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New and Old Music early 2023


Alan Dearling
New and Old Music early 2023

Plank: ‘Future of the Sea’

It was with baited breath and eager anticipation that fans of PLANK assembled for the live performance of the new third album from this Manchester band. They crammed themselves into the downstairs bar-venue of the Golden Lion at Todmorden. Plank have now joined artists like Jarvis Cocker, Lounge Society and Working Men’s Club on the Golden Lion Sounds label/roster.

From the kick-off it was an enveloping, very immersive wall of sound. A sound-seascape. Rippling guitar, electronica, beats – repetitive music therapy – mixing in sounds similar to the Fripp-style guitar of ‘80s King Crimson with some nuances of Tangerine Dream.

Plank was created by Dave Rowe (guitar, synths), Ed Troup (bass) and Johnny Winbolt-Lewis (drums) in 2009. After the release of their debut album, ‘Animalism’ in 2012, Johnny was replaced by Liam Stewart, and they recorded a second album, ‘Hivemind’ in 2014.

For this album and live show, they have been joined by Dan Bridgewater-Hall on keys/violin.

https://planknation.bandcamp.com/

Tuneful, melodic – lots of earworms…  I bought a copy of the new album and it’s a real ‘grower’!

Three seascapes video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKWMdTDBMX0

 

 

Ash Gray and the Burners: ‘Live 55’

A Stetson nod (or three) towards Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash, New Riders of the Purple Sage and ‘60s/70s Americana. Recorded recently in Sheffield’s Dorothy Pax pub, this is a lovingly created live set. Full of catchy tunes, which they call ‘cosmic country’, with Ash Gray as the Cosmic Cowboy at the helm. It’s exactly the sort of album punters buy after a great gig to celebrate the ‘rockin’ the night away’. There’s a nice dramatic build-up throughout the set, ending with an all-out freak out with ‘When the Devil comes home’.

‘When the Devil comes home’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYI4L8MuQcY

Ash Gray is a Texan from Austin, with Yorkshire parents! Get your head around that one!

At best, this is a master-class in Americana groove, in the best possible way. Country-rock. Plenty of lyrical light and shade, fiery playing, much use of pedal-steel guitar from Jim Widdop. I particularly enjoyed ‘Sundown’, but the whole album celebrates the immediacy of a live band having lots of fun and sharing it with their fans and mates.

A sample from ‘Sundown’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp8DTXFYHgY

I look forward to seeing them live!

Website: https://ashgraynews.com/

 

 

Bob Dylan: ‘Fragments’

Yet another Dylan compilation from the cutting floor!

It includes a very different interpretation of ‘Not Dark yet’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t2su8xEDEU

It is the official Video for ‘Not Dark Yet (Version 1)’ by Bob Dylan.

Here’s the official press release:

“The latest chapter in Columbia/Legacy’s highly acclaimed Bob Dylan Bootleg Series takes a fresh look at ‘Time Out of Mind’, Dylan’s mid-career masterpiece, celebrating the album and its enduring impact 25 years after its original release on September 30, 1997. ‘Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series Vol. 17 follows the evolution of songs written for the album, from intimate early incarnations in the previously unreleased 1996 Teatro sessions featuring Dylan (vocals, guitar, and piano), Daniel Lanois (guitar and organ), Tony Garnier (bass) and Tony Mangurian (drums and percussion) through incandescent live renditions (also previously unreleased) showcasing Dylan and his touring ensemble channeling the songs on-stage from 1998-2001.”

Five CDs in a box. It looks like an expensive financial investment at well over £100. There’s also a truncated 8 vinyl set of records available.

 

Dean James: ‘A collection of 4 Spiritual songs’

Dean posted this collection on-line recently. From the North-East of England, Dean is one of my favourite blues singers. A very fine voice indeed!

Here’s what he said about the recordings:

“Recorded as part of my Masters Degree, looking at how architecture effects sound. Recorded Live using four condenser mics. Note how the natural sound of the road outside and the seagulls add to the recording in a positive way. An absolutely organic moment in time, that I will never capture again. It’s not perfect, but it’s not meant to be. A massive thank you to Hexham and Newcastle Diocese for letting me record in their amazing space that is St Bede’s Church in South Shields.”

Four tracks, two originals. ‘Amazing Grace’ is superb.

Amazing Grace – Acapella (John Newton)

John the Revelator – Acapella (Blind Willie Johnston)

Take my Hand – Acoustic (Dean James)

Cole – Acoustic (Dean James)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB5fpZrUETk 

 

 

Judge Smith: The Trick of the Lock’

The Judge is a mate of Jonathan Downes, esteemed (eccentric) editor of ‘Gonzo’ magazine.

Jon told me that Judge Smith has asked me to send you this video link to ‘Trick of the Lock: https://www.youtube.comwatch?v=OHX4ZWbaO6A

This title track from Judge’s forthcoming album ‘The Trick of the Lock’. Words and music by Judge Smith, arranged by pianist Robert Pettigrew. Filmed in St. Benedict’s Church, Glastonbury on 7th November 2022.

This is an acquired taste – very much in the style of a somewhat ‘over-the-top’, very wordy song from a stage musical/comic opera. It’s very theatrical. Thespian.

Judge Smith was briefly a singer with Van Der Graaf Generator in the late 1960s. He actually founded the band alongside Peter Hammill. Judge has also written and performed ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ with Peter.  More recently he has worked with Arthur Brown and Pete Brown on a musical about the fate of airships between 1924 and 1930 in ‘Curly’s Airships’.

The Judge is a familiar face from TV, including ‘Not the 9 o’clock News’, and a ‘character’ around Crouch End in North London

 

 

Nini Music – ‘LEGENDS’

With 2.5 million views on Youtube (when I took a first peek), I really rather like this strange shamanic amalgam of Taiwanese Folk Music coupled with elements of Heavy Metal. Nini studied Chinese traditional music and is a highly accomplished performer on many instruments including the Zhong Ruan, Liuqin, San Xian, and Pipa.

‘Longma’ is from Nini Music ‘s New album ‘LEGENDS!’

Hard to describe or categorise her, but definitely quite unique and a bit mind-bending. Think: theme from an Imaginary Taiwanese Western.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn7uCux0uc

Nini says: “I am now on a journey to create my own unique sounds with the use of my traditional instruments and share them with the world. My music blends the traditional with the contemporary sounds of rock, metal, and EDM.”

 

Doctor Explosion: ‘Superiordad Moral’

I’ve been contacted about this band and album by internet probably for nearly a year. Matthew Hutchison from ‘Shattered Platter’, has described them as “Spanish Garage legends” and “a garage rock/punk group from Gijon, Spain…it’s their first album in eleven years”. To my ears, this new album is a mix of prog rock, garage-punk with added ‘rave’. It’s fun, irreverent and at best, quite infectious.

 

It seems to have had every rock-style (and cliché) thrown into the mix. It’s sort of timeless, but also reminiscent of almost all the pop hits of the 1960s remodelled in Spanish Euro-trash. Propulsive guitar riffs, sneering vocals and a kind of charming naivety. I kept on imagining if this was played in a bar, punters would be shouting out: “Sounds like!” And then perhaps, anything ranging from, “The Troggs, Stranglers, Ramones, early Beatles and Kinks”. It’s all over the place. Lyrical, and sometimes a long way from subtle, wild and woolly at times, and also violent and rocky. Anthemic too. The final track is something of a novelty country sound, remodelled around a Lee Hazelwood number ‘Paleto’. “Twang, Twang” is the chorus line and the whole thing sounds a bit like ‘Just one Cornetto’!  It made me smile!

 

Here’s the live set from a Spanish Radio 3 film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz56dBKcS8Y

(‘Paleto’ is at about 22.45 mins)

 

The Penny Drops (feat. Nicola Summers)

From my time in the Scottish Borders, I spent many hours chatting with Jim Montana. Much of that time was out on the braes, on or near the Berwickshire coastpath, chatting about photography and wildlife.  I didn’t know that he was writing songs. This is an impressive effort: All proceeds will be donated to the charity, Headway.

Pictured: Jim and Ronnie.

Ronnie Hek posted: “Ronnie Hek and Nicola Summers: The Penny Drops 4837123 Records DKhere is the song I wrote about my brain injury Here is the link to The Penny Drops. Lyrics by my great friend Jim Montana and put to music by myself and Nicola Summers. Also available on Spotify.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elB7vA_AmJY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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LGBTQ+ zine fair at Brixton Library

 
Saturday 11 February, 12pm to 4.30pm

Taking place in Brixton Library is a zine fair of LGBTQ+ makers, artists and writers, covering Holy Titclamps and Homocore, to Red Hanky Panky and Nancy.

With a burgeoning current scene, the library welcomes dozens of zinesters and queer distros to Brixton Library.

They will also have special guests Queer Zine Library exhibiting their collection and taking donations, badge making in the library in the afternoon and will be taking zine donations for Brixton Library’s own Zine Library – coming soon!

There will also be a communal zine table at the front of the fair where you can bring along your own zine to sell, or pick up zines to buy.

Stallholder list:
   Apples to Zines
   Rachael House
   Jasmine Kahlia
   Camp Books
   Cool Schmool
   Gears for Queers
   Tubbing Rummy
   Books Peckham
   Feminist Library
   Sushi Roll Cat
   Dominique Duong
   D Mortimer and The LezBag
   The Mollusc dimension
   Bob Chic Alors
   Rachel Rowan Olive
   Queer Zine Library

All stallholders will be selling zines for cash, but some will accept card payments, contactless and paypal.

Many of the stallholders are also up for trading zines with other zine makers – or distros and shops present may also be keen to buy publications.

Do ask or pick up the full brochure at the door of the event which will outline what is on offer.

There will also be badge making at some point in the afternoon – time to be confirmed!

Lambeth LGBTQ+ Zine fair
Saturday 11 February, 12pm to 4.30pm
Brixton Library. SW2 1JQ

Access information: The gallery is on the library ground floor, an accessible ramped access is available at the side of the building on Rushcroft road.

Taken from Brixton Buzz   https://www.brixtonbuzz.com

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RADICAL GROTESQUES

 

The Secret Agent
By Joseph Conrad
Edited with an Introduction by Michael Newton
Penguin Books, 2007.

 

An acute analysis of the human condition may well conclude that behind the flim-flam of philosophy, theology, metaphysics and transcendental speculation, human actions, ideals and aspirations are conditioned by, and derived from, a corrosive Fear. A fear of reality translated into a hatred of existence reified as a culturally conditioned loathing of the world. Subjected to a process of ideological sublimation, this loathing, which is self-loathing, is transformed into extreme politics, a form of politics defined here, by Michael Newton in his Introduction, as ‘the politics of feeling’. The Secret Agent delves into the political unconscious of the politics of feeling.

It is very well known that just as Dostoyevsky based his political novel The Devils (1871) on the true life Nechayev Conspiracy of 1869, so Conrad, writing in 1906, based his fictional ‘dynamite novel’ on a political outrage as reported in the newspapers. Anarchist Martial Bourdin emerged from the shadows to die, horrifically, in a failed bomb-attack on The Greenwich Observatory in 1894. In this depressingly familiar case the perpetrator was killed by his own explosives, leading Conrad to ponder the implications of – to use his words – such an act of ‘blood stained inanity’.

Newton asks if the anarchist action was planned as an attack on the Meridian Line. Was it an attempt to destroy the organisation of time itself? For those fixated on the compulsive doctrine of the attentat, the notion of ‘propaganda by deed’, such an objective may have seemed entirely valid. The action of the novel centres upon the reactions of Mrs Verloc, whose retarded younger brother Stevie is inveigled into becoming the bomb-carrier by her shady husband, a double agent – the ‘Secret Agent’ of the title. Her death at the end of the book is reported in the press as ‘Suicide of Lady Passenger from A Cross-Channel Boat – An Impenetrable Mystery Seems Destined To Hang For Ever Over This Act Of Madness And Despair’.

It is the explanation of this ‘impenetrable mystery,’ the motivation for Mrs Verloc’s acts of murder and self-destruction, of madness and despair, that forms the domestic dimension of the plot. A plot inspired by a few words uttered by a friend, Ford Maddox Ford, who, in conversation, remarked “Oh that fellow was half an idiot. His sister committed suicide afterwards.” It was Conrad who expanded the scenario to include the murder of Mr Verloc by his wife, a desolate woman for whom the tragic Stevie, almost unearthly in the intensity of his compassion, meant everything.

If the scenario of The Secret Agent retains a morbid sense of familiarity (a vulnerable youth manoeuvred into committing an atrocity, or potential atrocity, by a trusted elder) then the most lurid of extremists, the ‘incorruptible’ Professor, the Perfect Anarchist, embodies Conrad’s conception of the ultimate terrorist. Even though the epithet recalls Robespierre, this is certainly a figure more familiar than we would like.

Two key scenes of the story are conversations set in a seedy hostelry called The Silenus (‘the renowned Silenus’) where, towards the end of the book, one of the subversives, comrade Alexander Ossipon, nick-named The Doctor, is discussing the Verloc Affair and its outcome. During this discussion The Professor taps the breast pocket of his jacket, claiming “And yet I am the force.”

Ossipon announces his future Brave New World of two hundred years into the future when ‘doctors will rule the world’ for, even now, in the shadows, ‘science reigns already’. He describes his vision to counteract the misanthropy of his companion who preaches ‘utter extermination’.

Aghast, Ossipon exclaims, “you carry in your pocket enough stuff to send yourself and, say, twenty other people into eternity.”

The Professor responds by raising his glass and drinks calmly to “the destruction of what is.”

To intimidate the authorities and so deter arrest this creature of hate has turned himself into a human bomb; he declares the sole aim of his life is to develop the perfect detonator – an intelligent detonator. In several paragraphs Conrad expounds the viewpoint of The Professor who feels that he is ‘a force’. A misanthrope who loathes the weak and ‘the odious multitude’ of mankind, he anticipates the death-doctrine of fascism: “I depend on death, which knows no restraint and cannot be attacked. My superiority is self-evident.”  For an irritated Ossipon this is “a transcendental way of putting it.” The adjective is pejorative.

Joseph Conrad’s approach to his subject matter is one of relentless, consistent irony and it is this all-pervasive irony that, among other factors, makes The Secret Agent such a remarkable work of fiction, or, to quote Newton, a ‘signally important work of Modernist fiction.’ It should be noted that Conrad’s sardonic view is all encompassing and no one escapes his excoriation – not the radicals, not the politicians, not the police and not the ‘ordinary’ person for there are no ordinary people in this novel of ‘radical grotesques’.

In his Author’s Note (1920), included in this volume, Conrad remarks upon the ‘criminal futility’ of the Greenwich incident. He condemns all aspects of the attack including doctrine, action and the fundamental mentality. For him the most obnoxious feature of the radical pose is that it stems from a brazen desire to exploit ‘the poignant miseries and passionate credulities of a mankind always so tragically eager for self-destruction.’ It is this radical pose with its ‘unpardonable’ philosophical pretences that is represented in various ways by the menagerie of radical grotesques comprising the anarchist underground described in the novel.

This collection of repellent types includes not only The Professor and Comrade Ossipon but also other figures like Michaelis (possibly based on Kropotkin) and Karl Yundt (known as ‘the terrorist’) whose views are somewhat similar to those of the Incorruptible Professor, even though the latter despises the former. Yundt dreams of a cadre of ‘destroyers’, a band of men (they are all men, these committed idealists) ‘absolute in their resolve to discard all scruples in the choice of means’. Devoid of all pity for anything, including themselves, these ‘destroyers’ would enact the principle of ‘death enlisted for good and all in the service of humanity’.

As a ‘dynamite novel’, an example of the newly emerging genre of espionage fiction, The Secret Agent is also an urban novel. Elsewhere critics have written much on this aspect of a book, which remains one of the great London stories with its descriptions of Westminster, Soho and Kensington set in the fin-de-siecle era. Here the city is a suffocating, hellish domain. It functions as the sordid backdrop for acts of depravity perpetrated by fragmentary beings prone to the ludicrous outcomes ‘of chance and our own natures’ as Michael Newton explains, hapless victims of ontological ambush, of ‘unexpected solutions of continuity, sudden holes in space and time’ to cite Conrad himself.

Is this ‘totally ironic artefact’ also a novel which diminishes all human agents and the human civilisation of which they claim to be part, as is stated by Fletcher and Bradbury in their essay on The Introverted Novel. Perhaps, but even if agents of destruction pass ‘unsuspected and deadly, like a pest’ through our streets, as does The Incorruptible Professor at the end of the narrative, it is also another human agent, a clear-sighted writer, who has unmasked the unpardonable ‘philosophical pretences’ articulating the megalomania of Fear. Here, laid bare, is the murky pathology of all deluded ideologues seeking to regenerate a fallen world but who, in fact, are driven by a vitriolic hatred of existence.

 

 

A. C. Evans

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Blackpool Easter Anarchy 2023

@ Waterloo Music Bar Blackpool

The Waterloo Music Bar, Blackpool.
Thu, 06 Apr at 19:30 – Sun, 09 Apr 2023 at 23:30

Tickets from:
https://www.seetickets.com/event/anarchy-the-waterloo-2023/the-waterloo-music-bar/2407861

Venue info: https://www.waterloomusicbar.com/

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“There is only Alice”

Music – films – theatre – books fall under gaze of Alan Dearling

Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan – ‘Alice’ studio recording 2002 (has recently been re-released on vinyl) in October 2022

This is an imaginative, multi-layered work that was recreated by Waits and Brennan from the remains, almost the wreckage, of the demos from the 1992 ‘Alice’ stage musical that had previously been bootlegged. They were probably stolen from Waits’ car. The studio album contains very different versions of some of the songs written for the ‘Alice’ theatrical performance. According to Wikipedia: “The adaptation was directed by Robert Wilson, whom Waits had previously worked with on the play The Black Rider, and originally set up at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg in 1992.”

The 2002 studio album, ‘Alice’ was co-released on the same day with ‘Blood Money’, an album containing songs from Wilson and Waits’ 2000 musical ‘Woyzeck’

For the 20th anniversary release, Waits’ ‘Alice’ is now available on a new double vinyl version in October 2022. Much of its content is more orchestrated and polished than the visceral stripped-down theatrical versions, which also included ten instrumental pieces. But it is still edgy, guttural and world-weary. Tom at his gargling-in-the basement mode. The album is very much about the Reverend Dodgson who seems to have had rather secular longings for Alice Liddell. Tom Waits sings:

“All I can think of is Alice.

And so, a secret kiss becomes madness as well as bliss.”

The songs are filled with sadness and grief, evoking the German underbelly of the Hamburg Reeperbahn. Madness and insanity deep in the bowels of the burlesque. ‘I must not be late’, Waits’ intones on the slightly mangled, quasi-Germanic  song, ‘Kommienezuspadt’ (apparently translates as: “Komme nie zu spät” means “never be late”.) An echo of the Rabbit in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ one assumes.

I very m uch agree with this reviewer on Amazon.

D.W. Glenn:  “5.0 out of 5 stars Weird Surreal and Brilliant!

Sit back and enjoy the gravel voiced opium ride of exploring the nether regions of TW’s mind. Surreal and weird is just for starters. It’s also written with the quirky profound wry insights of life that only he is capable of. I was hooked on the second listen.”

Fascinating documentary footage from the 1992 Thalia Theatre Hamburg ‘Alice’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5DsqaaJ9eA

The ‘Alice’ track linked to a film. Surreal indeed.  Attributed to: @joshuasteward939

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9DejWMJoOA

“The footage used here is excerpts from ‘Le Ballet Mécanique’, an Austrian experimental short film from 1924, directed by Fernand Léger. The woman most often seen is Alice Prin (or “Kiki of Montparnasse”), a well-known French artist’s model, nightclub singer, actress, painter, and general muse for many famous artists and writers. She was born in Côte d’Or in 1901 and died in Montparnasse in 1953 at the age of 51. According to Wikipedia, her tomb identifies her as ‘Kiki, 1901–1953, singer, actress, painter, Queen of Montparnasse.’ “

Meanwhile, if you can find the 1992 ‘Alice demos’ album you are in for an even darker, dark treat.  It’s nasty, dirty, filled with creaking sounds of harmonium and strangely contorted, specially created instruments. A distorted world, a slice of cabaret that takes Lewis Carroll into an off-kilter, extraordinarily intense musical experience. Funereal, disjointed music, half-way between Jewish-German carnival and the Gollum filled with hysteria and suicide. Tom Waits at his hysterical, bleakest, a circus-barker, who is yet, also “hanging in a bottle” in a lunatic asylum.

‘Alice’ is an allegory on the loss of childhood innocence, but it’s also a discussion of discordance in the Reverend Dodgson’s infatuation with young girls and especially, Alice Liddell – was he there to help or harm them? Or, perhaps both? The Rev was rightly renowned for his Alice books, but his photography offers a worrisome Pandora’s Box. The photo of Alice is one he took in 1858. The photography-news site informs us that Lewis Carrroll took photos for 24 years and had his own studio: “From the 3000+ photographs taken by Dodgson, only 1000 have survived due to the passage of time and deliberate destruction, of which just over half are of children (mostly young girls) – 30 of whom are depicted nude or semi-nude.”

There are a number of books featuring Lewis Carroll’s photos, and on-line, including at Wiki-art: https://www.wikiart.org/en/lewis-carroll

And books, such as Angela Youngman’s, that attempt to uncover/unravel the murkier side of Lewis Carroll’s life and ‘worlds’. 

 

John Lennon – the influence of Lewis Carroll on his writings/lyrics

John Lennon frequently claimed that he was a great fan of Lewis Carroll’s writings in the two Alice books and Jabberwocky.  Here’s an example for the interview Playboy magazine published soon after John’s death:

PLAYBOY: “Where did ‘Lucy in the Sky’ come from?”

LENNON: “My son Julian came in one day with a picture he painted about a school friend of his named Lucy. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,’ Simple.”

PLAYBOY: “The other images in the song weren’t drug-inspired?”

LENNON: “The images were from ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ It was Alice in the boat. She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere and I was visualizing that. There was also the image of the female who would someday come save me… a ‘girl with kaleidoscope eyes’ who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I hadn’t met Yoko yet. So maybe it should be ‘Yoko in the Sky with Diamonds.’ ”

‘I am the Walrus’ was also a nod towards the ‘Walrus and the Carpenter’ poem by Lewis Carroll, though Lennon later claimed that he had mistaken the Walrus as the ‘good guy’, but perhaps both characters are somewhat ‘bad’ or ‘edgy’.

Grace Slick – White Rabbit

Fab re-mastered video for the song, ‘White Rabbit’: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=225369579549203

“Feed you head” indeed!

I remember buying both the two Great Society albums on vinyl. They were rough live albums compared with the more rounded sound of the Jefferson Airplane, who Grace Slick joined after Signe Anderson, the original female singer with the Airplane left.  Here are excerpts from Arun Starkey in ‘Far Out!’ (2021) magazine writing about the creation of ‘White Rabbit’:

“It was Jefferson Airplane front-woman and all-around heroine Grace Slick who composed the tune. However, it was not originally written for the iconic psychedelic rock troupe; instead, her previous band, the San Francisco rockers the Great Society. It was actually first performed by the Great Society in early 1966 at a dive bar on Broadway in San Francisco.

At the time of writing in late 1965 or early ’66 (the precise date is unknown), LSD was still legal, as the darkness it brought was still yet to be truly uncovered…

Given that LSD was in the ascendancy, as was the hippie movement in general, with San Francisco being its epicentre, this all fed into the song’s inception. In addition to Slick being somewhat of an eccentric, this went some way in informing the song’s trippy feel. This wasn’t all, though, as there are numerous references to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass.

There are many memorable direct nods to Carroll’s narcotic wonderland as Slick mentions Alice, the White Rabbit, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight, the Red Queen, and the Dormouse. She also mentions changing size after taking pills or drinking an unknown liquid. This genius inclusion of Carroll’s creations augments the song by having lyrics that are intrinsically fantastical, helping listeners to escape the mundanity of life. She has even said that her interpretation of the titular rabbit is representative of “your curiosity”, an apt narrative for the era that was totally defined by experimentation and mind expansion, railing against the established social mores.

Massively inspired by an LSD trip, and Lewis Carroll, Slick wrote the lyrics first and then she created the melody on a red upright piano she had recently purchased for $50, where over ten of the keys were missing. She would later say that “was OK because I could hear in my head the notes that weren’t there”, a brilliant adaptation to her circumstances.” 

 

Jonathan Miller – Alice in Wonderland (BBC play/film 1966)

An adult-oriented take on Alice, made just as the Beatles were releasing ‘Revolver’ and recording ‘Sergeant Pepper’.  A TV play in black and white created on film. Jam-filled with a host of celebrities and ‘stars’ including Peter Sellers, Malcolm Muggeridge , Peter Cook (who is eccentrically good), John Bird, Michael Redgrave and John Gielgud.  Plus, the unknown Anne-Marie Mallik as Alice. Chosen apparently because she looked ‘Victorian’. Throughout, she remains enigmatic, wistfully drifting along, seemingly bored and aloof to proceedings. Meanwhile, Ravi Shankar’s sitar and table Indian music was used to create a British Empire Raj feel into this really rather strange ‘take’ on ‘Alice’. It’s surreal in a very trippy post-Goons’ way. The actors are not in animal costumes, yet it is in many ways one of the most oddball and disquieting of all the film adaptations. It’s disorientating, redolent of the word play of the Alice books, full of riddles and ‘jokes’: ‘Beating time’; The tortoise ‘taught us’, ‘lessons’ start to ‘lessen’ over time. Certainly vastly more interesting than the Disney film cartoon and their two more recent Tim Burton films featuring over-blown performances from Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter.

From the British Film Institute notes on line:

Michael Brooke:

“Miller is careful not to create a clichéd ‘dreamlike’ ambience – he respects the logic of Dodgson the mathematician as well as the fantasies of Carroll the dreamer, and plays everything straight, photographed in crisp, deep-focus black-and-white by regular Ken Russell collaborator Dick Bush. Of all Carroll adaptations, only Jan Svankmajer’s partly animated ‘Alice’ (Neco z Alenky, Czechoslovakia, 1987) is as faithful to the spirit as well as the letter of the original.”

The film ‘twinkles’ with a capital ‘T’! Imaginative and very of its 1960s’ time. A time of ‘Yellow Submarine’ and the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. As Alice muses at the end of her dream, “The things I’ve seen, I can see no more”.

On-line film link: https://archive.org/details/alice-in-wonderland-1966-jonathan-miller

Jan Svankmajer – Alice (Czech, 1988)

As a futurist animator, Jan is frequently referred to as the biggest inspiration on Terry Gilliam. His works are renowned for their mix of models, puppets and real-life actors – they are ‘darkness’ personified and creep with the tension of a good horror film! In fact, at the beginning of the film, Jan’s Alice tells the audience, “This is made for children – perhaps!”

She adds, in a nod towards the ‘wonderment’ of re-imagination that abounds in this macabre film version, “You must close your eyes, or, you will see nothing.”

A malicious, sadistic, White Rabbit is the guide for Alice. It’s a stuffed rabbit that leaks sawdust and sews up its own wounds whilst surrounded by the relics of the taxidermist’s art. Drinking ink, nibbling tarts and little pieces of a wooden mushroom, Alice moves from scene to scene, alternating in size, as a wide-eyed un-afraid young human girl and a small and big, Alice-like doll.

It’s deeply disturbing, a Punch and Judy version, surreal and visually stunning especially in blu-ray. It moves into new and different scenarios from the Lewis Carroll’s books.

Here is an on-line link to this Czech film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnbd1exbIco

If you haven’t seen Jan Svankmajer’s creations, and think this might be for you, go check him out. With some difficulty, I now own a US-format of many of his earliest ‘shorts’, including ‘The Ossuary’ from 1970 – a monochrome ‘trip’ on a school visit into the world’s freakiest mausoleum, an art-work underground in the Sedlec  Chapel, crammed with skeletons and bones from 70,000 people, dead from wars, plagues and torture.  The on-line Youtube version isn’t the high definition experience, but it is still unnerving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?      v=UnLNeqSf8hU

The earliest film version of ‘Alice’ is 800 feet of celluloid: obviously in monochrome but with some film tints, murky, ethereal and weird… Alice in Wonderland in 1903, directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow. Only about 8 minutes of the original are now available of the original 12 minutes, thanks to the British Film Institute. I have my own copy from the BFI, and discovered it to be rather wonderful and fantasy-filled for such an early experiment with special effects, including the shrinking and expansion of Alice. The blu-ray is a great quality rendering of the original.

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

Dennis Potter-Gavin Millar – Dreamchild (1985)

I’ve chosen ‘Dreamchild’ as my final destination in this really rather oddball, surrealist roll-call of tales about Lewis Carroll, his life, works, films, music and ‘Alice’. The Alice who has inspired so many other creators including artists, John Tenniel to Salvador Dali and Ralph Steadman, along with those already mentioned.

Having recently bought a copy and watched it again, ‘Dreamchild’, remains a remarkable piece of relatively low budget film, which sank almost without trace in cinemas. The stuttering, rather shy portrayal of Lewis Carroll by Ian Holm is believable, as is the show-stealing, Coral Browne as an octogenarian Alice – Mrs Alice Hargreaves – on a PR tour of America. As Dodgson/Carroll remarks, it is an ‘imagined landscape’. One that is, in particular, a creation of Dennis Potter’s extremely fertile imagination along with Gavin Millar as director. It’s a fairly softly romanticised, emotional story of forbidden love and longing. We also get to see the inimitable Ken Campbell on screen (and voicing the March Hare), a brief interlude with Jane Asher as Mrs Liddell, and a selection of Jim Henson’s puppets in the character-roles from the Alice books. It’s definitely more fiction than fact, but very watchable.

Here’s an on-line link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwnoJ-WSEEY

 

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Of the World


The world is a home.
A country is a warm nest.
Where will you build watchtower
To safeguard and
Look at your dreams?
You need grounds to land
And not to fall.
The sweet nature,
Harmony of the blessed.
The music of the soil,
Sings in unison.
The wings return
To the abode
Legs rest and keep walking.
Life is a journey of dreamers;
They make
Their dreams come true.
Forget not the pain
The time spent
By those who nurtured.
Smile is the medicine
For the aching soul.

 

 

 

Copyright Sushant Thapa
Biratnagar, Nepal
Picture Nick Victor

 

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Exterior

 

Musk roses for the winter
A bright column of ribboned strings
Neither one nor merry
An intellectual dishonesty to mar the bright red
Trapped under the surface
The exterior belies nothing
Mirroring in strong intuition
Codependent ironical haze
Reality in my vase
Bleeding thrones in my upper body
Salty spongy affairs
Carpe diem over marked simplicity
Conformity of tell tale days
Copper coins buttons in my favourite sweater
Marked of red roses peonies namesake
Just don’t have the zigzag velocity
A signature classic
Rock bottom high
A needle of paint on my phone
The exterior and the external
Verbal to the point too real
My red rose belies nothing.

 

 

 

 Sayani Mukherjee

 

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DEAR FUTURE,


No doubt we were a Dark Ages to you.

And paradoxically we had so much —
for instance the millions of species
we let go extinct on our watch.  Our
ignorance, not least of our own wealth, was
inexcusable.  Even the land mass
we inhabited was luxurious compared
with your deserts and reduced shorelines.
We enjoyed the relative security
of fixed national boundaries before
irresistible mass climigration
rendered those borders irrelevant.
We fought over things we shouldn’t have —
who loved who, how we identified, what we
thought about God — while letting the super-
rich rob us to the last penny.  Worst, though,
was our willingness to let distractions
prevent our seeing the real damage
our way of life was doing to the planet
as a habitat hospitable to our
species, not to mention those countless
other species to whom Earth belonged.
For that alone I fear our age will live
in infamy as long as sentient beings
dwell in the house of the universe.
(Dear future, I know you’re an abstraction,
that I’m in fact writing not to our imagined
descendants but to us here, now.
Indeed, we are the ones who need to read
this letter, not you, because without our
contrite and dedicated action,
there may be no “you.”  So I fold the pages
of my hope and grief into this envelope
and let it fall to the ground before reaching
a mailbox, on the chance that another
may pick it up, open it, read it, and
join with us in changing the present,
the only way we can change you, dear future.)

 

Thomas R. Smith

 

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BASILICA OF JAZZ

They came because high-fashion magazines
Assured the sound accessorised Armani

They came because they missed it first time round
And were awfully keen to miss it once again

They came because their Berkeley lecturer
Spoke of such exceptional technique

They bought that self-same trumpet
But could not buy a soul to sound like ‘Diz’

They came because of Air Conditioning   –
When someone said ‘hey man’ they felt real cool

In deeper velvet darkness than the movies
More like a church where Jesus pats His feet

They came because the truth astonishes
When spoken in so many vivid tongues

They came because The Blues and blues alone
Can purify and heal the living blues

The way only a diamond
Can cut and dress a diamond

 

 

Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

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The Council Crystal Palace of God

God’s local store, 14/1/2023. It’s whispered that the omnipresent creator (in his mind anyway) shifted from Arrowsby-on-Lyre in the outer ‘Home Counties’ to Morecambe, Lancashire, sometime in the 1990s to escape the encroachment of “commodified modernity”[i]

 

If my good friend God has one serious flaw it’s undoubtably an over-abundance of self-belief. Of course, He/She/It has been around a good deal longer than me – so perhaps such confidence is justified?

But to begin somewhere near the beginning, it was 1977 and I was out again walking the streets, hawking Socialist Press[ii]. Another council estate, another door to knock upon. As usual, I was ready to run if the reception was unfriendly (working class Tories being on the rise – You commie bastard![iii] being their usual cry). As it was daytime, violence was less likely, but it pays to be wary. A suffused sunlight barely warmed the afternoon and seemed to fade out altogether as I penetrated an enclosed garden, His garden – though I didn’t know it at the time. (To conform to tradition, I’ll stick to He for now).

27 Fairfax Crescent was the address, and I’d tried it before without success. At night the place was always ablaze like Crystal bloody Palace! my grandad would’ve scoffed (ash tail dropping from his fag to melt the plastic carpet as he cheerfully ignored another burning bulb). Now, it had become night again. Had time accelerated or the clouds thickened towards total eclipse? Rather than wanting to retreat however, I was drawn onward, compelled, fascinated.

A low hum was issuing from the fibre-glass façade of the building; a shape (or shapes) moving behind the wavy-textured glass which paneled the front door. Looking back, it should have been more of a surprise to discover God living here, and yes, the fact may still be hard to believe: God dwelling anonymously in one of those flat-roofed terraces which staggered idealistically up the hill towards the park! These boxy, light-brick dwellings were in a slightly posher council-house bracket – although it was said their flat roofs leaked. In fact, once I knew God a little better, He/She/It, confirmed the estate rumour that the builders had got the plans upside down: beneath His ground floor – as with all the other houses of the same design – was a triangular cellar with a hatch in the floor. But I am getting ahead of myself, or becoming muddled by the chronological time-dissolve which the presence of higher things tends to engender.

As I thought of trying the bell, a strange frequency variation preceded the motion of the door slowly hinging back by itself. The widening trapezium of light appeared to pulse. I shut my eyes as the essence of Crystal bloody Palace (I could hear my grandad’s careless complaint in the cancelled shadow inside my head) beamed forth into the night, blazing the garden almost white and filling the evening with the triumphant hallelujahs of holy choirs.

“Socialist Press?” I offered, holding a copy into the astral glare, fearing it would burst aflame or shred asunder.  Not knowing for certain what or who I was speaking to, I stated the price, adding “new pence,” in case decimalization was still a problem for the light-obscured resident. But when I looked down all the type had vanished from the cover, and low and behold, every inside page was blank. Meanwhile, my pockets were filled with gold and what I can only assume was manna – since upon every subsequent occasion I scooped a handful into my mouth, it tasted quite different.

Although He ruined all my copies of Socialist Press, I often visited God after that, always remembering to wear three pairs of sunglasses on top of each other and not to carry any books or papers. I can’t say I learned much, but then perhaps my character was also seriously flawed? He/She/It was a laconic, even taciturn force without trace of chin or face or even a hint of beard, and unlike Death (who lived in a flat above one of the Dunsham Lane shops) was not fond of chess. Communication was only by thought, and if anything was taught to me, it only dawned sluggishly, upon reflection.

I had begun to believe that He/She/It was Perfect, since everything conveyed to me came in a pristine kind of way: buttercup meadows filled my mind and beautiful clouds sailed o’er awe-inspiring seas . . .

Then, on the seventh occasion I visited, It made that ridiculous, over-the-top claim: that It had created everything!

 

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,
Morecambe, January 2023

 

 

[i]               See: internationaltimes.it/in-her-kingdom-by-the-sea-part-8/

[ii]               The long defunct newspaper of the Workers Socialist League, see: www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialist-press-uk/index.htm

[iii]              Actually: “You fucking commie bastard!” was the usual war cry, but I censored it in case God ever reads this – I doubt He/She/It can be bothered with NOTES.

 

 

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Is Fear of Freedom an Invitation for Fascism?


I am revisiting Dr Erich Fromm’s seminal work ‘Fear of Freedom’ (also published as ‘Escape from Freedom’) as the basis of this article. To understand the causative agent behind major trends in society, one must uncover the chief psychological forces at work at any one time.

By grasping the relevance of the seeming hypocrisy ‘fear of freedom’, it becomes possible to understand the composition of the psychosis currently running rampant through the central arteries of society.

What we are dealing with is the willingness of a large proportion of society to give-in to the will of a perceived authority figure or figures. To do so without ever questioning the logic or rational of what that authority is doing or demanding.

Probably the best known example in recent history of this, is the behaviour of the masses of German society at the time of the rise of Adolf Hitler.

In ‘Fear of Freedom’ Fromm devotes a considerable number of pages to an analysis of the human motivation – or lack of it – that enabled Hitler to hypnotise his people into into obeying his often completely irrational and incoherent demands. To accepting conditions that, with the application of just a small amount of emotional and rational thought, would automatically be rejected by ordinary sentient individuals.

As Covid ‘lock-downs’ and Klaus Schwab’s demand for a ‘Great Reset’ are revealing, the same sequence of top-down irrational authoritarianism is repeating this phenomenon with seemingly very similar affect.

There are certain conditions that must prevail in order for it to be possible for very large numbers of people to capitulate to the commands of an authoritarian figurehead.

The chief ones are: a generally low sense of self esteem; an insecure prevailing financial situation and a fear of stepping out of line with the pattern of behaviour of fellow humans.

It is this last factor which can be the most potent element of self betrayal.

Freedom is not won by avoiding commitment or confrontation. On the contrary, freedom is achieved by taking responsibility and facing the foe. The former interpretation has been made popular by an age in which technology and machines in general have assumed greater importance than human relations. Where basic human responsibility has been off-loaded onto a computer.

A great deal of superfluous ‘luxuries’ of our consumer fixated society are the result of a fascination with ‘the gadgets of leisure’. The emphasis on ‘convenience materialism’ eventually eclipsing the social need for cooperation and interactive mutual support.

The US founder of modern advertising Edward Bernays, played a significant role in launching this trend by developing a method which he called ‘engineering consent’; deceiving customers about their supposed need for products empty of genuine value or merit and often destructive of human and environmental health. Bernays’s notion of ‘engineering consent’ was also applied politically, to leverage support for one or other political party.

But the ability to deceive can only work if the recipient has surrendered his/her commitment to fundamental life values that underpin a humane, fulfilling and creative existence.

In a sense they work in tandem. In Fear of Freedom, Fromm reveals that the desire to control and the desire to be controlled are not opposites, but symptoms of the same basic sickness. The sadist and the masochist are both expressions of extreme alienation and deep fear. The fear of facing the responsibility of freedom. Which means seeking the truth and taking control of one’s destiny.

The sadist in someone arises when that person adopts a fixed position or inherited ideal as a secure totem upon which to dedicate their adult life. This action serves to crush the manifestation of the natural, innate creative and humanitarian energies, that left to their own devices lead the individual towards the realisation of his/her true potential.

Of course, following this creative urge initially brings with it a sense of insecurity. One is ploughing one’s own path – not following someone else’s. It requires courage.

But to reject this ‘road to freedom’ out of fear of the unknown, is to block the spontaneous social, mental and spiritual development of the growing individual. To create a barrier against the directions passed to us by our souls. And that causes a deeply distorted version of ‘the true path’ to become manifest in its place.

 

The Perversion of the British Political Elite

For example, at the British private Preparatory Boarding School I attended from the age of eight to twelve, the head master was a sadist. He saw his role as turning-out boys as ready leaders of a (dying) British Empire.

To achieve this aim, the subtle emotional state inherent in all children, had to be knocked-out and overlaid by a conformism to the fixed concept of ‘manhood’; a requirement to fulfil the demands of becoming ‘a leader of the Empire’.

Chief among the characteristics of such a leader is the ability and readiness to kill for a cause. The cause, in this case, being to uphold the ‘unquestioned superiority’ of British colonial rule. With this conviction being uppermost in the mind, the killing is to be performed coldly, without emotion.

The headmaster of my primary school kept four canes in a glass fronted cupboard in his study. Each having a slightly different ‘whackability’. Any boy falling foul of his wrath was subjected to ‘six of the best’ from one or other of these canes.

A boy’s bruised and bleeding backside was then patched-up by the matron who looked after children’s health. But for the mental trauma there was no matron and no sympathiser.

The headmaster was an imposing athletic figure and when he whacked, it was with full venom and sadistic satisfaction. The general ethos of the school was carried-out in the name of ‘toughening-up’ little boys still emotionally attached to their mothers.

Perverts featured prominently among the staff. The Latin master would regularly run his hands up one’s shorts while correcting home work. And the physical training teacher, a Sargent Major, was an equally lecherous individual whose military training was put to full effect in keeping his gymnastic pupils in order.

