children, say it reminds them of our Lynchian Christmas of a few seasons back. That year, we ran two film festivals in parallel. Wholesome films in the evenings; David Lynch in the afternoon[iii]


“a section from Hell”,
9th December 2020    
               


Adding to the legitimacy of my white tree, it’s situated in a damper part of the house where white paint frequently flakes from the ceiling – a dusting of snow that has already authenticated the Christmas bottles of wine waiting underneath.


North Devon, 1996

For years, I, and many of the Estate Island generation I knew (those who grew up, geographically and socially exiled from their original communities on large housing estates newly added to towns all over the country particularly in the 1960s[iv]), continued to return ‘home’ for Christmas – the title of home always deferring to the place longest known – its lights made to seem brighter by the tunnel of the past closing around it. For a while this gradually mythical place was where, by deliberate rendezvous or chance, we encountered all our contemporaries and remembered the New Year’s Eve pub lock-ins of yesteryore, the strange parties in morphing villages, lonely walks across iron-frosted fields to isolated monuments or glowing fires . . . from all these jewel bright pictures the rubbish has been removed.


North Devon, 1996


Whether we go ‘home’ from a sense of duty or in search of reassurance, eventually such a homing instinct inevitably fades. I clung onto the lights beyond the tunnel and only live now by trying to dissolve all such tunnels and the chronological time, which with its affiliated rational laws, creates them. Meanwhile, in the so-called real world, when I was about 26, I tried to start building my own home. If that is older than usual, probably the delay was caused by not being a student after the age of 16? In the ten years that followed, Iiving in nine different regions as well as travelling abroad, there’d never been a chance to crystallise a definite home . . . in any case, maybe I didn’t believe in the idea? I wanted to feel each different place as a stranger, with an exile’s intensity: the landscape, the history, the weather. The social situation held little interest for me. Almost all my ‘homes’ of those years were remote. Bypassing the alternative social group which may have arisen at college or university, possibly I embraced the past more than others? After all, without the past there can be no present and our much-vaunted spontaneity, our desire to seize the moment, resembles that of a headless chicken. In any case, I always suffered badly from a homesickness whose exact cause was never easy to pin down. It wasn’t just the absence of family or house or friends. It was as much about landscapes, a volatile sense of hope and despair brought on by the atmosphere of place and season. For me there were always the rusting railway sidings, or those single tracks, the snatches of tramline running to the wood[v] that aim to escape . . . all the stubs of lives that might have been, the people we know must fade away.

Many years earlier, winter in Arrowsby had provided an experience that in similar     
fashion had expanded, passing through isolation to dismiss the state of internal          
bleakness initially induced.

It had occurred on a sharp, cold evening in the premature darkness after school. By the base of the steps to the town library, he and Brock had been brooding on the recent Zeppelin song “Ten Years Gone”[vi] and moved across, still talking, to peer into the Christmas windows of Woolworths. A vivid sensation came to him then of being ten years in the future, looking back to all the now dispersed people they had known. To the idealised life of the town and the Vale. To all the jewels in the moving  of wishes unfulfilled. To their long-departed friends and girlfriends. This bleak swansong in his mind seemed unbearable. Ten years then, was a limitless exile of time.

Suddenly though, as the music they’d been talking of came alive in his head, he was swept beyond the regret and melancholy inherent in its tone and lyrics. With a wilful affirmation against the limitations of fact and time, inside his mind the Vale and windswept town of Arrowsby was escalated, all reaching routes lighting at once,     
into a grand metaphysical unity . . .[vii]


My eldest son was born in 1987, and even if, in truth, ‘home’ is mostly a state of mind, this change brought home out of the past and into the present. I started to look both ways[viii] and the towns and villages of my original landscape (despite being occasionally revived by visits), to seem a place on the far side of the tunnel – where perhaps internally, some deeper form of Christmas, also resided. In a way it would be good to swap Christmas for Yule or the Solstice.  Certainly, for me the religious aspects persist as no more than an atmosphere of tradition – major ingredients in a bowl of spiced punch with numerous, consciously irreconcilable, elements. But like self-reliance versus a sense of community, change versus tradition is another of those sometimes-bitter paradoxes: how to dispense with the presented surface without losing the meaning behind; how to celebrate or be free without being destructive.