Please understand that this school (which is no longer) was the training ground for the political elite; a sister school of the infamous Eton College, the breeding ground for eligible future politicians and Prime Ministers, followed by the blue chip universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

When one considers the deep sickness on display amongst the upper echelon of political (and non political) ‘leaders’ in the UK today, one can see at what an early age it was already being fostered. Pedophilia, child molesting and even child sacrificing, are not perversions that come from nowhere.

The roots of many top-down diseased minds are buried in traumas that started when they were children – and are now being played-out via reversed roles – a pattern that many psychological treatise on psychotic individuals have revealed.

It’s a fine line that separates the psychotic and the Satanic; and it is perhaps no surprise to find that there are two Masonic Lodges situated within the Houses of Parliament at Westminster.

At the heart of the exclusive upper echelons of the British establishment is a largely unspoken commitment to maintaining a self engendered sense of being ‘of the gods’. Thus gifted the right to impose rules on those ‘below’ which will ensure recipients remain in a broadly socio-economic condition of serfdom, and that the perpetrators of that serfdom will be fed according to their addictive need. The need for a ‘sense of power’ to compensate for an inner emotional void and state of abject spiritual poverty.

As Fromm explains in his analysis of the behaviour of Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader despised those who submitted to his will, but respected those who stood-up to him.

This is the coward’s formula which incorporates a form of self loathing concerning one’s own inner weakness. The lack of any pathway towards the realisation of a deeper ‘I’.

This quirky and contradictory power-v-serfdom trait is evident in the way the City of London maintains its demonic grip over global financial affairs.

It has been reported to me that during a ritualistic annual pilgrimage to ‘The Temple’ at Lincoln’s Inn at the heart of the City of London, the British Monarch walks, head lowered, three paces behind the Lord Mayor while passing through ‘The Gates of the Temple’.

The quasi-religious symbolism is clear: money is power and power is everything. Even a Monarch will acknowledge his/her indebtedness to those who control vast empires of wealth. But that same monarch will feel a general sense of disdain for the tens of thousands whose hard labour and poor wages underpinned the pompous halls of wealth occupied by their masters.

In conclusion, from my own experience (as a survivor) of the sadistic power used to prevent young people from following their natural inclinations to creative expression and warm co-habitation, it is evident that ‘fear’ is at the very root of the depraved and schizophrenic behaviour patterns so evident in most so called ‘leaders’ of today.

Look no further than the fear imposed Covid bandwagon, with it’s fear fuelled lock-downs and fear fashioned threats against digressers. Symptomatic of a psychosis running deep within the veins of the small club whose grip on this world is essentially the same grip as the headmaster of my Preparatory School school sought to exert on his unfortunate pupils.

The leaders of The World Economic Forum, The World health Organisation, The United Nations, The Bank of International Settlements, The International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, Black Rock, Bayer-Monsanto/Cargill, to name just a few tyrannical oppressors of the people, are the modern day imposers of the empires that the British were once so proud to force upon the indigenous cultures of other lands.

They, with the help of government and on the orders of a secret cabal, reach into the cupboard for the same canes in order to whack any dissenters, as did the headmaster of my Preparatory School in order to bring into line any rebellious pupils. It’s a revolving door and those entering and leaving are closely connected with each other.

They are a form of dark brotherhood – witness the Skull and Bones Club of Yale University – sworn to protect and maintain the lie, the opposite of which they dare not face. The lie that the only way to avoid responding to the innate urge of the soul to set sail on the path of truth, is to accept one’s destiny as a clone like devotee of the soulless and vindictive gods of materialism.

As part of the turmoil of conflicting forces manifesting today, the silver lining is that a great shake-down of all old conscious and subconscious addictions to hierarchical and slavish patterns of existence is starting to manifest.

A whole new paradigm of spirit based love and respect for all elements of creation is beginning to emerge. Is moving ever further into a territory once seen as a secure fortress against the manifestation of truth.

As Erich Fromm so clearly recognised ‘Fear of Freedom’ and the trauma it imposes on the self and on others, is not a permanent state. Embracing real freedom is an act of love. A courageous act of recognition of our oneness with all humanity. A commitment to take responsibility for the world we were born into as well as for the flourishing of our own special creative contribution to the evolution of that world.

 

Julian Rose

 

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. He is Co-founder of the Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology HARE https://hardwickalliance.org/ . Julian’s latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is strongly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

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The island of Dr Moreau

The story of Dr Moreau’s gruesome attempts at creating humans from animals by vivisection is well known. Like most people I had always accepted the published account of his ‘scientific’ – if questionable – motives. But a few months ago, flicking through a set of Times newspapers from the 1930s, part of a research project I was engaged in, I came across an obituary containing the following paragraph:

By mischance my uncle Cedric was stranded for a week on the infamous island of Dr Moreau when the yacht he was sailing singlehanded across the Pacific drifted off course in a storm. What he found there horrified him, as he confided to his private journal. The colony, he wrote, was ‘a Sodom and Gomorrah of depravity’. Moreau, it seemed, was earcreating the Puma-woman ‘to revive his jaded sexual appetites’, while Montgomery was ‘openly sodomising his beast-servant M’ling’, an attention the creature clearly enjoyed. Even Prendick confessed to having ‘succumbed on occasions to the advances of the Wolf Women’, the general atmosphere of sexual licence no doubt having severely weakened his self-control. Prendick of course makes no mention of my uncle’s brief visit in his highly selective account of the island.

I immediately re-read Prendick’s narrative and was surprised to find veiled hints of the activities mentioned. The first specimens Moreau created, the ‘pioneers’ as Prendick calls them, were all female, a detail which I had not registered before, and tellingly Prendick speaks in his account of ‘the quasi-human intimacy I had permitted myself with some of them’.

Montgomery, as the reader will recall, was a medical student in London who had been forced to flee following an unspecified scandal when he lost his head ‘for ten minutes on a foggy night’ while drunk. What act could have been so disreputable that he was obliged to leave London under Moreau’s protection? Prendick writes of Montgomery: ‘He’s ashamed of it but I believe he half-likes some of these beasts.’ Later he describes him as having ‘a vicious sympathy with some of their ways’. M’ling, Prendick reports, ‘treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion…it loved nothing so much as to be near him’, and Montgomery describes M’ling as the ‘only thing that had ever really cared for him’. Clearly there was an unusual intimacy in their relationship.

The paragraph from the Times appeared in a short obituary of Cedric Williamson of San Francisco, a keen amateur yachtsman and a friend of Bernard Gilboy, the first man to cross the Pacific single-handedly. The nephew who published the account of his uncle’s life had long since died, but I was able to trace a great-grand niece. Disappointingly, she was unable to offer any help, having never heard of Williamson’s journal or of his meeting with Moreau.

 

 

Simon Collings

 

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Not Another Flying Man

 

the man
up in the air
is waving at us

he has no strings attached
nor wings
no tricks of any kind

that I can see
and he looks
as if he’s pleased to see us

I think he expects us
to believe in the possibility
of the impossible

that we can fly too
for example
they usually do

but we’re not so easily fooled
for a start
he’s wearing a suit

which is always a bad sign

 

 

Dominic Rivron

 

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Revisiting Nostalgia 

On this ice and blackhole evening 
hungry for heat and familiar flames
boiling for years between the brows
I yet again yearn to touch the silver kettle

I yank my hand away
the very next moment
scalding my skin with bittersweet 
beverages served by time

behemoth butterflies sublime

 

 

Nivedita Dey © 2023

 

 

Poet’s Bio
Nivedita Dey is a poet from Kolkata, India. Her work has been extensively published in several International literary magazines, such as Tuck Magazine, Harbinger Asylum by Transcendent Zero Press, The Peregrine Muse by Poets International, Amomancies, Dissident Voice and several other. Her poetry book, Larkspur Lane : Branched Labyrinths of the Mind released in 2021. In this book of hers, she officially introduced and elucidated on a new poetic technique of her own, which she has christened ‘complex open enjambments’.
In 2016, she represented the Indian voice, reading at the International Beat Poetry Festival, West Virginia chapter. She also appeared as a guest reader at various other prestigious literary meets and poetry events.
A double M.A. in English and Psychology, she also fills in the shoes of a content developer, a creative consultant and a screenwriter having several years of experience with some of the major brands in the television and film industry of Mumbai and Kolkata, such as Disney Star.
Her poetic philosophy is one of Hope and Transcendental Humanism. She believes, “However dark it gets, it only makes a stronger case for the eternal and invincible presence of Light. Deep down, I dream of a better, more heart-centered world, and I try to contribute whatever I can to that cause through my poetry and my art.”

 

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New Bits

 

Hope everyone’s having a new year and a very January.

If you like this mailing list please add my address to your email contacts so it doesn’t get filtered out. Thanks!

 

BMW / TOYOTA GREENWASH CAMPAIGN

I designed this poster for a new Brandalism, Subvertisers International and XR Belgium takeover of 400 ad spaces in towns and cities across Europe targeting car advertising, polluting SUVs, and in particular Toyota and BMW.⁠

BMW and Toyota push their ‘green’ credentials in their advertising while simultaneously lobbying governments to delay and limit policies to end the sale of new fossil fuel cars.⁠

There were 11 other artists involved in the campaign including some good friends @shelkadelic, @buyanewsoul, @mattbonner.uk and @mernywernz. More images and details of the other artists works in this campaign can be found on the Brandalism website.⁠

     

My poster was inspired by the fact that BMW was one of the car manufacturers who installed emissions test cheating devices in thousands of their vehicles, which meant they released far more toxic fumes than regulators and consumers believed. They also colluded with VW and Daimler in an “emissions cartel” to curb the use of emissions cleaning technology.⁠

More of my previous subvertising work on my website.


Above: French version of the poster

 

HE WON’T SAVE THIS ONE EITHER

Drew the above for an update of my commemorative coin for the coronation and decided to make this into a limited edition signed print too, which you can order from my website shop

Coins won’t be ready until March but you can preorder them here. (Previous unsaved monarch coin shown here on the left)

 

 

 

 

HELL BUS TOUR

I’m hoping to bring the Hell Bus on tour around universities in England and Wales from late Feb through March, alongside the Ad Free Cities and Switch It campaigns (who are also very kindly organising the logistics and funding for the tour). But we’re having some trouble getting invites from universities. If you work at a university or a student union and can help us officially get the bus onto your campus please reply to this email and let me know!

 

PREPARE FOR VALENTINES DAY / APOCALYPSE

I designed this Valentines Day card to monetise your doomed romance. You can order them here.

 

I also recently got these ‘It Has to Get Worse Before it Gets Worse’ t-shirts made up, they’re 6 colour screenprints and come with Spelling Mistakes tags sewn in the collar. Available here.

 

 

 

 

SUPPORT THE NURSES STRIKE

 

I made the above poster in support of the nurses strike which is being printed and sold by If Not Now Digital with all profits going to the RCN strike fund.

Also, I mentioned it before but I made the poster on the left to connect all the struggles of different professions fighting for better pay and conditions. You can download this one for free from my website.

And below you can see a photo of both posters which somehow ended up in bus stops in London.

 

NEOLIBERALISM

Managed democracy, brought to you by neoliberalism.

One of the primary functions of neoliberalism is to remove economic policy from the democratic sphere, so it’s no longer possible to vote for anything except neoliberal economic policy. This is, now we are faced with a choice between Starmer & Sunak, “the triumph of centrism” according to George Osborne. A triumph because all other options are defeated and removed from voter reach.

Both major parties in the UK agree on the fundamentals of how to run the economy, (privatisation & outsourcing, austerity, marketisation, anti-union legislation etc), they just disagree on some smaller points of detail such as which party’s donors should get the lucrative NHS contracts.

The Wikipedia definition for a managed democracy states that “such hybrid regimes are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the state’s policies, motives, and goals.” How is that not a description of this country, or the US and many other major countries for that matter? Red or blue, things carry on much the same. Same neoliberal economics, same foreign policy, same military posturing, same allies, same enemies, same approach to business and workers.

One thing the red/blue divide is very good for is getting people to support policies they would absolutely loathe if suggested by the other party. So for the last few weeks I’ve had Labour supporters explain to me that Wes Streeting will only *temporarily privatise* the NHS. And they’re ok with that. They’re not even interested in any details on when the temporary privatisation is supposed to stop. It’s fine because “we have to win”. But what are you winning? At least when the Tories are in charge you don’t have to make excuses for their terrible policies.

For the time being at least, there is little that can be achieved through electoral politics, the real fight is in unionising your workplace, organising among renters, and building community power, taking direct action on climate change, and holding the bastards who govern us, red, white or blue, to account for their corruption & bigotry, whether they’re on “your side” or not.

Que se vayan todos / They all must go

 

POSTER SALE!

 

While tidying my studio this week I found a chunk of old Pocket Money Loans posters. I sold these primarily during my installation at Dismaland and they’re one of the main reasons I was able to start renting an actual studio rather than working out of the corner of my bedroom. So while I’m very fond of them I would like to get rid of them too cos they’re taking up space that could be filled with new daft things.

So I’m doing a (February?) sale until this time next month, you can have any of these A3 posters for £5 each:

Order here

 

SUNAK SEAT BELT

Quickly edited this PSA for politicians recording social media content in government limousines. It’s embedded below or you can watch on twitter / instagram

TW / CW: Car crash, implied violence.

 
 

 

READING / WATCHING

Thought I’d add a little section of what I’ve been reading, listening to and/or watching over the last month or so in case its of interest.

Non-Fiction Book

The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our WorldVincent Bevins

Utterly brilliant, chilling and infuriating. It’s made me rethink the Cold War less as a power struggle between great powers, and more of a reaction by the West to decolonisation; an effort to crush any democratic movement that threatened the West’s commercial and imperial interests in newly liberated nations.

Fiction Book

The Ragged-Trousered PhilanthropistsRobert Tressell

A bleak but very funny story about poverty, work and capitalism that feels more relevant now than it would have in many of the decades since it was written in 1914

Audiobook

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage BookAlfred Lansing

I didn’t know much about this failed expedition to Antarctica but the story of how this crew survived and escaped the most inhospitable place on Earth after having their ship crushed and sunk by ice thousands of miles from civilisation is absolutely staggering.

As for film and telly, Endurance got me obsessing about Arctic and Antarctic voyages so I watched the great documentary Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog. Also I’m not much into Star Wars but I loved Andor which I chose to view as the Irish War of Independence in Space. Made me wonder if it’s a coincidence the Rebel Alliance abbreviates to ‘the RA’, (is the full name: ‘Intergalactic Rebel Alliance’?)

Anyway enough of all that!

This update is public and shareable so please feel free to pass it on. If you’re not on my mailing list but would like to be you can sign up here.

Eternal thanks to anyone who’s ever backed my work on Patreon or through the shop!

And thanks for reading!

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The Right Way


We talk the same now
but it wasn’t always like this:

as with turning on the
tap / faucet in opposing ways,

how to ask directions for the
toilet / bathroom, or revving

engines of Peace and Love 
under a bonnet / hood.

Judgement was in the ‘right’
way to say English words –

my counting of thirdy, fordy; then
turdle as well. Always oarange,

this languid Nebraskan vocal
dulled consonants and stretched

vowels a mouth could not
get around with ease.

But talking the same now is the
‘Right’ way, a politics of

expression that replaces nuances
of sound for vitriol. The Fascists –

there is only one way to speak this
designation – coalesce in shouts of

the self over care for others. Accent
is no longer a divide, but rich / poor

and truth / lie reside respectively as
a chasm or are indistinguishable:

the two ‘great democracies’
I have straddled for a lifetime

sound the same, but are
no longer what they were.

 

 

 

Mike Ferguson
Picture Rupert Loydell

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preemptive erasure


 
the pen draws the moon
 
the brush inscribes its
own language
 
nothing alive
is anything else
 
ordinary is a misnomer
 
unfurling as in
the loss of concupiscence
 
the coffee shop
where we met
remembers the scars
*
the pen draws
nothing alive
 
ordinary inscribes
its own language
 
the moon is
a misnomer
 
the brush unfurling
remembers the scars
 
the coffee shop
is anything else
where we met
the loss of concupiscence
as in preemptive erasure

 

 

 

 

David Fetcho
Photo Nick Victor

 

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interview with director, writer, producer, and cinematographer, Dan Melamid (DanTheMan).

 

Interview by Joshua Phillip

Rorschach Art Publication 
rorschacharchives.blogspot.com

In this interview I talk with director, writer, producer, and cinematographer, Dan Melamid (DanTheMan). He is the son of conceptualist artist Alexander Melamid.

 
Dan has a unique, creative, and adaptive ability which has allowed him to gain a wide field of experience and knowledge. He is foundational in the visual expression connected with the music (videos) in the careers of hip hop artists Prodigy of Mobb Deep, and 50 Cent. 

He worked closely with Prodigy and 50 and he was able, along with them, to translate their lyrics into a personal visual expression through the visual art form. 

In this interview we focus on Prodigy’s MAC 10 HANDLES, a song which is produced by The Alchemist, and directed by Dan Melamid.

There is also featured below the 

50 Cent video titled ‘Ryder Music’ which is directed by Dan and which is part of the many 50 Cent videos Dan directed for 50 Cent’s album The Massacre. 

His other videos on Massacre include: “In My Hood”, “This Is 50”, “I’m Supposed to Die Tonight”, “Gatman and Robbin”(ft. Eminem), “Get in My Car”, “Ski Mask Way”, “A Baltimore Love Thing”, 
“Gunz Come Out”, “Position of Power” “Build You Up”(ft. Jamie Foxx), “Outta Control”, “God Gave Me Style”, 
and “So Amazing”(ft. Olivia). 

website for Dan Melamid 
www.danmelamid.com

Instagram Mobb Deep
mobbdeepqb

Instagram Prodigy Of Mobb Deep 
prodigymobbdeep

Instagram Havoc Of Mobb Deep 
mobbdeephavoc

Instagram Alchemist 
alanthechemist

website for Alchemist 
www.alcrecords.com

Instagram 50 Cent 
50cent

TATE ARTIST INTERVIEW: VITALY KOMAR AND ALEXANDER MELAMIDwww.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/world-goes-pop/artist-interview/vitaly-komar-and-alexander-melamid

KOMAR AND MELAMID TATE BIOGRAPHYwww.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/world-goes-pop/artist-biography/komar-and-melamid

SAATCHI GALLERY ARTIST: VITALY KOMAR AND ALEXANDER MELAMIDwww.saatchigallery.com/artist/komar_and_melamid

Discuss in detail the concept behind Mac 10 Handles? 
Mac 10 Handles was a video me and Prodigy did right after we got off of a 
G Unit, 50 Cent, European tour. We really bonded and got close. Previous to that we worked on several videos that included Stuck To You, New York Shit, The Infamous ft 50 Cent, and actually a few others. So we already had quite a big working relationship but during this tour me and Prodigy really really bonded. Every city we were in, we would do the tourist thing while most of the other rappers stayed in hotels. When we got back, it was close to Halloween and Alchemist and P (Prodigy) had played me the album that included Mac 10 Handle, the track to the album, and you know, P always, uh, Prodigy always had inclines to do horror, horror movies etc, so he was really adamant about a horror theme. The real reason the video went so viral, quote unquote, at the time, was really because of the cusp of groundbreaking technology. This technology was the ability to use film cinema lenses on video cameras. Before that the only way to get a look like that would be renting a film camera – 35mm film camera, which would take the video budget to about $25,000. And these things called 35mm adaptors came out which was like this gigantic addition to the front of the camera that enabled you to use cinema lenses on video cameras. So I was just experimenting with that technology and P came up with his own money which is shoe string, very low. Everything we did before that they were those regular kind of budget videos, but this video, he was like just me and you do it, knock it out. So basically I rented this 35mm adaptor, we probably had about 7-grand for the whole budget and it was close to Halloween, and in New York City there was a lot of pop up stores open that sell various horror costumes. Me and my cinematographer / assistant at the time, Al Roberts, had already shot so many videos together and my ethos has always been, if something is moving really great in your mind then put a lot of resources into that video, because this is an art form it’s not just a business. There’s certain videos you’re just trying to make a lot of money out of, but if you feel like there’s an opportunity to inspire, then go all out, and this was one of them times. The location was in Queens. It was literally a drug den where somebody lived – they sold drugs in – and we just brought a couch in there and brought all of those little props he’s playing with and we shot it on this new technology. 
I remember I didn’t really think anything of the video…. we’ve been doing videos, they’ve all looked great. I didn’t really realise until Stevie Williams, the Skateboarder, who was the hottest thing at the time, was sitting in my office and saw the video and he responded “oh my God, this is the greatest video I’ve ever seen!” and I was like, really? that’s interesting. So that sort of tipped me off as to the reception it was going to get. 
YouTube wasn’t a thing then. The reason for music videos at the time was to get them on TV. So when this video came out and it looked cinematic and it had all the makings of a horror film and it had all those little horror tropes and imagery, it really changed my approach to music videos. Before that I was really on par with documentary videos. Mac 10 Handles definitely catapulted my music video career. The main critic of the Village Voice, which was one of the premier newspapers at the time, awarded the video runner up to the video of the Year. The other videos there were gigantic budget videos and this little tiny video that we did made that list. And then Complex magazine dubbed it video of that decade. It just opened up all the doors. Everyone recognised its art, recognised me as driving force and a creative, and it really relaunched Prodigy’s second resurgence. We continued this spree in several other videos after that. 
The various objects in the room, where did you get them from and how did you then design the layout of their placement within the space? 
As I said it was very close to Halloween when I shot that. When you see that he’s at this kind of night club where there’s all these people dressed up, well this was an underground illegal warehouse party that was thrown in Brooklyn called The Third Ward Party. It was a party that we would go to yearly, and I knew that it was coming up and this video was a perfect opportunity for that. So we literally went with Prodigy and they welcomed us with open arms. Back then nobody had video cameras, let alone in a darkened club and we shot all that, you know, like the person in the George Bush mask, and girls, you know this sort of costumed thing. Actually that party got raided by the police that year and shut down for ever – it was its last year. The props on the table, well, the bullet was not mine, I’ll give you a hint as to whose it was, he ended up doing 3 years in jail for possession of a gun, and that would be Prodigy. We also were doing a lot of macro work in other words using a macro lense, getting really close, the eyeball, the bullet, and other things. We had this simplistic one room Kind of thing, it calls for these little details. Prodigy was very very much involved in this set design as well. He really loved this sort of thing and we would just go crazy with costuming and props and would be running around the city sending each other images, picking up all kinds of crazy stuff. He was definitely very heavily involved, and definitely Al Roberts my cinematographer who we’ve previously did tons of videos together, he was definitely a gigantic force in this as well as the label at the time which was Prodigy’s record label. You know like, a lot of labels of that era would have a video commissioner instead, would really want to look at the script, well this label really just trusted us, like, well we trust you, just do your thing and we’ll be good. 
What conversations took place between yourself and Prodigy throughout the creative and filming process?
I really don’t remember that much of it like that. We’d done so many videos together that I guess they bubble into together. I mean it was just another video. It wasn’t just another video, it was another low budget video. You know it’s a strange thing if you were to ask me, is this going to be the video, but it just goes to show you, right place, right time, right song – that’s very important, right artist, it being close to Halloween, you know, all these things came together at that moment. 
How long did it take to shoot the video and what were the various stages in making it?
The shoot was one day, well two nights rather. One night shooting that interior location. And the Brooklyn warehouse party, one night shooting that exterior location at Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And the driving scenes as well, were in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 
What was it like on set during the filming process?
Well you know the way these low budget videos work, we’d already worked on so many videos before and I’m the cinematographer / director /and there was me, Al, Prodigy, and with me an assistant, that’s it. You know, Al’s van, my camera. We’d rented the 35mm lenses, we had this little crane that I owned, and this steady camera, and that’s what it was. 
Describe both yours and Prodigy’s work ethic during filming?
Well it’s a privilege and honour to do videos together especially when you’re into them, and with the work ethic I’m very excited always. I have the sort of work ethic where I’ll wear the artist out – let’s do another take! Let’s do another take! But me and P (Prodigy) had such a close relationship and had collaborated and he was just as excited. He was just there to get the greatest result. And being with Al(Alchemist) we all loved the song and it was just great. 
What sort of drink and food were you consuming at that time? Was there a particular diet you or Prodigy were following?
Well I mean if you see him drinking that gigantic Hennessy bottle, and that alcohol he was spitting on the mirror, but I’m sure the food we were consuming was not healthy. There’s definitely no healthy food options in that neighbourhood in Queens where that set was. I’m sure there was some kind of fried situation. 
50 Cent’s The Massacre album. You directed, produced, shot and edited most of the music videos for this album. It was how you connected with Prodigy. Discuss your creative process working on the Massacre and yours and 50 Cent’s work ethic in making it?
I met 50 cent before he got signed and started documenting him. It was just a very symbiotic type of thing where I would be rolling around with my camera filming him. Then all of a sudden lo and behold I get a phone call from his lawyer who I also know because he’s friends with this guy I used to work for, his name is Johnathan Shecter, he’s one of the founders of the Source magazine, Theo was a friend of his, that’s 50 Cents lawyer. Lo and behold another very close friend of his and that’s Paul Rosenberg, who happened to discover Eminem, and also there’s Sha Money XL, who’s a producer at G Unit records, who I happened to also know. Its a funny thing how this whole thing worked. And also me and Whoo Kidd who ended up being 50 Cents DJ were partners in this video thing. The mixtape DJs ended up doing video content and that’s where me and him formed a partnership. So it was all kind of set up for me to get this thing. I’m business partners with Whoo Kidd, I know everyone in that circle, so basically that’s how I got involved with 50. We toured around and I was filming. We were obviously shooting, and again when we shot stuff back then it was pre YouTube so there was not an outlet for it in the same way. When we would see it, it would be internal. And then we would put it on DVDs, right, that was the business plan /model at the time. So 50 had this idea to do a video for every song on the album (The Massacre) and that’s where I came in. There was Candy shop directed by Jesse Terrero and 2 or 3 big budget videos that I did not shoot, and the rest of it I sort of had to piece it together. They gave me a very very low budget and I shot a bunch of those videos in Canada, I shot a bunch of them in Queens. 50 was doing his movie at the time (Get Rich or Die Trying), it was very piece meal. A bunch of them I shot in the mansion he brought that was Mike Tysons old house, and just driving around utilising documentary footage I had. Yeah that’s kind of how it came together. It was re released – as a bonus thing. The album was released, and then, I’m not sure when, but the album was re-released with a dvd component. You have to remember that people had DVD screens in their cars and that was sort of the culture at the time. 
What filming equipment do you work with?
It was pre HD. It was before High Definition. It was the start of the 720, the Panasonic HBX’s and DVX’s and before the red cameras came out. A lot of it was shot on Super 16 which I love and there was a couple of 35mm shoots in there. You know, the real deal man, you got to load the film, you know, you have your eight rolls. There’s something about that stuff that’s just magical. And now I have not shot on 35mm or 16mm, for that fact, in a long time. I wish I could shoot on it but it’s such a pain in the ass. I’d have to convince people to do it now. And honestly I think digital has really caught up in such a big way to on what we were shooting on back then. So if you think about it I would say when I shoot on the Alexa with some vintage lenses, it doesn’t look to much different to those things what it looked like. The film does have a more magical quality somehow. We use real film grain so it’s kind of like we try to mimic that to as real degree as possible. Digital cameras are so clean, that’s why we all love to use strange vintage uncoated lenses to try to dirty up or mess up to give texture to the cleanliness that HD has brought in. 
What are your daily habits? 
I have to stay up on current shit. Things are always changing and if you’re not experimenting, you’re stagnant. If you’re not pushing yourself, you’re stagnant. If you’re not pushing yourself and making mistakes that’s boring. If there’s no risk, there’s no reward. All of the great things come out of not necessarily the highest budget, where you think it would come out. Like a lot of the experimental stuff, is the stuff what people love at the end of the day. I think that you have to challenge yourself. You have to learn new software. You have to experiment with new technologies. You have to use the cameras, you know etc etc. It’s always changing, it’s forever changing, everyday it’s changing. 
What books do you read?
I have here in front of me Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez. Let’s see what else, obviously Syd Field. Syd Field is an amazing screen writing technician. What else do I have here, The Art of Prodding. Yeah these are my cinematography books. 
What does your diet consist of nowadays?
Ah interesting. My diet consists of only fermented foods, and wild berries, and Elk, nah I made that up. My diet consists of food. I tend to do my own cooking. I just ate some Steak with beans. And no starch, you know, I’m trying to watch my weight. No more fried food for me lol. I’m kidding. Everything in moderation. 
Drink any health drinks? 
Yeah, I like Ginger, – (I ask about Green Juices to) – yeah I guess my wife does, I won’t say no. 
Do you meditate?
I do hand stands on Skateboards. I can’t sit still long enough to meditate. But hand stands on Skateboards, that’s my meditation. 
Burn incense or Sage etc?
Nah, but I burn weed though. 
Favourite pieces of Art work?
My favourite pieces of art work? That’s a pretty heavy question. I’m a fan of a lot of different art work from the 80’s Pop artists to Rembrandt and Monet and stuff like that. A thing about the great part of living in New York City is that you can get to go to the Metropolitan Museum, and there’s a couple of rooms in there where you’re like oh I’ve seen these paintings reproduced all the time. It’s free and you can just go there. I take that stuff for granted because of the great city I live in. I do love great art. I think nowadays a lot of the Renaissance art work from the Da Vinci’s to Van Gogh is really undervalued compared to the Warhol’s and the Basquiat’s that are overvalued. I think that’s a very interesting phenomenon that’s happening now because of the influence of Pop art and how heavy it is. People would rather have a triptych of Marilyn Monroe on their wall than a Van Gogh painting. Whereas I think that the Van Gogh painting would have more value to me in my opinion, and in my head. 
What metals do you like and why?
I like Titanium. Why? Because it’s strong yet light. My trucks are made out of Titanium. Thunder trucks. 
Any interest in Geology, or weather patterns, or volcanic activity?
I did go to Iceland, this summer, for a couple of days, it was very interesting. 
I love that kind of terrain, I don’t study it or nothing like that. It was definitely an inspirational trip.

https://youtu.be/JigP4JiMmAs

https://youtu.be/vH7e00NXPX8

 

 

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YOU BLESSED ME!

O my darling love,

How melodic your heart is!

Love, kind in plenty to each another.

 

O my blooming love,

Stay with me for a lifetime!

We will dance to newly wedded bird’s song.

 

O my fairy dressed love,

How dulcet you are, near and far!

Your eyes filled with dreamy nectar.

 

O my bewitching love,

Be young as forever!

I wish you to be my side forever.

 

O my smiling love,

I desire you nothing more!

Because you blessed me to rise higher.

 

 

 

Monalisa Parida
Picture Nick Victor

 

 

Bio:- Monalisa Parida is a post graduate student of English literature from India, Odisha and a prolific poetess. She  is very active in social media platforms and her poems have also been translated into different  languages and publish in various e-journals.

   She has got 80 international award for writing poetry. Her poems have been publishing international e-journals “New York parrot”, “The Writers Club” (USA), “Suriyadoya literary  foundation”, “kabita Minar”, “Indian Periodical” (India) and “Offline Thinker “, “The Gorkha Times “ ( Nepal), “The Light House”(Portugal), “Bharatvision”(Romania), “International cultural forum for humanity and creativity”(Aleppo, Syria), “Atunispoetry.com”(Singapore) etc. And also published in various newspapers like “The Punjabi Writer Weekly(USA)”,  “News Kashmir (J&K, India)”, Republic of Sungurlu (Turkey)” etc.

One of  her poem published an American anthology named “The Literary Parrot Series-1 and  series-2 respectively (New York, USA)”. Her poems have been translated in various languages like Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, Persian, Romanian etc.  And she is the author of the book “Search For Serenity”, “My Favourite Grammar”, “Paradigm”, “Beyond Gorgeous”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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At the Sound of the Gong

It’s the Feast of Fools and the world, once more, turns upside-down like an hourglass, with memento mori sifting into simple kitchen knick-knack. It’s a time to strip off our drab overalls and slip into more relaxed expressions of individual identity which we haul from the dressing-up box of abandoned cultural referents. There’s … well, it’s up to you, because we’re talking local politicians from the early 70s and one-hit wonders who don’t even make the nostalgia shows, or even those schoolteachers with facial tics and unconscious catchphrases that all the kids would parrot each time their backs were turned. Some even dress as parrots and that’s ok on a day like today, when everything’s inverted, the Front Bench of the House is lining up to serve the masses, and even the dead are stretching out of their graves to join the fun. So, go ahead: pull on that motley of your personal past and join your friends, both dead and alive, before the charivari band strikes up the National Anthem played backwards. Lay down your folly on this long, long table. The world is upside-down, the sand is running back to the seashore, and the animals are hungry.

 

 

 

Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor

 

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Collage Decoupage Triage

lorn life
merely
shorn & torn
paper
scattered
upon forlorn
cardboard

 

 

 

Word and image
Terrence Sykes

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SHEFFIELD RADICAL BOOK FAIR 2023

Saturday 4th February
10am-4pm

Dina Venue
Fitzalan Square
S1 2AZ

https://www.dinavenue.com

After Party to be announced

Contact [email protected]

 

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Warmly, Alexandria

 

 

Lou Terry announces new EP Warmly, Alexandria, due for release 10th February 2023 via The state51 Conspiracy. The news is accompanied by a new single of the same name plus music video (directed by Natascha Farmer) and is set for release 13th January 2023.

New single, ‘Warmly, Alexandria’ is a soft hearted ode to AOC, global concerns, and climate change’s crushing responsibility, all set to a rousing yet melancholy soundtrack of placid kicks and wavering vocals. With half an eye on the end of the world, Lou Terry’s emotive war cry perfectly captures the overwhelming sense of disbelief coursing its way through the inhabitants of this rotating rock. 

 

PREORDER 12” VINYL – https://state51.greedbag.com/buy/warmly-alexandria-3/

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Here on this Island

The Island, Robert Darch (Lido Books)

‘On Thursday 23 June 2016 the EU referendum took place and the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.’ So says the Gov.UK website, without comment or critique. It came up as the first return from an online search for the date, which is printed on the half title page of Robert Darch’s beautiful book of photographs. These two pages initially seem to be the only text, apart from some thank yous and publishing information inside the back cover, but a little more exploration reveals a prose text inside the front cover flap.

This – presumably designed as an introduction of sorts – is a moody story about the dull provincial life of an unnamed narrator, whose ‘town was about as far from anywhere as you could get, landlocked and lacking.’ It is one of many towns ‘where people’s lives were mapped out by circumstance and routine. All those people and the weight of their existence, nobody moving.’ This is contrasted with lyrics from a Fugazi song, where ‘Everybody’s moving, moving, moving, moving’ and the singer begs ‘Please don’t leave me to remain’.

Stasis is a constant throughout the text: regular visits to clubs, persistent downing of lager, constant rain, a crowded bus… but in the distance, the Malvern Hills, with a memory of camp and the view of a hidden, fogbound landscape. It is put aside as the bus trundles on, taking the narrator to college…

Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but the camp is named the British Camp, and its nostalgic allure is at odds with the desire to be moving, along with everyone else. It certainly sums up that mix of group memory of a fictional British past we are taught at school (free of colonialism, racism, abuse and violence) and the resulting xenophobia and snobbery directed against ‘others’: other countries, other races, other people, people with other ideas about how to eat, live or run their own nation.

The photographs in The Island reflect all these ideas. There are alluring misty landscapes, beached boats and a local train (perhaps even running on time?) and views out to sea. Live with these works a while, pay attention, however, and the images change into something else: a land of tired and stressed individuals, abandoned mines, factories and industrial buildings, damaged and dying nature, man made intrusions at odds with the world around them.

Houses are empty and overtaken with ivy; trees are dying, stripped of their bark or with their branches brutally lopped; nameless individuals and couple stare assertively at the camera, traverse or sit in the ruins they find themselves in. That boat pulled up on the beach turns out to be abandoned, that beach chalet looks uninhabitable, and when was the last time children played on those rusty, restrung swings? Another beach chalet which appears still in use has cushions piled high in the window, and several others spilt across the decking. And why are those people standing high in a bare winter tree? What can they see? Are they moving, moving, moving or watching others move? Or have they all been left behind?

This is a dark, monochrome book; a disturbing one, too. It depicts a country isolated from its neighbours, inhabited by worried and concerned young people who have been left with the ruins of the world they grew up in. What was promised never happened, has been taken away, and they can only look out of broken windows, from windswept beaches and stormswept cliffs, imagining past freedoms and denied possibilities. Three of the photographs are particularly poignant for me: a shovel stuck in tar on a concrete floor, a woman kneeling in a field with an impressive country house behind her that she will never inhabit, and the final photo of a desecrated tree, reduced to a stump of wood in the mist. The distant light in this and other photos, even the light at the end of the mine tunnel in one photo, offer little chance of illumination or a fulfilling future.

Darch’s stark photographs offer a persuasive kind of narrative or meta-narrative about how and where we live, post-Brexit, post-covid, how we have chosen isolation and ignorance over possibility and partnership. It is a disturbing, anxious and thought-provoking book that contradicts the preposterous notion that we are a civilized, affluent and caring society. It is not, however, didactic or polemical, it is a gathering up of persuasive and visual evidence where ‘nothing of the present seem[s] familiar anymore’. We are all shipwrecked and abandoned now.

 

Rupert Loydell

Robert Darch is a British artist-photographer based in the South West of England. He has published and exhibited widely and his photographs reside in public and private collections. You can find out more about him and his work, as well as purchase The Island and other books, at https://www.robertdarch.com/

Portrait of Robert Darch by Tavis Amosford

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Doctor Strange

Blank Canvas. Art School Creativity from Punk to New Wave, Simon Strange
(297pp, Intellect)

Whilst being fairly enjoyable reading, this is a backwards kind of book, that tends to see links, connections and inspirations after the event, many of which are not the slightest bit convincing. It feels very ‘researched’ rather than lived, which I guess is how academia often works.

One of the main problems is it just doesn’t seem to be what I and others experienced at college during the time Doctor Strange writes about. Crewe & Alsager College’s Creative Arts degree had five strands running through it (music, writing, visual art, theatre and dance) and students initially took two of these, which could be sustained or reduced to one as students wished. But all five subject area students were one cohort, meeting together for lectures and practical projects under the title of ‘Integrated Arts’ in addition to our own studio practice, performances and workshops.

This meant, for instance that, despite being a painter and writer, I could use the music studio to record my band’s music, the reprographics department to print posters and zines, and contribute sound and lighting to my partner’s and her friends’ dance performances. Our tutors were a lively mix of practitioners, theoretical lecturers and one escapee painter from Ealing, who preferred the Cheshire quiet to dealing with other artists such as Gustav Metzger and Harold Cohen, the telematic Roy Ascott, or students like future rock star Pete Townshend. There was also a Crafts degree on campus, whose students we mingled with, despite there being a very different ethos to their course; and the obligatory sports students who usually drank somewhere else then came back to the campus bar for last orders and a fight. (We did once work out we had a good rugby seven on the arts degree who had played for county or colts teams, and talked about challenging them to a match.)

It wasn’t just about our own degree though. I never again saw so much experimental theatre, music or new dance as I did in the early 1980s. Alsager College itself was on the performance circuit back then, and Manchester, Chester, Liverpool, Stoke on Trent and Keele University were all within striking distance for other events. One favourite evening of mine was at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where we saw Mantis Dance, Ivor Cutler and Psychic TV, although Cutler was because we snuck in at the interval to another performance space when Psychic TV decided they didn’t want to start playing ’til late. (The band were apparently sulking because Kathy Acker had left the tour at very short notice, calling Genesis P-Orridge all sorts of names as she did so.)

Crewe itself was full of punk and postpunk bands, such as Two-Fingered Approach (who had already released a single, ‘My World War Album’), Corpse, Flowers in the Dustbin (who were convinced Flux of Pink Indians had stolen their experimental ideas from a demo tape they had submitted to them) and John Everall (who went on to form Sentrax Records but at the time recorded work under a bewildering series of pseudonyms and one-off band names). All were plugged into the DIY cassette culture of the time, establishing support networks around the country that facilitated touring, tape exchange or sales, and spreading the anarchist word.

Whilst I can’t prove that what I experienced at Crewe & Alsager was the norm, the above is somewhat at odds with Strange’s thesis that punk and new wave music emerged from, and in resistance to, art schools undergoing a shift away from unregulated experiment and adventure to more managed, theoretical and conceptual hierarchies. Maybe this was true in London (though it wasn’t at my Art Foundation course in Twickenham during 1977-78) but nothing was as clear cut as Strange suggests. In fact my general impression of this book – apart from the fact it needs a good copy edit to get rid of, for example, lots of repetition such as ‘for example’ – is that it is a tidied-up version of things, trying to establish a linear history when the reality was messy, fragmented, chaotic and geographically varied and specific.

Yes, there are labels we apply, for ease of use and marketing, to genres, theories and fashions, but the reality is that even as the Sex Pistols and their entourage hogged the news for a bit, groups like This Heat and the Flying Lizards were producing deconstructed rock music, and the charts were still full of disco and novelty hits. We know by now that little happens in isolation: New York produced disco, punk and hip-hop in the same few years, with people like Arthur Russell playing with Philip Glass and Talking Heads in addition to recording his own gay disco anthems and multi-tracked cello experiments. And consider how the New York punk label managed to be applied to such different bands as Television, Patti Smith, Blondie, The Ramones and Talking Heads, none of whom had much in common with the Sex Pistols, Clash or Siouxsie & The Banshees over in the UK.

Yes, cybernetics, conceptual art, abstract-expressionism, performance art, action painting and auto-destructive art were part of art schools, just as figure drawing, colour theory, design, typography and print skills were. And, yes, different pedagogies arose or were imposed, and universities became (and remain) more accountable to councils, governments and the education establishment. And yes, I’m sure that musicians who happened to be at art school took on board some of the art-making processes or critical and theoretical ideas shared with them, but I imagine just as important were the debates and arguments during tutorial and class feedback sessions and studio visits, seeing and hearing about what other students were doing, and endless discussions in the pub or student union bar. Not to mention the radio, gigs, borrowed albums, what NME and Sounds reviewed (Shout out to Paul Morley and John Gill) and the nearest independent record store had available. (For the record we had a fantastic one in Crewe.) But most important of all was time and space, paid for time and space for three years, and access to equipment and resources. I worked for four years before going to university, and couldn’t believe what was on offer and available if you chose to make use of it all.

For me, this is what the influences were for musicians coming out of art college. But let’s not be stupid, many art students didn’t like punk or new wave music and many punk and new wave bands never went near an art college unless they got a gig there. None of those Crewe bands I mentioned had been to university (though some members would go in due course), they simply wanted to play together, record, and share their music with a bit of rebel attitude. And technology such as 4-track TEAC recorders and cheap local studios facilitated that.

Strange’s book is intriguing, but it is head over heels. You can always find music that reflects what you want it to. So I am underwhelmed when he selects a topic such as the Situationist International, Systems Theory or Cybernetics and then finds a band to ‘evidence’ a connection; and even more underwhelmed by section headings such as ‘Attitude’ and ‘Eclecticism’. It misses out the larger picture, of what was taking and had taken place in genres such as contemporary classical, improvisation and electronic music. Yes, Cage and his book Silence gets the obligatory mention, but not much else. One of the great things about attending events at the London Musician’s Collective back in the day was the generous mix of music on offer, from minimal percussion events (metal objects laid out on a blanket being banged, rubbed or plucked) to ear-splitting group improvisation via Keith Tippett’s lyrical piano explorations, wordless vocal gymnastics, punk thrash and epic saxophone solos reliant upon cyclical breathing.

It seems to me that this hybridity and openness, aligned with the end of hippy idealism, along with a rejection of early neoliberal economics and what passed for popular music back then was what created punk. As early as January 1978, Robert Christgau, in his ‘Punk England Report’ for The Village Voice, noted that ‘Punk doesn’t want to be thought of as bohemian, because bohemians are posers. But however vexed the question of their authenticity, bohemias do serve a historical function — they nurture aesthetic sensibility.’ Now, bohemia was certainly part of the art college experience, always had been, but other bohemias were and always have been available.

My personal bohemia back then, certainly produced results. Active or would-be session musicians, composers, singers, guitarists, keyboard players, studio technicians, film and TV scriptwriters, authors, editors, publishers, performance artists, puppeteers, ceramicists, teachers, lecturers, dancers, painters, sculptors, community arts workers, costume designers, actors and administrators all graduated with me, emerged blinking into the reality of mid-1980s Britain, just as they did elsewhere. Some of us were able to do what we wanted (and still do), some of us didn’t or couldn’t, but back then all of us knew how to learn for ourselves, all of us had a critical language to engage with the arts, some technical skills, ideas, enthusiasm and ambition. It seems to me that this is neither punk nor art college specific, it is simply about the creative arts (including music), creativity, and wanting to engage with it.

Somewhat surprisingly, Strange ends his book by saying that he hopes it might ‘provide connections to support thinking within creative arts curricular’, which seems to me – after 17 years as a university lecturer – somewhat misguided, over-optimistic and naive. There will always be those who inspire, facilitate and encourage students but it will be despite the current curricular and neoliberal regimes which have turned education into yet another would-be-business. I think youth culture’s focus on music has already been swept away by the rise of games and on-demand films, not to mention fame academies and TV shows, and there certainly won’t be another movement like punk or post-punk any time soon. There will, are and always have been outposts of musical, theoretical, inspired and inspiring subversion, aggression, critique, noise and experiment, but it won’t and never has been tamed by, let alone been the direct result of, even the most liberal of art colleges.

 

Rupert Loydell

Robert Christgau’s ‘We Have to Deal With It: Punk England Reportcan be found at https://www.villagevoice.com/2020/01/09/we-have-to-deal-with-it-punk-england-report-2/

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The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Three punk classics!

Anarchy in the UK

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Teenage Dirtbag

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SALLY

Sally looked forward to the puppet show
but then her Pa said she couldn’t go.

Ten years later in her novel SIMULATIONS
the characters had non-autonomous relations.

Sad to say Sally was not a good writer
but a well-handled glove puppet would always excite her.

 

 

Copyright © Mark Halliday & Martin Stannard, 2022

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The Rook

On leaving home without a pen
the history of the day is lost
like a telephone number or a heart
closing my eyes has brought me here
to this place of strange faces
which one are you, Kafka, the film star,
the jackdaw or the waitress?
Everyone loves to play cards
at the cowboy movie table
to shuffle hearts and diamonds
to shoot derringers,
to wear a sheriff’s badge over a Levi jacket
to be the quickest Art student
in the Wild West
to be the man who played guitar
with Ricky Valence
to play the man who got shot in Deadwood
to play the drums in Abilene
with the Grateful Dead.
The dead are carried out
through the bat-swing doors to the graveyard
where I first met the waitress
walking barefoot on Boot Hill
she makes me blush as she flaunts
her film star beauty
writes names and numbers into notebooks
with a black pen like a poet at a funeral.
When she walks out of shot
to make coffee in the kitchen
I sip wine with the old cheese crowd
 
stagger off home at the end of the night
to play jukebox jazz in the nursery rhyme dark
to read Kafka before falling asleep
in my semi-detached suburban castle.
 
On leaving home without paper and pen
I mourn the minutes
of meetings on street corners
that never get written down
I move through this city
which is unknown to me
a city born out of the dust of night
a city of dream intoxicated fiction
which exists for a moment
or for as long as it takes
the long finger of a train
to vanish into a pocket of fog.
As soon as I left home yesterday
the road back to it had gone
this is my country now
where I stop at a crossroads
for a cup of coffee
stop for a year or two
or the rest of the night.
I take a key and a silver spoon
out of my pocket
spend a little tax haven cash
take the stairs to a rooftop room
plonk my shoulder bag down
go sleep walking above the garage bands
and the car horns playing traffic jazz.
The next morning
 
shortly after the rooster let’s rip
a door scrapes back the darkness of a room
veiled against the well-lit streets
that brought me here.
I climb out of my sleeping bag
that unzipped heap of dreams
drop down into an armchair
to update my diary
to write a goodbye note to yesterday
to write a letter to my hometown’s
three hundred thousand doormats.
 
As the ink dries over silver birch skin
I cross the room over a creak of footsteps
sleepily draw back the curtains to discover
the fading splendour of the Milky Way
in a telescope on the windowsill.
It must be the winter solstice
if it isn’t, it is now.
 
On leaving home on Christmas Eve
I go shopping for cards
to send to my grandchildren
living on the island of fish and chips.
Much to my surprise the film star
is working in the Post Office.
She drops my hidden kisses
into a bag over her shoulder.
I don’t know her name
or how to bring her closer
but in the sequel shot the next night
she’s dining out at the coven
 
of the oddly shaped table
in this city which has forgotten
to tell you its name
a city which is as old as birdsong
as old as the laughter on her bright red lips
I take coins out of my pocket
for a hurricane on the rocks
take the last chair at the table.
Flicking through the pages of an old newspaper
I read the horoscope
starting with Aries.
Much to my delight
the film star is sitting next to the jackdaw
whose command of English
is straight out of the school
of Richard Adams.
Hiding my smile like a double vodka diplomat
I gaze out over the zodiac
of earth, air, fire and water
see that the jackdaw
is playing chess with Kafka.
Kafka’s fingers are caressing the queen
the jackdaw’s feathers are stroking a rook
the film star makes her move
sweeping me away from star sign gazing
I look into her eyes
see my undercover is broken
but not yet my heart
look down at her hand
to see if she’s wearing a wedding ring
to see if her hand is covered in diamonds
but can’t make out the shape of anything
 
resembling a husband underneath her gloves
and in that moment when our heads tilt
under some constellation of mistletoe
the waitress approaches the table
whispers something in Kafka’s ear
as the moon moves over the cusp
the sun does its abracadabra thing
in the night sky
the rain starts to fall
the rain makes a nice a cup of coffee
the dream ends in mid-conversation
as we slip back through the curtains
that brought us here
punching in a combination of numbers
to another world
we drive there in an Alfa Romeo.

 

Kenny Knight

 

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SAUSAGE LIFE 258


Bird Guano’s
SAUSAGE LIFE
The column which doesn’t approve of genitally modified food and will only eat eggs that have been delivered by cesarean section.

READER: What happened to Nostra O’Darmus’s Racing Tips? I was on a winning streak there!

MYSELF:  Sorry, the editor spiked it. We got a lot of letters from anti-racing folks.

READER: Typical. I suppose the noble sport of kings is not for everyone. But for heaven’s sake, I mean…..The Grand National? The Derby? Ladies Day? The heady scent of dung, fear and cordite? What’s wrong with these people?

MYSELF:  Tell me about it. They just bang on and on about problem gambling and equestrian cruelty. As you and I both know, these noble beasts adore racing and everyone knows there’s nothing a horse likes more than having its arse whipped by an angry, vertically challenged man who left school when he was nine.

READER:
 Any tips for the weekend?

MYSELF: Since you ask, if you’re looking for a dead cert, what about Hitler’s Dog at 55/1 in the 3-30 at Aintree? Loves rough going, jumping over fences three times its own height and looks forward to getting shot and fed to the dogs for breaking a leg. Keep it to yourself, I got that tip from Nostra O’Darmus himself so I did.

READER:
 Mum’s the word. A nod’s as good as a wink, I’m on it.

BALLET MATINÉE –  UPPER DICKER HIPPODROME
It became evident early in the first half of this ambitious Upper Dicker Vaganova production of Mascarponi’s Rubella with Dame Melba Turste as the enchanted donkey and Tarquin Codpeace as the disappointed swan, that all was not well. During the interval, raised voices could be discerned coming from the orchestra pit, one of them being the unmistakable grating roar of the principal ballerina herself. The shocked audience could hear every syllable as Dame Melba vented her fury at orchestra conductor Remy Vaselini. The Grande Dame was insinuating that the tempo during the opening Le Petit Battement En Grenouille was played at a deliberately frantic Tutti al Presto, rather than the Allegro Ma Non Troppo specified by the composer, causing her to trip during a tricky jambes pliées sous le menton, and bang her head against a piece of scenery. An affronted Vaselini countered with the accusation that Dame Melba’s equilibrium had clearly been compromised by her previous night’s gin-binge, and that her feet were “like two canoes filled with cement’
Shortly after that, a reverberating crash rang around the auditorium, which turned out to have been caused by the heavy brass Chinese gong with which Dame Melba had fractured Mr Vaselini’s skull. As the house lights went up to allow the conductor to be stretchered off, queues were already forming at the box office to buy tickets for the evening performance, which were soon available from touts outside the theatre at three times their face value.

AN OFFER THEY COULDN’T REFUSE
Recently acquired Russian proprietor Oliver Garki has named Hastings & St Leonards Warriors FC’s new manager as Giovani Fuctivano, former coach of Serie D’s AFC Cosanostra. The Sicilian supremo, dubbed The Goalfather, has promised fans he will bring “sexy Italian football” to the beleagered club. Last season’s catastrophic descent into the relegation zone, coupled with their spectacular expulsion from the FA cup by lowly Chiddingly Pharaohs FC, has sent the board of directors into meltdown.
OUT goes Irish manager Alabaster Tipperary after only four weeks in the job, OUT goes fearsome central defender Nobby Balaclava along with Dutch groin-kick specialist Ruud Van Smoot, IN comes curvy physiotherapist and former lapdancer Sabrina Petto-Massiccio, IN come financial advisers Johnny “Potatoes” Proscuitto and Luigi “Legs” Borgias.
A defiant Fuctivano told us; “The Warriors will survive. All we have to do is win all our remaining 19 games 8-0. As long as the teams above us lose all theirs, or their team coach is involved in some sort of accident on the way to a game I am confidant we can do it.” 

DICTIONARY KAUNA
Cardigan (n)  the correct way to request a ‘twist’ in pontoon.
Caustic (n)   a portable, extending device for taking saucy selfies
Endorse (n)  the 3-legged nag you put all your money on in the 3-30 at Aintree.

WENDY WRITES
Unqualified medical and psychological advice for the hopelessly out of sorts

Dear Wendy,
is it ever acceptable to wear a hat in a sauna?
Lena Morova, Inner Thyghe

Dear Ms Morova,

wearing a hat in a sauna is perfectly acceptable, provided that the sauna’s rear tappet washers are fully adjacent to the flapper and the collar-link connecting the pressure-assisted gravity feed to the backflow valve are adjusted to generate enough leverage to produce 250 psu or greater, otherwise the hat-steam balance will almost always result in wilting. There are, however, no circumstances when it is ever ok to wear a French beret, a fireman’s helmet, or a Coldstream Guardsman’s busby in a sauna.

Dear Wendy,
I take plenty of vigorous exercise and lie under a horse and drink whale sperm every morning. Whilst up to now it’s never done me any harm, I have recently begun to suffer from scurvy. Might there be any connection?
Roger Lilliput, Beyondenden

Dear Roger,

Scurvy, or scorbutus, is normally associated with pre-18th century sailors who were deprived of vitamin C, (ironically, when they were at sea). Whilst whale sperm is an excellent source of vitamin E, it will not, unlike lemon juice or rhesus monkey spleen, provide the vital vitamin you lack. Lying under a horse may temporarily deprive you of sunlight and vitamin D, but is unlikely to diminish your vitamin C levels. Look at it this way, Hastings Pirate Day is coming soon and with a genuine case of scurvy you will tower above the competition.
Wendy

Dear Wendy,
I have received an invitation be a guest at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, but I suffer from Turet’s Syndrome fucking tits! …Whilst not wishing to embarress myself in front of his worship the Lord…twat!….Mayor…wanker!...I  feel compelled to attend, bollocks! ….. owing to my position as fuckwit!…. press secretary to the shite!…town council, . Do you have any piss off!…advice which could alleviate my….hairy .arseholes! dillemma?
Mavis Cattermole… Twat bollocks shithead!……Cockmarlin

Dear Mavis,

Goodness! I haven’t heard that much swearing since my third husband was stung on the penis by a wasp. My solution is simple. Have your dentist wire up your jaw, and take along a professional ventriloquist as your escort. Merely reciting “Peter Piper” or saying “gottle o’ geer” all the time however, is no substitute for a cultured conversation, so make sure he’s got a couple of GCSEs. My website www.wendysworld.com provides a list of affordable and discreet ventriloquist services catering for the tongue-tied or compulsively sweary.
Wendy

CAVEAT EMPTOR
Government public health advice
Under no circumstances buy Defjams the plastic earplugs which are currently being touted online, falsely claiming to protect the hearing of musicians. These are not earplugs, but tiny spring-loaded spinning tops manufactured in China which explode when you listen to Kanye West. 

POETRY NOW
This week featuring Pauline Spoon, a founder member of The Eel’s Bollard Poetry Society.
A failed novelist, Pauline achieved brief childhood fame at Blackpool Tower’s iconic Tower Ballroom when, in 1953, she was outright winner of the BBC’s Britain’s Bendiest Baby competition


Twilight Falls
 
by Pauline Spoon

A dog Barks
I Bark back

The Sun Sinks
I sink too

The pub beckons

Evening Frank!
I don’t mind if I do

Time ticks
out the hours

Whoops
I fall off my barstool

Pissed

 

 

Sausage Life!

 

 

 



SAY GOODBYE TO IRONING MISERY!
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Steam’s Groove – (episode 22)

Steam Stock
 

Tracklist:
Jerry Butler & Jerry Peters – Melinda Latino
The Meters – Handclapping Song
Eighties Ladies – Turned on to You
Roy Porter Sound Machine – Panama
Donald Byrd – Black Byrd (Live at Montreux)
Minnie Riperton – Reasons
Eddie Henderson – Kumquat Kids
Millie Jackson – It Hurts So Good
Mtume – Juicy Fruit
Gary Bartz – Music is My Sanctuary
Weldon Irvine – Love Your Brother
Nikki Giovani – Ego Tripping
Dee Edwards – Why Can’t There be Love

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Music Is A Better Noise

Essential Logic, Lora Logic (5LP box set, Hiss & Shake Records)
Cacti, Billy NoMates (CD, Invada)
Summer, Cat’s Cradle, Kodax Strophes/Martyn Bates (A-Scale)

I recently reviewed a new Van de Graaf Generator album, and back in the late 70s I remember suggesting that Essential Logic, which Lora Logic formed after leaving X-Ray Spex, were a punk version of that band, mostly because of the original two sax line-up I saw supporting Stiff Little Fingers. The saxophone interplay with Rich Tea’s ragged drumming and William Bennett’s disruptive guitar (he later formed the noise bands Come and then Whitehouse) produced an energetic barrage of sound which Lora Logic ‘warbled’ (her term) songs over.

I bought 1978’s Wake Up four-track EP, which successfully reproduced the band’s energy and dynamic sound, but the following year’s album, Beat Rhythm News (Waddle Ya Play?) was an overproduced and lacklustre disappointment, especially as it featured dull new versions of two of the EP’s songs. I still feel the same I’m afraid, nothing since has got it quite right, and it’s still Wake Up I go back to.

But now we have a limited edition box set that gathers up the two original albums (Beat Rhythm News and 1982’s Pedigree Charm) along with an album of early singles and rarities (still no sign of those original Wake Up tracks though), an album of ‘vinyl exclusives’ and a brand new album, Land of Kali.

I’m afraid the exclusives are pretty disposable, but I rather like the brand new  Land of Kali, a relaxed and tuneful album offering up a hypnotic breathy collection of songs. It’s not, of course, got much to do with the Essential Logic I remember, but  nevertheless it’s got some great saxophone, lyrical grooves and sonic layering.


Someone else who has also mellowed is Billy Nomates. Her second album Cacti lacks the gritty punch evident on her self-titled debut: rather than punky vitriolic this album sounds more like synth-pop, with far too many simplistic and repetitive sequencer rhythms underpinning her songs.

Nomates buys into the confessional school of thought, arguing that she is ‘only interested in songs that you listen to and think, you absolutely lived that experience’, perhaps not realising that songs can be as much fictional or invented as theatre or creative writing. Either way, Cacti‘s rhythms dominate the proceedings here and the songs lack the earworm hooks of her debut.

Nomates states that the songs came out of lockdown, depression and emotional truth, but her critiques of post-covid apathy and society’s self-suppression sound musically and expressively tame. She should take a listen to Summer, Cat’s Cradle, the new album from Kodax Strophes/Martyn Bates, which Bates claims also comes out of ‘feeling kinda disconnected lately’.

His response however was to ‘make something positive, cathartic’.  He ‘wanted to capture it all by making something painterly/splashy – aleatoric, riddled with chance: improvisational, with the occasional found sound – & yet still full with plenty of lyrical/pastoral SONG, for all that.’ The album is all the better for that sense of improvisation and exploration, with a rich and varied sonic palette underpinning a semi-abstract set of songs tinged with psychedelia and hope.

It’s challenging and engaging music, that veers from moments of folk guitar to dense layered soundscapes, full of treated and found recordings. Bates suggests that it’s  ‘Music & Words & Sound for emptying dreams to: music to free-associate by’, and who am I to argue? With Eyeless in Gaza on (hopefully temporary) hold or sabbatical, Bates has allowed himself free rein in his imagination and studio. This is eerie, varied and engrossing, engaging music. A great start to 2023.

 

 

 

Rupert Loydell

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Don’t get this close

I have been so close to the light
I have been so close to the sun
I have been so close to the fire

That it was easier
To fall into a pit of darkness
And struggle for the rest of my days

Than to meet Him and know the Truth
Before I had even died

 

Paul Butterfield Jnr

 

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The Big Noise

It’s not a constant tone
(so many Hertz), nor is it just
a rushing sound like the wind through the trees,
or the sea (both always sound the same to me),
though it could be the wind – maybe –
blowing though the alleyways
between the houses
but no, this goes on all the time and I’m sure
sometimes the wind drops (although, I know,
it sometimes feels as if
it goes on forever). Perhaps it’s the rain
on the roof – but no, the rain stops. (Not often, I know,
but it stops). Perhaps it’s the combined effect
or of all the songs of all the birds
as they join in the dawn chorus
as they do somewhere every moment
as the earth turns on its axis or the
the whales under the sea or the lions
eating antelopes or the echo
of the Big Bang or the sound

of the solar wind as it brushes past
the magnetosphere or the sound
of all those satellites up there
doing whatever it is they do
or the noises made
by all the people everywhere,
stretching away into the distance,
flying round the world,
driving down the motorways,
not answering their phones,
beating eggs, slamming doors,
farting, sawing wood,
dropping bombs, firing missiles,
shooting each other, then all their voices,
everything from their screams to their
sweet nothings, melded together
into this one thing, or it could be
it’s all in my head
(perhaps the gears in my ears need oiling).

Perhaps it’s just the sound of being alive.

Can you hear it, too?

 

 

 

Dominic Rivron

 

 

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The Egg

Teaching N to poach an egg, I put too little water in. She notices the yolk is still bright yellow, so I tip the pan slightly: we look as the simmer blinds it until it is as pale as the rest, the water now scummy. I slide it onto her toast. It is still dull until she punctures it. That was the day when, chasing a pen top, I found my old glasses, the good ones, behind my desk, cobwebbed, but, washed, clear as air. Then N held the large scissors and called me over, saying, ‘cut this’. She pointed to her long brown hair, which flows on, past her shoulders and down, and could never be cut by me with my blundering thumbs. But she meant the plastic tag on her collar, which I tug off, not needing the scissors at all.

 

 

Giles Goodland

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Estragon and Vladimir Have left the Theatre

Godot finally got there but
Estragon and Vladimir were gone.

Put another book upon the fire
I’m getting cold, I’m getting on.

Godot was always very tardy
Estragon and Vladimir:  mere
Existential Laurel and Hardy.

Obvious meaning makes me mean.
I find it just gets in the way.

Estragon and Vladimir now wait
Far away while Godot’s here to stay.

 

 

Bill Lewis

 

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AFTER EIGHTEEN!

After eighteen trips around the sun
My heart finally found you
My Star.
Then I softly kissed your forehead
While you were asleep
Just to pour more love
Into your dreams.
I want
Our love to transcend generations
And inspire the world to love more.
I fall in love
With your soul first
Then discovered
Your heart
Is made of gold.
I love you
For everything you are
And everything you are not.
I see your flaws
As the definition of your perfection
It is what makes you
Unique,
Valuable,
Worthy,
Precious
To me.

 

 

 

Monalisa Parida
Painting Nick Victor


Bio:- Monalisa Parida is a post graduate student of English literature from India, Odisha and a prolific poetess. She is very active in social media platforms and her poems have also been translated into different languages and publish in various e-journals.
She has got 80 international award for writing poetry. Her poems have been publishing international e-journals “New York parrot”, “The Writers Club” (USA), “Suriyadoya literary foundation”, “kabita Minar”, “Indian Periodical” (India) and “Offline Thinker “, “The Gorkha Times “ ( Nepal), “The Light House”(Portugal), “Bharatvision”(Romania), “International cultural forum for humanity and creativity”(Aleppo, Syria), “Atunispoetry.com”(Singapore) etc. And also published in various newspapers like “The Punjabi Writer Weekly(USA)”, “News Kashmir (J&K, India)”, Republic of Sungurlu (Turkey)” etc.
One of her poem published an American anthology named “The Literary Parrot Series-1 and series-2 respectively (New York, USA)”. Her poems have been translated in various languages like Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, Persian, Romanian etc. And she is the author of the book “Search For Serenity”, “My Favourite Grammar”, “Paradigm”, “Beyond Gorgeous”.

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Be. 16.1.22

Sycamore pendants laden with
Bubbles of tornadoes
Cherry Hill and fresh air
A heaven outside conditioning
A small map of the bridge
Cottaged cared nascent ivory glides
Paper stroked varicose numbered wits
Wheelbarrow and molten vase
Growing rapidly in the new earth bliss
Verify the wayward stream
The white shadows in the morning world
Cuckoo’s and swallowed nights
Leaden white swan laked songs
Petite angelic fairy brush
Realms untold mythical
Monalisa paintings and mystic River
Simply be blue skies above
A little stream of outside cottage.

 

 

 

SAYANI MUKHERJEE
Photo Nick Victor
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TRINKLER

Across the bosky marsh of Fetch-Thy-Gruel
strode Trinkler on his way to dancing school.

Some folk say the marsh it be haunted
but one-legged Trinkler strode on quite undaunted.

If ghosts observed him they found him inspiring
since dancing on one leg is rather tiring.

 

Copyright © Mark Halliday & Martin Stannard, 2022

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Communiqué Numero Zero

We are post, we are autonomous, we are anarchists, we are communists, we provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine, we chase the uprisings, we are brutal feminists and we look after each other, searching for truth and yet disoriented, we fight in our neighborhoods and look for every opportunity to throw a stone. We come from the solidarity movement with Latin America, from the housing struggles of the 80s, from the fading Antifa of the 2000s, from the anti-globalization movement, and finally from today, which does not yet have a name. We want everything and nothing.

Originally published by Sūnzǐ Bīngfǎ. Translated by Riot Turtle.

It took us a long time to find each other. The reasons for this were certainly the two years of the pandemic separation, but ultimately and above all because we did not know each other, because we located ourselves politically and ideologically in other places of the left tessellation. Only with the breaking of this tessellation into splinters during the pandemic we got the necessary freedom to recompose ourselves. So we met for the first time these days coming from different cities (Wuppertal, Münster, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Bielefeld, Frankfurt) and discussed for a long day.

In this respect, we are only at the beginning. This text is a confirmation of this beginning, as it initially ‘only’ shows the criticism and dissatisfaction from which we came together and only cautiously hints where the journey could lead to.

We are addressing you. To you who also feel dissatisfaction, who realize that something is going wrong in the world and in what some still call leftism. We address those who are still willing to think, who are looking for orientation and do not find it in the old familiar. We address you because we feel the same.

We have come together as confused and isolated souls, outcasted and caved from our former political homes. We cannot offer you an analysis of the world, let alone a strategic proposal of what to do. What we can do, however, is share a random yet coherent list of views with you that mark, as we are convinced, the necessary break with this world.

  • The world is decaying. The Greens, in their compulsive good face game, try to stop or heal this decay with aloe vera. The fascists try to breathe new life into the decaying world with their necromancy of family, fatherland and Christianity. The old capitalists just continue as before. And the left, in its unsurpassed wisdom of the both-as-also dialectic, also tries its hand at the necromancy of concepts from the 19th and 20th centuries, also adding a pinch of aloe vera to the alleged magic potion that gives them the feeling of moving forward. Even the disciples of Andreas Malm pay homage to a despondent Leninism that trivializes the seizure of power in questions of militancy and pressure to act. Gramsci and Lenin would turn in their graves.
  • We stand stunned before what nowadays calls itself revolutionary politics, and yet is only a pile of rubble of left-wing social-democratic politics, which pounces resentfully on the FDP, still has not gotten over the betrayal of the SPD of 1914, and does not realize that the Greens have taken these “Punch and Judy” parties to their side as welcome idiots, in order to comfortably consolidate their project of Green Capitalism without causing a stir: Not a greenwashing project, in which only the old is whitewashed with new paint, but a project of capitalist renewal, which can be called, provisionally, “Green Fascism” in view of our own inadequacy to understand the new world in its totality, and whose potential is to stabilize capitalism in its crisis-riddenness for a too-long time: State of emergency propagandistically called climate emergency, social control through repression and destruction of the social in the name of prevention. Green colonialism in the lithium fields of Latin America, solar parks of the vast expanses of the African desert, the hydrogen power plants on the coasts and the holes of rare earth metals on every corner of this planet. Truman’s noisy village Show and Mad Max. Every wind turbine, every e-car, every organic supermarket, every greening of our prisons that others call cities, is an expression of this noisy village. Each of its design elements, means death in another place of the world, carefully hidden to us with walls and barbed wire, with Netflix and smart watches, with expansion of public transportation, greening of sidewalks and rainwater catchment stations.
  • We vomit because of the morality, the paternalism, the pietism, which drums on us in Dolby Surround and Richard Wagner pathos and demands renunciation and preservation of possession, discipline and furiousness, modesty and wastefulness from us. Who tells us that you have to make your hands dirty to achieve something, who promises us salvation in evil, as long as it is done with a headache. Here, too, in a completely different and yet identical way, the radical and leftist movement resembles the left-green-liberal milieu from Baerbock to Kipping, from Ramelow to Habeck, from Campact to the interventionist left. We don’t want to achieve anything, we don’t want reforms, we want fundamental change.
  • We can no longer stand this lukewarm, well-tempered state of this world and the left. Everywhere opinions and attitudes, nowhere consciousness and rebellion. Information everywhere, reality nowhere. Where leftists see chances and possibilities, ways to a transformation, where they say “after all and at least”, we see only opt-out schemes for those very leftists, tranquilizers and feel-good oases of secret despair regarding the state of affairs in the world.
  • We are now disgusted by the concepts of solidarity and responsibility. After all, they are the badge of shame of the German left, which joined the ruling Corona policy in goose step in 2020. Just as they now serve to legitimize a war. We keep the concept of solidarity in our hearts with pain, in the hope that it is not yet dead.
  • Really everything has been said about the fault lines during the two pandemic years and yet it is an important part of our history and therefore needs to be mentioned. Besides the obvious intellectual failure of the (radical) left, which had hardly any idea of asking the very own question of the left, namely “What does a good life for all look like”, but focused on pure survival, i.e. replaced politics by nihilism, one can also observe the disposal of leftist critique of science and internationalism, which took place at the speed of light. The left thus settled at home in sterility, loneliness and moral superiority or appeals. The state, as if the Marxist debates since the 1970s had not existed, became the Neogramscian guarantor of survival against evil, indeed one might almost say reaping capital. Thus, the left (to differentiate hardly makes sense here) watched in outrage as homeless people were evicted outside, people had to continue working, young people were beaten up or chased to death, and the vaccines and their patents, did not arrive in Africa and the patents were not suspended, respectively, despite the hashtags. “Once upon a time, the left and all liberation movements followed a different logic. It was a logic that consisted in risking and putting life on the line in order to win life, precisely for those who could not put their lives on the line. The separation of the demand for bread on the one hand and roses on the other hand was just not a here and there demand. Bread and roses were international maxims!” (1)
  • Whether Covid pandemic or Ukraine war. Whether transsexual law/self-determination law or the repeal of §219a: Feminism seems to be running rampant. Responsibility, values, equality and decriminalization. No emancipation, no revolution, but still progress, one hears from leftist circles. What a derision for us as accomplices and affected people, who see how global patriarchy defends and wants to secure its own position in capitalism with tooth and nail: feminicide, systematic murder of and attacks on queer people and sexual dissidents are the most extreme results. Instead of state appeals and more security, we want to get out of the victim role. As we said: we are brutal feminists and we take care of each other.
  • For us, neither Baerbock, Ricarda Lang, nor Luisa Neubauer or Katrin Henneberger are feminists. They are men who feminize patriarchal capitalism. Making it more cruel with their smiles. Where patriarchal capitalism previously used to leave the dull ache of the fist, today it leaves a masochistic feeling of satisfaction. They diligently collaborate in “Green Fascism,” whether willfully or unwittingly. They are representatives of their class. What was once commonly referred to as progressive civil society to be addressed is now the carrier of the capitalist future.
  • Wars are nothing new. What is new is that almost everyone has developed a taste for the military logic of victory and defeat. But after the great excitement of spring, cynicism has returned. Hardly anyone is interested in ending the war in Ukraine: From the rulers in Russia to Germany to the United States. This should be clear to anyone who can still spare a few brain twists. But even in the left there seem to be hardly those who still have the desire to think: The DKP (German Communist Party) has no interest, because otherwise it would have to wake up from its beautiful dream that the Soviet Union or the bloc confrontation of the pre-1990s, no longer exists. Parts of the radical left and the anarchist milieu need the war in Ukraine either to prepare their return to the bosom of the nation by demanding the delivery of weapons, or to dive once again into the rose-colored Corona world of absorbent cotton, in which it was clear what had to be done, who was bad and who was good, and in which one did not have to do anything, or was even called upon to do nothing. Instead, we think that supporting the companions and comrades in Ukraine, whether they have a weapon, food, or a medical kit in their hands, does not mean joining the imperial reordering of the world.
  • Due to the current situation, we have to express our solidarity with our fighting friends in Rojava, who have been fighting for a more just world since the beginning of time, abandoned by the whole world, and who once again have to go their way against Turkish imperialism and ISIS alone, despite all steadfastness. It may sound almost cynical, but your existence, your struggle, means a lot to us and inspires us. We will support you to the best of our ability; knowing that the best of our ability is not enough. This inspiration also explains why many young people around the world are joining you. With respect, we see these decisions as an expression of the power that lies in your ideas. At the same time, it is a painful reminder of the state of the radical left in Germany when young people who are eager to do something see more meaning and perspective in joining the armed struggle in another country instead of fighting in this country.
  • All the oh-so-strategic debates, in which the one is queen* or king who sees particularly many ambivalences, problems, challenges and pitfalls, who wins the bullshit bingo with “both …and”, in our opinion only testify to a perfected self-distraction from the actual problem: Everything is on the table, it comes down to accepting reality in its radicality and to take action.
  • This evil system must go. It is no longer about progress (whether bourgeois or communist), no longer about setting the course for a just future. It’s about stopping progress, about blowing up the tracks: To no longer participate in this system. Neither in revolutionary realpolitik, nor in being a rural commune hippie, nor in the majority grind. Because we live in times in which we fall asleep in the evening and the next morning somewhere in the world a government could be overthrown again. The fact that these uprisings have not yet become revolutions does not mean that they cannot still become revolutions, but it also means that they may never become revolutions. The point is to become aware of the global situation in our latitudes, to relate to the uprisings, not as riot porn, but as our instantaneous own, our own because of the global potential, theoretically and practically. The future is still unwritten.
  • Revolution is more necessary than ever before, that is why it is possible. And where it seems all the more distant, it is more necessary than ever before not to let go of it.
  • We no longer want choice, freedom, when it comes to the choices and freedom that this society offers us. The choices and the freedoms that are offered to us rot from the inside and imprison us.
  • We want to live communism and spread anarchy. A necessary but not yet sufficient condition to know where the journey will take us.

It is about organizing, about risking a new beginning. We are not so much concerned with the next organization, which strives for structure, responsiveness, mediation and other buzzwords from management, but rather with organizing the irreconcilability with the existing conditions in theory and practice, beyond old certainties. Because even if it is cold in the country, the fires of Amon Dîn blaze all over the world. We know that other people also think and act in this direction. That is why we are sure that sooner or later our paths will cross. We are a faction, maybe just a splinter, without a program and a flag, we are an imagination trying to materialize. Against all odds, even our own.

People and contexts from Wuppertal, Münster, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Bielefeld, Frankfurt

 

reproduced from Enough Is Enough, https://enoughisenough14.org

 

 

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The Heirship of The Path

The path unbends and prolongs on
out of its short frame. I have left
the sunlit part, cared chrysanthemum,
curlicues of youth behind.
All for you. I whisper tasting
the sweet bitterness of orange winter,
“For a short road it roams for eternity.”
A shadow of a bus passes us.
Last week’s newspaper folks and asks
to be fed. We can name each fallen leaf
but we won’t. “All for you.”, Says my daughter
pointing at the haze eating away distance.

 

 

 

Kushal Poddar

@amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet
 Author Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/KushalTheWriter/ 
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

 
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Walk of Life 

Walk of life 
Has been a path
Of appreciation. 
The kindness
Bestowed as a lesson,  
The ancestral smile 
Not lost
To the modern cobweb.
The morning rays
Of the sun is beautiful 
When the Himalayan snow shines.  
The smile on my grandfather’s picture 
Does not hide
My recent upbringings. 
The past comes like an awakening  
It waters my flowering self.  
I dress up in my contentment. 
The weeping river 
Stopped flowing 
When the history of my belonging 
Paved its way. 
To have an abode, 
To seek a home, 
My wandering attire finds its stay.  
I call the world mine, 
The hills and dales,  
No wine from
The barrel of enmity flowing, 
No such unquenching thirst. 
The grim wavering bloom
Has faded with the waking dawn
And the river of dusk 
Has seen a world 
Away from the quaking temptations. 

 

 

Sushant Thapa
Picture Nick Victor

 

Bio: Sushant Thapa is a Nepalese poet from Biratnagar, Nepal who holds a Master’s degree in English literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has published three books of poetry namely: The Poetic Burden and Other Poems (Authorspress, New Delhi, 2020), Abstraction and Other Poems (Impspired, UK, 2021) and Minutes of Merit (Haoajan, Kolkata, 2021). Sushant has been published in places like The Gorkha Times, The Kathmandu Post, The Poet Magazine, The Piker Press, Trouvaille Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Impspired, Harbinger Asylum, New York Parrot, Pratik Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, Atunis Poetry, EKL Review, The Kolkata Arts, Dissident Voice, Journal of Expressive Writing, As It Ought To Be Magazine and International Times among many. He has also been anthologized in national and International anthologies. His poem is also included in the Paragon English book for Grade 6 students in Nepal. He teaches Business English to Bachelor’s level students of BBA and BIT at Nepal Business College, Biratnagar, Nepal. Recently Sushant recited his poem “The Poetic Burden” in Kalinga Literary Festival, Kathmandu, Nepal. Sushant was recently awarded with Indology Best Poet Award 2022 from West Bengal, India for his debut poetry book “The Poetic Burden and Other Poems.”

 

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Going for a Song

Neither Graham Norton or Terry Wogan could have ever predicted the idea of John Lydon and Public Image Ltd putting forward a song to represent Ireland in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

‘Hawaii’, which is accompanied by Lydon’s own art work, is a love song for Lydon’s wife Nora who suffers from and is living with Alzheimer’s. It looks back on their life together and a holiday together on the island of Hawaii.

“It is dedicated to everyone going through tough times on the journey of life with the person they care for the most,” says Lydon. “It’s also a message of hope that ultimately love conquers all.”

If PiL do make it through, it will surely offer a memorable 3 minutes of television to rival Lordi, Finland’s monster-metallers and Israel’s trans winner Dana International.

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Zephyr Sounds Sunday Sermon No. 105

Steam Stock
 

Tracklist:
Ennio Morricone – The Strong
Neil Young – After the Gold Rush
My Morning Jacket – Gideon
Kain – Loose Here
PJ Harvey – You Said Something
Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Orchestra – Just Like a Ship
Earth, Wind and Fire – Can’t Hide Love
Otis Redding – I’ve Been Loving You too Long
Steely Dan – Dirty Work
Sarah Vaughan – Inner City Blues
Beck – Cancelled Cheque
Spiritualized – Broken Heart (Instrumental)
John Lee Hooker feat. Santana – The Healer
Frank Black – The Last Stand of Shazeb Andleeb
Neil Young – Birds

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Epiphanies for All

 A Census of Preconceptions, Oz Hardwick (Survision Books)

Oz Hardwick prose poems are short moments captured from what the author, in ‘Out of Town’, says is ‘Beyond the range of church bells’, where ‘time follows its own instincts’. These gently surreal poems slur time, jump time, and revel in experiential time, where action ceases or slows, allowing the poet time to breathe, take note, follow trains and trails of thought and share them with his readers.

In ‘The Coming of the Comet’, for instance, the original observation of the comet’s trails as ‘fragmented nursery rhymes’ (sky writing) allows the author to imagine reaching up to touch them, although he fears getting his fingers burnt, metaphorically and literally. Then the text undertakes a sideways move towards the ducks who have already flown away from the winter, which allows a digression about other creatures, before the poem swerves into myth and nursery rhymes, with a dying dragon returning us to the burning motif. All that in half a page!

Other poems in this collection are calmer and static. ‘Rain Fugue’ is just that, an ode to the past, lost love, triggered by association with bad weather; whilst ‘The Museum of Silence’ imagines the titular organization as a repository of items such as ’empty headlines, snapped violin strings’, ‘the pressure of gentle arms and the electricity of soft hair falling across eyelids’. The left-unsaid contradiction is the fact that the museum, where ‘There are never any words’, can only be conjured up through the author’s careful arrangement of words.

Elsewhere, there is a gentle humour with a serious undertow: ‘When we stopped wearing watches, our hands became lighter’ (‘The Evolutionary Urge’), ‘In the absence of clear government guidelines, I’ve convinced myself that angels are everywhere’ (‘Epihanies for All’), ‘I’ve changed the locks and changed my mind’ (‘imdb’), ‘Before he moved out, the previous owner hid a volcano in the house’ (‘The Armchair Volcanologist’). The poems are not the slightest bit incendiary though, although they do surprise and occasionally shock. ‘Swarm’, for instance, observes that ‘Bodies break up every day, but still we’re surprised when it happens to us’, before riffing on the idea of a search for ‘an appropriate image’. How to commemorate nothingness, or absence, the fleetingness of life in the grand scheme of things, even when there might be ‘sweetness at the heart of our shattering’?

These are poems where ‘Difficult questions push between simple gestures’ (‘Highway Blues’) and ‘Graveyards are the new shopping malls’ where visitors are ‘browsing their quiet aisles, comparing prices and window-shopping afterlives’. This set-up at the beginning of ‘Bargain’ allows Hardwick, or the poem’s narrator, a chance to remember, countering the fact that his ‘own family leave no trace’. He recalls a religious cult leafletting student groups, the notion of ‘a loving god whose face is too bright to see clearly’, and rescues his family from oblivion, before asking about ‘rest and redemption, about spreading payments, and about insurance in case of cancellation due to unforeseen circumstances’. The deity only offers him a brochure which contains only ‘a list of names printed in invisible ink’ inside it.