 

 Little Witheridge/Whispering Radars, North Devon, 1996

 

Apart from six months in 1983, when the place I rented had a couple of storage heaters too expensive to run, until 2009, nowhere I lived had any heating to speak of – a situation quite common until the 1980s? Back in the days of single glazing and valuable draughts – before condensation became the enemy – my parent’s council house had only one open fire downstairs. Very occasionally on exceptionally icy mornings, my mum would light the gas oven and open the door and we’d all sit around for five minutes with a cup of tea before leaving . . . which sounds like something from the Second World War, a comfortable version of the woman crouching under the stairs of her bombed house. Nothing much else remains except some solid shelves strengthening the steps above her – on which a first aid kit and a bottle of medicinal brandy are covered in the dust from the aid raid. Rescue workers indicate that she should have a nip. “Oh no,” she rebukes them, “that’s only for emergencies.”

So, without the extreme of saying everyone in the old days grew up in a shoe box in the middle of a road[ix] – when was it that we all got to expecting central heating, endless clean washing and constant showers?

Home is where the washing is . . .

 

If home is where the family is, so your own family replaces the original one[x], while the orbit of friends changes or vanishes. Even with children, our life continued in a relatively fragmented way until I was 33, when we found a remote house to rent in North Devon. There we stayed for thirteen years, maybe the nearest we ever came to home in the traditional sense? In that time, despite our increasing sense of sanctuary, other subdivisions of ‘home’ developed. The Christmas punch flourished in a new location, while the tradition of the tea break snowballed in significance, until perhaps ‘home’ became where the tea break was – its success in granting a moment of agreeably predictable security, dependant on the quality of the B film or 60s/70s TV episode chosen to go with it[xi]. Even when these are dull, especially when watched with others – laughing or suspending disbelief – they create a reassuring atmosphere. If I lived in a capsule on the moon, I  could believe I was at home while drinking tea and watching the best of these – one that contains both tradition and menace, such as the 1965 Avengers classic: Too Many Christmas Trees[xii].

The fireplace at Tunnel Cottage, a still from: A Christmas Address from Whispering Radars

 

Crossing the fells in north-west Cumbria last month, my son and I were recalling the appealing hopelessness of certain old TV series we enjoyed. As with overdone Christmas decorations, the worse they are, the better they can seem in certain moods – distorted worlds half-seen in the holy bauble. Perhaps not so oddly, we ended up considering Good King Wenceslas[xiii]. At school this was one of the hymns we were forced to sing, and maybe because my memory of the lyrics didn’t extend beyond the first verse, plus the bits about mead and wine, a mental, Christmas card image of the peasant’s dwelling and a sense of the good King’s intention, the carol remains deeply evocative. Imagination replaces the curiously ambiguous moral of the story, which appears to be, more or less: if the rich give a little to the poor they get well paid back with blessings. We later discovered that Wenceslaus was bumped off by his younger brother, Boleslaus the Cruel, a name which reduced us to inappropriately helpless laughter.

Apparently, Wenceslaus was declared a Saint almost immediately after his murder and became the source of a cult as well as subject of four hagiographic biographies. A subsequent Pope (Pius II), later emulated the Good King, walking 10 miles barefoot in the snow and ice. Being stupid at 15, I once walked from Elmhurst estate, Aylesbury, to Dobbins Lane in Wendover barefoot in a heavy December frost and no-one ever canonized me! But I suppose, that was only six miles. Nevertheless, I am not satisfied.


Elmhurst Estate Circa 1968

 

No wonder for me that 60s and 70s housing estates all over the country, can so forcefully stir memories of the land beyond the tunnel: of both home and Christmas. Most of all perhaps, of home at Christmas? As we left Morecambe last week (having inadvertently strayed into an area classified tier 3), its passing estates added rum to my advent cake.

For a couple of years, a Morecambe and Heysham Digression has been at the edge of my mind – an area so fascinating in its contrasts and connections, that despite notes and images, its essence evades me. After fervour comes agitation or frustration: insults to the spirit of place. Only later can all the uncertain impressions be allowed to recede into that magical fogbank where all mysterious ideas and feelings gently agree that the greatest subtleties can never be clearly stated. The balm comes in being able to believe that there is some higher truth in being unfinished, in being apprehended solely inside . . .   Under the streets wending inland from those distinctive few that terminate on the low cliffs, abruptly cut off, are patient secrets that will always escape – as elusive as the sense of home.

Heysham sands, Lancashire, has few similarities to the bay in The Ghost & Mrs Muir – whose Victorian bathing machines would have to be pushed a hell of a way out . . .