But this is not a dour or miserable book. Yes, it reflects upon death, beliefs, and doubts, but mostly it is full of joyous associations and playful observations, delightful moments and wonders from the world that readers can share. As Hardwick says in ‘Please Make Up My Room’, ‘Just because they are in your handwriting doesn’t mean they are necessarily your words’, and I guess the reverse is true: these words can become ours.

 

 

Rupert Loydell

first published in Tears in the Fence

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a few not so bleak words for Margaret Atwood*



tell me lies
the song says
and again
tell me sweet little lies
I try not to
tell lies to anyone
unless they deserve them
yet how to know
who is truly deserving?
and who lies to me
when they think
my guard is down?
once the Boy Scout Law 
demanded of me
do a good turn
for somebody every day
have I tried to do that?
I don’t know
nobody will ever know
they’ll just wearily wonder
and lie in their teeth too
when it suits

*Of course your lies

are more amusing:
you make them new each time.
Margaret Atwood from Power Politics

**Christine Perfect (1943-2022) and Eddie Quintela
for Fleetwood Mac Album Tango in the Night (1987)

 

 

Jeff Cloves

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CYBORG APOCALYPSE

 

But I only date androids. Nothing like an android
 – they don’t cheat on you. – Janelle Monae

 

 

                  In the future we will make love with computers, we will all be cyborgs, gender-fluid hybrids of machine and organism – the distinction between human and machine is based on a false proposition.
                   If, as one expert has said ‘the relation between organism and machine has been a border war’ we should step back and recognise that the machine is not the real enemy.
                   Let’ fuse with machines – and the sooner the better!
                   Oh, hang on a minute – we already have!

 

 

                A.C. Evans

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Lies! And Damned Lies!

Freedom of Speech, Truth…Misinformation, Fake News…

Musings from Alan Dearling

“ ‘But what is the point of giving persons Freedom of Speech,’ declaimed Butt the Hoopoe, ‘if you then say they must not utilize same? And is it not the Power of Speech the greatest Power of all? Then surely it must be exercised to the full?’ “   Salman Rushdie in ‘Harmoun and the Sea of Stories’

Freedom for the rights to protest and for dissent are often viewed as the ‘measure’ of democracy. Underlying this is the concept of ‘free speech’. But, what is it?

It’s inevitably complex and socially constructed notion, BUT…what happens when ‘unreality shows’, ‘tweets’ and the ‘podcasts’ of ‘influencers’, politicians, government regimes, religious leaders along with self-styled pundits, historians and commentators become facts and are accorded  the status of ‘truth’. Truth, for many, lies in ‘history’. Or, more accurately, ‘histories’- interpretations of the past – excuses for, and explanations for ‘beliefs’ and calls to action. Oft times, propaganda for masses, perpetrated by pundits.

“The past is difficult, you see. You think you understand a person or event, but then you turn a corner and everything is different once again.”

Peter Ackroyd

We’re are living in strange, unsettling times.  After the UK’s internal and external wranglings and arguments over Brexit, the worldwide debates, fights, outbursts and protests over Covid, vaccinations and health care – these have further fuelled distrust, misinformation, conspiracy theories and disunity.

We are not necessarily served well by the mainstream media or the social network media. And shouting, hostile arguments and hate-fuelled protests and accusations are occurring across the globe. So too are bullying, repression, lockdowns of freedoms, incarcerations and genocide. Fed at best by ignorance, fear of ‘others/otherness’ and cultural, social and religious differences, and, at worst by dictators, despots, institutions and governments.

The tightrope is stretched tightly between left and right-wing opponents. But the tactics can be similar or even the same. Tolerance and kindness seem to be in ever shorter supply. It seems that hate feeds on intolerance and on political ‘correctness’ and ‘incorrectness’.

It’s worrisome. It’s also a complicated and a contradictory minefield of how to allow/enable/enfranchise, and the contrary, (often predictable) inclination by governments and people going about their everyday lives, to seek to curtail/restrict/ban and control.

But, just how can anyone know when views and actions become too dangerous, hateful, and incite violence, prejudice, misogyny and at the extreme: crimes against humanity?

Perhaps this tightrope needs to more closely analysed and be openly debated?

Insanely tricky. Similar to the dilemmas over the ethics and moralities surrounding religions and ‘beliefs’.

To name but a few: Where does this place the views of David Icke, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, John Cleese, David Goodhart, David Starkey, QAnon, Piers Morgan and Rudyard Lynch?  Or, George Monbiot, Kate Adie, Barrack Obama, Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough?

The recent media frenzy around Elon Musk and the decision-making process over Freedom of Speech on ‘Twitter’ is an interesting example. Likewise, where is the ‘Freedom’ at the Football Word Cup in Qatar with the ban on the rainbow-coloured Gay Pride, ‘One Love’ armband, and the ban on alcohol in the stadia (despite Budweiser being a major sponsor).   One wonders how the ‘war’ in Ukraine will be viewed and evaluated in fifty years’ time within the context of Eastern Europe, Russia and world social, economic and political history. There are no ‘hard facts’, no ‘absolute truths’, just interpretations, value judgements, views, opinions, information, statistics, conspiracies and sometimes just downright lies…

My old colleague, one of the top podcasters, Nigel Warburton @philosophybites on Twitter, suggests:

“I strongly believe that the value of public philosophy is not just to reflect back to us what we already believe, but to stimulate us to think for ourselves .”

 

What indeed is the price/cost of Freedoms of Speech? And, ‘Freedom of Thought’ and ‘Freedom of Action’? It’s obviously a set of banal questions, but ones that face individuals, communities and society. It probably requires a diverse range of ‘bottom-up’ thinking as well as ‘top-down’ pronouncements, rules and diktats.  Dogma, of all kinds, almost always leads to discord and disaster. End of rant!

Time for respite care and a nice glass of apples (dry cider in my case!).

 

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Diggers and Dreamers.

 


The Diggers – Jean-François Millet
Source ~~ Public Domain

Introduction.

There are two classic types of people living in intentional communities. The Dreamers: who spend a lot of time imagining different ways of doing things; and the Diggers: who do the day-to-day work of making it actually happen and therefore, if we take a broad definition of ‘squatting’ to mean more than the material occupation of private property without permission, then we might include within the lineage of squatting movements other examples where resistance has involved an intervention into public space and discourse. In this sense, squatting could be taken to include any direct action where the voiceless and unseen people of the disenfranchised and marginalized have invaded the space of the mainstream in order to place their grievance onto a wider agenda and challenge common sense distributions. As of September 2021 there were 400 ‘intentional communities’ in the UK (most try to distance themselves from the word ‘commune’ and its hippy associations).

Driven by green concerns, house prices and the desire for a simpler existence. Many communes are cohousing set-ups, in which residents live in individual dwellings with a few common areas and domestic functions; others are based upon a lifestyle or worldview (spiritualism, gender non-binarism, veganism) and feature a variety of communal labour arrangements and facilities. The heyday of the 1960’s and 1970’s back-to-the-land and self-sufficiency movements sought to challenge notions of the sanctity of the nuclear family and opt out of ‘the grab-game of straight society’. The Sixties and Seventies communalism was a backlash against hi-tech postwar societies. These movements had a grand vision to change society, often along lines of economic communism and rejected social norms such as monogamy and the concept of traditional childhood.

While, if we take contemporary squatting, for example, these are movements which have mostly been driven by a material necessity to repeatedly challenge the normality of private property, commodification and eviction in major capitalist cities (such as social housing in London, Bristol, etc:).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Part One  ~~  From The Peasants’ Revolt To The Great Sunday Squat.

During the Anglo-Saxon period, commoners were able to grow crops and graze their animals, by a system of customary rights, on common land. Traditionally in an English village there were several classes of people. At the lower end were the incomers known as ‘borderers’ or squatters, who would erect a cottage or a hovel on common or waste ground to house themselves and would pay rent to the Manorial lord or would work on his ‘demesne’ several days a week.Over time landowners started to enclose land and deprive commoners of their ancient rights. Farm labourers would lose the ability to feed themselves and were dependent on their Manorial lord for an income. Squatters were made homeless.

In 16th: and 17th: Century Wales, an expansion in population as well as a taxation policy led to people moving into the Welsh countryside, where they squatted on common land. These squatters built their own property under the assumption of a fictional piece of folklore, leading to the developments of small holdings around a Tŷ unnos, or ‘house in a night’.

While there have been many waves of squatting throughout British history, which was a big issue in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 – a major uprising across large parts of England, inspired by Wat Tyler, John Ball, Joanna Ferrour, et. al. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340’s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years’ War and instability within the local leadership of London. – On 30 May 1381, John Bampton was attempting to collect unpaid poll taxes in Brentwood, Essex, when he was met with violent confrontation and the uprising which followed led to the burning of court records, opening jails and demands to end taxation, serfdom and a removal of the King’s senior officials. The name Leveller had previously been used as a term of abuse for rural rebels who had destroyed (‘levelled’) hedges during the Enclosure Riots (beginning with the Kett’s Rebellion in 1549), but it also encapsulated the movement’s ‘levelling’ egalitarian principles. By 1649, The True Levellers / Diggers which had emerged during the bloody maelstrom of the English Civil War, when radicals on the parliamentarian side, the proto-communists of the Diggers and the Levellers, led a movement for the landless folk of England to take over – or ‘squat’ – the commons and fields. Being led by Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard and lasting just under one year, between 1649 and 1650.

‘England is not a free people, till the poor that have no land have a free allowance to dig and labour the commons’Gerard Winstanley. ‘The State of Community Opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men’. (1649).

The Diggers continue to be an inspiration for movements challenging norms of private property and inequality today.

‘We raise the watchword Liberty, We will, we will, we will be free’.
George Loveless. 1834.

From 1838, mass meetings in Northern England, the East Midlands, the Staffordshire Potteries, the Black Country, and South Wales spurred a national movement which demanded six democratic reforms outlined in ‘The People’s Charter‘. While seeing these principles as underpinning a fight against political corruption in industrial Britain, the Chartist movement also attracted widespread support for economic reasons (including wage cuts and unemployment). Petitions signed by millions were presented to the House of Commons in 1839, 1842 and 1848 to concede suffrage and when the first petition was refused, preparations began for armed insurrection in Newport, Sheffield and Bradford (which were ultimately quashed). After their defeat in Paris in 1871, exiled Communards arrived on British shores. Their time here forged solidarity across the Channel and left an imprint on British radicalism for decades to come. Due to Britain’s liberal asylum policy at the time, around 3,500 refugees – including 1,500 Communards and their families – arrived in Britain. Fitzrovia was the political centre of much of the Communard community in London. Here French exiles, British radicals and other international refugees created spaces in which to talk politics, swap ideas and explore the intersections of the distinct political cultures of France, Britain and beyond.

In 1896, a group of followers known as the Croydon Brotherhood founded Purleigh, the first community in the United Kingdom governed by the principles laid out by the Russian novelist Tolstoy. In 1897 several members, some from a Quaker background, moved to Leeds. The receipt of a legacy enabled this group to relocate to a seven and a half acre smallholding at Stapleton in 1921. Another Purleigh splinter group established the Whiteway Colony in 1898. These middle-class progressive radical thinkers along with the non-conformist Quaker journalist, Samuel Veale Bracher, built a socialist utopia in the heart of the Cotswolds, rejecting the idea of private property. 125 years later the 41 acre co-operative community at Whiteway Colony, eight miles from Stroud, is still going strong with 150 people calling it home. When Mohandas Gandhi visited in 1909, he saw it as a failed Tolstoyan experiment.

From the ‘Morning Star’ 12 March 1999. – . . . .  ‘Files from the 1920’s released to the Public Record Office showed that officials regarded the Whiteway Colony in Gloucestershire as a security risk . . . . . 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’.

Over the years residents have included immigrant anarchists, conscientious objectors and refugees from the Spanish Civil War, as well as co-operative ventures such as Protheroe’s Bakery, the Cotswold Co-operative Handicraft guild and the Co-operative Gardening Group. For a period the anarchist newspaper ‘Freedom’ was produced there by Thomas Keell.

Early settlers building the Colony HallCredit ~~ All Rights Reserved

 

Reacting to growing disillusionment with the Suffragist movement, Emiline Pankhurst began to advocate a more assertive and radicalised form of direct action for female suffrage, founding the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903. The ‘Suffragettes’ (a name coined by ‘The Daily Mail’ as a title of derision but defiantly adopted by the movement, emphasising a hard ‘G’ to render the name ‘Suffrage – Get’) were influenced by tactics used by Russian exiles from Tsarism, such as: hunger strikes, damage to property and vandalism – setting fire to postboxes, smashing windows and detonating bombs, as well as targeting places frequented by men, such as cricket grounds and race tracks – chaining themselves to railings and other public displays of protest.

When Winston Churchill arrived at Bristol Temple Meads on 13 November 1909 he was attacked by Theresa Garnett with a horsewhip who shouted ‘Take that in the name of the insulted women of England!’ Arrested, she was sentenced to a month at HMP Bristol for disturbing the peace. Churchill did not press charges.

The 1918 general election, the first general election to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918, was the first in which some women (property owners older than 30) could vote. At that election, the first woman to be elected an MP was Constance Markievicz but, in line with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy, she declined to take her seat in the British House of Commons. The first woman to do so was Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, following a by-election in November 1919.


The WSPU HQ after being attacked by some 500 undergraduates in Queens Road, Bristol, October 1913
Credit ~~ Bristol Central Library

On 13 July 1906, around 20 unemployed men – known as the Plaistow Land Grabbers, had grown disillusioned with government and local authorities to adequately help them and their families and inspired by the Levenshulme Landgrabbers and those in Bradford, set up the ‘Triangle Camp’ (including a main tent called the ‘Triangle Hotel’) and began cultivation.  Their leader, Councillor Ben Cunningham (nicknamed ‘the Captain’), told a local reporter that they ‘wanted to get the people back to the land’ and this ecological theme was emphasized in large white letters at the back of the plot, with the slogan: ‘What will the Harvest be?’ By 4 August the authorities had stepped in.


‘Every Man His Own Owner’ – The Plaistow Land Grabbers
Credit ~~ The Graphic 21 July 1906

 

People go to Glastonbury for all kinds of reasons, whether it is for the music or spirituality and you would not be the first. Around the turn of the last century early Avalonians – like Dion Fortune, Alice Buckton, Frederick Bligh Bond, Katharine Emma Maltwood, Rutland Boughton and Wellesley Tudor Pole – came seeking the Grail, writing poetry, seeing the stars mirrored in the landscape, composing and performing operettas. The seminal figure who emerged from the shadows to become the prime mover and shaker of everything that followed was shown to be the medic and antiquarian John Arthur Goodchild who died in 1914. Under what seemed to be psychic direction, he placed a curious glass vessel within the waters of a spring outside the town known as Bride’s Well. This took on the character of a kind of ritual enactment, requiring a woman to receive the inspiration to retrieve it. If she did, the world would be changed. In the later stages of this experiment he involved his friend, who bore the dual literary personality of William Sharp / Fiona Macleod. True to Goodchild’s design, the object was indeed recovered as hoped for, and events took on a momentum of their own to draw in such young enthusiasts as Wellesley Tudor Pole and his triad of maidens. Others soon arrived. Newspapers of the time reported that they sometimes scandalised the townspeople. Some warned against letting local children take part in Rutland Boughton’s ‘Glastonbury Festivals’ that took place between 1914 and 1925, believing these eccentric characters with their extra marital affairs, bare feet and corduroy trousers were a pernicious influence. What appears to have motivated them was a powerful desire to make manifest not a personal vision, but a vision of Glastonbury as an important spiritual centre of unity, growth and learning. As can still be seen today.

 

‘It is to this Avalon of the Heart the pilgrims still go. Some in bands, knowing what they seek. Some alone, with the staff of vision in their hands, awaiting what will come to meet them on this holy ground. None go away as they came. . . .’

Dion Fortune.  ‘Avalon of the Heart’.

 

But where are Glastonbury’s New Avalonians?


Alice Buckton at Chalice Well
Credit ~~ Somerset Heritage Centre

England’s revolutionary reputation was built on the fact that it had experienced not one, but two revolutionary upheavals: the Civil Wars and Interregnum of 1640 – 1660 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 – 1689. But the seeds of what would lead to major rioting across the UK were sown in the summer of 1918 with strikes across Britain. On 23 August, women cleaners on the railways struck for equal pay with men. A week later the Metropolitan Police went on strike. Due to the dismissal of a Police Constable who was a prominent member of the force and a union organiser, for union activities. The swiftness of the strike and the solidarity of the men shocked the government. By 30 August, 12,000 men were on strike, virtually the entire complement of men in the Metropolitan Force. The Police Strikes during 1918 and 1919 prompted the Government to put before Parliament its proposals for a Police Act, – This act barred police from belonging to a trade union or affiliating with any other trade union body – which established the Police Federation of England and Wales as the representative body for the police. On 1 August 1919, the Police Act of 1919 was passed into law. Two days after the armistice, soldiers in Shoreham walked off their base in protest against officers’ brutality.

Life after the First World War for everyone was tough and Britain found itself in a perilous state – there was a lack of food, housing and young men had perished as they fought for their country. In January 1919, there were mutinies in the British Army and Navy, notably in Folkestone and Southampton, where officers came close to ordering loyal troops to fire on mutineers. Sailors on HMS Kilbride mutinied and raised the Red Flag. – This was not the first time the Red Flag had been used as a symbol of working class rebellion in the United Kingdom, as it was raised during the Merthyr Rising, also referred to as the Merthyr Riots of 1831 which were the violent climax to many years of simmering unrest among the large working class population of Merthyr Tydfil and the surrounding area. Joe Attard. ‘The Merthyr Rising 1831: rage, rebellion and the red flag’. (2 June 2020). – Two thousand soldiers ordered to embark for France mutinied and went on strike. While Conscientious Objectors in several prisons began hunger strikes. January 1919 also saw Police break up an open air trade union meeting where thousands of workers downed tools in demand of a 40-hour week and the Red Flag was flown in George Square, Glasgow. The leaders of the union were arrested and charged with instigating and inciting large crowds of persons to form part of a riotous mob.

1919 also saw a series of race riots which came in the wake of the First World War as the surplus of labour led to dissatisfaction among Britain’s workers, in particular seamen. Britain’s first race riot took place in South Shields. This led to the outbreak of rioting between white and minority workers in Britain’s major seaports, from January to August 1919. These riots were also seen in London, Salford, Hull, Barry and Newport. In June, Cardiff and Liverpool were the scenes of the worst rioting. One person was murdered by drowning in Liverpool Docks. While in Cardiff three people died. The riots of 1919 saw angry mobs consisting of striking rail workers, miners and police, clashing with soldiers in the streets.

On 4 and 5 March, Kinmel Park in Bodelwyddan, near Abergele, North Wales, experienced two days of riots in the Canadian sector of the military complex, which cost five soldier’s lives.

21 April saw fighting between Arabs and English girls at an eating house in Cable Street, London. A number of ex-servicemen entered the place and soon after a fight broke out with revolvers, knives and bottles being used. While a hostile crowd gathered outside. Police arrived but it took some time for them to gain entrance and make arrests.

In May, the Strangers’ Home for Asiatic Seamen in West India Dock Road, London was surrounded by a hostile crowd and any coloured man who appeared was greeted with abuse and had to be escorted by the police. It was necessary at times to bar the doors of the Home.

During the summer of 1919, Luton Town Hall was burned down by rioters, before the army was brought in to impose marital law and restore order. By mid-1919 there were strikes or the threat of strikes on the docks and among railway and other transport workers. There was a nationwide bakers strike and a rent strike by council tenants in Glasgow.

On the August Bank Holiday, the Government in London dispatched tanks to the city of Liverpool in an overwhelming show of force – because police officers were among those on strike – with soldiers deployed to suppress the fierce and violent riots led by British trade unionists and Communists. But, as the Army was unable to contain these mobs, the Government deployed the Navy and battleships could be seen moored in the Mersey, which also came under siege.  In Liverpool rioting continued for three or four days before the military, aided by non-striking police, brought the situation under control, but at the cost of several lives and more than 200 arrests for looting.

Industrial unrest and mutiny in the armed forces combined together to produce the fear that Britain was facing the same kind of situation which had led to the Russian Revolution two years earlier. This all took place against the background of a British invasion of Russia and fears in the Government that a revolution was imminent and It appeared that Britain could be on the verge of transforming itself from a constitutional monarchy and liberal democracy, into a Soviet-style People’s Republic.

However, in the early 1920’s the mood shifted away from revolution and overthrowing the Government in a bloody revolt. There were wars abroad – in Iraq and Afghanistan – and a threat of terrorism coming from Ireland in the form of Sinn Fein. The riots therefore subdued as more immediate threats from abroad presented themselves. Nonetheless, 1918 and 1919 were years in which sizeable numbers of people stood up to the power of generals, governments and employers. But with the assembled forces unable to seize state power – something that distinguishes all true revolutions – our rulers were able to restore control and secure lasting victories. The order established endures to this day.

So what prospect is there, really, for another revolutionary crisis in Britain?


Raise the red flag – workers assemble in Glasgow
Credit ~~ Glasgow Times

Perhaps the first ‘underground’ publication was ‘Peace News’ a pacifist magazine that was first published on 6 June 1936 as a free issue to serve the peace movement in the United Kingdom and launched by Humphrey Moore and his wife, Kathleen. The late MP, Tony Benn said of ‘Peace News’, –  ‘a paper that gives us hope. . . . (it) should be widely read’. During the late 1960’s / 1970’s the magazine was closely linked to the UK Counterculture scene and underground press. Today, its joint editors are Milan Rai and Emily Johns.

During the summer of 1946, thousands of British families took the law into their own hands to temporarily solve their housing problems by ‘requisitioning’ empty military camps. – An early precedent was set by a group in Brighton known as the Vigilantes who occupied 3 empty homes in July 1945. – This mass-squatting movement was rapid, spontaneous and entirely working-class in character. While it was often driven at ground level by women, the movement soon developed a formal leadership structure dominated by ex-servicemen who had served as NCO’s and Warrant Officers. When and where the squatting movement started remains disputed. But the event that received most publicity on the radio, in the press and on cinema newsreels, was the occupation of an army camp at Chalfont St: Giles in Buckinghamshire.

Bristol, with particularly acute housing problems and a large number of former British and US military sites in and around the city, was one of the leading centres of the squatters’ movement. By early September over 1,000 Bristolians were living in former military huts, something that alarmed the council at first.

Purdown was only one of a number of very similar sites deemed suitable for squatting by Bristolians – others were at a gun site on Bedminster Down and the POW Camp at White City – who were sick of sharing overcrowded housing. The accommodation was spartan. They were usually just wooden huts, sleeping quarters for 10 to 20 people, with slightly more salubrious quarters for officers and NCO’s. There were huts for administration, catering and stores. In all, there were at least 12 at Purdown and now they would have a new use. As the squatters moved in, they elected management committees and collected ‘rent’ from the residents to pay to whichever authority would recognise them as tenants. This was the main reason why there seems to have been little hostility to them from the press or public in Bristol or anywhere else. They made it clear they were not trying to freeload.

As council houses were built and made available over the next few years, most camps around Bristol emptied and tenants moved into proper homes. Although in some places the camps lasted well into the 1950’s and had become formally organised.


POW Camp Squatters, White City, Bristol. August 1946
Credit ~~ Bristol Radical History Group

Known as ‘The Great Sunday Squat’ and following the example of the military bases squatters, the Communist Party – with help from the Women’s Voluntary Service and even some Police Officers – moved over 100 families into luxury flats in Central London, on 8 September. They selected flats which had, in fact, been used for official use during the war. So many families turned up on the day that further squats had to be established, including buildings in Marylebone, Pimlico, and St: John’s Wood.

The government was now under pressure and fearing a spread of direct action, reacted harshly. They arrested 5 leaders of the Communist Party (all elected local councillors) who were imprisoned and charged with the novel offence of ‘conspiracy to trespass’. Police began laying siege and blockading the squats in full view of the media, cutting off facilities and preventing food and supplies from reaching them. The cabinet also instructed the Home Office to draft a new law that would make squatting a criminal offence and guards were placed in empty buildings across the city.

The squats crumbled within a matter of weeks and plans for criminal legislation were dropped. The squatters at the Duchess of Bedford House – who had been the high-profile media example of the activity – left on 20 September accompanied by a marching band.

 

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Part Two  ~~  Counterculture And Beyond.

A Counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behaviour differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores. A countercultural movement expresses the ethos and aspirations of a specific population during a well-defined era. When oppositional forces reach critical mass, countercultures can trigger dramatic cultural changes. Prominent examples of countercultures in the Western world include the Levellers (1645–1650) – see above, Bohemianism (1850–1910) – the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people and with few permanent ties. It involved musical, artistic, literary or spiritual pursuits (The Bloomsbury Group), the more fragmentary counterculture of the Beat Generation (1944–1964) – the central elements of Beat culture were the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs and sexual liberation and exploration (Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac, et al), followed by the globalised Counterculture of the 1960’s (1964–1974) – the UK’s underground movement was focused on the Ladbroke Grove / Notting Hill area of London.

Founded in 1961, ‘Private Eye’ has run rings around the establishment for decades; refusing to swallow their bullshit, exposing sleaze and providing one of the rawest and unfiltered critiques of British society and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The magazine has long been known for attracting libel lawsuits, which in English law can lead to the award of damages relatively easily.

‘Militant’ was a Socialist newspaper that ran from 1964 until 1997. During the ’70’s you could buy the newspaper on the factory floor.

Counterculture is sometimes conceptualised in terms of generational conflict and rejection of older or adult values. It may or may not be explicitly political. But, typically involves criticism or rejection of currently powerful institutions, with accompanying hope for a better life or a new society and is evident in literature and music of the time.

‘Radio Caroline’ and ‘Radio London’ were British radio stations founded in 1964 initially to circumvent the record companies’ control of popular music broadcasting and the BBC’s radio broadcasting monopoly. Both unlicensed by any government, they were classed as pirate radio stations that never became illegal as such due to operating outside any national jurisdiction, although after the Marine Offences Act (1967) it became illegal for a British subject to associate with them. ‘Radio London’ closed down on 14 August 1967 and ‘Radio Caroline’ followed on 3 March 1968.

Apart from publications such as ‘IT’ – The first copy was on 15 October 1966. Having had various editors in its history, the magazine first ceased publication in October 1973 after being convicted for running contact ads: for gay men. In 2011, ‘IT’ was relaunched as an online magazine with Nick Victor as the current editor – and ‘Oz’ – co-editors – Richard Neville, Martin Sharpe and Jim Anderson. Felix Dennis replaced Sharpe in 1969. UK Music Critics hated Led Zeppelin, but Dennis writing in ‘Oz’ March 1969 stated: ‘Very occasionally a long-playing record is released that defies immediate classification or description, simply because it’s so obviously a turning point in rock music. . . .’ ‘Oz’ was one of several underground publications targeted by the Obscene Publications Squad. The last issue was published in November 1973, both of which had a national circulation, the 1960’s and 1970’s saw the emergence of a whole range of local alternative newspapers, which were usually published monthly. These were largely made possible by the introduction in the 1950’s of offset litho printing, which was much cheaper than traditional typesetting and use of the rotary letterpress. The underground press offered a platform to the socially impotent and mirrored the changing way of life in the UK underground. Neville published an account of the counterculture called ‘Playpower’, in which he described most of the world’s underground publications. He also listed many of the regular key topics from those publications including Vietnam, Black Power, politics, police brutality, hippies and lifestyle revolution, drugs, popular music, new society, cinema, theatre, graphics, cartoons, etc:

 

‘Revolution must break with the past, and derive all its poetry from the future’.Situationist International.
(Quoted in ‘Playpower’ 1970).

During the 1970’s Smith and Logan from the ‘New Musical Express’ raided the underground press for writers and started to champion underground, up-and-coming music, political articles and became the gateway to a more rebellious world for the nation’s listless youth.

A 1980 review identified some 70 such publications around the United Kingdom but estimated that the true number could well have run into hundreds. – ‘Bristol Voice’, ‘Seeds’, etc: – Such papers were usually published anonymously, for fear of the UK’s draconian libel laws. They followed a broad anarchist, libertarian, left-wing of the Labour Party, socialist approach but the philosophy of a paper was usually flexible as those responsible for its production came and went. Most papers were run on collective principles.

As with the Beat Generation of the 1950’s and their interest in Eastern religion, notably Zen. When the Beatles visited India during February 1968 to study Transcendental Meditation, there was a rapid expansion in interest in Hinduism. Young people were already heading east on the so-called ‘Hippie Trail’,  – the name given to the overland journey taken by members of the hippie culture and others from the mid-1950’s to the late 1970’s between Europe and South Asia – looking for spiritual enlightenment and an escape from the material lifestyle of the West.

With the advent of the 1960’s in the midst of a housing crisis, communes and squats became more frequent.

In Scotland, the Findhorn Foundation which was founded by Peter and Eileen Caddy with Dorothy Maclean in 1962, has become prominent for its educational centre and experimental architectural community project based at The Park, near the village of Findhorn. The Ecovillage community and that at Cluny Hill in Forres, now house more than 400 people.

Since 1967, the Principality of Sealand has existed as an unrecognised micronation on HM Fort Roughs, a sea fort off the coast of Suffolk. It was occupied by Paddy Roy Bates who styled himself as His Royal Highness Prince Roy.

1968 would become the year of unrest.

The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterised by popular rebellions against state militaries and the bureaucracies. During the summer of that year, a couple of French students, whose visas had run out, took to the night-time streets of Yeovil – a country town at heart, along with local teenagers after closing time at the Half Moon in Silver Street, to re-enact the Paris disturbances of May that year – where a period of civil unrest had occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events the economy of France came to a halt. – Several youths were arrested after causing damage to shop windows and the Yeovil Police Station. On 27 October thirty thousand demonstrators marched through London in protest against the Vietnam war which became a riot when police charged the crowd with horses.

Students at universities around the UK and the world took part in a series of protests that challenged the hierarchy of universities, corporations and governments. They were following the actions of their French peers, who occupied the streets of Paris from 3 – 13 May and were later joined by workers in the largest general strike of the 20th: Century, with seven million people downing tools. The unrest shook up the status quo and the student movement gained momentum.

Months after those original protests and following allegations that Bristol University students were unable to control their own union, this led to a protest over one weekend. At this time the vice-chancellorship had passed to John Harris who was said to be nonplussed by the protest. However, he died one week later after collapsing in his office. Further disagreement between the university and the student union occurred over the issues of giving greater representation on university bodies and ‘reciprocal membership’ of the union, meaning that any students from Bristol – including those studying at Bristol’s technical and vocational colleges – would have access to the facilities of the newly-opened £750,000 University of Bristol Students’ Union building. This escalated into an 11-day sit-in at the Senate House on Tyndall Avenue after a march through Bristol on 5 December, which gained Bristol national headlines.

It was the first ever large-scale student protest at the university and local students were joined by contingents from LSE, Birmingham, Leicester, Cardiff and other universities. Over the course of the protest more than 700 students, of a total of 6,000 studying at the time, joined the sit-in, which ended with eight students receiving court summons’ and being banned from entering the building. Even the police were sympathetic to the student cause. But, when 16 December came, most students had left for the Christmas holidays and therefore the sit-in crumbled.

Student Protest March. Bristol
Credit ~~ © Tony Byers

‘Ev’rywhere I hear the sound of marching charging feet, boy
‘Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy. . . .’
‘Street Fighting Man’. Mick Jagger. 1968.

While many trace the history of London’s contemporary squatting movement back to 1968, the seeds were sown well before then. In 1969, members of the London Street Commune squatted in a mansion at 144, Piccadilly in Central London to highlight the issue of homelessness but were quickly evicted. The Eel Pie Island Hotel was occupied by a small group of local anarchists including illustrator Clifford Harper. By 1970 it had become the UK’s largest hippy commune and housed up to 100 residents before a mysterious fire in 1971 burnt the hotel to the ground. Communes had sprung up due to hippy values during the mid to late 1960’s, where a large gathering of people shared a common life, common interests, common values and beliefs, as well as shared property, possessions, resources and in some communes, work, income or assets. While St: Agnes Place was a squatted street in Kennington, South London, which was occupied from 1969 until 2005.

By the early 1970’s, there was a growing conflict between the original activists of the Family Squatting Movement and a newer wave of squatters who simply rejected the right of landlords to charge rent and who believed, or claimed to, that seizing property and living rent-free was a revolutionary political act or more practically decided it was a good way to save money.

Birchwood Hall Community was founded in 1970 by a group of people interested in exploring alternative lifestyles. The community has gone through many changes since then, but for most of the time has existed as a largely stable and harmonious group. The main building at the community is a large 19th: Century red brick house located just north of the Malvern Hills. In addition to the ‘Hall’, where most members currently live, there is a Coach House which is home to several more members and is currently being developed to provide further residential space. There are also a number of barns and outbuildings which both houses share. Some of these buildings have been restored and converted to create workshops while others are awaiting restoration. There is also a small residential centre called ‘Anybody’s Barn’, which is operated as a separate charity by members of the community, providing space for residential or day retreats, courses, meetings and workshops for a variety of groups and organisations, which are all located in eight acres of grounds. In legal terms it is a housing co-operative, governed by regulations which are based on standard ‘Co-operative Society Rules’. The land and buildings are owned by the co-operative (which includes all residents) and not by any one individual. If the co-op ceased to exist entirely, money from the sale of the property would be distributed to charities and / or to other intentional communities with similar aims. Most community members have some form of paid employment. Politics is important to the group, broadly being left-wing and feminist in approach. The community has political ideals, but perhaps not an idealistic view of political change. They are not as closely involved with the rest of the Communes Movement as they used to be, but that could change in the future.

Birchwood Hall
Credit ~~ Birchwood Hall Community

By the early 1970’s Counterculture as a visible and global phenomenon was beginning to diminish and fade. Some people had lost faith in peaceful change and were moving to extreme left wing political and even terrorist beliefs – The Angry Brigade decided to launch a bombing campaign with small bombs, in order to maximise media exposure to their demands while keeping collateral damage to a minimum. The campaign started in August 1970 and continued for a year until arrests took place the following summer. Targets included banks, embassies, a BBC Outside Broadcast vehicle and the homes of Conservative MP’s. In total, police attributed 25 bombings to the Angry Brigade. The bombings mostly caused property damage; one person was slightly injured – and while much has been written about the decline of Counterculture, in reality, it never really went away.

‘The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility’. – John Lennon. Source ~~ Interview for KFRC RKO Radio (8 December 1980).

During 1973 – 1975 near Euston Station in Central London, Tolmers Square was occupied by more than one hundred squatters, who engaged with local groups to fight for a redevelopment plan which fitted the community. After a long struggle, they were successful.

Tipi Valley is situated high in the hills of South-West Wales. The community has been buying it field by field since 1975. In this time, the oldest fields have regenerated from sheep farming land to mixed deciduous woodland rich in wildlife. It is a wild valley dotted with homes that are low impact dwellings – tipis, yurts and turf roofed round huts.

Frestonia was the name adopted by the residents of Freston Road in London, when they attempted to secede from the United Kingdom in 1977 to form the Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia. Most of the residents of Freston Road were squatters, who had moved into empty houses in the early 1970’s. The Republic of Frestonia continued to operate as a collective well into the 1980’s, becoming a creative hub for writers, artists and musicians as well as cultural activists. During a split between members, the remaining Frestonians proved incapable of maintaining the ideals of the Frestonian ‘nation’, which consequently went into decline. In its place, a more conventional local community developed, without any claims to secession from the UK.

The Argyle Street Alternative Republic in Norwich housed more than 200 people from 1979 until 1985, when it was evicted and demolished. Elsewhere in England, there were sizeable squatting communities in Brighton, Cambridge, Leicester, Manchester and Portsmouth. Many squatters legalised their homes or projects in the 1980’s, for example Bonnington Square and Frestonia in London. The 121 Centre was set up on Railton Road in Brixton, London, having first been squatted by the black feminist Olive Morris. Until eviction in 1999, the 121 Centre hosted events and in the 1980’s printed a squatters newspaper called ‘Crowbar’ and the anarchist ‘Black Flag’ magazine in its basement.

During the 1980’s New Age Travellers who lived in mobile homes – generally old vans, trucks and buses (including double-deckers) – moved in convoys. One group of travellers came to be known as the ‘Peace Convoy’ after visits to Peace camps associated with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The movement had faced significant opposition from the British Government and from the mainstream media, epitomised by the authorities’ attempts to prevent the Stonehenge Free Festival – which ran from 1974 to 1984 was a celebration of various alternative cultures. The Tibetan Ukrainian Mountain Troupe, The Tepee People, Circus Normal, the Peace Convoy, New Age Travellers and the Wallies of Wessex were notable Counterculture attendees – and the resultant Battle of the Beanfield, which took place on 1 June 1985 – resulting in what was, according to the ‘Guardian’, one of the largest mass arrests of civilians since at least the Second World War, possibly one of the biggest in English legal history. In 1986 and later years police again blocked travellers from ‘taking the Stones’ on the Summer Solstice. This led Travellers to spend summers squatting by the hundreds on several sites adjacent to the A303 in Wiltshire. Following the crackdowns against aspects of New Age Traveller culture and the ‘Free Festivals’, some ceased travelling altogether and others headed to continental Europe to pursue a continuance of the lifestyle.

Tinkers Bubble, which was established in 1994, is an off-grid community on 40 acres of land in rural Somerset. The name comes from the spring that flows through the woodland ending in a small waterfall by the road. This is where gypsies brought their horses to water them at the bubble; the gypsy name for a waterfall.

Founded by Paul and Hoppi Wimbush, the Lammas project was created to ‘pioneer an alternative model for living on the land’. In 2009, 76 acres of land were bought in Pembrokeshire to create a sustainable eco-village.

Occupy London was a political movement and part of the International Occupy Movement. While some media described it as an ‘anti-capitalist’ movement, – Caroline Davies. ‘The Guardian’ – in the statement written and endorsed by consensus by the Occupy assembly in the first two days of the occupation, occupiers defined themselves as a movement working to create alternatives to an ‘unjust and undemocratic’ system. A second statement endorsed the following day called for ‘real global democracy’. Due to a pre-emptive injunction, the protesters were prevented from their original aim to camp outside the London Stock Exchange. A camp was set up nearby, next to St: Paul’s Cathedral. On 18 January 2012, Mr: Justice Lindblom granted an injunction against continuation of the protest, but the protesters remained in place pending an appeal. The appeal was refused on 22 February and just past midnight on 28 February, bailiffs supported by City of London Police began to remove the tents. Occupy Bristol camped-out on College Green between the Council House and Bristol Cathedral from October 2011 until January 2012.

Extinction Rebellion is a global environmental movement, with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse. Extinction Rebellion was established in Stroud during May 2018 by Gail Bradbrook, Simon Bramwell and Roger Hallam, along with eight other co-founders from the campaign group Rising Up! 

In Britain in 2021 some campaigners considered that XR was being ignored by the government (except for legislating against protests) and no longer had the effect needed to create real change, so other groups were formed with the idea of using mass disruption and arrest to draw attention to a very specific demand. Insulate Britain was set up to demand that the government implement measures to fit all homes with improved insulation by 2030 to improve energy efficiency thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Just Stop Oil from 2022 protested against fossil fuels. Both groups have carried out disruptive protests, blocking traffic and seeking to be arrested.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Part Three  ~~  Bristol:  Riots, Squats & Free Festivals.

But what of Bristol – already mentioned above – and its self-image nowadays – the radicalism, creativity, environmentalism, the woke progressiveness and on sunny days, the low-lying smog of skunk – it would be reasonable to assume that Bristol in the 1960’s was the San Francisco of Western Europe, right? Well, no.

Noted for its riots. (There have been eleven in total since 1793, with the latest in March 2021). The earliest being the Bristol Bridge Riot of 1793. In 1794 the populace of Bristol were said to be ‘apt to collect in mobs on the slightest occasions; but have been seldom so spirited as in the late transactions on Bristol-bridge’.Matthews. ‘The New History, Survey and Description of the City and Suburbs of Bristol, or Complete Guide’. Printed 1794. The Bristol Bridge Riot of 30 September 1793 began as a protest at renewal of an act levying tolls on Bristol Bridge, which included the proposal to demolish several houses near the bridge in order to create a new access road and controversy about the date for removal of gates. Eleven people were killed and 45 injured, making it one of the worst massacres of the 18th: Century in England. – Manson. ‘Riot! The Bristol Bridge Massacre of 1793’. Printed 1998. Other riots have been the New Cut Riot, 1809. Where a celebratory dinner ended in a mass brawl  between English and Irish labourers and ended in a riot which had to be suppressed by a Naval press gang. – Latimer. ‘The Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century’. 1887. The 1831 Bristol Riots (Queen Square Riots) took place between 29 – 31 October and were part of the 1831 Reform Riots. – There were also civil disturbances in London, Leicester, Yeovil, Sherborne, Exeter, Bath and Worcester along with riots at Nottingham and Derby. – The riots arose after the ‘Second Reform Bill’ was voted down in the House of Lords. Four rioters were killed and 86 were wounded. 100 of those involved were tried in January 1832 and despite a petition of 10,000 signatures, four men were hanged. Old Market Riot, 1932. On 23 February, in reaction to the government reducing unemployment benefit by 10 per cent, around 4,000 protestors tried to march down to the city centre, led by the National Unemployed Workers Movement. The Park Street Riot occurred in Park Street and George Street on 15 July 1944. Racial tensions inflamed by earlier incidents and the racial segregation of GIs both in the UK and abroad, came to a head in Bristol when a large number of black GIs refused to go back to their camps after US Military Police came to end a minor fracas. St: Pauls have had two riots, 1980 and 1986. There have also been riots in Southmead (1980), Hartcliffe (1992), Stokes Croft (April 2011), part of the National Riots (August 2011) and the Kill the Bill Protest (21, 23 and 26 March 2021) against the ‘Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022’, which all ended violently and a number of the rioters being jailed.