 

One of the complications of this projected Morecambe/Heysham Digression, is that the area from Heysham Old Village to Sandylands, can at times be so devastatingly reminiscent of one of my favourite films: The Ghost and Mrs Muir, (1947)[xiv]. “Only you could be so daft,” my daughter laughed – or words to that effect – when we cycled the entire stretch and beyond, on to Heysham’s port and Nuclear Power Station (!) in July. To be objective – a potentially dangerous attitude I only occasionally dabble with – she is right. The coast at Morecambe and Heysham bears none but the most basic resemblance to the coast and haunted clifftop house where Lucy Muir chooses to settle in the film. Plausibly, her retreat purports to be the English seaside, but naturally was filmed in California – principally at Palos Verdes near Los Angeles and 320 miles northwest on the Monterey Peninsula. That Lancashire could evoke California, or late 40s California, the Victorian southern coast of England remain amusing absurdities.

B & M, Morecambe, Lancashire, 9th December 2020

 

One of the subtexts of The Ghost and Mrs Muir is the life of the imagination[xv]. As a young widow, Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) is not a great investor in daily reality. Despite having a child and a brief infatuation with cynical Miles Fairley she lives mostly in her mind, relying on her cockney maid for occasional companionship: As for living, our servants can do that for us[xvi]!

“As for living, our servants can do that for us.” Northumberland 2010

 

At the end of the 70s, I often worked for the Post Office in the approach to Christmas. Given a bike and dropped to the south-east of Aylesbury, Aston Clinton became my usual round, a mixed route that included a moderate area of council housing as well as several wealthier lanes. On our last day, a heavy fall of snow was perfectly timed to enhance the season and the regular postman, threw my bike in his red Comma van and suggested we do the housing estate together. Finishing the deliveries, we willingly got tangled in a big snowball fight with a flock of local kids – humorously played out. Retrieving the rest of my mail from his van, I set off to do the detached villas in their country-seeming lanes, where every fifth home at least asked me in for a small glass of sherry or whisky. Surely it would have been churlish to refuse these good Kings and Queens? Before long, every house in the world started to feel like home.

Throwback to the famous gated road of the 70s[xvii]

 

It’s not that “only children have homes”[xviii] but rather that many of us vividly remember our earliest home, no matter how unstable it may have been – the best moments magnified, the routine, the lost people and lost hopes, tinselled away.

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,

Cumbria, December 2020

 

[email protected]

 

NOTES

[i]  Adrian Apra, on Rossellini’s Germany, Year Zero (1948): As well as a “journey to the end of the world,” Germany, Year Zero, “is also a journey to a hypothetical paradise of dreams. The ruins that surround us are the evil we’ve brought upon ourselves.” “Only when we accept fully,” “this evil within us, can we hope to come out the other side.” 

[ii] From:  https://internationaltimes.it/too-many-christmas-trees/  : “By February all such numinous glamour has become dim. How much of life really exists inside, with eyes closed? One such remembrance comes to mind: of a winter cycle through frosty hills and darkening woods to descend into the country town of Honiton and encounter under the dark Yew trees of a church in a heavy twilight, children streaming from the lychgate with candles stuck in oranges.

A poster announced this was Christingle and it certainly threw me back (flashbacks within flashbacks) to distant parts of the country – to a festival of light in Norwich cathedral or a midnight mass in the village of Bierton. All these things most of us appreciate without any serious belief in their religious angle. Rather it’s the hushed ritual that inspires us, the light against the winter dark, the Yule or pagan aspects – all those things hijacked or attached to Christmas and now lodged in our collective memory.”

[iii] Mullholland Drive, Lost Highway, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart 

[iv] For a brief period, many of the more rural of these, were like islands floating on fields . . . and embodied, (or so it seems to me in retrospect), an Eden of sorts – the inhabitants lucky to escape the dangerous, jerry-built towers of city schemes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5VorymiL4&ab_channel=pedrobcordero.

[v] W.H. Auden, The Watershed, 1927 

[vi] Ten Years Gone – by Led Zeppelin from the album Physical Graffiti, 1975.

[vii] From Maze End, chapter 42, Christmas in Arrowsby 

[viii] Parents and grandparents one way, children the other. 

[ix] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE&ab_channel=TheFullMontyPython

[x] But what happens to all the lonely people or those who are literally homeless https://www.bigissue.com/latest/social-activism/how-many-people-are-homeless-in-the-uk-and-what-can-you-do-about-it/

[xi] Our favourites being The Avengers, The Saint, The Rockford Files, Randall & Hopkirk, The Persuaders, Eddie Shoestring and, extending into the 80s, Bergerac. 

[xii] Ibid: https://internationaltimes.it/too-many-christmas-trees/ 

[xiii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_King_Wenceslas 

[xiv] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039420/ This film is always central to my notes, I’ve yet to read the book by Josephine Leslie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Leslie

[xv] Despite which, personally, I always believe that the ghost (Rex Harrison), is real.

[xvi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ax%C3%ABl

[xvii] See, https://internationaltimes.it/a-christmas-letter/

[xviii] To return to the thread set off by Adam Phillips https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Phillips_(psychologist) in part 8 of the Italian Digression:

https://internationaltimes.it/the-italian-digression-part-8/ and followed up in part 9:

https://internationaltimes.it/the-italian-digression-part-9-the-long-journey-home/

 

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NIRVANA

 

sipping warm beer
in my water bottle
to cure Saturday’s hangover
too early Sunday morning

all the stores were still closed 
but still I reached nirvana
at the low end local retail 
suburban shopping strip 

 

 

TERRENCE SYKES

 

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An Outbreak of Santas (and other archetypes) . . .

 

A village some miles to the east of us reported an unexpected outbreak of Santas! We rushed off to investigate:

“You lookin’ at us!?” Holme, Lancashire, 15th December 2020

 

The rumours proved all too frighteningly true . . .

Later, under cover of darkness, we went to discover how widespread the phenomenon was. Who were these alarming creatures and from whence were they coming? At Trevenna, near Cark in Cartmel, we thought we’d discovered the mother ship, but we could’ve been wrong:

 

Cosmic ship sailing the night. Trevenna, Cark in Cartmel, 16th December 2020

 

Back in the comparative safety of daylight, a bungalow in Shernest, appeared to be generating squadrons of Santas – and vaguely associated archetypes: reindeer, fairies, snowmen and Nutcrackers, angel Virgin Marys, penguins, mushrooms, logmen (!?) and gnomes – not to mention giant candles:

A new dawn . . . 15th December 2020

 

Largely, I’ll shut up now and stick to the visual evidence:

 Santas with black tasers

 
Socially distanced Santa boozing in facemask

 

Bloody Jacob, grumble, grumble . . . Cumbria, Dec 2020


Suspiciously furtive (or fear-struck) Santa


Amœbic
or alien Santa


Hail Snowman for Santa is defeated . . .  Crewe, December 2019

 


Mutant Santa (though I’m told it’s an Olaf).


In Grange-over-Sands, the strangest decoration my two young daughters and I saw – in the window of the Christian Hotel – was an upside-down Christmas Tree. Being erratically educated and thinking of the popular, Black Mass/Satanic connotations or misunderstandings[i] of the upside-down Cross in Christianity, we became very suspicious of this ominous and sinister object. Yet apparently, this upside-down tree malarkey dates right back to Saint Boniface[ii].  Upside-down trees are also, currently, a trend[iii] it seems – you need look no further than eBay[iv].


See left hand window for the upside-down tree. Grange-over-Sands, Dec 16th 2020


Rather meanly, seeing some pagans worshipping an oak tree, Boniface chopped it down to replace it with a fir – they must’ve all had to hang around a while – and then, chopping that down, used its triangle shape to explain the Holy Trinity . . .  All of which doesn’t explain why the fir needed to be axed to provide this illustration, since either way up its more isosceles than equilateral. Now, if Boniface could have got the fir to grow upside-down – after all, he was a Saint – not only would that have been impressive, it might even have made up for the comedown of replacing Oak with mere fir. What most surprised me about this legend, is that despite working at Crediton in the mid-1980s, I’d never come across it before. Well

acquainted with Boniface (not personally, but the Devonshire town was his birthplace), as well as familiar with Crediton’s beautiful, red sandstone church – which has the grandeur of a cathedral – the Saint’s tree-chopping prowess had completely passed me by. A Liverpudlian friend of mine – we used to eat our sandwiches in Crediton’s churchyard – was convinced, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Boniface must’ve been a Geordie, hence his name: Bonny-face. Whereas I imagined it was because he was craggy looking and determined. Either would do I suppose, to further the career of a Saint.

He may not be craggy or bonny-faced . . . but at least he can levitate!    Dec 16th 2020

Inflatable Nutcracker with polar pal. Angler’s Arms, Haverthwaite, 16th Dec 2020

Festive Cloning.

 

It’s Wonderful Me!