There have been Anarchist and Socialist bookshops in Bristol since the 1920’s, perhaps even earlier.- Flynn’s, People’s Bookshop, Kingswood Bookshop, Black River Books, Main Trend Books. – A strange mix of Hippies and Hell’s Angels at The Last Homely House, Hotwell Road – the name was taken from Elrond’s dwelling in Tolkien’s ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ – during the late 1960’s, where one could buy the latest copies of ‘OZ’, ‘IT’ and ‘Gandalf’s Garden’ – although they preferred to be called Overground and ran for six issues from 1968,-  imported albums from America, clothes and other odds and ends. It would later move further into Hotwells and become Where The Wild Things Are, a bookshop for children. – The name comes from Maurice Sendak’s children’s picture book of the same name and published in 1963.

The Last Homely House. Hotwells
Credit ~~ All Rights Reserved

St: Paul’s Carnival is an annual Caribbean Carnival held, usually on the first Saturday of July, in St: Paul’s, Bristol. The celebration began in 1968 as the St: Paul’s Festival, in order to improve relationships between the European, African, Caribbean and Asian inhabitants of the area.

Called the St: Paul’s Carnival since 1991, the event includes a masquerade procession with ornate and colourful costumes and floats from local schools and cultural associations, a stage for professional performers, sound systems in neighbouring streets and a range of stalls selling food from a wide range of cultures.

St: Paul’s Festival. 1968
Credit ~~ All Rights Reserved

Late 1970 saw an anarchic commune at 49, Cotham Road which had links to the ‘Black Dwarf’ a political and cultural newspaper that ran from 1968 until 1972 and associated with the International Marxist Group, while various other small communes had also started to spring up at this time.

During the 1970’s there were four ‘alternative shops’ selling various items from books, magazines and paraphernalia. One was at St: Nicholas Market, two on Perry Road – Pentacle Books and Taro, along with Medina at Lower Park Row.

Largely populated with people in their late teens and early twenties, who were often characterised as rebellious youth, disenchanted ‘dropouts’ who had rejected the values of mainstream religion and culture to create their own Counterculture and protest movements. Their enthusiasm for Asian mysticism, new forms of psychotherapy, or new fervent expressions of evangelical Christianity led them to join exciting new religions in the hope of experiencing the numinous, finding the authentic self, or transforming the world and themselves, which would lead the mainstream media to brand them as ‘cults’ and became the single most important influence on people’s attitudes towards them. Bristol would see many ‘cults’ spring up during the 1970’s. Hare Krishna devotees spreading the word in Broadmead to shoppers and workers alike, in 1971. Scientology books were banned from sale by Georges Bookshop at the top of Park Street in the early 1970’s. Although it was not long after, that Scientologists were targeting the bookshop by leaving books on the shelves for people to buy. Mid-1974, Divya Sandesh Parishad. A strange meeting at the crossroads, with Premies of Guru Maharaj Ji. Their commune was at 103, Belmont Road. Exegesis were a group of individuals that delivered the ‘Exegesis Programme’ through an ‘Exegesis Seminar’. The alleged end result of the programme was individual enlightenment, a personal transformation. Seminars were run at Arley Chapel, now a Polish Roman Catholic Church during the late 1970’s / early 1980’s. Although not in itself a religion or belief, the programme was popularly interpreted as such. See George D. Chryssides. ‘Exploring New Religions’. (12 November 2001). The Cult Information Centre categorised it as a ‘therapy cult’, focused on personal and individual development. The Home Office asked the Metropolitan and Avon and Somerset police to investigate Exegesis. Although the police brought no charges, Exegesis ceased to run seminars around 1984.

The Ashton Court Festival was an outdoor music festival held annually in mid-July on the grounds of Ashton Court, just outside Bristol. The festival was a weekend event which featured a variety of local bands and national headliners. Mainly aimed at local residents, the festival did not have overnight camping facilities and was financed by donations and benefit gigs.

Starting as a small one-day festival in 1974 called the Bristol Community Festival, the festival grew during succeeding years and was said to be Britain’s largest free festival until changes brought on by government legislation resulted in compulsory fees and security fencing being introduced. In 1986, Hawkwind, whose fluid line-up of members were in the habit of just showing up at festivals and events around the country, arrived at Ashton Court. They were turned away by the festival organisers. Telling the band that they were not welcome. The organisers of the festival  declared bankruptcy in 2007.

Bristol’s Stokes Croft road cuts a gnarled, paint-splattered route north from the city centre. To the east runs St: Paul’s, home to the city’s historically Jamaican community and the location of notorious riots in the 1980’s and to the west sits affluent Kingsdown. In the empty spaces left derelict long after World War Two, a thriving counter-cultural scene blossomed, starting with the punks in the mid-70’s and evolving into the festival and alternative art communities of the late-1990’s and beyond. The squats created a space for parties, performances and exhibitions – and one where artists could live and work without worrying about making rent. The graffiti-sprayed buildings changed the aesthetic of the area and inevitably, the neighbourhood became fashionable, creeping up in price. In the early 1980’s the area was desolate. There was nothing going on apart from the punk and squat scenes because no one else wanted to go there.

Before Stokes Croft filled up with hipsters and trustafarians, it was dark and threatening. At the junction of Ashley Road and Cheltenham Road sat the Full Marx radical bookshop at 110 (1976? – circa 1990), – today a Salvation Army charity shop – an abandoned shop which was squatted and then reopened as a café called the ‘Demolition Diner’ and the ‘Demolition Ballroom’, – an old VW car showroom – which had film nights, political events and live music – a little like ‘The Cube’, only dirtier and unpleasant during the early 1980’s. The riotous gigs featured such local crusty punk titans as Disorder and Lunatic Fringe. While 0.6 miles away and founded circa 1983 at 82, Colston Street, stood Greenleaf Bookshop. By the end of 2005 Greenleaf Bookshop closed after 23 years as a workers co-op, they had been battling with the ever-changing book market but finally had to stop. The co-op members were left with a business debt of around £8,000 that they were personally liable for.

Full Marx Bookshop
Credit ~~ Bristol Record Office

 

In St: Pauls during the mid-1980’s, anti-apartheid activists persuaded 21 out of 23 local shops to remove South African goods from their shelves creating an ‘Apartheid Free Zone’. The idea originated from the St: Pauls Community Association AGM in 1985 in response to the State of Emergency in South Africa. The aim was to put economic pressure on the South African Apartheid regime. Regular pickets were held outside Barclays Bank on Newfoundland Road and the campaign even persuaded the new Eastville Tesco Store to adopt an apartheid-free policy. It was the first ‘Apartheid Free Zone’ in the Country and sparked off others in Brixton and Toxteth.

Stokes Croft. 1980’s
Credit ~~ Bristol Anti-Apartheid

In the 1980’s a pirate radio movement emerged in the UK, prompting a new musical phenomenon that would change the face of British music. Pirate radio is often associated with the off-shore broadcasting of the 1960’s, but in the 1980’s it enjoyed a renaissance. This time stations were broadcasting music from the roofs of residential tower blocks, houses or bedrooms rather than at sea and were distinctive in the way in which they celebrated black culture. During an era defined byThatcher’s leadership, these stations offered an escape for those suffering racial discrimination and economic marginalisation. They aimed to empower musical communities reputedly ignored by the BBC and the licensed commercial stations.

Like many cities and towns across the country, Bristol had a number of pirate radio stations giving a real community voice to the Black and Asian communities from 1987 until the Independent Broadcasting Authority announced that they were to offer some smaller licences and pirates could apply as long as they closed by the end of 1988 and many pirate stations around the country decided to have a go.

‘B.A.D. Radio’ was the first West Indian / Black music pirate radio station in Bristol, running from the Summer of 1987 until 1 March 1989 when they were raided by the authorities for the second time. ‘Radio For The People’ launched on 7 February 1988 and gained an incremental licence which allowed them to broadcast to the city again on 21 April 1990. ‘Black FM’ hit the airwaves on 97.9 MHz on 21 July 1989, defining itself as being ‘. . . . NOT a community radio station but a privately owned music enterprise which likes to help out in the community.’ The station pulled the plug just before the New Year of 1991. ‘SPEC Radio’ was set up by DJ Stax and Junior Ash to try and achieve what they thought the legal version of ‘FTP’ would fail to achieve – to give a real community voice to the Black and Asian communities of Bristol, especially in the areas of St: Pauls and Easton. Broadcasting from December 1989 until 1991, having been raided a number of times by DTI officers. It returned a handful of times as ‘ReSPEC FM’. There were other stations that broadcast over the city airwaves during those years.

The summer of 2011 marked a turning point. The eviction of long-running squat Telepathic Heights sparked riots between local residents and police from Avon and Somerset Constabulary, supported by Wiltshire and Welsh police, with police occupation of the neighbourhood. Soon after, anti-squatting laws were passed by the coalition government, making it harder to open new spaces. One by one, many of the squats were emptied, with coffee shops and craft beer bars popping up in their place. In 2016 the last standing squat in the area – the Magpie – was sold for £300,000 at auction. The Magpie was one of Bristol’s oldest squats which started in 2008 on Picton Street.

Dubbed ‘Bristol’s Cultural Quarter’, Stokes Croft has a long-standing reputation for alternative living in Bristol. The pop-up culture that has been fashionable recently draws from the squatting culture but commercialises it. It used to be people with no resources making something out of nothing and now it is people with a lot more resources competing for much less space.

‘The Bristolian’ is an independent website ‘smiting the high and mighty’, exposing the council, politicians and businesspeople in Bristol, which was originally launched in 2001. In 2005 its reputation for getting scoops on municipal malpractice and provincial corruption earned ‘The Bristolian’ a runner-up prize in the Paul Foot Awards for investigative journalism. The website was relaunched in March 2013. ‘The Bristol Blogger’ ran from March 2007 until March 2012. By  2014, the UK’s journalism industry was at rock bottom. 2012’s ‘Leveson Inquiry Report’ revealed systemic, decades-long criminality by the tabloid press in order to get evermore sensational ‘scoops’ to sell newspapers. Trust in the corporate-owned press was at an all time low, at a time when newspapers really needed it – their business model was in freefall, as internet firms were scooping up the advertising revenue. Local investigative journalism was the first to take the hit and had been extinct for some time. A small group of volunteers in Bristol decided to do something about the failures of corporate-owned local media – they organised, crowdfunded and built a reader owned new-media outlet: ‘The Bristol Cable’. As a result, Bristol now has its own investigative newspaper, 100% owned by thousands of local people, free to access for all in digital and print.

Bristol Radical History Group was formed in 2006 to open up some of the ‘hidden’ history of Bristol and the West Country to public scrutiny and challenge some commonly held ideas about historical events.

At its peak, the ‘Bristol Pound’  – a form of local, complementary and / or community currency launched in Bristol, on 19 September 2012 – was the most successful ‘local’ currency in the UK. But the growth of cashless payments and cryptocurrencies eventually brought about its decline, with the challenges of the pandemic dealing the final, fatal blow in 2021. There are now only two community currencies still operating, Findhorn and Lewes.  Other currencies had been set up in the Lake District (2018 – 2019), Exeter (2015 – 2018), Stroud (2009 – 2013) and Totnes (2019). The Brixton Pound is now a cryptocurrency, whereas the Kingston Pound is digital.

There are around 500 people known as Bristol Vehicle Dwellers living in vans on at least eight encampments across the city. (2021 figures). Property prices in Bristol are nine times average earnings and as people try to escape the soaring living costs by living in vehicles on the streets, they are met by opposition from residents and Bristol City Council. But, the ‘Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill’ could eliminate Bristol’s Vehicle Dwelling community.

For some, living in a van is their culture or a symbol of resistance. But for many others it is the only possible response to our growing housing crisis.

Today, the ‘cost of living crisis’ could force thousands to live in large off-grid communes in Britain.

 

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Postscript.

Starting a new community is hard work.  Even if you have a clear vision, excellent people to start it with, a place to move into and ample resources to start it, your chances of success are low.  And the chances that you are starting with all these advantages is pretty low.

By the end of 2021, there were reportedly nearly 300,000 empty houses across the UK. Squatting in residential buildings (like a house or flat) is illegal. It can lead to 6 months in prison, a £5,000 fine or both. Despite this, long-term squatters who have been living in residential properties for 10 years or more can legally apply for squatters rights. The government suggests being on another person’s non-residential property without their consent is ‘not usually’ against the law.

Under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, property owners can legally remove squatters by applying for an Interim Possession Order (IPO). According to ‘Shelter’, this process ‘requires squatters to leave the premises within 24 hours of service’. If the squatters have not left the premises 24 hours after being served an IPO, this will be seen as a criminal offence and they could be charged by the police or sent to prison. This will also be the case if they return to the property within 12 months of leaving.

 

 

 

© Stewart Guy.

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SAUSAGE LIFE 257


MYSELF: You like classical music don’t you?
READER: Classical? I adore classical! Especially the music of rockstar fiddler, the boy with the Something About Mary hair Nigel Kennedrix
MYSELF: Well that’s just as well, because he’s taking over your slot.
READER: I see


NIGEL KENNEDRIX
The most dangerous far out
sexed-up dude in classical stringdom 

NIGEL: Yo Bird my man! Puff Daddy!!!… Bling!!!…….Super!!! (I mean wicked of course!!!)
MYSELF: Welcome! So what have you been up to?
NIGEL: Well, as you probably know from all the press, radio, media and whatever, me and the band’ve been blazing a well cool trail of Hot Stradivarius all over Europe, (which is overseas).
MYSELF: Europe?
NIGEL: Yeah, we just got back from Poland, where we done a well wicked ‘gig ‘ (Can you believe those old school classical farts still call them concerts?.). It was in a place called Warsaw, which is in Poland, …and it was not only wicked, it was also well kool. (See how I spelt that? With a K instead of a C?…. Take note Mr. Paga so-called Nini!)
Mark my words, those wigged-out communist dudes really dig my shit man, so they can’t be that fucking thicK
MYSELF: No swearing , This is a family column. You’re not onstage now
NIGEL: Whoops!!! Sorry man! But dig this. Over in Poland I’m like, a sex god and most of the people are Polish, and very poor, so the women throw potatoes on stage instead of underwear – how cool is that?!
MYSELF: Potatoes?
NIGEL:  Spuds yeah! Apparently they hang on to their knickers so they can exchange them with tourists for Levis and cigarettes – wicked or what?
 Whilst I was getting wankered backstage before the gig, some of the local blokes showed me their tattoos, mostly of tractor engine diagrams (ouch!), or potatoes. Wicked! I drank so much home-made vodka I actually shat myself onstage during the big movement in Beethoven 5!!!  How fucking kool is that?? 
MYSELF: Nigel! How many times do I have to tell you?
NIGEL: Bollocks.! Sorry dude! Anyway, I am like a total professional, so despite having soiled my chinos, I got the band to go straight into Paranoid, the Sabbs classic, so like, nobody really noticed the smell except the viola players sitting right behind me. They gave me some right stick in the band room afterwards I can tell you!!! So I sacked them, the fucking muppets! 
MYSELF: There you go again! Last warning!
NIGEL: Well, Tempus Fuckit! Gabriel’s sweet limo is comin’ for to carry me to Stringfellow’s, so I guess it’s time to say adios amoebas dudes! I’m off down under to conquer Paris this weekend, and I’ve told the whole band they have to dress up as Goths! Woah! I’m such a far-out dude but the Frogs love me! Yo culture!!! By the way, the chick in that pic above is like…..not my girlfriend OK??!!! 
MYSELF: Yes she is you lying twat, I’ve seen her coming out of your house at 5am!
NIGEL: What the fuck were you doing outside my house at 5am?
MYSELF: Right. That’s it your fired
READER: Does this mean I get my job back?
MYSELF: We’ll see. 

POLICE CORDON OFF TOWN CENTRE
Sculpture “stinks” say demonstrators
Protesters Stan and Maureen Smethwick clashed with armed riot police outside Upper Dicker Town Hall yesterday, as controversial plans were unveiled for a 60ft sculpture which is set to dominate the Victorian splendour of newly-restored Rainbow Gardens (Formerly Jimmy Savile Park). “The whole thing stinks, quite frankly” said Mr. Smethwick from his cell at Hastings Police station, “and typifies the Council’s gung-ho attitude. This monstrosity could put someone’s eye out, or worse. I dread to think what kind of message this is sending out to our dogs.”
The public outcry arises from the decision of Hastings Borough Council to commission a gigantic sculpture from controversial conceptual artist Tracy Eminem at an estimated cost to the public of £500,000 The huge bronze dog turd, titled “Dogs Little Acre” will tower over the centre of the park, and is set to become a local landmark.
SHITART
From a queen-sized unmade bed at her luxury studio in Herstmonceaux, Ms Eminem defended Upper Dicker’s bold new civic project: “Basically, like all I am trying to say is like basically, everything is shit right? So like why not make it actually look like shit? Unfortunately I’ve never been much good at all that old-hat figurative stuff, which is basically just art fascism, and that is why I have had to hire assistants to design and build the work at great personal expense. All this contributes to the final cost of course, and the public, who tend to be really thick where great art and stuff is concerned, will moan as usual. These are the same people who will quite happily spend millions on the NHS!”
 “But let’s face it”, she continued, “all great artists have their detractors. Reubens, for example, couldn’t draw trees, and I think that eventually, after all this controversy and stuff has died down, the people of Hastings will come to view my giant golden turd as a kind of Tibetan-type temple of Victorian meditation, evoking as it does the whispy grey ghosts of turn-of the century gentlefolk with their tiny mollycoddled dogs scattering little brown bomblets far and wide, like miniature malodourous land mines.”
Ms Eminem’s provocative monoprint My Arse won the Rorschach Prize in 1997. Since then she has been criticised for her refusal to conform to artistic tradition, with works like Pizza Remains, Pissed, and the infamous Gagging For It, in which a hoover bag is emptied over a dish of Vanilla ice cream, which is then eaten by tramps. You can see Arse Pizza Remains, Gagging For It’ and a selection of other pieces at Tracy’s latest exhibition, coyly titled Fish Moustache  Cheapside’s Pink Triangle Gallery

DICTIONARY KORNER 
Hamas (n) tools used by Geordie carpenters

JUNK FOOD HEALTH WARNING
 A resurgence of the ancient custom of killing and eating those accused of breaking and entering is beginning to concern the Bornean authorities. A Government spokesman said; “The average weight of Borneans has risen dramatically over the last two years, and there is a direct correlation between the consumption of burglars and the increase in obesity levels. We are not saying stop eating burglars. As long as they are consumed as part of a healthy balanced diet containing nuts, grubs, monkey spleen and tiger penis, there is no cause for public concern. The problem for certain sectors of the population is that this kind of food can become addictive. Some people are faking burglaries just so they can eat their neighbours.”

 

Sausage Life!

 

 

 



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LOST SLEEP!

Sometimes
I love you means
I want to love you,
I’ll stay a little while longer,
I’m not sure how to leave,
I have no where else to go.

So I write a book
About love
And realise
You are hidden behind
Every single word.

You don’t want to accept me
Maybe you don’t like me.
I am not educated and beautiful like you.
So many emotions
Unforgettable, uncontrolled
How to express?
How to cope?
My ink can’t describe
Everything about you.
When can I own you as mine.
Tell me now my dear!
Thinking thinking
I am losing sleep.

 

 

 

Monalisa Parida

 

 

Bio:- Monalisa Parida is a post graduate student of English literature from India, Odisha and a prolific poetess. She is very active in social media platforms and her poems have also been translated into different languages and publish in various e-journals.
She has got 80 international awards for writing poetry. Her poems have been publishing international e-journals “New York parrot”, “The Writers Club” (USA), “Suriyadoya literary foundation”, “kabita Minar”, “Indian Periodical” (India) and “Offline Thinker “, “The Gorkha Times “ ( Nepal), “The Light House”(Portugal), “Bharatvision”(Romania), “International cultural forum for humanity and creativity”(Aleppo, Syria), “Atunispoetry.com”(Singapore) etc. And also published in various newspapers like “The Punjabi Writer Weekly(USA)”, “News Kashmir (J&K, India)”, Republic of Sungurlu (Turkey)” etc.
One of her poem published an American anthology named “The Literary Parrot Series-1 and series-2 respectively (New York, USA)”. Her poems have been translated in various languages like Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, Persian, Romanian etc. And she is the author of the book “Search For Serenity”, “My Favourite Grammar”, “Paradigm”, “Beyond Gorgeous”.

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Soul and the Sky

When the mountains
Echoed your name
I was a whispering wind
That carried your
Memories with me.
When the river flowed
With your dreams
I realized you were
A waking reality.
There is
Pleasure in pain
Only the passionate heart
Waits to know.
Be a colorful
Momentary rainbow
Which amazes every heart.
Be the pouring romantic clouds.
The sky is a canvas
To exhibit your true colors.
The night displays its intensity
In stars and diamond like luminous moon.
You are my beating heart
A temperate art,
That carries the timeless attire.
When I imagine my art
I draw your true image
In the crevice of my soul.
They say soul is formless
But I find you as a relief
Like water fulfilling
Thirst in any shape.

 

 

Sushant Thapa
Photo Nick Victor

 

Bio: Sushant Thapa is a Nepalese poet from Biratnagar, Nepal who holds a Master’s degree in English literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has published three books of poetry namely: The Poetic Burden and Other Poems (Authorspress, New Delhi, 2020), Abstraction and Other Poems (Impspired, UK, 2021) and Minutes of Merit (Haoajan, Kolkata, 2021). Sushant has been published in places like The Gorkha Times, The Kathmandu Post, The Poet Magazine, The Piker Press, Trouvaille Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Impspired, Harbinger Asylum, New York Parrot, Pratik Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, Atunis Poetry, EKL Review, The Kolkata Arts, Dissident Voice, Journal of Expressive Writing, As It Ought To Be Magazine and International Times among many. He has also been anthologized in national and International anthologies. His poem is also included in Paragon English book for Grade 6 students in Nepal. He teaches Business English to Bachelor’s level students of BBA and BIT at Nepal Business College, Biratnagar, Nepal.

 

 

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Marcus Aurelius Silicon Valley Sunday

Billionaires don’t build communities
All they make is money
A sunny slope for shady people
Their hold on history
Consistently continuous

Those digital computers never sleep
They consequently cannot dream
They are victors of mankind
In compliant mechanical relevance

Not that new computers
As yet compare themselves to human minds
But the mind compared to computers?
In this case
Speed of learning soon outstrips us

Earth has myriad cinemas
Sometimes screening suffering
An alien invasion
But meanwhile from free will
May absolutely choose an alienation

Block-chains of computers
Triple-testing their own systems
Checking for conformity and speaking in encryption
Merely to their kind

A silent unceasing production
Lacking the slightest distraction
Where nothing nags or gnaws an inner vacuum   –
For without Imagination
All fates are unimagined

Dreamtime?   Playtime?
Rest or Recreation?
These are foreign concepts
To blind relentless labour

Who then are the programmers?
Who the programmees?
Our own humane and blameless
Mild incorruptible neighbours
They are after all
‘Only doing their job’

 

 

 

Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

 

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The New Dark Ages

“I’m bringing back to the forefront principles that are gradually fading away from our modern societies.” Mohammed Ali (aka AerosolArabic)

“You can’t appreciate English literature unless you are steeped to some extent in the King James Bible … not to know the King James Bible, is to be in some small way, barbarian.” Richard Dawkins

I

It was in a private meeting called by Prime Minister David Clegg at 10 Downing Street itself that the full implications of the crisis were finally articulated.

The published reports were of an increasing series of thefts; systematic thefts of artefacts from museum displays throughout the country and with no sign of forced entry. Security had been immediately increased, access had been restricted to significant sections of most museum collections and free entry to all but the most localised of museums suspended.

Yet the full extent of the crisis was being actively suppressed with the media being fed only the bare bones of the true story which in its fullness constituted a cultural crisis and had led to the Directors of all the national collections being summoned to meet with the Prime Minister.

“There have been no thefts,” explained Neil Dixon, the Director of the British Museum.

“No thefts!” exclaimed Clegg. “Then what in God’s name are we doing here and why the massive expense of the measures you have all demanded from me and my Government!”

“That is correct,” Dixon stated. “No actual thefts, but to all intents and purposes theft is what appears to have occurred.”

“All who visit our institutions see absence where certain artefacts should be displayed,” cut in Dr. Michael Penny, the Director of the Natural History Museum.

“The artefacts remain in their place of display.” Dixon resumed his account. “Our curators can touch and feel them and can confirm that they have not been stolen, yet these artefacts are enveloped in an impenetrable darkness which means that they cannot be seen.”

“In the circumstances,” Penny cut in once again, “it seemed more understandable to talk to the media of thefts than to persuade them and the public of the true nature of the crisis.”

“A crisis,” shouted Clegg, his voice rising in sync with his flushed colour, “which I still fail to fully grasp, beyond what now appears to be wholly unnecessary expenditure on increased security for objects which have not in fact been stolen, nor are under any threat of being so.”

“To be frank, Prime Minister,” interjected Sir Nicholas Jones, the Director of the Tate Galleries, “that is the least of our worries. The darkness which is enveloping these cultural artefacts – and it is artefacts of human creation which are affected – is doing so systematically and period by period, epoch by epoch.”

The bearded, bespectacled face of the Director of the Natural History Museum once more jutted forward with an interruption. “The darkness began at the beginning with the first objects known to have been human creations and is progressing systematically forward from that point.”

“In addition,” continued Jones, his face beginning to glisten from heat and sweat – the effect of the import of the news he sought to convey combined with his concentration in doing so and the stuffiness of the room in which they met – “not only are the artefacts themselves being blanked from sight but so too are all references to them in the artistic and literary artefacts which follow them in history.”

“Our contacts tell us,” added Dixon, “that this is a global phenomenon.”

“What periods of history are currently affected?” asked the Prime Minister.

“We are currently in the Mesolithic Period,” stated Penny, pleased to finally take the lead and supply hard facts. “The forward movement of the darkness appears to be weekly and we have no indications as to what its cause might be or how to counteract its progress.”

Dr. Martine Serota, the Director of the V&A, made her first contribution, “Prime Minister, you must understand that we remain at present in a period of crafted objects rather than written words. As a result, the current impact of the darkness is much less than it will become if its progress continues as to date.”

“Even so,” stated Jones, “I have paintings, photographs, sketches and notes which cannot be displayed because they contained images of artefacts which the darkness has covered and these images have also been covered by darkness at the same time.”

“The Lascaux caves now look like the redacted documents issued by the US after the first WikiLeaks publications,” blurted out Dr. Christophe Newby, the Director of the Science Museum, almost in tears.

Serota continued her analysis. “What will happen, Prime Minister, when the darkness reaches crafted objects which are in the landscape, rather than our museums, and are national icons? Stonehenge being just one significant example!”

“Constable’s mezzotint, Gropius’ photos, the arrest of Tess …” Jones muttered.

“What too will happen once we reach the periods of the written and then the printed word? Take the King James Bible as example! What will happen when that is enveloped by this darkness? Will all the phrases which it gifted to our culture and which are peppered throughout our language also be enveloped? Will the phrase ‘salt of the earth’ no longer be seen in our literature? Will that phrase still form itself on our lips? We do not know the answers to these questions but we fear the consequences for our culture and future.”

“Without a solution,” exclaimed Clegg with a sharp intake of breath, “we will be entering the new Dark Ages!”

 

II

The Times, Thursday 22nd December 2011

The New Dark Ages

Our palaces of cultures – the museums and galleries of which free access to the riches of their great stores of human learning and culture have been among the greatest achievements of our culture in recent centuries – lie in ruins. Barricaded by rings of security personnel and barred by locks, chains and all manner of high-tech security devices, we, the public, can no longer access the collections to which we previously shared the right of open access.

Yet this denial of access combined with its concomitant rapid increase in security has been powerless to prevent the slow but relentless eradication from sight of artefacts from the earliest times of human culture together with all reference to these artefacts in later artistic, educational and scientific creations.

The darkness which is systematically obliterating human culture and which, if it continues, will lead us into a new Dark Age shows no sign of being abated by the actions taken to date by the Government to seek to protect what remains of our national collections.

Culture, to be preserved, must be lived and breathed in order that it fertilises future creativity and learning. Too much of our current culture is already blind to the extent to which it utilises and is informed by past culture. We think and act as though we emerge from the womb as fully formed independent individuals with no debt to nurture, yet our every thought and word and action is inevitably and unconsciously predicated on some past learning.

This year, we celebrated a cultural artefact – the 1611 King James Version Bible – which is among those artefacts that will shortly be lost from sight should this dark blight on our culture continue its relentless progress. When this Bible is lost from sight, we will not only lose the artefact itself but all that it has contributed to our culture in terms of imagery, story, phraseology and much, much more.

Our culture cannot sustain such a loss, such a repeated series of losses, and survive unharmed. We face a new Dark Age which cannot be prevented by denial of access and security cordons. Therefore, we call for the doors of the palaces of cultures to be flung wide open once again. Maybe in the learning which ensues an answer to the relentless rush of this tide of darkness in our culture can be found. Or, like Canute’s courtiers, we will see the folly of our hubris.

 

III

 

www.godsgraffiti.com/news/01012012.htm/

Birmingham-based street artist Unit-Y begins a new work today at the entrance to the Water Hall of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. At the artist’s request I will be present to document the development of this work for God’s graffiti and readers of freeze.

The inspiration for this new work has come as Unit-Y has reflected on the current culture crisis through the lens of his Islamic faith. He has always viewed his unique brand of street art as a spray-painted message to humanity by directing his aerosol to themes of diversity, justice and love. Now he intends to recreate the cultural journey made by humanity in the form of the 100 objects identified by Neil MacGregor as telling the story of the world.

Images of these 100 objects will be spray-painted onto the wall of Birmingham’s principal palace of culture containing, as it does, a collection of similarly significant artefacts. Unit-Y is well aware that the earliest objects which he paints will inevitably be enveloped by the darkness which is currently extending through our cultural heritage. This is part of his thinking for this work. As a graffiti artist he is used to his own work being eradicated by Council cleansing teams and he will, in his usual fashion, simply begin again each day that the darkness continues to cover up his images.

In an act of faith Unit-Y commits to repainting each day in a different form these 100 objects as an act of actively remembering our heritage and its influence. His work is therefore envisaged as an act of resistance against this eradication of our cultural history. Unit-Y invites the general public to join and assist him in this act of resistance and remembering.

In view of the significance of this initiative, freeze will follow the project posting visuals documenting the project and regular reports on Unit-Y’s activity and achievement. Unit-Y is taking a stand, a stand for human culture and deserves the active support of all who value our common culture past, present and future. This is art for humankind’s sake.

Don Wolf, Editor of freeze, 31/12/11

 

www.godsgraffiti.com/news/02012012.htm/

The New Year began with clear skies and a hard frost. Unit-Y, keeping active with his aerosol to combat the cold and begin the work, explained the genesis of his decision to begin this resistance project which dates back to the Prophet’s (pbuh) time in Medina.

At Medina, the Prophet (pbuh) and his followers lived peacefully with Christians, Jews and pagans, each valuing the culture of the other. Equality and freedom of religion were both codified in the Constitution of Medina. Unit-Y says that he seeks through the images and messages of his work to recapture the essence of that Medina vision.

In this project he aims in an act of solidarity, as a Muslim, to demonstrate his valuing of the cultural artefacts of many other faith groups, in addition to those of his own. He sees this as an opportunity to bring to the forefront of our collective minds understandings that are gradually fading away from modern society.

News of the project begins to circulate. Passers-by stop to view proceedings and share views. Texts are sent, the website gets hits, and the numbers arriving increase. Unit-Y shares his vision with those who come and the work expands to encompass each of the 100 artefacts.

This first version sets the objects, logically enough, on a timeline which doubles as a Swarovski charm bracelet; so seeing the artefacts as the precious jewels of humanity. As each historically early object is completed it is immediately covered by the darkness; the onset of which palpably deflates those present.

As natural darkness descends, candles are lit and prayers recited in differing forms. The small crowd begins to disperse, Unit-Y is congratulated, hands are shaken, backs are slapped, people commit to returning, and the completed work is left to the street light’s glow. The soft light makes vivid the voids created by the darkness.

Don Wolf, Editor of freeze, 01/01/12

 

www.godsgraffiti.com/news/07012012.htm/

Returning a week later, the transformation is immense. The eyes of the world are now on Unit-Y. Cameras from TV companies and News Agencies are relaying his work and observations around the nations. The street is a milling mass of well-wishers, many of whom have taken up residence intending to be with Unit-Y for the duration. The area surrounding his painting has become a shrine through the crowd of candles which mark the boundaries of the space within which he paints. Scaffolding towers with tarpaulin stretched between them now offer protection to the work and respite from the inclement weather to Unit-Y.

Gazebos and other shelters have been erected. Food outlets have sprung up. A stage has been erected as a festival feel is unfolding. Local acts have begun to perform in shows of solidarity or associated publicity. Areas and times for various types of worship have been initiated.

Yet, while an organisation of sorts has emerged, what seems most positive are the myriad examples of more informal and casual interactions: musicians jamming together; rappers inspiring each other to more audacious rhythmic rhymes; accapella folk singathongs; ad-hoc interfaith groups studying each other’s scriptures together, among others too numerous to document here.

Unit-Y is thrilled with these developments. “I started this project just as a gut response to the crisis of culture caused by the darkness. It was a simple act of resistance and I had no idea whether others would share that gut response. Now, though, I’m getting a sense of something much bigger building. People are getting the project. They’re not just here for the vibe. They’re checking out the 100 objects and getting the connection between these objects and us, here and now. I’m sensing that forgetting or ignoring those connections is in some way linked to the rise of the darkness and could be key to us resisting its rise.”

Today’s image is word heavy replete with phrases deriving from or accruing around the objects themselves. The wall of the Water Hall becomes a word cloud of associations released by human creativity. Phrase upon phrase building a construct of creativity. The darkness redacts this visual document with increasing censorship of that same creativity.

Don Wolf, Editor of freeze, 07/01/12

 

www.godsgraffiti.com/news/10012012.htm/

I have been fortunate to have able to globetrot in order to see art in many countries and cultures around the world. I have reviewed and reported on most, if not all, the most recent trends in contemporary art. I have met many of the most significant artists of our time and have been present at some of the most profoundly original and exciting exhibitions, festivals and installations of recent years. Yet, I have never experienced an art happening such as occurred today.

It began with the great and the good descending on the Water Hall. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Directors of each National Museum and Gallery, national religious and secular community leaders, all came to stand in front of Unit-Y’s latest creation; a global interlinking of the 100 objects with countries of origin and countries where Unit-Y’s act of resistance was being replicated. The speeches and prayers that you would anticipate from such figures were duly made. The crowd was restive, not fully appreciating the stereotypical phrases praising Unit-Y’s initiative and prayers which seem ineffective in the face of the relentless rise of the darkness over human culture.

Unit-Y commended this gathering of the great and good to the crowd as a unique coming together of culture, politics and religion before requesting that those who had come to speechify and pray now took time, before leaving, to speak with those in the crowd and hear from some of the myriad other performers present now responding to the artworks and the cultural crisis.

Clocks nearby sounded the hours and the crowd rose as one to tell the history of the world by naming, in order of their creation, the 100 objects. TV cameras relayed the chant around the world where it was taken up in the same moment by those at each site where Unit-Y’s initiative was being replicated. Millions of human voices – the great and the good, creatives, religious, secular, marginalised, dispossessed, nameless – each naming the great cultural artefacts of human history; knowing, owning, valuing, appreciating, and understanding these same artefacts. Collective scales were falling from the eyes of humankind. These objects are what we made and what have made us.

And in this moment of collective realisation the darkness stalled, weakened and faded before vanishing like mist. For a moment following stillness was absolute then the dam of pent-up emotion broke in a vortex of hugs and tears and kisses and dances and whoops and cheers releasing all into a realisation that the world had listened and learnt and understood.

Dan Wolf, Editor of freeze, 10/01/12

 

 

 

Jonathan Evens

 

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Chapter Twelve: ‘A Porn-Addict Confesses…’

 

PORN: A PERSONAL HISTORY,
& A CONSUMER’S GUIDE
 

‘In Olden Days people spoke of immorality,
all the things they said were wrong, are what I want to be…’

                                            (“Over Under Sideways Down” by The Yardbirds in 1966)

 

The thing that really sets the innovations agenda is not the technology. It’s human desire. People don’t really care about technology itself. The important thing is, how can it be adapted to the unique and specific requirements of our lives? The end of the 1950s saw a dramatic upsurge in photojournalism. In England, the demise of Hulton’s gravure ‘Picture Post’ photo-magazine, and the rise of a more visually-orientated generation of newspaper picture-editors and graphic-designers, allowed newsprint to seize the initiative, with ‘The Observer’ in the advance guard championing photographers of the calibre of Ian Berry, David Hurn, Roger Mayne, and Don McCullin, who was hired for fifteen guineas a week to record ‘the social scene in Britain’. This was a market-shift that happily coincided with a greater availability of 35mm cameras, with faster, more easily interchangeable lenses. And – although quick to swallow the influences of such French and American innovators as Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Eugene Smith, and Doisneau, they were just as keen to exploit the anonymous intimacy those smaller more adaptable cameras encouraged.

And ‘anonymous’ and ‘intimacy’ are the kind of words that readily lend themselves to other photographic and pictorially-orientated genres, those available at certain newsagents, a little more discreetly. In 1954 a Halifax bookshop was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act for selling a slim ‘Diana Dors in 3D’ novelty book. Diana, who styled herself ‘the only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva,’ was the UK’s answer to Marilyn Monroe. Her film and TV-work, her brief dalliance with music and her stormy private life invited the tabloid press of the day to celebrate her as an all-round ‘bad girl’. She was delighted when the Archbishop of Canterbury called her a ‘wayward hussy’, after all, recommendations of that calibre seldom came better. Her voluptuous cleavage, combined with her engagingly unpretentious personality, ensured that the former Diana ‘Fluck’ enjoyed her reputation as Britain’s number one sex symbol.

Her primary rival in the Pin-Up stakes was Sabrina, who could be glimpsed to advantage in the Arthur Askey TV-series ‘Before Your Very Eyes’ (1955) when she was just eighteen. Better-known as a personality, rather than a fully-fledged star, with gossip-column hints about her shallow vanity, her celebrity was largely founded around her 41-17-36 figure. Surely, they whispered, to have grown such breasts in the first place must be conclusive evidence of premeditated badness. Previously, Stockport-born Norma Ann Sykes had appeared as the Five of Spades in a nude playing card pack, something she later regretted, to the extent of confiscating a pack from out of a store-display and throwing them into the street, an incident that instantly multiplied their collector’s value.

She was renamed ‘Sabrina’ by diminutive comedian Askey. It wasn’t her fault. Askey hadn’t talent-spotted her because of her comedic abilities, but as a visual joke, a running gag about her never speaking. She was smart enough to make the most of her modest talent and ‘dumb blonde’ reputation, but if her impressive natural endowment brought her fame, it was at the price of her becoming a sniggery national joke. She appeared in the usual ‘Spick’ and ‘Span’ girlie-mags – although usually in underwear or cleavage shots rather than topless, as well as on the cover and centrespread of ‘Picture Post’. She could be glimpsed in a handful of movies, including a dialogue-free part as Virginia in ‘Blue Murder At St Trinians’ (1959), after which she made several attempts at transferring her career to Hollywood, where she was snapped cavorting with Johnnie Ray, and where Frank Sinatra claimed he wanted to date her.

But although she quit showbiz in 1967 to marry a wealthy gynaecologist, later reports indicate her Los Angeles dream didn’t work out as well as she might have hoped. Nevertheless, Sabrina falls into a direct line of continuity with later glamour-stars such as Samantha Fox or Abi Titmus, who went on to enjoy comfortable post-notoriety afterlives – the 1950s were a more judgemental less-forgiving time. Diana Dors was built of sterner stuff. She lived her life in the full glare of publicity, before graduating – like Barbara Windsor, into acceptance as a well-loved actress with a talent for comedy well-captured by her central role in TV’s ‘Queenie’s Castle’ sit-com series.

Meanwhile, ‘We want girls on the covers, not covers on the girls’ says Mr Peters, the sleazy newsagent in Michael Powell’s extraordinarily disturbing movie ‘Peeping Tom’ (1960). Here, in the only really essential film he made after his break with screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, scripted from a Leo Marks story, Powell creates a creepy psychological chiller that also explores some of the more perverse aspects of moviemaking, and the voyeuristic nature of movie-going itself. Mark is an emotionally disturbed repressed obsessive, with every stilted uptight tick captured by blonde weirdo Carl Boehm in a buff duffle-coat. He’s a focus-puller working on the ‘Chipperfield Studios’ production ‘The Walls Are Closing In’ by day, a soft-porn shutterbug in the evening, ‘well, look who’s here, Cecil Beaton!’ quips one of his models. 

He’s also a sick serial killer who films the dying agonies of his female victims by night. Anna Massey and Moira Shearer play two of the innocents lured into his trap. Later, revisiting the scene of his crime, the killer claims to be snapping for ‘The Observer’. The film opens with a Luis Bunuel-referencing wide-eye close-up. A Soho hooker, seen through a viewfinder, says ‘that’ll be two quid.’ The lens follows her seamed stockings down the narrow Newman Passage, up the stairs. On the bed, as she undresses, her expression turns from bored expectation to shocked horror as he closes in on her… Instantly the sequence is repeated in monochrome as he watches this new ‘snuff’ footage.