Santa on a spangly night

 “Hey – I’m Angus.” Angler’s Arms, Haverthwaite, Cumbria

Politburo from outer space


It’s that cloned gang again

Snowman fends off one of Earth’s aggressive and antlered wheelie bins

Dickensian Father Christmas under lamplight, calmly consults the South Lakes A-Z

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,

Cumbria, 17th December 2020

 

[email protected]

 

NOTES

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Saint_Peter

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Boniface

[iii] Though no doubt a very unstable one!  https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/christmas-ideas/a29340152/upside-down-christmas-tree-trend-meaning/

[iv] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/383785440062

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Christmas Books

 

 

As I write this, I am looking out of my cottage window in the Cotswolds and it is getting dark. In a few shorter and shorter days, it will be the shortest day of the year, in this oddest of years. Like you I am hoping that the shortest day will paraphrase the whole of 2020. From the 21st hope will spring anew and hopefully we will see the light springing up from the end of the tunnel. As a historian with an eye towards the mythic influence of the past my thoughts turn at this time to the colour green, often in the form of the beauty of an English greenwood in May.

In musical terms no one quite catches it in the way that Benjamin Britten does in the Spring Symphony. However, I digress. The Greenwood was the realm of Robin Hood and, in Robin Hood: Legend and Reality by David Crook (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk, £60.00) this issue is explored very thoroughly indeed. This highly engaging and wide-ranging book taking us from a thorough retelling of the medaeval tales of Robin Hood through to those who chronicled the legends, folklorists, scholars, historians and others. This is more than just a detailed survey; it is an overview of the entire culture of Robin and who he might have been – the author offers his own assessment at the end of the text: I will not reveal it for wont of spoiling the surprise.

As a historian I like thoroughness and this is present in spades and makes this the go-to book for those seeking to expand the oeuvre. I am also a romantic and this work fulfils that angle consistently. From chapters on the Robin Hood names that abound throughout the Medaeval record to a chapter on the Robin Hood places. There are maps provided exhibiting a surprising number of places. The author, now retired, has spent his working life in the National Archives and has put his retirement to very good use trawling parish and even cathedral records. This book is a delight with an extensive and very useful bibliography at the back. He also gives a lot of time and is very generous with the time given to the different strands of thinking by different voices past and present.

It is quite extraordinary how the tales of a medaeval outlaw have captured the imagination of the world – and taken from a possible real history and into the realms of myth. In a sense the story of Robin Hood is also a story of a myth in the making: a rarity of our time, given that Robin Hood could possibly have its foundations in the immediately pre-Medaeval era – or even before that, and in an entirely different country: there is a theory that the Middle-East is the origin, which makes the Medaeval origins in England all the more interesting given that this was the era of the Crusades.

Whilst we are on the subject Storyworlds of Robin Hood: The Origins of a Medieval Outlaw by Leslie Coote (£30.00, Reaktion Books) looks at Robin Hood from the early stories in both the English and the French (yes, he was that popular!). This work is also thorough but not in the way of the previous tome. This one reflects purely upon the literary angle. It is no less interesting for this; indeed, it is fascinating. The author takes us from the written word to the Romance, from Robin Hood the trickster through to Robin Hood the joker – and in all of this writes in a lively style that captivates and enchants, making parallels with the culture of Southern France, in particular the Occitan civilisation of Southern France, so soon to disappear in the genocidal campaign against the Cathars.  Was there an element of heresy in the Robin Hood legends?

In the chapter Robin Hood and Maid Marian we have some interesting hints of the intricacies of the legends. Robin, in the pastourelles, composed in the 1100 to 1300’s, meets a shepherdess, a young girl of about fourteen years of age.  The author tells us that in medaeval times this age marked the transition of a young girl to womanhood. She claims fidelity to Robin Hood in the face of an attempted seduction. Such is the detail that in the section we are told that the Shepherdess is offered a cloak of scarlet and green. These were expensive colours for their day. This leads onto the revelation that the name Will Scarlet, one of Robin’s followers (remember Ray Winston in Robin of Sherwood) ‘indicates an expensive dye, rather than being derived from ‘Scathelok’ or ‘safe-breaker’.

When I saw this my ears were pricked. There is an early Christian text called The Shepherd of Hermas – in which the ‘shepherd’ is visited by a Shepherdess. Further to this, scarlet was the colour of the Messiah: on Palm Sunday Jesus enters Jerusalem riding an ass and wearing robes of scarlet.  There is definitely a supra-Christian flavour to the legends and this lovely and charming tome highlights much. It is an ideal companion to the one above.

 

A charming companion to the above books, if you are thinking of Christmas and of something off the beaten track, is the Wild Elemental Tarot, (£23.99, Schiffer) which has been created by Michelle Motuzas.

It is delicately presented in a small dark green box and takes us into the realm of animal and mythical archetypes. These cards are well drawn and do indeed draw the eye in to their liminal world. For Christmas and the very strangeness of it this year this is an ideal gift: it will draw you into the unexpected.

Continuing in the realm of mythic heroes we now turn to one of the most famous: King Arthur.  Like Robin Hood there are those who say he was indeed historical and then there is the mythic school of Arthurian studies.

Arthur: God and Hero in Avalon (Christopher Fee, Reaktion Books, £16.00) looks at Arthur from the perspective of comparative mythology. Think not here of myth as ‘fantasy’ but instead as on ongoing accumulation of timeless truths that harbour both fact and echo. Fee places Arthur against the backdrop of Roman, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic cultures. He writes about the evolution of Arthur as both historical figure and as myth and how both progressed to give us the impression today that King Arthur is like the reflection in a pane of glass: he is both there and not there. When we look out of the pane into reality he disappears; but this is the nature of both ancient history and myth. Both speak to us of origins but in entirely different ways. King Arthur, as the author points out, is the saviour of the British, he is The Once and future King, a concept surprisingly ingrained even today within the British consciousness. 

Arthur was exploited by the Plantagenets, the Tudors and even the Hanoverians to a lesser extent. However, he really returned to prominence during the later Victorian period and the blossoming of the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Arthur is an eternal figure and it is as if everyone of these royal dynasties wanted his immortality to rub off on them. As TH White paraphrased in in his magnum opus, the wonderful The Once and Future King, it was the development of Right over Might rather than the other way around. Arthur is the paragon of that greatest of British virtues, Freedom of Speech and the rights of the individual – and boy, do we need him now!

This a charmingly written and presented book and Prof Fee makes his case well. This book is also well illustrated with images of all the old familiar places of the Arthurian mythos and a few that are unfamiliar.

Highly recommended.

In the early chapters of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, first published by William Caxton in 1485 (and for good measure, my chosen Desert Island book) we are told the story of how King Arthur, in the early years of his kingship, invaded and fought, successfully, against the Roman Empire. Now, given that the empire was in significant decline at the agreed dates of the Arthurian period, this is still a significant episode and an equally significant claim. With Brexit now likely to end on tears perhaps this is a timely book.

In King Arthur: The Man Who Conquered Europe (Caleb Howells, Amberley, £20.00) This question is posed. This is a fresh perspective on an episode generally ignored by scholars and writers – and from this perspective this is a genuinely fascinating read. However, in the fields of Arthurian studies we have to be careful not to root ourselves with too much certainty in the speculations as to who Arthur was – and wasn’t. The author presents Arthur as a likely war leader and places Arthur in the context of the Anglo-Saxon invasions and his battle against them. Arthur, as recent new evidence has shown, has many contexts, and it might well be that the legend as we now have it is really an agglomeration of different figures drawn together and compacted by historical time.  This is a point made lucidly by the author, who offers an intriguing insight into what is essentially a whodunnit. This is a very compelling read full of interesting facts and context. I enjoyed it immensely and feel sure that you will too.

 

Also from Amberley is The World of Isaac Newton (Toni Mount, Amberley, £20.00). Newton was, and still remains, a colossus, one of the few who changed the world as we know it and, in undertaking the deed, changed our perceptions of ourselves. Newton was midwife to the modern world – but too often the modern world has ignored the bits about Newton’s life that its finds all too inconvenient. Years ago, I read Michael White’s biography of Newton, eagerly anticipating the chapters about Newton’s involvement in Alchemical studies – only to find that they were not there. To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. To appreciate Newton’s life without the context of his alchemical work is to misunderstand the whole in my opinion. Newton was passionate in his study of this much maligned subject, for without it and the subsequent schism of science and religion, there would be no modern world. In his biography I am delighted to say that alchemy is not ignored and is, indeed, taken into the context of Newton’s extraordinary life.

From Newton’s beginnings through alchemy and then his involvement in the foundation of the Royal Society this is an engaging and compelling read. The image in the plates section of the famous apple tree is enchanting.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

The Da Vinci Enigma Tarot, Caitlin Matthews (£33.99, Schiffer) is a treat for the eye and a superbly designed box set of beautiful cards that really offer us am intriguing insight into Da Vinci in a quite unexpected way. The accompanying book is highly informative of both Da Vinci and his working techniques but also is a stand-alone piece that exhibits the author’s wide-ranging but incisive knowledge of this most enigmatic of painters. I really cannot recommend it more highly. If I was an art historian, I would most definitely want to have this collection in my possession as it is an immensely entertaining and well written guide to both the period but also to the interior life – a deep and obvious fascination for Da Vinci himself.