With a cool-jazz and Trad soundtrack, its self-referentially filmic nature includes Powell himself as the anti-hero’s manipulative father. Issued the same year as Hitchcock’s masterly ‘Psycho’ (1960), and shot in lurid colour, it was initially reviled as too perverse for audiences to accept. The most controversial picture yet made by a major British director, it was even judged to have temporarily damaged Powell’s status, until critics rightly rescued it, restoring it to its current status as a cult classic. Meanwhile, back in the newsagents, customers pick up under-the-counter envelopes marked ‘Educational Books’ containing nude ‘art studies’. ‘Views for sale’ at five shillings each, or ‘£5 the lot’, sending out instantly decodable signals recognisable to everyone to whom J Arthur Rank had become not only a Film Company but also rhyming slang for a nightly ritual. A scene as compelling, in its own way, as the tale of the young man who films the murders he commits.

Slightly downmarket, screening around the same year, a convincingly chilling pre-‘Steptoe’ Harry H Corbett appears as the psychopathic serial murderer in ‘Cover Girl Killer’ (1959), wearing bottle-top glasses and a badly-fitting toupee to stalk the twilight world of Walton-on-Thames. Written and directed by ‘B’-movie maestro Terry Bishop, the fictional ‘Wow!’ is a monthly one-shilling jazz-mag of ‘lustful images’ that vaguely resembles ‘Parade’. Four of its models are murdered in the order in which they appear on the cover of ‘this filthy magazine,’ including Gloria Starke – ‘the showgirl with the most on show,’ Rona Charles, and ‘Miss Torquay 1959’ Jo Adams. ‘Young’ archaeologist John Mason (Spencer Teakle) has inherited the magazine, a distinction perhaps imposed to distinguish him from the grubby smut-peddler image, and he hangs out around the ‘Kasbah’ club to track the killer. Masquerading in a number of aliases, first as ‘Mr Walter Spendoza’, Corbett rants that ‘sex and horror are the new gods in this polluted world of so-called entertainment,’ as they set a trap for him using June Rawson (Felicity Young) delightfully posed in basque and suspenders.

The contradiction between the girl’s bright gamine innocence and gullibility, and the way her presentation in the magazine is seen by ‘the man’ as corrupting provides something of an authentic reality-fix of the time. Girls are easily lured by the promise of film roles or TV opportunities into posing for him, as he tells Joy ‘I assure you, your nudity means nothing to me,’ before accusing her of being ‘quite happy to exhibit your nakedness before the world on the cover of this filthy magazine.’ In a long tradition of warped clean-up crusaders censoring through murder, the movie retains some sense of relevance.

In the immediate post-war years, sex was still at the amateur-hour cottage-industry stage of evolution. Sydney J Bounds, a much-respected writer with a forty-year career in SF, Westerns, Crime and juvenile fiction to his credit, had a near-brush with its softest of soft-core early manifestations. One that gives clear indications of the way it worked. He visited the Teddington SF Club where he met a writer called Benson Herbert who he’d heard of through stories he’d had published in the pioneering ‘Tales Of Wonder’ pulp-magazine before the war.

‘Benson was a very sharp character. He’d gone to University in his native Tyneside, gained a B.Sc. degree, and moved to London’ Bounds told me. ‘At Utopian Publications he started his photographic business, producing nude ‘art studies’ of young ladies, and selling them – the photographs that is! In order to advertise his photographs for sale, he started a magazine. The actual contents of the magazine didn’t particularly matter! The attitude many publishers had in those days was that they never read what they published. Or at least, I would be very surprised if they did – I certainly never read anything of mine that appeared in his magazines! Benson’s brainchild was what was then known as a ‘spicy’ magazine – nowadays it might be classed as very soft porn. In those days of post-war shortages, publishers were not able to get paper supplies for a new regular magazine, so the way they got around it was to change the title of the magazine with each issue. So one month it might be called ‘Peppy Stories’, the next month ‘Snappy Stories’ and so on. Utopia Press needed a reliable writer to provide their monthly quota of spicy stories. The gentleman who got the job was Norman Wesley Firth, who was known as ‘The Prince of British Pulp Peddlers’. Now, it is a lie – I do know this, that Firth was chained to the wall in the basement of Benson’s house. He had a room in the basement that contained a bed and his wife. He wrote virtually the entire contents of the Utopian magazines, one after the other – until he suddenly went down with TB. This was a very serious disease in those days: there was no known cure. Within a matter of weeks, Firth had died.’

‘Benson had to act quickly to find a replacement. Since I’d done one or two stories for him, he hired me to supply 30,000 words a month. I realised that the income from this writing was more than equivalent to my £6 a week in the factory – so I immediately quit working there! But things were too good to last. Utopia Press were subject to two difficulties. Because of the risqué nature of his operation, Benson was regularly raided by the Police, and subjected to fines of up to £200 a time (a lot of money in the late forties). His second problem was that rival sleazy publishers used to hire professional crooks to burgle his premises and steal his photographs, so they could sell them themselves! The Police – who were not enamoured of his operation, just weren’t interested in apprehending the thieves. Eventually, Benson decided he’d had enough. He moved to Wales and got hold of a printing press, and launched a somewhat different line, publishing poetry by amateur dear old ladies! He was immediately successful, and made a lot of money! However, before he left, he introduced me to yet another publisher of this type of material, and I did a couple of spicy magazines for them, and so I was able to keep going as a freelance writer…’ until other fictional avenues opened up and Sydney Bounds went on to greater things. But his story perfectly illustrates the level the genre functioned on during that long-ago, more innocent period.

Movies initially operated on a similar ground-floor basement level, although oddly independent UK films managed to benefit from a levy designed by Harold Wilson’s Labour Government to promote the industry. Although some of the celluloid results of this innovative initiative could hardly have accorded with the Prime Minister’s intentions. Lacking such financial incentives, in the USA a deviously opportunistic strategy of seizing whatever issues happen to be bothering audiences at the time, then tying them into some shameless morality gimmick, tended to launch-pad the most remunerative examples. ‘Mom And Dad’ (1945) shamelessly conflates the troubling social dilemma of underage pregnancy. Hence this narrative of a young girl’s unwanted pregnancy – by masquerading it as ‘sex hygiene’ education, it legitimises gratuitous screenings of gory venereal disease and close-ups of live births. Cynical hypocrisy for sure, yet it was shown on a near-continuous loop for twenty-three years, endured four-hundred legal challenges, and grossed in excess of $100-million. Its director, Kroger Babb (1906-1980) was a born huckster bragging a carnival background on his CV. To increase the razzmatazz gravitas of this low-brow schlock he insisted on separate screenings for men and women, added the patriotic fillip of a ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ community singalong prior to each showing, then added a po-faced lecture by ‘professor of sex hygiene’ Elliot Forbes. None of which did much to harm the sales of Forbes’ book ‘The Secrets Of Sensible Sex’ which you could buy on the merchandising stand.

There had always been Stag Films, circulated for private screenings in smoky Gentlemen’s Clubs, Barrack room and afterhours sessions at Working Men’s Clubs from the earliest days of film, using cine-projectors and smuggled bulky cans of furtive spools. But the advent of grainy eight-mm and Super-8 films with wobbly fluttering sound, conspired together to accelerate smut’s democratisation into the new decade. It was now possible for amateurs to circumvent the big studio system and produce small-scale films of their own. The American low-fi underground films of George Kucher ranged from 8mm opuses with titles such as ‘Pussy On A Hot Tin Roof’ (1961) to the 16mm ‘Hold Me While I’m Naked’ (1966), featuring Kucher himself as an Indie director with friends and family-members standing in as the cast.

While the outrageously bearded English glamour-photographer Harrison Marks produced ‘The Window Dresser’, a 1961 movie-short done on eight-mm, only to be prosecuted in 1964 by Clarkenwell Court. This four-minute mini-epic, with its camp cameo by Marks himself and a nude Pamela Green contravenes acceptable ‘exploitational-movie’ deviousness by hanging its nudity on a flimsy and amusing plot, rather than hiding it behind the more acceptable documentary-style. Yet it’s far more playful, with a less contrived eroticism than what had gone before, an artefact from the days when Liposuction was still the way you imagined oral sex to be.

George Harrison Marks had started out with the humble ‘Kamera’, a pocket-magazine of ‘photo-stills and art studies’ featuring regular models such as Pamela Green (who cameos as herself in ‘Peeping Tom’), plus ‘Pocket Glamour’ specials featuring Lorraine Burnette or Marie Deveraux. Small enough to be highly concealable, with black-and-white photos on glossy pages, they provide impossible dreams in alluring poses. The profits from such ventures he used in collaboration with Arnold Louis Miller to finance a poor but highly profitable movie ‘Naked As Nature Intended’ (1961). Supposedly investigating the cult of Naturism it opens with that same Pamela Green walking naked across the Cornish beach towards the viewer, artfully flourishing only a towel, as Gerald Holgate’s informative commentary drones on. An early example of horror-maestro Tony Tenser’s movieography, it’s easy to imagine how the transom above the cinema foyer banner-streaming the seductively titled delights to be viewed within, must have made your skull sing at the time. The posters alone now command huge collector’s fees. Folk-Blue guitarist Diz Disley takes the slapstick conductor role in ‘The Chimney Sweeps’ (1963). Inevitably it was followed by ‘The Naked World Of Harrison Marks’ (1965).

Censorship came under the forbidding auspices of the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) operating from its Soho Square address. Set up as early as 1912, ‘for a nosey-parker, it’s an interesting job’ as George Formby observes. Naturally, it still forbade the gratuitous screen portrayal of nudity, yet – of course, this could be circumvented by adopting this contrived cod-documentary pretext. An American movie – ‘Garden Of Eden’ (September 1954), had already become the first mainstream cinema-movie to show a naked breast, even though it was hounded by its detractors all the way to the US Supreme Court, where its supposed ‘naturist documentary’ format eventually vindicated it with a certificate. The New York Court of Appeal lifted a ban imposed upon the film 24 August 1956, opening the door for more nudie-cutie films.

Others, inevitably, follow. Including British Pathé who got in on the act with ‘The Bare Facts’ (1958), filmed at Woburn Park, the Duke of Bedford’s estate. And an early – now lost, Michael Winner black-and-white called ‘Some Like It Cool’ (1962). The location for Winner’s nudie-flick was the Speilplatz naturist sun-club, opened in 1926, hidden from view in Hertfordshire’s leafy lanes – ‘they played a lot of volley-ball’ chortled Winner, ‘because that got the bosoms moving.’ The film was billed ‘The Facts Of Life – In A Nudist Camp’. Frequently filmed in a St Albans nudist camp, such films were all attentively scrutinised by censor John Trevelyn to exorcise any hint of stray pubic hairs. In the opening sequence of ‘Carry On Camping’ (1969), a chortling Sid James and a vacuous Bernard Bresslaw try to interest their reluctant girlfriends in a nudist holiday by taking them to see one of those nudist films. The ‘nudie’ film that Sid and Bernie take Joan (Sims) and Anthea (Meeks) to see is the Charles Saunders-directed ‘Nudist Paradise’ (1959), which – with its inserted scenes, makes Gilly Grant (who was the pin-up star in ‘Parade’ 23 November 1968) the first fully topless female star to feature in the ‘Carry On’ series.

Meanwhile Harrison Marks’ associate Arnold Louis Miller graduated from directing the 27-minute short ‘Nudist Memories’ (March 1961), to become adept as director by assuming a different tack. By adopting a serio-exposé format for his ‘West End Jungle’ (1961, Miracle Films/ Atlantic Pictures, 55-mins). Posing as a pseudo-documentary co-written with Stanley A Long, this ‘Sex-Film That London Banned’ was purportedly ‘A Journey Into The Dark Heart Of London’. Lifting the lid on the twilight world of Soho strip-clubs and prostitution with a socially-concerned slant, Miller insists ‘we were striving for absolute accuracy.’ With Tom Bowman, Andrea Lawrence and Heather Russell, sweetened by the narrator-voice of radio-DJ David Gell, it offered few new insights or solutions to the issue of vice in London, but devotes considerable footage to showing us exactly what that vice is. Teasing the audience with tantalising glimpses of the fleshpots and fleapits. Lurid foyer-posters announced ‘The Girls That Shamed London’ and ‘The Naked Truth About Professional Sex’. And there are elements of truth in its claim to be ‘Made In The Actual Places Of Vice’. The research that ‘the two film-men did before they turned a camera’– as the ‘News Of The World’ gleefully revealed, involved ‘six months in Soho, the clip-joints and strip-clubs, in prostitute’s tatty bedrooms and phoney model’s studios.’

Denied general certification, a loophole allowed ‘Private Members Clubs’ to circumvent the censorship laws and screen ‘adult movies’ (even though they still got raided anyway!) – such venues as Tony Tenser’s ‘Compton Cinema Club’. So Miller’s movie achieved limited distribution, reaching as far north as Leeds! inviting inevitable sequels. Miller, with Tenser listed as executive producer, and retaining David Gell as honeyed voice-over, continued the theme with ‘London In The Raw’ (82-mins, 1965), another supposed documentary revealing ‘The World’s Greatest City Laid Bare, A New Look At The Nice & The Naughty. The Select & the Sleazy. All The Sins. All The Shock. All The Glamour’. When Janie Jones appeared at the August 1964 premiere in a topless dress she created new levels of notoriety. For the Times They Were A-Changing. But maybe for Miller, not noticeably changing that much. By 1966 he was credited as writer-&-director for ‘Secrets Of A Windmill Girl’ (1966), with April Wilding, Harry Fowler, and a young Dana Gillespie, dramatizing Pauline Collins’ dilemma over whether or not to take her top off as part of the Windmill Theatre review. She doesn’t, but the mere suggestion is enough.

In 1964 the original Soho ‘Windmill’ review finally closed, with a rumoured Kray Brothers involvement. Since the 1930s it had been notoriously unique in London for continuously showcasing risqué comedians interspersed with static ‘tableaux vivants’ showing unmoving female nudes recreating inspirational or elevating ‘Works of Art’. With performances famously uninterrupted by Luftwaffe blitzing – ‘WE NEVER CLOSED’ (with performers seldom clothed!), they finally fell foul of the lesser charge of a changing moral climate, although its reputation survived into the Stephen Frears movie ‘Mrs Henderson Presents’ (2005) which celebrates the theatre’s history with the slogan ‘Nudity. Variety. High Society’. According to her explanation in the movie, after the titular Mrs Henderson’s son was killed by poison gas in the First World War trenches she discovered what she called a ‘French postcard’ among his effects. And realised that this back-street postcard was probably the closest he’d ever come to seeing a woman naked. With the outset of a second global conflict she determined that none of the new generation of conscripts would depart for the war zone similarly deprived. So she schemed to stage nude reviews at the ‘Windmill’ as a kind of lively philanthropy. Those who followed her lead had less benevolent motives.

While Soho was going some way to becoming a kind of licensed Red-Light District where goings-on of a dubious nature were starting to happen. An outlaw world of late-night jazz clubs – the ‘Kit-Kat’, ‘Blue Lagoon’ or ‘Bag O’ Nails’ where Tubby Hayes would score his heroin; the ‘Flamingo’ in Wardour Street straddling jazz with R&B; Ronnie Scott’s Club moving from the Gerrard Street ‘old place’ to Frith Street; then, across ‘Sunny’ Goodge Street to the Folk cellars like ‘Les Cousins’ at 52 Greek Street, which was a sweaty beatnik scene where folk sat cross-legged listening to Bert Jansch or Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. And soon Paul Raymond was presenting ‘Rip-Off’ at the ‘Windmill’, ‘Pyjama Tops’ at the ‘Whitehall Theatre’, and Fiona Richmond in ‘Let’s Get Laid’, a sex-comedy ‘Live On Stage’ in the West End, with TV’s John Inman in a supporting role.

Born Geoffrey Quinn in 1925 to a Catholic Middle-Class family in Liverpool, ‘Paul Raymond’s absentee father was a Haulage Contractor. Yet he preferred show-business, graduating from early career stabs as a variety drummer and a pier-end mind-reader into promoting ‘Vaudeville Express’, which evolved into ‘Festival Of Nudes’. Following the example of liberated Paris, he found his way around the 1958 ‘on-stage’ obscenity laws which decreed that nudity could be portrayed so long as no movement occurred, by operating as a member-only club, a ‘Revue Bar’. While he maintained a strict nudity, but no-smut no-swearing policy of superficial respectability – ‘an entertainer, not a pornographer’, his example was soon transforming the Soho jungle.

While taking the ‘jungle’ element more literally there were the Italian ‘Mondo’ series of films, launched by ‘Mondo Cane’ (1962) which assumed the montage pseudo-documentary attractions of a moving ‘National Geographic’ magazine issue of shock images. Purporting to show the natives of New Guinea in their natural setting, and the supposed rituals common among such bare-breasted primitives, it nevertheless gets away with screening a woman cheerfully breast-feeding a piglet!

Pushing the envelope of heterosexual tolerance at your local fleapit there was ‘Victim’ (1961), a courageous movie in which successful married Barrister Dirk Bogarde is haunted by his unsettling gay past. When his young former lover (played by Peter McEnery) tries to re-establish contact he refuses to see him. But later, learning of his suicide, he realises that his ex-boyfriend was attempting to tell him he was the victim of blackmailers targeting closet gay men. Bogarde resolves to track down the gang responsible and bring them to justice, knowing that by doing so he’s endangering his apparently contented marriage and his career. He finds ‘FARR IS QUEER’ graffitied over his garage door. His wife Laura (Sylvia Sims) tremulously accuses him ‘you were attracted to that boy as a man would be to a girl.’ He defiantly responds ‘I stopped seeing him because I wanted him, do you understand? Because I wanted him!’

Critic Philip French notes that it’s ‘Bogarde’s agonised embodiment of guilt and probity’ that heightens the film’s continuing vitality. It is the first mainstream film to show a man saying ‘I love you’ to another man. The ex-Ealing Studios team of Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph responsible already had a track-record of confronting controversial social issues, from juvenile delinquency to racism, but this tense and gripping story – their most influential work, was purposely targeted to unsettle public opinion in favour of homosexual law reform. Aimed at the 1885 Labouchère amendment – the Victorian ‘blackmailer’s charter’ citing ‘gross indecency’, which had imprisoned Oscar Wilde. And for Bogarde, it remains one of the bravest films of his career. He went on to play the melancholy gay lead in the wistfully romantic ‘Death In Venice’ (1971), an exquisitely filmed paean to impossible love filmed against the beautifully diseased backdrop of beach and canals, set to soaring Gustav Mahler orchestration. But although he lived discretely with his long-term partner – Tony Forward, Bogarde was never capable of ‘coming out’ in his lifetime.

Early 1960s Nudie-Cutie films had begun in black-&-white, and only gradually flowered into colour. American titles include Doris Wishman’s smut-classics ‘Diary Of A Nudist’ (1961), ‘Bad Girls Go To Hell’ (1965), and ‘A Taste Of Flesh’ (1967). Her ‘Double Agent 73’ (1974) features the truly breath-taking Chesty Morgan who uses her 73” breasts to suffocate a foe, then photographs him with a mini-cam implanted in her nipple! Doris also gets to direct Chesty in the cult oddity ‘Deadly Weapons’ (1974). Her other regulars include Harry Reems, Barbi Kemp, Davee Decker, and Sharon Kent. Operating under aliases such as ‘Louis Silverman’ or ‘Dawn Whitman’ she became the undisputed queen of Grindhouse, one of the few women to enjoy sexploitation success behind the camera. Maybe her gender helped lower the element of sexual threat in the studio, where male producers considered their ‘starlets’ as an available sexual cookie-jar? She knew what her audience wanted, with an operational complicity working on the principle that men like to ogle, and the girls enjoy being ogled. Perhaps there’s even a degree of truth there, despite subsequent protestations to the contrary. Although the economic inequality of the time must have contributed a further unacknowledged motivation for women to undress for success. Because other avenues were blocked.

Nevertheless, Doris was a truly influential pioneer of tat who knew how to use a good camera angle and achieve a kind of low-budget notoriety of the kind we now associate with Ed Wood with her mind-boggling Sci-Fi extravaganza ‘Nude On The Moon’ (1960). As lip-synching voices proves expensive she devised the strategy of focusing on props or body parts during passages of dialogue. She continued to work in the soft-core genre, through transsexual drama ‘Let Me Die A Woman’ (1978), into the closing years of the century with ‘Bra Bra Blacksheep’ (2000). Elsewhere, through other low-profile directors, there are ‘Girls On The Loose’ (1958), the Shame Sluts of ‘The Wild And The Wicked’ (1954) by veteran Dan Sonney, the Black Satin Jungle inhabited by Bed-Bait waiting in ‘Lessons In Eros, Inc’, then there were the Flesh Harlots known as ‘Four Bitches Called Sin’, and the ‘Cocksure Dame’ of ‘He Kissed Her There’.

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Meanwhile, on the newsagent shelves, before ‘Playboy’ in 1950s America there had been Harrison Publications’ ‘Beauty Parade’, ‘Eyeful’, ‘Titter’, and the misplaced vowel that was ‘Wink’, sub-titled ‘A Whirl Of Girls’. And there was ‘Modern Man’ – ‘The Adult Picture Magazine’ launched in January 1952. But after ‘Playboy’ – came the deluge. ‘Rogue’ was launched in October 1955 by William Hamling – formerly an editor of ‘Imagination’ and ‘Imaginative Tales/ Space Travel’ magazines, a habit he continued by featuring SF in this glossy man’s mag. The trademark licentious cartoon wolf that featured ogling the cover girls on each issue was an obvious bunny-devouring device! Then there was ‘Knight’ – The Magazine For The Adult Male’, ‘Swingle’ – ‘The Magazine For Swinging Singles’. Then ‘Tiger’ – ‘The Book-Magazine for REAL Men’ publishing its eighth edition on Spring 1969. And then there was ‘Escapade’, even ‘Beaver’, and ‘Peach Fuzz Pussies’ magazine. A pornutopia of wank-mags.

In 1965 ‘Penthouse’ began posing and photographing girls ‘as if they were impressionist paintings’ in richly-textured soft-focus, voyeuristically seen ‘as if she doesn’t know she’s being seen’ and – as early as its second year of publication, it featured the first mass-circulation outing for full-frontal pubic hair. For the first time Hefner’s empire found itself wrong-footed, and unsure how to react. Brooklyn-born Sicilian-America Bob Guccione (17 December 1930–20 October 2010), who had once considered taking the priesthood, had been working as a part-time cartoonist, birthday-card illustrator and columnist in London when he launched the magazine. The first issue sold out in days. Next, he gleefully declared, ‘we’re going rabbit-hunting’. Once established he returned to America to direct a US edition as a direct challenge to Hefner’s Bunny-girl empire, calculatedly utilising the secret weapon of breaking the pubic ‘cultural barrier’.

By the late seventies ‘Penthouse’ was out-performing ‘Playboy’ with five-million monthly sales. He even grabbed publicity when the first African-American Miss America – Vanessa L Williams, was stripped of her crown as a result of her nude photos appearing in its pages, albeit old photos that had already been offered to, and turned down by Hefner. According to its own estimation Hefner’s success had never been based around its levels of explicitness, indeed its circulation lead was founded in the supposed life-style sophistication it projected and bestowed upon its readers. And the ‘Playboy’ brand was poised to go mainstream with a string of ‘gentlemen’s clubs, and the bunny-head logo highly visible on keyrings, mugs, designer T-shirts. Rushing into a grubby pubic war of exposure could only damage that image. So Hefner’s response was to buy up a French title – ‘Lui’ published by Daniel Filipacchi, which had been publishing as a Continental rival to ‘Playboy’ ever since its launch issue in January 1964. Hefner switched the title – even the dumbest of his American readership knew that ‘Oui’ invited consent, and installed ex-‘Rolling Stone’ and ‘Village Voice’ journalist Jon Carroll as its first editor. ‘Oui’ (no.1, October 1972) would remain a slightly raunchier part of Hefner’s stable until its June 1981 issue, when its declining circulation led to selling it on to Laurant Publishing, where it survived.

Nevertheless the Guccione threat had unsettled Hefner’s complacent market-lead. He might have run work by Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates, he might have created the ‘Omni’ science-mag spinoff, but Guccione calculatedly undercut Hefner by taking ‘Penthouse’ a cut downmarket, making it more racy, trashier and more fun. Where ‘Penthouse’ led, reluctantly ‘Playboy’ was compelled to follow – even if, for the first time ever it was now on the back-foot, forced to go where others had gone first. It may have expanded its franchise by opening its first London ‘Playboy’ Club, but the first glimpse of pubic-fluff did not occur until the August 1969 issue, a tasteful shot of Paula Kelly taken from behind, the pudenda visible only in the mirror she’s preening for. It’s ironic that crossing the pubic barrier was so major a battle, when total shaving now seems to be the preferred option, all the better to gain a clear uninterrupted view of that lower cleavage. Meanwhile, ‘Penthouse’ too, was soon gaining credibility-levels that lesser titles envied, even Professor Stephen Hawking wagered a year’s subscription on the chances of the discovery of a ‘Black Hole’.

There’s a short story – “The Splendid Source”, in the May 1956 ‘Playboy’ issue. It’s a product of Richard Matheson’s prolific pen, the man responsible for ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’ (1957) and the thrice-filmed ‘I Am Legend’ (the first in 1964 starring Vincent Price). The story is both a gentle satire on, and an affectionate nod to the burgeoning soft-porn proliferation. Millionaire Talbert Bean III becomes fascinated by the ‘social phenomenon’ of the dirty joke, the off-colour risqué story. Where do they come from? Who writes them?

He decides to trace their origins. After a complex series of investigations his quest leads him to the lavish headquarters of the Secret Brotherhood responsible for writing and disseminating them. Its previous membership has included Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Algernon Swinburne, François Rabelais, Balzac, Shakespeare, Horace, Seneca, Demosthenes, Aristophanes, and further back into time to when dirty jokes were ‘scraped on rocks in many a primordial cave.’ They see themselves ‘as an army of dedicated warriors marching on the strongholds of prudery. Knights Templar with a just and joyous mission.’ Their ‘cause’, it is explained, is that of ‘Love as opposed to Hate. Of Nature, as opposed to the Unnatural. Of Humanity, as opposed to Inhumanity. Of freedom, as opposed to Constraint. Of Health, as opposed to Disease. Yes, Mr Bean, disease. The disease that taints all it touches; turns warmth to chill and joy to guilt and good to bad… the Cause of Life – as opposed to Death!’ It’s a cleverly-constructed comic tale, the message between the lines is nevertheless clear. A little smut is not only good for you, it’s essential for balanced mental health.

Yet the delicate but pressing topic of sexual relief is a long slow tease. And so far it’s largely to do with what Pete & Dud (Cooke and Moore) call the fairer sex’s ‘busty substances’. It’s difficult to recapture the claustrophobic repression of living in that long lost past time. Even viewed from the perspective of the twentieth century’s closing decade, by when it was possible to suggest that ‘the fact is – for this generation, breasts have become almost desexualised. I’m sorry. But it’s true. I mean – they’re major secondary sexual characteristics, so breasts are always going to be focal points of male obsession. But there can be few people around now who have not been on a topless beach. The ‘Page Three’ is pretty much unavoidable. And tits have a high visibility factor most nights on Late-Night TV. Now a nipple is little more than a sneak paparazzi-shot of an unwary celebrity moment, or a clip of the accidental exposure of an over-excited Game-Show winner in a ‘naughty boobs’ out-takes TV compilation.’

So breasts can NEVER be quite so mysteriously elusively desirable as they were to those maturing a generation before, when I was growing up. When we’d eagerly examine the photos in ‘Parade’ or ‘Reveille’ with a magnifying glass, trying to decide if that slight thickening of shadow along the upper line of the swimsuit is REALLY the peeping outer rim of the nipple-areola, or just a shading on the half-tone. It can never be like that again. Not now… Comedian John Cleese operates a perpetual mockery of those stifled repressed British traits, an articulation that achieves apotheosis in ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ (1988) when he protests ‘do you have any idea what it’s like being English, being so correct all the time, being so stifled by this dread of doing the wrong thing. We are all terrified of embarrassment… that’s why we’re all dead.’

Now it is February 1965. Three successive Wednesdays bring three 32-page issues of ‘Parade’ at one shiny shilling apiece (5p). Its magazine format offers ‘Religious Sect Held Underground Orgies’, ‘Britain Becomes Gamblers Paradise’ (decades before the Lottery), and ‘Illegal Immigrant Racket’ (a kinder anticipation of today’s virulent tabloid Asylum Seeker vilification), ‘Behind The Scenes’ Showbiz gossip, a spice of fiction (‘his great hand whipped out, seized the collar of her dress and ripped it from her shoulders to fall about her feet…’ in Jacques Pendower’s “Snake Bite”), plus an eleven-day ‘Express Coach Costa Brava’ holiday offer for 25 guineas and ‘Modern Family Planning Methods’ in a discrete mail-order booklet. But the real unique selling point is Les Girls, those foxy Babes with curves like a rattlesnake. Pamela ‘Miss Wales’ Conway in a peek-a-boo baby-doll nightie, 36-22-36, Annette Johnson safely knickered but opening her pink-tint negligee invitingly, pouting full-colour Vicki Kennedy ‘whose 41-23-37 shape helps provide her with plenty of work’ (nudge nudge), then the full pert-nipples colour-spread of 37” Kent actress Andi Scott with her lacquered bouffant hair. Just three tiny scraps of material stand between the smiling girls and your gloating lascivious eyes. And where are the ‘Talented Curves’ of green-eyed twenty-year-old Vyvyan Dunbar now? Answers by email please. In the meantime ‘Ferrier’s Funfair’ early mate-trading cartoon carries advance tremors of an even more ‘Permissive Society’ to soon-come. Father returns home unexpectedly to find both his wife and his ultra-nubile daughter in erotic (but as-yet clothed) tangles with two strange men, ‘now Daddy, don’t get sore at Mummy’ daughter reprimands, ‘I had a double-date and she’s just helping me out.’ Oh, that’s alright then.

And the fiction. Some of the stories linger, for no particular reason. The guy lost in the Brazilian rainforest. Details become lost, just the outline remains, and memory of the line-drawn illustration beside the title. Perhaps he’s a crook on the run with stolen artefacts? More likely he’s one of those doubting priests who throw the moral into more starkly delineated relief. He stumbles across a tribe – initially hostile, until the explosion of sunlight on a crucifix awes them. Not with Christian piety, of course, just the shimmering gold of its gilded cruciform. Through its unexpected intervention he becomes, by default, a kind of deity to them, and swiftly takes advantage of their veneration to set himself up as feudal lord, with the right of sexual conquest over their women.

Until – some weeks, or perhaps months later, he reaches for the particularly beautiful nubile so exquisitely illuminated by the artist at the page-head, topless, but chastely veiled by her necklace of shells and bones, her father is moved to resist and makes a hostile advance with his spear. Defensively he reaches for his crucifix to brandish it Van Helsing-style, only in his debauched indulgence he’s neglected to maintain its high-gloss polish, there’s no longer the awe-provoking shimmer of gold. His protection flawed, he’s impaled by the spear. I’ve no idea who wrote it, the issue or year in which it appeared. Or why it stays. It’s a neat moral fantasy with an enticing image at its point of maximum drama. Its eroticism more suggested than explicit. A sketch of the corruption and precarious nature of power, as precise in its humble way as the brutal assassination of Roman Emperors of Robert Graves’ ‘I, Claudius’ trilogy.

But Sexual Liberation is more than just the gradual erosion of censorship. Theatre critic Kenneth Tynan should be remembered for his many intellectual attributes. But he won’t. He’ll be remembered as the first man to say ‘fuck’ on British TV – on BBC in November 1965. Actually he had a stammer, he said ‘f-f-f-fuck’. He may have been right about the sort of people who watch late-night satire show ‘BBC3’ when he said ‘I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word ‘fuck’ would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden’ – but the rest of the country had yet to catch up. It might be true that, for Rock Festivals, in the mud-spattered wake of ‘Woodstock’, nudity is a display of communalism, a defiant rejection of reserve and repressive concepts of imposed modesty. ‘Freedom’. A celebration of the body-electric. The Body Politics of Liberation. The beauty of naturalism, even when it’s not especially beautiful. In the 1980s and 1990s that window effectively closed. Nudity became merely an option, more frequently declined. Or commoditised. When tits are flashed for Blink 102 it’s a debased currency, a ‘Dumb & Dumber’ binge-tease more to do with mooning and nothing to do with ideology.

The art-porn interface also has a long history. Artist Jeff Koons produced a high-gloss flow of explicit work with his porn-star wife La Cicciolina (Ilona Staller) including the ‘Made In Heaven’ series which – ironic, or as a reflection of the banality of consumerism, blur the distinctions between what is and what is not high-brow. Sam Taylor-Wood made her eight-minute directorial porn-debut with explicit footage of a guy masturbating in the Death Valley desert as part of the 2006 ‘Destricted’ film-series. She claimed biblical motivations, a variant on the ‘seed spilled on stony ground’ thing. Well, perhaps.

‘Yourself you touch, but not too much, certain people tell you it’s degrading’ muses the protagonist of Donovan’s perceptive “Young Girl Blues”. It could be convincingly argued that the 1970s was a kind-of late Golden Age for corner-newsagent soft-porn magazines. Top of the food-chain there is ‘Mayfair’ and ‘Men Only’, carnivals of curvaceous cuties matched to captions rich in inventive synonyms for breast, plus fiction, interviews, and features on the lucrative outer margins of taste. Poet and CND-activist Christopher Logue relates how he got six months probation from juvenile court for shoplifting ‘Men Only’ and ‘The Naturist’ from his newsagent (a short step away from later financing his Paris-years literary apprenticeship by writing porn as ‘Count Palmiro Vicarion’).

Slightly below those titles there was ‘Knave’. Then a layer of slightly cheaper candidates jostling for your attention – from ‘Fiesta’ and ‘Escort’, rich colour-spreads of ogre-sized breasts measured out in sticky fingerprints, to ‘Razzle’, which the very wonderful Ian Drury recalled smugly shoplifting in his song “Razzle In My Pocket”. Hey – didn’t we all? Down to the low-rent ‘Whitehouse’ stable. Smaller format variants ranged from ‘Forum’, a serious attempt to explore the wilder shores of sexuality in an informed and liberated way (with contributors including New Labour spin-meister supremo Alastair Campbell in his days as a grammar-school boy porn-fantasist), down to wank-fests like ‘Vibration’. ‘Femmes Fatales and Dirty Bitches, and Daylight Drabs and Nighttime Witches, and Working Girls and Blue Stockings, And Dance-Hall Babes and Body-Poppers, and Waitresses with broken noses, Checkout girls striking poses, and Politicians Garish Wives and Alcoholic Cunts like Knives’ according to the Rolling Stones (“I Go Wild” 1994). You ‘Spank the Monkey’. Or you ‘Choke the Chicken’. You turn the pages faster. Are you coming? Or are you just breathing heavy?

While to exclude the growing Gay magazine market simply because of some chromosomal predisposition on your part seems almost churlishly small-minded. Indeed, Science Fiction superfan Forrest J Ackerman – the man Robert ‘Freddie Kruger’ Englund called ‘the Hugh Hefner of Horror’, once wrote erotic fiction as ‘Laurajean Ermayne’ for under-the-counter Lesbian magazine ‘Vice Versa’. And since its initially subscription-only launch in 1945 – at 35cents an issue, Bob Mizer’s ‘Physique Pictorial’ had been niche-marketing its cheaply-produced issues for a loyal readership. Printed on low-quality paper its spreads of nudie black-and-white butch bikers, wrestling buddies, Red Indians and Sailors form a ready-made spectrum of iconography for a future cast of Village People. In the 1968 Paul Morrissey-Andy Warhol movie ‘Flesh’ hustler Joe Dallesandro and Louis Waldon (as David, the gymnast) peruse a gay pin-up magazine called ‘Vanguard’, Louis reads cut-up lines from its explicit fiction pages, asking ‘how do you like that story?’ ‘OK’ Joe concedes, then more enthusiastically, ‘beautiful’. Well, maybe. Since then things have got a little more loosened up, and gay titles such as ‘Zipper’ are top-shelved at your friendly local news emporium.

Meanwhile, European cinema continued to forge its own path, with French art-house film leading the way. There were two separate strands at work eroding censorship, with contradictory motives, but more conjoined in collusion than was at the time supposed. There was the simple opportunistic Russ Meyer sex-ploitation flick, in which low-budget nudity became its sole unique-selling point. The other faction were the art-experimentalists intent on challenging and dismantling the suffocating establishment of moral repression, conformism and hypocrisy. A crusade using the shock-value of movie nudity to attack social inertia in general, at a time when bodies were scrupulously covered. To them, each grudging concession from the dead hand of the censor is a vindication, advancing the cause for truth, realism, and honesty. Trouble lies in the collision and collusion that occurs when each of their hard-fought battles establishes a legal loop-hole precedent for the gratuitous nudie-flick to take advantage of.

And in truth, the problem is that for those intent merely on glimpses of naked flesh, the motivation of the guy behind the camera is irrelevant anyway. Pretty art-nipples are pretty-much indistinguishable from pretty exploitation nipples. Even if with the former you do get the additional moral kick of political liberation. Ingmar Bergman’s first international movie success – ‘Summer With Monica’ (1951), was screened in sex-theatres across America because it featured an attractively topless Harriet Andersson. It was re-edited and renamed ‘Monica: The Story Of A Bad Girl’, but was still seized by the Los Angeles vice squad and declared indecent. In Bergman’s native Sweden, the black-&-white ‘I Am Curious, Yellow’ (Written and Directed by Vilgot Sjöman – 1967) also mixes radical politics with sexual liberation’s false dreams and deceptive fantasies, screening simulated sex plus political discussion and naked breasts, pubic hair and the first-ever shadowy tree-top copulation. It even screens an attempted castration with scissors.

Vilgot’s book ‘I Was Curious: Diary Of The Making Of A Film’ (Grove Press – 1968) describes how the project was originally conceived as a three-&-a-half hour epic, but was subsequently divided into two, the second instalment ‘I Am Curious, Blue’ following a year later. Yet ‘Jag Är Nyfiken: En Film I Gult’ proved to be a landmark film, a watershed in the emerging Swedish film school that – like the French New Wave, used jump-cuts while dispensing with traditional Hollywood story-structure. It centres around Lena Nyman with her appealing Brian Jones blonde fringe, playing herself. Created under the production auspices of Göran Lindgren using a core-group that included cinematographer Peter Wester, editor Wic Kjellin, and music by Bengt Ernryd, it also features Peter Lindgren, Börje Ahlstedt, Chris Wahlström and Marie Göranzon. Hideously cut for UK screenings, it was denied a license for the US at all on the grounds of pornography. After three court battles the Supreme Court anti-obscenity overturned the law regulating movies, and it was legalised. Eventually, both versions were issued as a single-DVD package with footage approaching its full original length.

It was followed by the even more out-there ‘WR: Mysteries Of The Organism’, a Yugoslavian film based around Wilhelm Reich’s theories, with its sub-text of therapeutic liberation through the orgasmic release of sexual energies. Through frequent and health-enhancing free love. Its plaster-caster sequence screens movie’s first erection.

The 1968 ‘Counter-Culture’ movie ‘You’re A Big Boy Now’ – written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, shows young Bernard Chanticleer, nineteen years and four months old, adrift in New York. He goes into a typical porn-shop. The kind you or I might have wandered into, the kind frequented by the kind of youths who intimately scan the centre-spreads, but can’t quite bring themselves to actually speak to the real girls who live on his block. And he sees the luring spread of magazines we could have seen. ‘Spree’ – a ‘Special Outdoor Issue For The Rugged Man’, ‘Blast’, ‘Misty’ and ‘Tic-Toc’ – featuring ‘The Magic Couch’. There’s also a disparate bunch of men poring over a table of loose photos, mixing and matching according to taste. He picks up a coyly erotic ‘Flicker-Book’ and flickers through the coy striptease it jerkily portrays. Then he visits a coin-operated Private-Fantasy Peep-Show Booth, but the malfunctioning crank mechanism catches his tie as the girl removes her bra with come-on looks… and he is inexorably drawn into her.

Roger Corman’s concurrent cult movie ‘The Trip’ (1967) explains some of the genre’s dubious attraction. ‘It’s very important that every fifteen pages or so, there be a touch of nudity, or the suggestion there-of. It keeps the audience interested.’ His film protagonist notices a psychedelic leaflet announcing ‘TONIGHT YOU ARE INVITED TO A DRUG PARTY’. Simultaneously Michelangelo Antonioni was filming his riveting, surreal, and erotic enigma on ‘Swinging London’ – ‘Blow-Up’ (1969), with David Hemmings giving his most outstanding screen performance as a ruthless baby-faced photographer, shifting from glossy fashion shoots to the Yardbirds live on-stage, to a spontaneously cavorting teenage photo-session taking advantage of two aspirant models… who flash the first-ever on-screen British glimpse of pubic hair. It turns out the girl credited as ‘the blonde’ was Jane Birkin, who would achieve a notable double that same year when her 45rpm single with Serge Gainsbourg – “Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus”, was both banned by BBC-radio, yet rose to the no.1 slot on the Top Forty. Heady times.