Finally, opening Pistis Sophia: The Goddess Tarot (Kim Huggens and Nic Phillips, £33.99, Schiffer)) was like opening a box of delights. In personal terms this is a highly engaging and very revelatory box of delights. I could not close it – and when I did, it was with great reluctance for the hour was very late indeed. But I took it up again the next day, replete with sleep and the nagging thought that, in the light of morning perhaps my musings on it were misjudged or misguided but no, this was not so, for when I picked up from where I had left off its charm and its spell were complete. I was intoxicated by it and remain so: it is very revealing – but only if you have a mind’s eye that is open and in readiness to receive. Christmas is a time of reception, as well as a time of giving. This wonderful set provides both.

 

David Elkington

 

 

 

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PETRONIUS

 

 

Petronius ‘the arbiter of elegance’?
Fastidious throughout a long career
It took three days and nights   –
The binding and unbinding of his wounds   –
In that official suicide
Nero had decreed without due foresight
His victim would obey ‘between the lines’   –

He had so many friends
The flow of blood was halted
To greet them and renew their bowls of wine
The festive awnings and the seafood buffet
The lavish tales of travel and amusement

Time flew by   –
We thought it was his birthday

 

 

Bernard Saint

His book ‘Roma’ from Waterstones ….
https://www.waterstones.com/book/roma/bernard-saint/9780993149078

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The Age of Aquarius

As Jupiter goes into Great Conjunction with Saturn in 0 degrees of Aquarius on the Winter Solstice, December 21st 2020…

Let’s make KINDNESS our currency.

Let’s spread a Pandemic of peace and nonviolence for all beings.

Let’s LOVE like we’ve never loved.

Let’s EXIT this BRR…frozen-hearted state of being.

Let’s find at least 19 ways to serve, using our own, unique combinations of gifts.

Let’s flatten the tyrannical TOP: “down!”…and strive for inter-species égalitarianism.

Let’s remember, we all are conscious, feeling, relational beings who suffer; we all love life and fear death.

Let’s forget the tinsel and the gorging…and remember the terrified turkeys, the decapitated ducks, garrotted geese, the pigs without blankets, the lobsters boiling alive in indifferent pots.

Let’s worry about the agonized tears of others, and care less about the Tiers we are in.

Let’s “live simply, so that others can simply live.” Let’s “become the change” we “want to see in this world” (Mahatma Gandhi) – and help a new Paradigm to go viral.

Let’s put the “R” back into “covid” and crow about better ways of being. (Let’s be intelligent and adaptable.)

Let’s re-wild and re-green…and stop being naïve. Silence is…collusion.

Let’s be children of the Revolution, in the dawning of this new Age of Aquarius.

 

Heidi Stephenson

 

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The Mailbox

We learn to cycle in younger days,

We also learn to fall and stand.

The first light does not pain the eye

Do you remember the fright of your first darkness?

If you remember your first letter and

When you completed your first sentence,

Do you remember who arrived on your holidays?

And where did you go to?

Ask the going and coming in life to a mailbox standing in your lawn 

Stationary and carrying the letters that moved you.

Like people coming and going,

The mailbox receives glances,

 People try to understand the letters it carries,

Somebody must be willing to write. 

Mailbox in your lawn

Brings the mail man to your door

Who is he to you?

Except a close affection

And a waiting that is over. 

When you get written to

Who do you first reply to?

When you get started with words

Where does the mailbox take you?       

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sushant Thapa

Bio: Sushant Thapa is an M.A. in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Recently, he has been published in Trouvaille Review. His poems have also appeared in greythoughts.info, USA. His poems have appeared in the print in The Kathmandu Post and online in My City portal of Republica Daily from Kathmandu, Nepal. His poems have also appeared in The Gorkha Times, Kathmandu, Nepal. Indian Periodical, India has also published his poems and he has also been published in Sahitto Bilingual Literary Magazine, Bangladesh. He is also forthcoming in a pandemic anthology and his first book of English poetry is also releasing soon. Sushant lives in Biratnagar-13, Nepal.  

 
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Small Island

 

 

 

about

The Sound Of Shellac Norway

“Music is the universal laws promulgated..:” -H.D.Thoreau-

“…each generation claims the right not only to emphasise the present, but to re-estimate the past….”
-L. Untermeyer-

 
 
 

contact / help

Contact The Sound Of Shellac

 

The Sound Of Shellac recommends:

If you like Small Island, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

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On Bandcamp Radio

A first look back at 2020 with Alabaster DePlume, Nicolas Jaar, Angel Bat Dawid, and Gavsborg.

 
 
Christian Strøm
 
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Wintering in

 

  It seeps into you this stuff,
As you hope to sleep 
It off. It’s not

  So much the freezing mist,
The numb winter darkness,
Nor short days that seem to steal
What little light these long months
Barely allow us. No –

  It’s not the ice that blackens the roads
To a dangerous invisible sheen;
Nor the threat of snow, a slow fall
That never really appears, but sits,
A lowering white above us,
A number of signs on a map
At a narrowing of meaning-
Less lines. It’s not

  The dumb-footed shifting about
Over gritty pavements, between
The dashing, slashing cars,
The quiet restaurants,
The emptied bars.

  It seeps into you this stuff,
is stuff of our dreams;
The flowers, the smiles –
  All our tomorrow’s
Green fields.

 

 

 

 

 

Andy Hunter
Photo Nick Victor

December 2020

 ‘Wintering in’.   As you’ll see its a kind of response to where we are now.  

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Disillusioned

 

 

peace, blessed peace,
in the mind,
and the soul,
forever out of reach,
faith and trust,
gone,
in a sea of lies,
drown,
politicians,
priests,
and heretics,
exposed in this flood,
an abused child,
neglected and deceived,
close your eyes,
and pray,
feel His peace,
if only you could believe,
there still exists a blessed peace,
 . . .disillusioned.

 

_____________

 

 

 

Doug Polk

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Another Music collection to salve the Covid bugs away #6

 

Curated and collated by Alan Dearling

Lidy Blijdorp, cello, Kate Moore’s ‘Tarantella’: recorded at a private house in Amsterdam Zuid. Electrifying performance. And that’s from someone who watches relatively little classical music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3dRDHIaiMQ&list=RDJ3dRDHIaiMQ&start_radio=1&t=97&fbclid=IwAR0r3NFabwtJI4HI3oDu7-cifeeANoRoBrbSFMRrKdpf5Huo-AWMg2ZpFeA

See more posts from the organisation behind the event:

http://www.muzevanzuid.nl/

 

 

Bootleg footage of the Eric Clapton and Peter Frampton guitar duel in ‘My Guitar Gently Weeps’ at Crossroads Festival in Dallas, Texas, 2019. It was filmed for Sky Arts, so you may be able to see the original pro-footage which features lots more close-ups and cut-aways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkUcWYQlBR8

 

 

A bit noisier, but memorable in its own psychedelic-thrashy sort of way. Reminds me a bit of the Velvets.  ‘Revolution’ from Spacemen 3 from 1989 CND ‘Carry on Disarming’ campaign. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdQn7c62zHM&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2nJTYtSn8JOE1WvkRPJdhIi_ZewObV-Zd6BCauOkR-BxlLGvCN9q4lDlQ

 

 

Daniel Gaudi and myself have worked at many of the same festies and gigs across Europe. He linked me with Russian opera singer, soprano, Maria Matveeva working with Deep Forest. Maria kindly sent me more links to her work. Here’s ‘On the Edge’ from ‘Siberian Tales, which has won the best album in the Russian World Music Awards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=CKLk3ZeeoWA&fbclid=IwAR0D7criCGgsxGFbT_1GlPxDhLuoENCh-DfC8jM6BkAp0ZKvcCGDWofd8BM

 

 

And here’s the Gaudi remix of ‘Kalinushka’ (and one of my pics of Daniel) which was part of the Award: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LgjWcL9lO3I

 

 

 

I can sense some of Maria’s operatic spirit in punk-goth queen, Lene Lovich. Along with Nina Hagen, she was a firm favourite of many of my friends in Amsterdam/The Netherlands (and John Peel). Here’s Lene back in 1978 with ‘Lucky Number’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu1ExUH7SQU

 

 

Something new. ‘Illuminate’ is the 2020 album from Zion Train. Old friends from Traveller punk-dub-reggae days and one of my absolutely favourite and ever-evolving ‘live’ acts. Another brave display of eco-commitment and support for Extinction Rebellion and Stop Ecocide.

Here’s Cara on vocals on the track, ‘We shall Rise’. Great video too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr1jO15oArs

 

 

And finally the Steve Hillage Band at the Gong Unconvention, Amsterdam 2006.

‘Sun Moon Surfing’:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1781659715319631&id=313232492162368

 

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