For also at the flicks you could be watching the dope-smoking LSD-tripping subcultural sleaze of ‘Easy Rider’ (1969), or Dustin Hoffman’s seduction at the hands of Mrs Robinson in ‘The Graduate’ (1967), or the school matron wandering naked through the school at night in Lindsay Anderson’s brilliant ‘If’ (1968), or Malcolm McDowell rolling naked on the café floor with the waitress. As the radiantly beautiful Grace Slick sings of Jefferson Airplane’s “Wild Tyme” (on the 1967 ‘After Bathing At Baxters’ album), ‘I’m doing things that haven’t got a name yet…’ In the preface to his ‘La Philosophie Dans Le Boudoir’ – ‘Aux Libertins’ (1795), the Marquis De Sade had already declared, in a very 1960s way, of a youth ‘for too long restrained by the dangerous fantasies of grotesque and absurd virtue, by the chains of a disgusting religion,’ and urged them to ‘destroy and trample on those ridiculous precepts inculcated in you by imbecile parents.’ Right On!

After all, it was a time of obliterating hierarchies, erasing the division between high and low art, blurring previous distinctions between shops and museums with artists installations in department store windows and supermarket products exhibited in galleries, wasn’t it?

Yet more downmarket there was the salaciously cheap ‘B’-movie appeal of ‘Night After Night After Night’ (1969), again travelogueing familiar Soho sleaze as a creepy transvestite judge becomes a serial killer loose in its strip-show subworld. Directed by Lindsay Shonteff from a Dail ‘Beat Girl’ Ambler story, it features Jack May as warped ‘Judge Charles Lomax’, and two attractive strippers in the shapes of April Harlow and Shirley Easton. But more appropriately Ken Russell’s sexually explicit ‘Women In Love’ (1969) ends the 1960s as it had begun, with DH Lawrence prising the limits of what is deemed permissible a little further apart (although there was a time when anyone who professed to be literate had at least read ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, now it is merely the end of the ‘Chatterley’ ban and not the book itself, that marks an epoch). For suddenly – morality is going into melt-down.

Perhaps it’s something to do with publication of the lushly line-illustrated ‘The Joy Of Sex’ (1972)? Perhaps it’s the moment when the Lord Chamberlain was no longer there to control the content of English Theatre ‘to prevent offence being given,’ leading immediately to that day in July 1970 when Kenneth Tynan’s full-frontal nude revue ‘Oh Calcutta!’ opened at the Round House. Devised by the ‘Observer’s acid-tongued theatre critic, a writer who railed against artistic repression, famed as the first man to say ‘fuck’ in television (and who once allegedly experimentally injected vodka into his anus as part of a desire to ‘go all the way’), it featured John Lennon’s ‘Four In Hand’ masturbation sketch, Joe Orton, and a nude Anthony Booth (who was destined to become PM Tony Blair’s Father-in-law). Meanwhile, Barry (“Eve of Destruction”) McGuire was joining the Broadway cast of hippie musical ‘Hair’ – ‘I did the nude scene because, if we’re created in god’s image, who is saying that the revealing of god’s image is an indecent revelation? How can exposing god’s image be indecent exposure?’ (to ‘Rock ‘n’ Reel no.28’). So I guess that’s alright!

Please do not adjust your trousers…

 

 

ANDREW DARLINGTON

 

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Here’s How We Saved Our Baby’s Life

We were told of a great sea
a common bowl
of belonging 
we were told how the static
becomes the mobile
or even something in between
we were told of a cosmos
where everything is touching
and nothing isolated alienated
where you were wrapped up
enfolded and interwoven
in everything else 
peopledividedunbroken                       
was this what I wanted
to excise pain       
the dead-end of my                    
enlightenment
my endarkenment
my extinction  
my mind to be clean                     
would I mind
it swept        
would it leave 
                                     
an abyss     
did I want to     
d  i  s  s  o l  v e  
myself to disable
myself 
as surely as a bird
might disable an insect 
by pulling off    
its wings           
so it couldn’t   
                                  
escape       
we were told
of causes more subtle
than the moon and tides
weaving a tapestry of reciprocal light
laws unbroken over all the plenum                
told of a star with enough                     
to throw down four billion tons                      
of light photosynthesised by plants
consumed by animals
and sufficiently mobile
to travel light                               
I knew this    
                                                                     
yearning something
near fear or delight    
this suffering in myself
was I                                                    
darkening my mind                           
did I want to be
a particle       
sand in a desert    
a bead in a tapestry                                          
a jewel  
maybe a diamond     
a star whose night
shall be remembered for  
                               
not solid and real as me
myself a sub-plot
whose night should not be
re-collected – like a dog following       
its shadow a shrunken vestige of itself 
freezing the light of an open-ended                                      
perceptual movement now  
                                     
I had some real questions
ready as one starving would
beg for a bowl of food
wasted
unused
immobile
stones
stranded in wasteland
I knew it was true         
                                       
stones can be converted
within
the ground  
is us  
both divided and unbroken  
the one and the many
this our land we leap always we leap
leap it
bounding sure-footed from rock to rock     
they’ll think we are playing
not learning to be
other
than the land while keeping
the communion trekking
every dusk back
to a bare mountain.     

                                    

Wendy Clayton

 

 

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autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist

In autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist ortiz asks us to peer into the post-apocalyptic landscape of our times. The voice of these poems is ragged and sensual, wearing the scars of a life lived in protest just by loving. It seduces us with the tantalizing declaration that it knows “all the possible ways a world ends.” Despite the promise of certain death, the voice still beckons, offering us the possibility being side by side through the blast, if only to face the end together.

From autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist:

“do not resuscitate me/let my body crack open/like the sea of ice on Pluto/my heart might resemble/yaupon holly in full winter bloom/you might be tempted/to taste my fleshy organ/set fire to the neat architecture of God’s steady hand/I only want to exist/as earth and ash/my bones belong to me/even when I don’t belong/to the earth”

mónica teresa ortiz is a poet born and raised in Texas. Black Radish Books published her first poetry collection, muted blood, in 2018. Her chapbook of crónicas, autobiography of a semi romantic anarchist, was the winner of the first Host Publications Chapbook Prize, published in March, 2019. ortiz is the poetry editor for Raspa Magazine, a Queer Latinx literary and art journal. Follow her on Instagram: @elgallosalvaje

Hard copies of autobiography</https://hostpublications.com/collections/poetry/products/autobiography-of-a-semiromantic-anarchist-by-monica-teresa-ortiz
https://hostpublications.com/collections/poetry/products/autobiography-of-a-semiromantic-anarchist-by-monica-teresa-ortiz

The link will be emailed to you and available at checkout.

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damage

the pick-up truck passes by
and i note the large tailgate dent

imagine it backed into a wall or
pillar or perhaps a cement mixer

this damage a consequence of its
being (a rite-of-passage for

the day job) and not like those
sunk pension funds or the

sky-rocketing mortgages
or the poor who have been told

they are going to get poorer as
their/they’re damaged goods

 

Mike Ferguson

 

 

..

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Lotus

Odours of the new nights
Pacific peaceful ocean eyes
A big container of vapours sweet
Tunnels of figs and sweet remembrance
Aside my peony stricken books
Not two or three something
But a variety of consciousness
Topples down in the rivers sweet
Namesakes lotus a thousands petals song
Keeping my footsteps warm
Binding the pages is easy
Sweetness stricken path rose buds stricken
Leftovers for the first time
Syrupy sweet nectarine smudged
Odours of sweet remembrance
Lotus consciousness odours sweet
Sycamore tree house fig trees sweet
Dreams and half dreams
Binding down an escapade hour
The ocean a feverish remembrance.

 

 

Sayani Mukherjee

 

 

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STORIES OUR MIND TELLS ITSELF

What are dreams if not little stories
one part of our mind tells another?
I turn on the bathroom light to scribble down
one of these middle-of-the-night tellings.
The plot resists ordinary grammar
so some filling-in is needed, some work
on transitions.  We edit and revise
scarcely knowing that we do so.  Action
is unclear — did he get up and walk to
safety or just lie there?  Was that seventy-
five hundred she won, or seventy-five
thousand?  Half-asleep, we decide.  And waking,
puzzling over our night-scrawled notes, sometimes
we hear a small, dreamy voice say, Just right.

 

 

 

—Thomas R. Smith
Picture Nick Victor

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Human Rights Watch Issues Damning Verdict for UK

World Report 2023 Says UK Policies Raise ‘Grave Human Rights Concerns’

(London) – The United Kingdom government repeatedly sought to damage and undermine human rights protections in 2022, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2023. 
 
“In 2022, we saw the most significant assault on human rights protections in the UK in decades,” said Yasmine Ahmed, UK director at Human Rights Watch. “From your right to protest to your ability to hold institutions to account, fundamental and hard-won rights are being systematically dismantled.” 
 
In the 712-page World Report 2023, its 33rd edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in close to 100 countries. In her introductory essay, acting Executive Director Tirana Hassan says that in a world in which power has shifted, it is no longer possible to rely on a small group of mostly Global North governments to defend human rights. The world’s mobilization around Russia’s war in Ukraine reminds us of the extraordinary potential when governments realize their human rights obligations on a global scale. The responsibility is on individual countries, big and small, to apply a human rights framework to their policies, and then work together to protect and promote human rights. 
 
Human Rights Watch highlighted several laws introduced in 2022 that had the effect of significantly weakening human rights protections. The UK government introduced laws that stripped rights of asylum seekers and other vulnerable people, encouraged voter disenfranchisement, limited judicial oversight of government actions, and placed new restrictions on the right to peaceful protest. 
 
The government also proposed the repeal and replacement of the Human Rights Act, which gives life to the European Convention on Human Rights in the United Kingdom, with a so-called Bill of Rights. Human Rights Watch said the bill, if adopted, would fundamentally undermine human rights protections in the UK. 
 
As these rights were being stripped away, the United Kingdom was hit hard by a cost-of-living crisis, with inflation reaching 11.1 percent by the end of October and official data showing that low-income households disproportionately felt the impact of rising energy and food prices. 
 
The government’s refusal to reverse a social security cut made in 2021, and a November 2022 announcement that social security support would not increase to meet inflation until April 2023 breach the rights to social security and to an adequate standard of living, Human Rights Watch said. Frontline welfare, anti-poverty, and food aid organizations criticized the government’s position. 
 
On the world stage, the UK’s record was decidedly mixed, Human Rights Watch said. Commendably, the government took on a leading role in multilateral forums to address abuses in Myanmar, China, Hong Kong, Russia, and Sri Lanka, as well as referring the Ukraine situation to the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor. However, in a number of situations, the UK failed to speak up or act against abuses, including those committed by Israel or that had been committed, including by the UK, during the colonial period. 
 
In April, the government passed the Nationality and Borders Act, which stripped away fundamental commitments to protect people fleeing persecution. The act criminalizes many of those who attempt to enter the UK irregularly to seek protection, empowers UK officials to engage in dangerous pushbacks at sea, and allows the government to expel asylum seekers from the UK to alleged “safe third countries.” 
 
The government then brokered a deal with Rwanda to expel asylum seekers arriving by boat or other irregular routes to Rwanda, despite the country’s appalling human rights record and opposition to the deal by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other UN experts. The deal has been challenged in court, with the UNHCR intervening in the case, and the government has not yet been able to expel anyone to Rwanda. 
 
In June, when the UK’s then prime minister visited Rwanda for a Commonwealth summit, he failed to raise any human rights concerns. The UK government also continued to fund countries engaged in egregious human rights violations, including Bahrain; obstructed a proposal at the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual property rules for Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics; undermined a Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel; and voted against a UN Human Rights Council resolution on racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia. 
 
These policies undermine the UK’s ability to effectively advocate for a rules-based international order, Human Rights Watch said. 
 
“Despite heralding itself as playing a ‘leading role in defending democracy and freedom across the world,’ the UK Government has taken a sledgehammer to fundamental international commitments,” Ahmed said. “In one breath the British government is denouncing Russia for violating international law and in the next it’s actively flouting and undermining its own international commitments.” 

Find out more at  https://www.hrw.org/

(Reprinted from Human Rights Watch under Creative Commons license)

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In Her Kingdom by the Sea – Part 8

Along and behind Marine Road West, into Central Morecambe

                                   
TODAY THE SUN ROSE IN THE WEST END . . . 21st June 2022


After the first three parts of In Her Kingdom by the Sea, the series was intended to continue as a photo supplement with occasional captions. Clinging to a faith dating back to the 1970s that even accidental images without obvious focus can surpass a thousand words, it was easy for me to overlook that the atmosphere of places is often subtle to the point of inconsequentiality[i], or too personal to convey. Every day we pass wonders of depth and transference and take them all for granted. Though the general atmosphere of Morecambe and Heysham may not be so intensely distinctive as (for example) Bilbao[ii] as it appears in films of the 60s and 70s such the magisterial La Casa sin Fronteras (The House Without Frontiers, 1972[iii]) or the trashier Viaje al Vacío (1969[iv]) zones of Morecambe’s discarded central area do possess a similar, if more subtle, gravitas:

The B5274 off Euston Road, Morecambe – ancillary Gateway to the West End . . . 6th March, 2022

 

I don’t know if a caption, a few words, or any kind of context can save such images from inconsequentiality in the way that catalogue essays can occasionally save ‘gimmick art’[v] from immediate disposability, but on behalf of such otherwise homeless images, it seems only fair to attempt to connect them to the world which they hint at, occasionally encapsulate, often idealize, and sometimes even project beyond . . .

 

 Regent Road, projecting itself into the bay . . . 16th September 2022


My photo-only supplement intention (or laziness?) was in any case eroded when the Platinum Jubilee, busted, bunted, sceptred and flagged itself onto the streets and into my reluctant consciousness, compelling me to spell out that In Her Kingdom by the Sea had nothing whatever to do with the (understandably) dormant and now deceased, Queen Elizabeth.

Regent Road, reverse view . . . Christmas Eve, 2022

 

When part 4 came out[vi], several steadfast readers expressed disappointment at the lack of text. The “missing element of gentle sardonic commentary” being a particular description which both pleased and surprised me – considering that in my mind the Digression had become a series of volcanic eruptions, vents of spleen which few would care to notice. Having exhausted the initial bile stemming from being obliged to live in a town, would I lose interest? Would enough topics worth putting into words, continue to arise?

Back Marine Road, 18th January 2022

 

To be fair to Heysham and Morecambe, being obliged to live in any town or city would have triggered a negative reaction. Glasby’s protagonist in The Weird Shadow over Morecambe[vii] describes the place as “contender for the unenviable title of ‘The most depressing town in Britain’”, but this is ridiculous. Many built-up places are far worse. The Irish Sea may be dangerously radioactive but sparkling or dully gleaming, its shifting flow or the default presence of its reaching seabed, undoubtably grants a sense of space. Emerging onto the promenade with the Lakeland fells corrugating the far horizon of the bay is almost always vastly uplifting . . . and as I’ve come to know some of its people, their personalities also expand this constraining municipal grid.

St. Barnabas extension, June 2022

 

Even before this point in In Her Kingdom . . . it could be contended that topics genuinely connected to the area have become scarce. While nuclear fallout, dead end resignation, cannabis clouds and seagulls are relevant, other things such as wishing the Mysterons would come and finish our kitchen[viii], are only tenuously so:           

            “Never know why [the Mysterons] got so miffed about Moonbase[ix] being destroyed
            by Spectrum when they could rebuild it so easily. Wish I could get them to finish our kitchen!”

            “There are things called builders you know . . .”           

            “Too noisy and intrusive. The Mysterons I could handle – they wouldn’t play Radio effing  C,  R,  A,  P,  
            for a start . . .”            [x]
           

            “Quick tho’. And you can go out cycling.”           

            “Brainwave labour is quicker than manual: it’d be over in seconds. Plus, they could hardly charge for materials.”           

            “They so would.”           

            “I could trust the Mysterons – might even take them cycling with me. They would never stoop to teen speak: ‘THEY SO
             WOULD’! Are you OK?
The Mysterons would be totally quiet and leave no mess.”
           

            “You’re overthinking this. Besides . . . Spectrum would turn up and destroy your kitchen.”           

            “!*%$!  Didn’t think of that. Last thing I want is creepy Scarlet traipsing dust all over the place in his long black boots.”           

            “Or the Angels!”              

            “Spare me the bloody Angels and their cargo of hairspray . . .”

Red walls and Mysteron skies above Balmoral and Westminster, Morecambe, 24th July 2022

 

Back at the end of summer as I came down the stairs, thinking how to improvise something to support or at least ramble along with the images, a bent missive was shoved through the letterbox of the owl house. This previously mentioned, ersatz stained-glass owl by the way, is not unique, I’ve noted others around town, two even in the same road. Fortunately, they do not hoot to each other, unless they do so very gently under cover of all the seagull racket?

Osborne Road, Morecambe, 8th October 2022

 

Intended for a previous resident, the antediluvian communiqué which had slapped to the floor, was inevitably junk mail: IDEAL & PRACTICAL[xi] catalogue [emphasis on ideal: practical is not glamorous, keep it in small print] August 2022 edition . . . a sales brochure filled with “innovations” and tat. The editorial by Sylvie Solley (Director), reads thus:

           

            Dear Customer,

            According to the phenomenon of the butterfly effect, a simple flap of wings can         
            change your life. So why not invite butterflies into our homes, in a lighter form, to   
            revive and beautify our houses?

 

How any of the invariably tacky bric-a-brac which follows could be lighter in any sense of the word than a real living butterfly, or change in the remotest way our destiny, I’ve no idea, but obviously this catalogue was a true gift horse, and I was going to look right down it’s throat. When you feel like raging or crying about the state of the world what else can you do but laugh?

Cheerful bombsite, 16th September 2022

 

Despite my objections to paper wasting, I have a (very limited) soft spot for these pre-screen-crazy age catalogues: they disregard, bypass, abuse (or occasionally flog), most of the destructive, addictive or facile inventions of the last 40 years.

Enviable façade but house clearances exhausted . . .  September 2022

 

Ignoring the various bits of ornamental butterfly and general junk spread over the next few leaves – including a butter dish that prevents butter from melting “even in the sun!” (practical for climate change) – I arrived at this sales pitch on page 8: “Escape to the other side of the world . . . via your table!” That a tablecloth can be presented as an alternative to flying and travel is a surreal yet admirable chicanery; but that a trashy “stain resistant” table “adornment” (“rectangular and circular versions available”) with assorted tropical motifs could make you feel you were on the other side of the world is as optimistic as Johnny Depp’s interpretation of Edward D. Wood Jr.[xii] in Tim Burton’s 1994 film[xiii]. Don’t IDEAL & PRACTICAL know that Monstera deliciosa/Swiss cheese plant[xiv] grows just about everywhere indoors now; that toucans are adept at spilling paint[xv] and make a bloody racket[xvi], and parrots spend all their waking hours whinging about defunct golden currencies?

Regent Road, rainy Vintage Bus Day, May 2022 – Laurence Olivier’s show in The Entertainer (1960), takes place at the Alhambra[xvii]
(behind the 1974 Atlantean bus in Southport red and cream livery) where the music hall scenes were also shot.


The parrot theme in IDEAL & PRACTICAL recurs on page 12 with a plastic and metal version. “A whiff of exoticism to spice up your décor.” “To be hung up” notes one sidebar. “Spins in the wind” states another alongside a suitably blurred picture. Only £12.95. Perhaps it’s the desperate, clutching-at-straws-consumerism which is both so humorous and yet depressing?

A whiff of exoticism . . . or perhaps a hint of the Raj in Balmoral Road, July 2022

 

Evading the PETS section – who needs them – and the “PRACTICAL” (ditto) the fake brick wall wallpaper on page 30 caught my eye – ideal for covering damp patches and cracks in the plaster, you could even wallpaper over your windows so that you can’t see out, or over the cellar doorway so you can’t see the rising water . . .


The Glen caravan Park, Westgate, Morecambe, 21st August 2022

 

To be honest, my enthusiasm for this winging-it project was exhausted by the time I reached the resin rock-climbing tortoise on page 33. Bypassing the OFFICE section. I reached the following slogan: “A good car . . . is first and foremost a clean car”. No, I don’t think so. A good car, I would say, is first and foremost one that goes along. Or maybe not . . . in the near future when like old phone boxes, perhaps all cars are doomed to become decorative greenhouses for flowers and book swaps?

 A backstreet conspiracy of Wheelie bins, 6th December 2022


Fortunately, just after the IDEAL & PRACTICAL period I’m recalling, in late summer, a friend at the Nib Crib writers (for some reason, probably the baby and cot aspects, I’m not that keen on the name – but don’t tell anyone), introduced me to Linder and Michael Bracewell’s[xviii] guide to Morecambe and Heysham[xix], published in 2003 under the perplexing title of “I Know Where I’m Going”. I’m not sure why the collaborators or publisher chose this title, unless it’s an ironic comment on the cheesecake cover picture of Rosemarie Frankland[xx], (first UK Miss World Champion 1961), in a swimsuit at Morecambe in 1960.

I know I’ve been going downhill, but you never know . . .  Yorkshire Street West

 

As a cohesive part of the progress myth, Morecambe and Heysham certainly lost their way decades ago (and could be seen therefore as symbolic of the human race, though our loss of direction dates back much further). For me, and surely for most of those older than me, the title “I Know Where I’m Going” must be indelibly linked to Powell and Pressburger’s tour de force film of 1945[xxi] . . . which memorably orchestrated the old Scottish or Irish folk song [xxii] for a dream dissolve sequence near its opening[xxiii]. Although the air soon fades and eventually segues into a brief fantasy landscape of tartan hills set to “You’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road”, the entire ballad as orchestrated for the film (and possibly sung by the Glasgow Orpheus Choir) is played over the closing credits[xxiv].



I knew where I was going . . . Springfield Street, 12th April 2022


There is such a lot of good detail in Bracewell and Linder’s I Know Where I’m Going – that I wish I’d encountered the volume earlier. Although it begins a trifle blandly (acting as a mainstream antidote to In Her Kingdom by the Sea), the tone gradually shifts, escaping the tourist information/grant project/objective guidebook prison camp, to blossom into something far more idiosyncratic and personal.


Osborne Crescent and the best-preserved pair of houses in this style perhaps? October 2022

 

Arguably, I Know Where I’m Going, ends by praising an idea behind Morecambe and Heysham’s poetic qualities, their past more than their present, not that this necessarily matters – we all have to find hope somewhere . . . but although such qualities undoubtably exist (as they do in almost every village, town and city, if you know how to look), given the wrong mood or weather, they can easily be missed. Used as an actual guide book, I Know Where I’m Going might disappoint visitors.

I Know Where I’m Going – Heysham by double decker[xxv]

 

On page 42 of I Know Where I’m Going – allusively invoking The Sense of an Ending[xxvi] by Frank Kermode[xxvii] – Bracewell examines the role within the “cultural psyche” of the seaside town . . . which “now represents the lingering fade-out of an archaic way of life; the bustle, amusements, routine and excitements of another age”.

                                                                               Transport from another age: NRN 586, a Leyland Atlantean, built for
                                                       Ribble Motor Services in 1960, on Marine Road West, 4th September 2022

 

Apparently, in Bracewell’s view, “a coastal drift has taken place amongst the generations who grew up with Pop” – this being Pop in the original 50s/60s cultural-historical sense, embracing a whole sensibility of music and art[xxviii], rather than the catch-all-drivel signified by the term nowadays. These people – all pensioners by 2022 – he asserted in 2003, felt an inclination to defect “from commodified modernity” to “inhabit Pop’s ruins”.


3rd January 2022, Clarendon Road East

 

This theory (or wish fantasy) of Bracewell’s is very appealing and must apply to a handful of Morecambe and Heysham residents, but in our experience, few incomers move here for such poetical or retrospectively celebratory reasons. Sometimes the nostalgia for university days plays a part, but by and large the principal reason is economic. Property is cheap. Even for those residents who embrace Morecambe and Heysham for the reasons Bracewell waxes very lyrical about, the chief reason was budgetary. Making a virtue of necessity. To this could be given other spins: from willed survival to extolling the qualities of the area’s strong alternative atmosphere: political, ecological, bohemian and artistic.

Edgelands Gallery – sadly no longer extant on Yorkshire Street West, but still busy as a virtual space
“with occasional pop-ups in the real world”:
www.edgelandsgallery.co.uk


Other incomers are the refugees and migrants who have little choice . . . although one young man I bumped into had moved from Bolton to be near his girlfriend and was very happy to have “gone upmarket”, noting the indisputable relief “the sea and the sky gives us”.


Pacific air currents above Westminster Avenue, 21st June 2022


Bracewell’s later analysis is fascinatingly thought-provoking and even if it only addresses an image – a  ideal hologram – its dream is partially true and could become more so. With my own constant longing and aiming for the chronological time (and space) dissolve, I’m the last person to complain about anyone wish-willing the future,

Aiming upmarket, arrow head and flowerbeds . . .

 

Generally however, it is the memories of faded glory and the saving graces that Bracewell address and magnifies – the promenade rather than the reality of the streets behind. In most of the houses behind, the majority of long-term residents wouldn’t recognise or give a stuff about “Pop’s ruins” and would be glad to grab as many of the by-products of “commodified modernity” as they could lay their hands on.


“Stuff commodified modernity!” (1) Back Marine Road, 6th December 2022

 

Arguably this commodified modernity[xxix] has got so many of us hooked on the stimulation or excitement of the fake and the mediocre in almost every sphere of life, that real challenge – particularly in the cultural artistic world – is no longer understood or even registered.

 


“Stuff commodified modernity!” (2) 18th January 2022:  Albert Road from Yorkshire Street East

 

Thinking is a dying art; feeling being rapidly distorted by the welter of prescribed emotions we are algorithmically[xxx] fed, each in our own, apparently connected, but actually, techno-isolating universe. Self-centredness may be a basic human necessity, but the deep value or potential that certain (inescapable) aspects of this have, are quickly eroded if the inspirations or influences become mass-produced ones, cloned from thoughtless social-climbing or business ambitions.

 


23 Regent Road – A door with a view  /  living inside a bus shelter, Christmas Eve 2022

 

Thankfully, Halloween and all that Americanised trick or treat rubbish are long over – as well as fireworks, Christmas and now New Year too. But back in early November, the evidence of the alleyways was that even seagulls don’t like pumpkin. Littering my way to Tesco in that autumn of yesteryore, savaged pumpkin heads lay forlorn and rotting, an eye here, a tooth there, their grins dispersed, while pissed-off looking seagulls looked down, pondering again from roofs and gutters – “Can we force ourselves to eat that orange mulch?”

Don’t waste food, it’s a crime / Help the Earth to gain more time,window poem at Eggcup,
Albert and Claremont Roads, 25th November 2022

 

This slaughter of the pumpkin heads makes a good contrast to the rise of foodbanks and Foodshare. The first Foodshare we belonged to was on the other, more affluent, side of Morecambe Bay at Witherslack and had barely started before covid and lockdown infinitely escalated its value. Now with the social economic crisis, the contributions to foodbanks have fallen drastically while the demands on Foodshare schemes like Eggcup – our “big local” – often requires an understandable rationing of supplies among the increasing membership.


Stanleys
[xxxi] – another community venture which functions as a vital social centre as well as a
Foodshare outlet. If places like this can’t save society, nothing can. Stephen Hayton
[xxxii]
and colleague working hard on Christmas Day, 2022

 

Yet the primary aim of Foodshare was to try to reduce consumerist recklessness – to change attitudes in societies where excessive choice inevitably equals waste. Out of season, air freighted foods, for example, have produced eating habits which are unsustainable and should always have been considered so. By its very nature, Foodshare’s stocks can’t help but vary – unfortunately often leaving those with children and allergies out in the cold[xxxiii].


New Year nocturne, Chicago Buildings
[xxxiv] Marine Road West, 4th January 2023

 

In the Sight & Sound editorial of April last year[xxxv] Mike Williams invokes Jaron Lanier, Silicon Valley’s “most rebellious pioneer”, who calls the smartphone “the cage that goes everywhere with you” and the social media companies “behaviour modification empires”. Perhaps Lanier has inadvertently (?) hit upon a should-be-obvious truth: that many people like or need cages – a longstanding fact which has guaranteed the popularity of so many modern gadgets. Even the deployers of that fashionable, clever-dicky phrase or concept of thinking “outside the box” are usually unknowingly trapped inside one.



Shut in a box: Francis Bacon at a Bacon Counter counting Bacon by Rob Lever: www.leverart.co.uk

 

Freedom, true freedom outside the box, isn’t something widely understood, and if it was, it probably wouldn’t be wanted. Like the principle of democracy, it’s an inspiring ideal. The reality requires integrity and self-discipline. If freedom and democracy are equally hard to achieve, there is a crucial difference: if we were all to achieve individual, material freedom (the supposed quest for which is one of the driving forces behind the devastation instigated by ‘progress’, consumerism and the desire for endless choice) rather than achieving it inside our heads and hearts, society would explode into total chaos. If true democracy on the other hand, could be achieved (towards which electoral reform and proportional representation are desperately needed[xxxvi]) the chances are that society might slowly improve.

Old grandeur in Morecambe’s West End, 27th Jan 2022


But to escape the knot of such realisations, back to the long-ago summer and a hot day last July with perfect flying conditions . . . when strange shapes appeared against a bolt blue or azure sky, resembling invasion fleets from a distant galaxy. The annual Catch the Wind Kite Festival[xxxvii] had returned to Morecambe – summoning a natural synaesthesia[xxxviii] of sound, sight and the sea breeze. Closer to, rather than an incursion of spacecraft, at certain angles the sky might almost have evoked the late biomorphic, ‘Great Synthesis’ paintings of Kandinsky[xxxix]:


10th July 2022


Except Kandinsky – so far as I know – never deployed eggs, sausages or chips in his compositions:


10th July 2022

 

Nor dinosaurs, giant squid, or day-of-the-dead style skellingtons (sic):


10th July 2022


Nor threatening trios of bears and the odd stingray:


10th July 2022

 

Nor the looming monster bear himself:


10th July 2022 “Colour directly influences the soul,” Kandinsky Concerning the Spiritual in Art[xl].

           

            Tessellated texture with point and diamonds above the beach,

            and that familiar smell from countless holidays

             – of seaweed and wrack

            opposes the building, gusts, buffets and that

                        crack

            between buildings where I saw the sun

            rise during the climate change heatwave . . .

            A different smell of sunburnt flesh

            And failure

            Failure of imagination

            lost instead in nostalgia, and the feelgood factor of SUN

            and brine and kites . . .

 


                                                                 The invasion fleet has arrived, the victims targeted, but no-one is noticing . .
. 10th July 2022


An invasion of inflatable creatures, an overwhelm of synaesthesia, or a retreat into the nostalgia of summers past – three of the kinder prospects in store for us perhaps?

26th August 2019 

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,

Morecambe, June 2022 – Jan 2023

[email protected]

 

NOTES    All notes accessed in December 2022 and January 2023 

[i]        internationaltimes.it/the-evocation-of-the-inconsequential/ 

[ii]      I don’t know if Bilbao retains this gravitas 50 years later, but even if many of its façades have been glossed, as with all cities, the true place will hopefully survive behind the scenes. Apart from a few brief (sometimes spoiler-containing or inaccurate) synopses, I’ve been unable to find any in-depth analysis or deconstruction of this fascinating film, or in fact anything beyond the fact that it was a total commercial failure (IMDb): “to the point that the production company of the filmmaker Pedro Olea was forced to close for economic reasons.” Though added after this, is one, more illuminating, sentence:  “According to many critics, this film seems to be a veiled denunciation of Opus Dei and the enormous political influence exercised by the religious organization in Franco’s Spain.  See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei#Criticism  

[iii]              www.imdb.com/title/tt0066898/?ref_=tt_rvi_tt_i_3   Oddly, La Casa sin Fronteras (The House Without Frontiers, 1972) appears to have a likely-coincidental connection to The Ghost and Mrs Muir (frequently mentioned earlier in this digression) in that the two main characters (who fall in love and aim to escape to another world), have the same first names: Daniel & Lucia. But both names are fairly common . . .

[iv]              imdb.com/title/tt0062438/?ref_=adv_li_tt   Variously known as Macabre, Shadow of Death and Invisible Assassin – my short review of July 2021: “At first, Viaje al Vacío, seems like an upmarket TV episode of something good from this period with added atmosphere and locations.  Ultimately, drifting towards the exploitative, the plot becomes muddled to the point of absurdity, while the Hurricane Express (1932 – imdb.com/title/tt0023038/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0  ) ending (the device of perfect rubber masks enabling characters to convincingly swap appearances in seconds) is ludicrous. Yet the film remains worth watching for weather, mood and setting . . .” 

[v]        Extract from internationaltimes.it/a-lost-generation-digression/  (18th October 2017) defining “gimmick art”:

 A few years back another friend, exasperated by my use of the phrase, asked me to define, roughly, what I meant by ‘gimmick art’. A longer list was cut down to two points:

1) Exhibitions/installations best left as a few lines on the back of an envelope and used to light the fire (like my written note to navigate Wakefield).

2) Exhibitions/installations that would be completely incoherent or meaningless without the accompanying catalogue or leaflet. Sometimes these catalogues are the only place where any ‘art’ that might attach to the work resides. They often contain one or two points of interest – usually in a political/polemical vein, occasionally vaguely philosophical or aesthetic – but the ‘artwork’ itself usually does little or nothing to expand upon this.               

From the clever down to the incompetent, traditional representational art, largely lifeless with constricted skill and patience, still persists. On the other hand, dominating most of our non-commercial spaces – epic sheds capable of bestowing a divorced grandeur, such as Tate Modern or The Baltic – gimmick art continues to flourish despite public disinterest or even contempt.

[vi]              internationaltimes.it/in-her-kingdom-by-the-sea-part-4/

[vii]             See internationaltimes.it/in-her-kingdom-by-the-sea-part-2/#        And  www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Weird_Shadow_Over_Morecambe_A_Cthulh/mKEDDAAAQBAJ

[viii]            Email dialogue with a friend which somehow ended up invoking the Mysterons:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysteron 

[ix]               en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Scarlet_and_the_Mysterons 

[xi]               ideal-practical.co.uk/index.html – a link that on the 17th of October was neither Ideal nor Practical but ‘temporarily closed’.

[xii]               www.imdb.com/name/nm0000248/?ref_=tt_ov_dr

[xiii]             imdb.com/title/tt0109707/?ref_=fn_al_tt_0    Ed Wood  1994  15  |  My short note on re-watching the film last week: “The first half of this is very funny and even if it palls a little by the end, Depp/Wood’s relentless optimism is very appealing . . .”

[xiv]            en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstera_deliciosa

[xv]             stellabooks.com/books/david-mckee/two-can-toucan/446941

[xvi]            My mother used to complain that I was awake 24 hours a day as a very young child and her health visitor hearing the racket from upstairs asked if she owned a toucan!

From animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/toucan# : “The word “toucan” comes from the sound the bird makes. Their songs often resemble croaking frogs. Toucans combine their extensive vocal calls with tapping and clattering sounds from their bill. Many toucans make barking, croaking, and growling sounds, and mountain toucans make braying sounds like those of a donkey. Females generally have a higher voice than the males”  

[xvii]            en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Theatre,_Morecambe   (photo below):


Back of the Alhambra, 18th January 2022

[xviii]           There is an apocryphal story that Michael Bracewell, semi-legendary writer and one time upmarket television presenter, may actually live in Morecambe or Heysham’s Sandylands . . . may in fact BE, in disguise, the retired sea captain pictured in Part Two of this digression – who I very whimsically linked with Rex Harrison’s Captain Daniel Gregg, and described as “Becalmed flotsam, run aground from the classic film” ( internationaltimes.it/in-her-kingdom-by-the-sea-part-2/ ). In all seriousness, this overlap seems very unlikely. As a Cornwall friend of mine was recently granted an email interview with Bracewell, I asked him to make his first question this: “Please – to stop a Morecambe friend from pestering me – are you prepared to say on oath, whether or not you live or have ever lived, in Morecambe or Heysham?” Hopefully the interview will take place before I finish this 8th part of In Her Kingdom by the Sea . . .  (It didn’t)

[xix]             bookworks.org.uk/publishing/shop/i-know-where-im-going-a-guide-to-morecambe-heysham/

[xx]              en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemarie_Frankland

[xxi]             www.imdb.com/title/tt0037800/?ref_=tttr_tr_tt

[xxii]            en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Know_Where_I%27m_Going_(folk_song)

[xxiii]           www.youtube.com/watch?v=oha_ww5Jexg&ab_channel=OldTimes   approximately 7 mins 44 seconds to  10 minutes 52 seconds

[xxiv]           www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp01Zs0Gpgk&ab_channel=MRecht

[xxv]             Vintage by the Sea, 4th September 2022. The bus is Leyland Titan, 1775 PD3/Met-Cam, built in 1962, registration RCK 920 – see:  www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/?p=37698

[xxvi]           en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sense_of_an_Ending:_Studies_in_the_Theory_of_Fiction

[xxvii]          en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Kermode  A writer I shall always remember for his enthusiastic letter regarding the early version (photocopied) of my experimental prose-poem The Bow (1983). 

[xxviii]          Though some of the ideas behind it remain interesting, personally I wouldn’t rate Pop art very highly. Its values are extremely suspect – whether intentionally or not, it epitomises and glorifies consumerism, while the end product is often slick trash not dissimilar in emptiness and tone from much of the ‘pop’ music of the last 30 years at least. 

[xxix]            en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification

[xxx]             news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/10/dont-trust-that-algorithm/   An old reference, but here is a more recently updated one, ironically produced by gov.uk:   www.gov.uk/government/publications/findings-from-the-drcf-algorithmic-processing-workstream-spring-2022/the-benefits-and-harms-of-algorithms-a-shared-perspective-from-the-four-digital-regulators

[xxxi]           stanleyscommunitycentre.co.uk               A magnificent rig for Christmas Day, Stanleys, 2022  

Perhaps colour really does influence the soul?  See notes 38 and 40 below

[xxxii]           [email protected]

[xxxiii]           www.morecambebaypovertytruthcommission.org.uk/uncategorized/concreteconcepts/

[xxxiv]          www.flickr.com/photos/rossendalewadey/39161599604

[xxxv]          Sight and Sound magazine, April 2022, vol 32, issue 3

[xxxvi]          See internationaltimes.it/make-votes-matter/  and  internationaltimes.it/make-votes-matter-2/

[xxxvii]         www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/catch-the-wind-kite-festival-returns-to-morecambe-in-july-3722574

[xxxviii]        https://www.guggenheim.org/blogs/checklist/synesthesia-a-visual-symphony-art-at-the-intersection-of-sight-and-sound

[xxxix]          en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

[xl]              www.public-library.uk/ebooks/22/92.pdf

 

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FROM UKRAINE, FOR UKRAINE

Standard Deviation is a newly formed, multidisciplinary label platform, working on the intersection of music, art and publishing. We aim to foster creative collaborative exchange between an aspiring Ukrainian scene and a global community.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Soon it will be a year of this atrocious war shattering our world. The last 9 months have been the most difficult challenge that nobody was prepared for. We are endlessly grateful to everyone who has supported the K41 Community Fund, our label, and our country during these trying times.

The war is still happening. Every day Ukrainians are bravely resisting the senseless Russian terror. Standard Deviation has had to suspend its activities in recent months. During this period, we were putting all our energy towards helping those in need, and collecting the pieces of all that we’ve built in two years and that was taken away overnight. For a long time releasing music and art did not seem to have meaning to us.

Eventually, we were left with no choice but to adapt to this new reality. We made the decision to keep on doing what we believe in, no matter the circumstances. Our first release in 9 months is a bittersweet moment. In honor of the club’s third anniversary this weekend we have put together our second fundraising compilation titled ‘From Ukraine, For Ukraine’. The compilation consists of music from Ukrainian artists and from our friends from abroad. In accordance with our current feelings, the tonality of this compilation is melancholic and fragile, yet hopeful. All proceeds will be donated to The K41 Community Fund.

For our anniversary weekend, our fund has a goal of collecting 500,000 UAH to purchase tablets for the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade and to support volunteer initiatives in our network.

We would like to thank all the artists who contributed to this release: Andriy Kostyukov, Ars Was Taken, Chaosy & Costa, czysta forma, DJ Stingray, Evita Manji, Hanna Svirska, Heith, Human Margareeta, Katarina Gryvul, Koloah ft. Studnitzky, M.E.S.H., Marcel Dettmann, Maryana Klochko, Setaoc Mass, shemovesshe, Louwave & Splinter (UA), Tzusing, Yana Ilo, СУМ, and everyone else who directly and indirectly has supported us in the last months. 

Purchase the digital album at

https://standard-deviation.bandcamp.com/album/from-ukraine-for-ukraine

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Interim Report from the New University

Integrity is promotion, the round Congratulations of it, standing above colleagues and making a fat name for itself. Professor, performer, provider, and persecutor – the stiff clean dog takes itself seriously, takes down opposition, and takes the money money money. It seems Education is cleaner than bad blood though, through it all, infelicities and anomalies have continued to be magnified, bright and grinding, since the last Ice Age. Justice is positively criminal, but it quietens dissent, quelling true practitioners just as it did in past lives. It always did. It always did. When life forgets learning – social, invisible, and slithering about the truth – mobility become electric, veining through Education, Leadership, and minor ethical adjustments. Integrity wants it all until it forgets its own definitions. Going forward, we recognise new appointments, owning our impact and applauding what we made ourselves from. We will wash our own faces. Even with our track records and footprints in the fields, research says to proceed as if exchange had actually happened, and data doesn’t lie. Forgetting is authority, the whole Leadership of it. We shall appoint old dogs and tricky new colleagues. Congratulations are here again.

 

 

 

Oz Hardwick

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In Santa’s List

My daughter uttered ‘Tiger’ first.
‘Dadda’ was her second word.

Her favourite phrases nowadays are
‘Thank you’ and ‘Am sorry.’
She has to whisper
the later more than the former – growing up.

 

 

 

 

Kushal Poddar
Picture Nick Victor

 

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Out in the Country

Jane’s Country Year, Malcolm Saville (Handheld Press)

Malcolm Saville’s Lone Pine Five books were part of my growing up, a more literate successor (along with Arthur Ransome’s Swallows & Amazons books) to Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books, which I loved but raced through. Saville never got much recognition for his writing for children, and only recently did I discover the Lone Pine Five paperbacks I collected (and still have) often had a quarter or more of the story removed since their initial hardback publications.

There are several publishers in recent years who have been reprinting out-of-print children’s books, marketing them to nostalgic adults keen to revisit their past, but Handheld Press – who are new to me – are not one of these. Until now they have been reissuing books by the likes of Rose Macaulay, John Buchan, Sylvia Townsend Warner and other authors I have never heard of. But their ‘Handheld Classic 24’ is this stand-alone novel-cum-nature book by Saville.

It’s a beautiful edition, with reproductions of the original illustrations included, and a new foreword contextualising the 1946 story for 21st Century readers. Hazel Sheeky Bird makes links between Saville and the likes of Blyton, notes his critical neglect, but also details how important the likes of Richard Jefferies’ book Bevis was to Saville.

Organised into twelve chapters, one for each month of the year, Jane is sent to recuperate on her uncle’s farm after a long illness in the city. There, she not only becomes well but is introduced to nature, farming, and country life, making new friends and gaining information as she goes. From the first few pages on there is a sense of wonder at the open spaces, the weather, and how people live. Her inquisitiveness is informed by her new friends, the shepherd, the farm labourer – who she at first thinks is a tramp, and the Parson’s family, not to mention her aunt and uncle.

Some of these ‘information drops’ are a little awkward, but they are redeemed by the knowledge a reader gains, and the overall narrative arc; and Bird notes that explanatory notes which were added to later editions have been removed for this edition, which returns the book to its original form. The other slight problem is the sometimes condescending and clichéd description of villagers and workers as plain simple folk, somehow more honest, open and true than the city or town folk who live where Jane and her parents live.

It is also an era where farmers were farmers, not industrial livestock or vegetable producers. Jane’s uncle keeps sheep, grows vegetables, and milks and slaughters his cattle; although he goes to market, works hard and works his employees hard, the focus of his work is what his land can produce to sustain his family and those who work on it, whilst looking after his fields and animals.

Saville did not write this novel as a polemic though, he wanted to tell a story that engaged his readers, and saw the lead character Jane, get well, mature, and learn. The pace is varied as suits the changing seasons, with some wonderful set scenes around events such as first lambing, harvest, the local fair and Christmas, various interactions with other people, and a number of epistolic sections which reproduce Jane’s letters to her (rather distant) parents. The pace is gentle and meandering, the story fairly simple, but Saville sustains the mood of engagement and wonder throughout. The pictures are a genuine bonus, and I greatly enjoyed learning about the recent historical past, however romanticised, and sharing the delight of Jane’s year in the country.

 

Rupert Loydell

(This review was first published at Tears in the Fence.)

 

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Grizzly Bear

 

I got up this morning
and drew back the curtains
to see a grizzly bear
standing on the lawn.

What the fuck! I thought.
Grizzly bears are not indigenous
to the north of England.

Nevertheless there it was,

so I ran round the house
locking all the doors
(can grizzly bears open doors?
I’ve no idea but

I imagine what they lack
in opposable thumbs
they make up for
with brute force).

Then, I thought,
I ought to warn the others,
so I took a photo
through the window,

with the intention of sharing it
on a number of social media platforms,
only when I looked at the photo,
to my astonishment,
there was only a garden.

The bear
wasn’t there.

 

 

 

Dominic Rivron

 

.

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Life’s Lil Pleasures: A New Miniature Book By Evan Lorenzen

 

Colorado-based artist Evan Lorenzen just released a new book, but it’s not your average book – it’s no larger than one inch tall and features drawings smaller than your thumbnail. “Life’s Lil Pleasures,” his latest micro-book, features illustrations of all the little things that make life worth living.

As unbelievably tiny as this book is, Lorenzen is an old hand at creating micro books. The wonderful thing about his books is their haiku-like quality, where he manages to convey beautiful memories, strong emotions or deep and introspective thoughts with the use of just a few words.

The accompanying illustrations, especially given their size, are beautiful and impressive. Lorenzen works primarily with pencil and ink, though he does use watercolors as well. Read on for the artist’s responses to Bored Panda’s questions about his work!

More info: artandsucheven.com | Tumblr | Instagram | Facebook (h/t: designtaxi)

“Initially I started making tiny books because I was getting frustrated at the time it took me to draw larger, highly-detailed images,” Evan Lorenzen told Bored Panda.“The little books were a way to do an array of drawings without spending weeks creating them”

“I have always been attracted to very fine detail and precision, so it felt like a very natural progression for me”

“When creating the tiny books, I start off by ripping the paper into the pages as well as cutting out a cover. I compile all of the pages and bind them together with vintage thread and a normal sewing needle”

“I create the blank books before I do any of the drawings, so it is very important that I remain as precise as possible when drawing them. So far, I have not had to take apart or remake any of the books”

“During the entire making process from binding to drawing, I do not use anything but paper, thread, a sewing needle, a pen, and my hands. My whole goal has been to get as small as I can without the use of any magnifying instrument in the making process”

“I like to spend a lot of time just pondering ideas of scale and size and how to recontextualize these thoughts in a macro format. I love word play, so I also spend a lot of time thinking about everyday phrases that relate to size in subtle ways”

“My whole intention in this overarching project has been to push the limits of my creativity and physical body; to go as small, precise, and inward as I can get while also telling a story in the little space that I have created”

“I hope that this project inspires others to push against their self-imposed limitations in order to discover a unknown facet of themselves as well as unrecognized possibilities about the world we exist in. We are living in a pivotal time in history when creativity and new modes of thinking are imperative keys to dissolving outdated cultural stagnancies”

Thank you, Evan Lorenzen, for talking to Bored Panda about your wonderful books!

 
 
 
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Do Something Illegal

Illegal (Bigga Bush Version), Swayzak with Benjamin Zephaniah

musical streams of joy enchant …
the dreaming joyful beats employed are here to help you to survive
let the music … with streetwise … that is so good
To the rhythm to be true and make love in your neighborhood

… within you grow and let your body celebrate
letting your body go as righteous songs communicate
when the dob us make to rise and all of you are real and legal
move the body rhythm-wise and do something illegal

the beautiful electric drum is wired for your pleasure
so as you kind of go and come, reveal your happy soul
feel free to do all manner of things to help you ease the pressure
it gets mystical and magical when you simply lose control

do not … when dob create us operate
and let no impostors rob you of the gracious vibe you generate
you may float like a butterfly or fly high as an eagle
the dread DJ invites you to do something illegal

move the body

(written by d.n.brown,j.s taylor and benjamin zephaniah)

https://swayzak.bandcamp.com/album/illegal-ep

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Clever and Difficult, Vital and Energetic

The Bath Forum Concert, Van der Graaf Generator (2CD + DVD + Blu-Ray, Esoteric/Cherry Red)

Spring 2022 saw the current trio incarnation of Van der Graaf Generator finally released from lockdown and undertaking a UK tour which had been rescheduled a number of times. The final date found them as The Forum in Bath on March 1st, in great musical shape and with a superb setlist that highlighted both newer and older tunes; you could almost say a kind of greatest hits.

The concert, which is here in full, included twelve tracks, kicking off with the playful ‘Interference Patterns’, then the belligerent and cynical ‘Every Bloody Emperor’, before the arrival of 1974’s ‘A Louse Is Not A Home’, originally written for a band album that didn’t happen, so recorded for Peter Hammill’s solo album The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage. Hugh Banton and Guy Evans both played on that version, so it’s no surprise really to hear the trio energetically nail it live.

‘Masks’ is up next, another 70s track, as is the very wonderful ‘Childlike Faith in Childhood’s End’, from my first and favourite Van de Graaf Generator album, Still Life. Honesty compels me to admit that I miss David Jackson’s saxophones here (and elsewhere), the track doesn’t have as much power as it used to. ‘Go’, which is next, suits the line-up more, as it should do: it was the final track on 2016’s Do Not Disturb, allegedly their last ever (studio) album. It’s a moody, plaintive song, with a resigned air: ‘It’s time to let go’.

But there’s more! The second CD kicks off with the exhilarating and almost-demented ‘La Rossa’ (another track from Still Life) which hypnotically swirls and builds to a hysterical ending. Again, as fantastic as the drumming and keyboards are, it lacks a certain brass element that Hammill’s brief guitar solo can’t totally make up for. It’s not helped by the closing organ swirl either, which sounds like the end of a song by a dodgy pub covers band.

Next are three more recent compositions. ‘Alfa Berlina’ begins with a siren and street sounds, and this strange collage continues behind Hammill’s offbeat singing until halfway through, when we return to a more ordinary (for these boys) song. It’s clever and difficult music, and it’s bit of a relief to move on to the more spacious and relaxed ‘Over the Hill’ (not the John Martyn song) with some gorgeous piano and organ interplay behind Hammill’s relaxed emotional singing. Of course it doesn’t last, there’s some sonic surprises later on in the song.

‘Room 1210’ which is up next is also more recent, a song from the post-reformation era of the band, but it sounds like classic Van der Graaf Generator with it’s keyboard riffs, elegant piano, crisp drumming and Hammill’s soaring vocals. After that we’re on the home straight: a blistering version of ‘Man Erg’, with utterly vicious keyboard and drum interplay, and the existential ‘House With No Door’ to close:

   There’s a house with no door and I’m living there;
   At nights it gets cold and the days are hard to bear inside.
   There’s a house with no roof, so the rain creeps in,
   Falling through my head as I try to think out time.

The track first appeared on a 1970 album and here gets a musical rearrangement by the trio which accentuates its sense of melancholy and despair: the keyboards here are particularly outstanding.

It’s been wonderful to listen to the resurrected Van Der Graaf Generator in the 21st Century, since the band first reunited for a single encore song in London. The recent studio albums haven’t always grabbed me, but live their music has remained as vital and energetic as ever, with interesting setlists and new versions of older material. The Bath Forum Concert is a welcome document of a brilliant concert, of a band that never fail to intrigue, develop and take risks as they make music together.

 

 

 

Rupert Loydell

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Fire in the Wire (episode nine)

Steam Stock

Tracklist:
Horace Andy – Problems
Augustus Pablo – Lovers Mood
Stranger and Patsy – When I Call Your Name
Shinehead – Billie Jean
Pioneers – Me No Born Ya
Patsy – Pata Pata Rocksteady
Dillinger – Cokane in My Brain
Snuffy and Wally – Dreader Mafia
The Paragons – Man Next Door
Tomorrow’s Children – Bang Bang Rocksteady
Dandy and the Superboys – I’m Back with a Bang Bang
Dandy and the Superboys – Jungle Walk
The Special AKA – Racist Friend
General Degree – Pot Cover
Bob Marley and the Wailers – Concrete Jungle
Super Soul – Super Love
Bongo Herman and King Tubby – Super Cool
Super Roy – Flying High
Prince Jazzbo – Gal Boy I Roy
The Jamaicans – Things You Say You Love
Lennie Hibbert – Snow Bird
The Ethiopians – I’m Gonna Take Over
Ernest Wilson – Pick Them Up
Movers – Lion Sleeps Tonight

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THIS BOY’S BOOK

 

 

The title of course says it all. Spare part, split from purpose.
Second to none in all senses, or sad boy as ballast as someone else

Steers the ship. Possibly favoured now by the young for the sensationalism
He’s seeking, if anchored now by ambition: Macbeth’s idiot in the telling

As with every stand he takes the truth trips. Meantime his book
Slips into Spain. How strategic. Get it covered up in a language

Far enough away from your own, but close enough to English Ex-pats
And to keen translators and tourists. America would have been too

Damn brazen, so this Sir-stirred sly smuggling grants safe distance
For love’s lacklustre bombs once they’re thrown. Who is advising you, son,

Now you’ve freed yourself from your father, who Lizard or not
Will be licking the wounds you inflict on his throne. Not to mention

Your bro, whom you accuse now of violence. This is what your wife did
On Oprah, as her crocodile tears of injustice and abuse at all quarters

Made her both Cinderella and Annie and chilled even Piers Morgan’s
Plump bones. What is wrong with you? Privilege can be a prison,

But for those inside lack of purpose and reason too, matters not
In a world which has moved away from the true, into treason

Which is what you are doing, or would have once been accused of
As you sought to complete such a plot. You state that you have killed

Twenty-five in the name of your Nan and survival, but describing them
As chess pieces as well as inhuman is a Third Man type sentence

Likening you to H. Lime. Have you seen that film, silly boy, or even
It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum’s racist clown show? You once referred

To an Indian soldier as your P dash dash dash friend. Disgust climbs
From the gut to the gap between your tongue and brain, baby,

Booby, buffoon, and yes, brother, who is doing I believe your bird’s
Bidding as she caws now in your ear. Fucked by flak she purports

To be everso humble, all the while stripping shadows to make
A spotlight everlasting with which to expunge her own fears.

There would seem to be no real end to the need to justify
Their existence. They even impose their imprimateur

On Mandela as they try to ensnare us all on Netflix.
With his slightly unformed blood-blanched face, and hers

Imploring all to adore her. You said you wanted your lives
To be private, well, here’s a public one off the wrist,

For your tricks. What will the Poet Laureate say? His next verse
Will comment on Charles’ coronation. But Simon this is the story

Of a wrecking ball wrenched from within. As a completely
Understandable wound, chiefly the loss of a mother, unseats

And topples someone unfit for the peak. Yet wanting it all the same,
Hence the reclaiming of both pram and rattle, one hand dispensing rage

While the other seeks to stifle the mouth as it speaks. And yet,
You did as all wild boys did; drugs, booze and beauties.

Outlandish behaviour, the typical tantrums of the teen. We know that.
And have doubtless done it too, but you’d make of your anecdotage

A bible, as if old before your time your told story would resemble
Your great great Grand-uncle’s, who forsook Royalty’s fat tit

For thin tat. He married an American too, and abdicated. You had
Nothing to forego and that issue is why your tiny eyes fill our screen.

You want us to know your full pain but you do not have Edward
The Second’s hot poker. And you are not a word wizard like Marlowe,

That is if you wrote this brown from guile’s green. This coming Monday
Your book arrives here, but you have already worsened the wound

With back-biting, all too consciously aping your Mother,
By sucking on a televised interview’s tacky teat. We will see it

On Sunday here, or rather not see it. As what you look for,
As she also found can’t compete with the surrounding context

You’re in and in which you and your wretched wife will be sinking.
That is unless you turn away, Harry. Listen; honour thy own intentions

And in the long run by walking away you’ll complete
The path she could not, your much mishandled Mother.

But by whom is the question. Until that is answered,
Your aches will shake no-one and every win will seem sinful

And serve only compound love’s defeat.    

 

                                                     David Erdos, 6/1/23

 

 

 

 

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The Green Shrine

‘When we have this friendship of created things our experience of matter undergoes a change; it becomes qualitative; we have communion with it; it becomes consecrated and it is sacramental. Sacramental, what a word!’

– Cecil Collins, ‘The Artist in the New Age’ (1965)

 

My intimates & I
absconded to the Green Shrine
after years of stasis
in the Grey Chapel

It appears now that
my intimates & I
were full of chutzpah
learning from the verdant world

our scaled artistry
flouting the dogma
of our progenitors 
lining up in their Grey Chapel

For deep in the Green Shrine
we found icons & tapestries
illuminated manuscripts
satchels of sheet-music

which were hyper-charged
with hieroglyph & sigil:
nature’s incandescent language
which occupied the minds

of my intimates & I
for many a supple season
But those in the Grey Chapel
seemed full of displeasure

that we’d ceased attending
their dreary meeting-house
regarded with troubled features
Our hermetic exploits

for in the Green Shrine
there were recondite verses:

John Barleycorn
Twice-born Dionysus
Wheat-crop Messiah
Greene Knight
Viridian Sibyl
You who linger
In the crucifix
As a holly-bough
Gestalt Seed
Sacrificed divinity
Nature’s hierophant
Evergreen high-priest
Trans-migratory
Persephone Queen
Mover-in-season
Ratifier of all quests
Everything surging
Always flowing
Via metamorphoses 

And those in the Grey Chapel
proposed to immolate
the Green Shrine
for committing blasphemies

but my intimates & I
never disclosed its location
made it a moveable feast
a shape-shifter of foliage

while the Grey Chapel
over time emptied
its fixed pillars crumbled
to be covered over

with tentacular roots
& a floral shrine
& my intimates & I who’d
absconded to the Green Shrine

scaling our artistry
learning her secret tongue
to ever keep us
in cyclical flux

knew no longer
the linear the static
knew no longer
the sterile cosmos

 

 

 

Mark Wilson

 

Mark Wilson has published four poetry collections: Quartet For the End of Time (Editions du Zaporogue, 2011), Passio (Editions du Zaporogue, 2013), The Angel of History (Leaky Boot Press, 2013) and Illuminations (Leaky Boot Press, 2016). He is the author of a verse-drama, One Eucalyptus Seed, about the arrest and incarceration of Ezra Pound after World War Two, as well as a tragi-comedy, Arden. His poems and articles have appeared in: The Black Herald, The Shop, 3:AM Magazine, International Times, The Fiend, Epignosis Quarterly, Dodging the Rain, The Ekphrastic Review, Rasputin and Le Zaporogue.

 

 

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New Year – more amazing musical journeys!

 

Join Alan Dearling on another magical musical tour…

It felt totally ‘right’ to be at a live gig to celebrate the up-coming 2023 and bid farewell to 2022. Four bands, a great stage, sound system and atmospheric lighting. It was a nice mix of nearly all original music too. From psyched-up guitar, through young, energetic punk into more varied musical territories of indie/punky/space-rock.

Our live musical astronauts taking us on excursions into aural off-planetary regions were: Big D (psych); The Masochists (punk82); indie-rock with TOKEO, and space-rock with Buff. The audience was a nice, eclectic mixture too – young and old – hippies, punks and all other musical hues imaginable!

Big D was first up with his array of foot-pedals, loops and instruments of psychedelic-enhancements. Dave is an extremely accomplished guitarist. His performance reminded me of great festies and gigs from the likes of Gong, Hawkwind, Dream Machine and Space Ritual. Indeed, Dave has shared stages with these bands and was/is the guitarist in Sonic Attack, a rather tasty Hawkwind tribute band. A super start to the New Year entertainments. I videoed a little segment of his performance. Enjoy!

 

https://vimeo.com/785954613

Listen to some fine guitar-noodling with Big D in Todmorden at Monty’s – a live space trip for the New Year!

 

 

The Masochists: Young, punks with attitude and plenty of showmanship! You could see that they were enjoying themselves, amusing the audience and playing fast and loud…great fun…and a band to watch out for as they hone their craft.

Masochists at Bandcamp:

https://themasochistspunk.bandcamp.com/?fbclid=IwAR1O6-YhQdbzqrvrPOS8IwA4rlKqKc_M2UxR6lh9q0-TRxaCiJliJfcwBO0

 

 

TOKEO: one of the many Manchester bands who keep alive the fame and flame of that musical city. Alternative post-punk/indie/rock. A nice melange of sounds and vocals. Lively and gutsy, with plenty of light and shade in their live performance. A charismatic frontman which always helps.

https://www.facebook.com/TOKEOZ/

They have a new album out, ‘Class Traitor’ which includes the single, ‘King of Town’ which was one of the highlights of their NYE set.

 

Buff were on home turf at Monty’s Club, adjacent to the market in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Being totally honest, I had to exit stage left just before the New Year Bells (not feeling 100 per cent health-wise). They remind me a bit of The Prodigy!  But here are a couple of pics of them from a fairly recent gig where I saw them play. And, here’s a link to their Anarcho/Space Punk site with lots of video clips:

https://www.facebook.com/sitessquatsandtowerblocks

 

 

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SAUSAGE LIFE 256

Bird Guano’s
SAUSAGE LIFE
The column which puts all its eggs in one basket, then leaves them on the bus

READER: You look a bit cheesed off, what’s up?

MYSELF:  Cheesed off? So would you be after a year-long spat with the council’s Department of Sinks & Drains. Having wasted my precious time writing countless letters trying to find out exactly who is responsible for my bathroom’s malfunctioning U-Bend, I received this unexpected letter in yesterday’s post:

Dear Mr. Guano,
this is to inform you that as from 31st January 2023, the department hitherto known as the Department of Sinks & Drains will officially amalgamate with the department formerly known as The Road Traffic & Illegal Parking Department. Henceforth, all present employees of the former departments will be joint employees of the amalgamated department, which will be known as The Department of Road Traffic, Sinks, Illegal Parking & Drains.
From the 31st, any sink or drain not conforming to the new departmental standards will be towed away. Similarly, every car, omnibus or horse drawn vehicle will be subject to stringent water-tightness regulations based on cubic capacity. Taxicabs, buses, bicycles and sit-on lawnmowers will be exempt. All sinks using the public highway will have to display warning beacons and travel on the pavement.

READER: Good grief

MYSELF: Wait for it…. Drains, standpipes and sewerage conduits will have the same rights as tractors and articulated lorries, except where they can be shown to be a danger to pedestrians. Skateboards, cycles (including unicycles but excluding tricycles) and wheeled furniture are required to be fitted with a plughole and an approved plug on a chain. Swimming pools of more than 10 metres in length shall flash full beam headlights and sound the horn on sharp bends or blind corners. All motor vehicles over 2000cc shall be equipped with Olympic standard diving boards and have a lifeguard on duty during school holidays.
Bathtubs, shower units, sprinkler systems, bidets, commodes, jacuzzis and saunas may park free of charge in the town centre, provided a badge is displayed.
I hope this has been of some assistance. 
R.Mutt, Assistant Chief Consultancy Liaison Officer, Amalgamationary Tactical Thinktank Focus Group,Rasputin House,Cockmarlin

READER: What’s their position on mobility scooters?

MYSELF:
They will have to be fitted with hot and cold taps, and an approved overflow facility.

DON’T SHOOT ‘TIL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THEIR EGGS!
Le Gaz Moutarde, a First World War-themed “pop-up” restaurant, is to open in the catacombs underneath The Church Of St Vlad The Impaler on the outskirts of Herstmonceaux. It will feature barbed wire, simulated landmines and trenches filled with real mud. Although still under construction and swathed in secrecy, I managed to tunnel in and photograph this prototype menu with my miniature spy-camera.

LE GAZ MOUTARDE
Closed Monday, Friday, Wednesday Saturday & Thursday.
Motorcyclists are requested to remove crash helmets whilst dining. Bloodless black pudding can be provided on request for Jehovah’s Witnesses (24hrs notice required). Erotic sausages will be served free of charge on Canadian bank holidays.

 

MENU

Bœuf Quagmire
(après mois, le déluge)
Hand grenade-seared sirloin of beef in a pungent mud sauce served with pied de tranchée and a sizzling sidecar of vomir de la merde.

Polecat Surprise
(for four persons 24 hours notice required)
 Fermented rat kidney in goat urine.
Served with bomb bay potatoes, special fried rice (rice with species) or fecal fried rice (rice with feces). 

There is also a small a la carte non-WW1 pirate selection
(suitable for pescatarians)

Pieces of Eight
Nabob of curried seagull beak with cured turtle eggs and maggot-stuffed grape pips, served on a plank with ship’s biscuits,
roast bacilli of scurvy and 30 lashes.

Dessert
Virtual prunes & custard, with VR headset
Or
Germ warfare cheesecake

A spokesman for the proprietor told us confidently that “Everything is going to plan” and that Le Gaz Moutarde will be “all open by Christmas”

POLICE CALLED TO COMB SCARE
Armed officers attended a violent affray involving two bald men at an Upper Dicker town centre bar last Friday.
According to witnesses the two bald men were overheard engaging in a heated argument in the back bar of the Blighted Potato, a pub known as a hotbed of political debate. The cause of the dispute became clear after armed officers stormed the building and swiftly brought the situation under control. As is so often the case in confrontations of this type involving bald men, a comb was brandished, which was subsequently alleged to have been the catalyst for the argument. Gloved detectives arrived at the scene and took away the six-inch plastic implement which, further to laboratory analysis, was sealed in a plastic bag and locked up in the evidence room. At the scene, East Sussex police chief Hydra Gorgon described the affray as “A storm in a B-Cup, frankly”. In a later statement to the press, she appealed to all members of the public who may have attended the Blighted Potato on the evening in question to come forward, adding, “even those of you who actually stayed at home that night but would quite fancy coming to court and just making stuff up.”

YOU MUST BE WOKING
Are YOU unpopular? Are you fed up with being labelled a Non-Lol? Next time you go out, why not try one of these PC-guaranteed jokes, which incorporate the very latest post-ironic modernism for the new zeitgeist?

Joke 1.
An Irishman, an Englishman and a Scotsman are shipwrecked on a desert island, with no food, water or shelter. After three days, the Irishman comes running up to the others with a filthy Arabian brass lamp he has discovered washed up on the shore. Excited, the three men rip off their improvised loincloths and begin frantically polishing the lamp but apart from producing dazzling shine, nothing happens. Within a week all three are dead from malnutricion.

Joke 2, a riddle.
Q:  How many unicorns does it take to change a light bulb?
A:  There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of the unicorn and even if there was, its cloven hooves and lack of an apposite thumb would make it extremely difficult to even pick up a light bulb, let alone change it.

Joke 3.
A lion walks into a crowded bar and orders five large scotches and three pints of beer. In the ensuing panic, several customers are fatally trampled. The lion downs all the drinks, leaps over the bar, tears the barman to pieces and eats him. Despite being drunk, the lion somehow manages to win £50 off two regulars in a pool game before being fatally wounded by police marksmen.

 

 

La vie saucisson!

 

https://vimeo.com/user129836501

 

 

 



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White Shadows.

Keeping a score is a nuanced way
One two three for every chores
Morning tea sugars milk
One liquid one pound one gallons
Prefixes and suffixes for everyday
Coming and going
Homeberries holiday retreats winters
For the bride of bridges
Worlds collide upon the lightness
In darkness there’s an ocean fold clothes
Embers Ashes evening namesake
A beatitude of quietly elegant muskrose
Her twopence basket holds nutshell
Little animals of simplicity
Like water like wind takes up spaces around
A knife edged barred silhouette
Mudslides of diamonds and rusty patches
Winters and evenings
Delights keeping the purse open for queue
Questions drop open
Little girl’s snowflakes snowmanship
Crafty simple art
An orange peel melting pot cooking jar
National anthems parades paraded paths
The evening lights take shape
Oval shaped nights northern ferry
Cards cares locations inroads insides
Out of suffixes out of prefixes
Keeps borders out
Beyond the white washed agedead
Sprung open the Bluebird wind
The white lake fire
Awakening of the evening light
My fingers into white shadows.

 

 

 

By Sayani Mukherjee.

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The Mourning After

10 million baby turkeys are dead now, (in the UK alone) as well as hundreds of thousands of young pigs, ducks, geese, lobsters and other poor victims.

Not one of those terrible deaths was necessary.

We could still have gathered with our friends and families.

We could still have watched The Snowman.

We could still have exchanged presents and eaten a good meal together – without all the gushing blood.

We could still have played charades, told jokes, drunk wine and brandy, pulled crackers, worn silly hats and fallen asleep in front of Mary Poppins.

And they could still have been here, living out their God-given, natural lives (at least a decade, without our violent interference.)

What momentary ‘pleasure’ was honestly worth their mass murder (even a single death)?

An hour or two of drunken gorging…for a trusting, living being to be killed and crapped out again, just a few hours later?

Within half a day, we can’t even stand the taste, sight or smell of ‘turkey,’ ‘turkey’ sandwiches or ‘turkey’ curry. 

The Great Capitalist Build Up …is over in a nano second…Our islands now littered with their young carcasses (and all those needlessly felled pine trees.) And already we’re busy signing up for exercise classes and diet plans.

And all those beautiful, young beings: those curious, bright, relational, friendly, trusting, sensitive beings, who expected so much more from us, who deserved so much more from us, who thought we cared about them, who spent a miserable 6 months in dark barns because of avian flu, being force-fed to the point of collapse…are DEAD now.

We have just gorged on their trembling terror.

We have just swallowed their terrible fear and pain.

We have just ingested one screaming bird after another… and all of their heart-thumping stress in extremis.

And we wonder why stomach and bowel cancers are so prevalent?

Jesus didn’t want this for his ‘birthday.’ Jesus loved his animal brothers and sisters!

Jesus wasn’t even born during the Roman, pagan, sacrificial festival of Saturnalia, on Dies Natalis Solis Invicti:  the 25th of December, the “Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun” Sol Invictus – as declared by the Roman emperor Aurelian in 274 AD.

The actual date of Jesus‘s birth is unknown.

But in the ancient world he was widely rumoured to have been executed close to the anniversary of his birth, during the bloody Jewish Passover on March 25th – making him, given a day or two, almost certainly, a loving Piscean: born under the sign of the Fish.

Let’s commit to sparing (and proactively saving) our fellow beings – long before next year’s mass animal massacre, in the cause of the bloody Great Lie.

“I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” (Genesis 1:29)

 

https://metro.co.uk/2016/12/25/what-life-is-really-like-for-the-10million-turkeys-killed-for-christmas-dinner-6321363/

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/christmas-dinner-turkey-chicken-geese-dairy-vegan-animal-cruelty-a8694211.html

https://animalequality.org.uk/issues/meat/

 

Heidi Stephenson

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Brian Davies, Animal Campaigner


Brian Davies

February 4, 1935 – December 27, 2022

Lifetime Champion for Animals “Would I do it all again? In a heartbeat.”

I first met Brian Davies in 1975. David Garrick and I were organizing the first Greenpeace campaign to protect baby harp seals. Brian began the international campaign to protect harp seals, had written a couple of books and became a helicopter pilot so he could go to the sealing areas on the ice in the Gulf of St.Lawrence.

He was of great help to us in organizing the first Greenpeace seal campaigns on the ice off Labrador in 1976 and 1977.

Many groups campaigned to stop the seal slaughter including Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, the Fund for Animals and the RSPCA but it was Brian Davies who began the campaign, built it into an international movement and led the fight to ban the sale of seal products in Europe.

As a Canadian he was vilified by the pro-slaughter Trudeau government, called a traitor to the nation by the Canadian Parliament and had his tax exempt status withdrawn. He was harassed to the point where he moved his base and his home to the United States.

Following in his footsteps, Sea Shepherd was stripped of tax exempt status, I was called a traitor to the nation and I also moved my base and home to the United States.

The most aggressive defenders of seals in Canada have always been Canadians forced out of the country and then accused of being foreign activists when they continue their work.

Although denounced by his own country, Brian’s life was a testament to defending non-human Canadian lives. His work saved millions of seals. He was also active in saving many other species and working to prevent cruelty to animals all over the world.

He made a difference and left this world in a better condition for the welfare of animals than the world he was born into.

He was 87.


https://www.all-creatures.org/strategies/strategies-brian-davies.html

Please donate to his memory today, if you can: https://bit.ly/3Q6750K

 

https://networkforanimals.org/news/brian-davies-obituary-4-february-1935-27-december-2022/

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A Poet of the Bop Kabbala

 

By Jay Jeff Jones

‘Foolish enough to have been a poet’ is a headstone inscription that sometimes catches the eyes of visitors to the graveyard of St Thomas the Apostle in Heptonstall village in West Yorkshire. The name of the man buried there, ‘Asa Benveniste’, also has an unusual ring. The surname indicates a Sephardic Jewish ethnicity and is more commonly seen in Spain or France . It means “You have arrived well” and the Benveniste who ended up here first arrived in the world 3300 miles away – in 1925 – in the Bronx borough of New York City.

After serving with the US Army in Europe during WWII, Benveniste decided to stay on in Paris, among hundreds of American expatriates, many of whom wanted to become writers or, for a while, to live like they were. A few, that had the money, started little magazines. Along with George Solomos, he put together the first two issues of Zero, a quarterly that attracted contributions from Samuel Beckett, James Baldwin and Paul Bowles.

He then moved on, to England, and began to develop his own poetic practices, working with the I Ching, the Tarot and other arcane sources. After finding a base in London, he settled into a lifestyle of decadent austerity – living on whiskey, wine, strong American cigarettes, black coffee, and the occasional pizza.[i]

With his Cornish wife Pip, an artist and designer, Asa founded the Trigram Press in 1965, the same year that the International Poetry Incarnation was held at the Albert Hall. The initial purpose of the Incarnation was to showcase Allen Ginsberg in the largest performance space in London. Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti happened to be around so the event developed into an intersection of American and British Beat, Black Mountain College and post-Beat Underground poetry (with a few hip Europeans and a Cuban included for good measure). An audience of about 7000 turned up for an exuberant stoned word-rave, which may have gone off organisationally half-cocked but succeeded in rousing the spirits of England’s tentative alternative society.

Iain Sinclair’s later appraisal of the event noted that what the audience came for were simplistic poetic ‘formulations’ like those from Adrian Mitchell rather than the visionary ravings of Harry Fainlight. ‘What they wanted, as ever, was a protest prom, Poetry as CND sloganeering.’[ii]

Much of the material for Trigram’s publications would arrive through the transatlantic poets’ network, producing collections by Piero Heliczer, Tom Raworth, Anselm Hollo, David Meltzer, and Jonathan Williams. Asa would have hated for Trigram’s books to be judged simply on appearances, but between him, Pip and his stepson Paul, the publications were aesthetically beautiful –  ‘audacious, elegant and legible’ – in the words of Jeff Nuttall, one of Asa’s friends and another poet that he published. You could say the content had a lot to live up to and vice versa, and it partly did so through Asa’s choice of artists and writers who worked in what he called ‘acute conditions of exile, living and thinking on the edge of society.’

     Jack Hirschman, an old friend from Benveniste’s Bronx childhood, caught up with him in London, where they discovered a mutual interest in a poetry involving esoteric investigation and divination. Hirschman described Asa’s technique as ‘Bop Kabbala’, borrowing a term from Ginsberg.[iii]

Benveniste later said that the ten years he spent engaged in studies of ‘Kabbalistic congruities’ was a dark period in his life and as a corrective, he moved on to poetry that relished the ‘silliness’ of domestic life – and in this he had uncovered a ‘complex comedy of language.’[iv]

In Benveniste’s presence, you could sense his edgy intensity about words and their disposition. Michael Schmidt, publisher of the international poetry imprint Carcanet, described him as frightening to be around. But there was an undeniably sensitive side, one that came out in the company of old friends. Once, after a long afternoon of wine and jazz, when recollecting the writer B.S. Johnson, he began to weep. Johnson had committed suicide in 1973, aged 40, partly because of what he regarded as an insufficient appreciation of his literary genius. Trigram had published a collection of his poetry and, for the only time, a novel, House Mother Normal.

After his death, Johnson developed something of a cult following – readers who have proved to be almost as devoted as Sylvia Plath’s but with only a  fraction of the numbers. His poetry is less well regarded than his often confessional  novels and self-interrogating short films. Even so, he was the Transatlantic Review ‘s poetry editor and a critic for Ambit. On the publication of Ariel, Plath’s first posthumous collection, he was entranced, sensing levels that would take years to fully understand. In fact, he appears to have been confounded by many of the poems, out of his depth, and declared that any review that he or anyone else wrote would be ‘irrelevant, unimportant and useless: the book simply is.’ There were some poems he found  ‘overwhelmingly moving’ but regarded them, too simply, as the results of Plath’s ‘disastrous personal crisis’.[v] The tragic immortality that Plath achieved, post-Ariel, may have crossed his mind that day as he sat in his bath with a razor and a bottle of brandy.

Trigram became one of the crucial publishers of the British Poetry Revival, an establishment-shaking movement that first stirred around 1960 and perhaps ended in 1977. Largely ‘conducted’ by the critic, poet and professor Eric Mottram, the Revival could be crudely said to have encouraged poets to take risks and defy conventions. Slightly less crudely, it was a making of poems that listened to themselves rather than duplicating the received forms and tones of how poetry was supposed to be. We’ll never know what Plath might have thought of it, but Hughes was sometimes happy to mingle in the Revival’s rough little magazines.

Al Alvarez, who was the influential poetry editor of The Observer for 10 years, was unimpressed. He had launched his own revision of the British poetry agenda in 1962 with the Penguin anthology The New Poetry, where Hughes featured as a leading light. Because of their influence on his chosen native poets, Alvarez bent the rules to allow in two Americans, Robert Lowell and John Berryman. They played to his idea that the impersonality and ‘gentility’ that prevailed in English poetry was holding it back; that there could be a direct connection between the poet’s life experience (‘sometimes on the edge of disintegration and breakdown’) and the poet’s work. In the 1964 second edition, he shrewdly included Plath and Ann Sexton.

The New Poetry was a studied approach to upgrading The Movement, an exclusively English faction of poets from the 1950s that opposed the ‘excesses’ of American-style Modernism, including its ambiguity, showy word-play, and metaphysics – particularly as they saw it practiced by the ‘pretentious’ Dylan Thomas.

Interviewed in 1962, Plath had cited Thomas as one of the poets she most admired, along with William Butler Yeats and, increasingly, William Blake. Contemporary English poetry she found to be in a ‘straitjacket’ and supported Alvarez’s complaint about the inhibitions of ‘gentility’. The poet peers who excited her most were American, such as Sexton and Lowell, especially his ‘intense breakthrough into very serious, very personal, emotional experience, which I feel has been partly taboo.’[vi]

Taboo and excess were what the British Poetry Revival thrived on and was, from its origins, willingly American infected. It revelled in academic disapproval, was adept at self-publishing and circulation, welcomed a spectrum of regional and socially diverse voices, and was unrestrained in subject or form. It was also (somewhat) more open to female poets than the preceding literary movements, groups or coteries. For Alvarez it was a continuation of the Beat Generation, whom he scorned for the drugs and cult of personality (Ginsberg) – ‘…instead of using their art to redeem the mess they had made of their lives…served the mess up uncooked and called it poetry.”[vii]

          ‘Howls of protest heard from the shires at this unwanted double influx of domestic experimentalists and Americans,’ was how Ken Edwards, one of the Revival’s leading voices, explained the outcome of what came to be called The Poetry Wars. The Arts Council of Great Britain cleared the rabble out of the Poetry Society and took back control (from Mottram) of The Poetry Review, the Society’s magazine. Mainstream presses and the academies were reconfirmed as gatekeepers between the big top and the avant-garde sideshow, with its mountebanks and freaks. A number of Arts Council grants were withdrawn, including Trigram’s, and Benveniste began to spend more days at his typewriter.[viii]

The first time he came to Heptonstall was in the early 1980s having been invited by the Arvon Foundation to lead a residential course at Lumb Bank. The surrounding area was no longer the ghost vale once pictured by Ted Hughes. Its regeneration followed an influx of artists, writers, academics and creative staffers from regional television companies, attracted by low-cost but characterful housing. Migrants also included a Hippy diaspora more interested in the vacant, easily squatted, no-cost housing. The resulting countercultural, artistic mix was the foundation of a café life, antiques & retro, craft-making, organic / artisan food, Lesbian / Gay business community that slowly boho-charmed the rundown town of Hebden Bridge into a visitor destination.

With his new partner, Agneta Falk, Benveniste  found a house in Hebden, set up the ground floor as a bookshop and mostly stocked it from his own library. The Poltroon Press publisher Alistair Johnston came to Heptonstall in 1982 – pursuing a project to collect selfies at famous poets’ graves. For fun he also photographed Asa, crouching behind Plath’s headstone like a Kilroy-was-here imp.[ix]  This clowning  was purely for the camera, not a mockery of her work or its advancement into the canon – not even a jest in the direction of Plath’s attendant faithful. And only eight years later, he was buried in a plot only a few paces away.

The elegies that followed his death, on 13 April 1990, included one by Roy Fisher[x], a poem that concludes with a jazzy eye-witness report of the cortege of outsider poets, artists and actors who attended Heptonstall Church for a celebratory performance – and then the bacchanalian wake with ‘barrelhouse music’, and where the clocks were not the only things that became seriously ‘unhitched’.

In contrast, Plath’s funeral had been short and sombre. A small service in a Hebden Bridge undertaker’s chapel was followed by another in Heptonstall Church. In attendance were Hughes, his father, a few family members, and two friends from London. From Plath’s side came only her brother Warren and his wife.

The most basic death notices had appeared in the London press, with the pointed exception of  “A Poet’s Epitaph” by Alvarez in the Observer. Alongside three of Plath’s most recently completed poems he described the state of mind that had produced them, suggesting that this had drawn her to a certain fate. Whilst writing ‘almost as if possessed’ she had concentrated on, what he believed, was a ‘narrow violent area, between the viable and the impossible, between experience which can be transmuted into poetry and that which is overwhelming.’

Four months earlier, in an interview for the BBC, Plath had also discussed ‘experience’ being the subject of her latest poems, but as something she felt confident and happy about. Even if drawn from highly ‘sensuous and emotional experiences’ she expected to control the ‘most terrific’ ones, even ‘madness’ or ‘being tortured’, and be able to ‘manipulate these experiences with an informed and an intelligent mind…’.[xi]

As far-flung as Heptonstall then seemed from the contemporary world, once Ariel had been published, it didn’t take long for her burial site to attract visitors. After almost 60 years, thousands (from every part of the world) have been, some of them making repeat trips. With a modest published output (four slim poetry collections, one novel, collected stories, and journals – later added to with ‘Selected’ and ‘Collected’ editions, diary pages and letters she might rather have kept to herself)[xii] Plath eventually became what waggish publishers’ accountants call ‘an industry’. The bulk of material has come from others – multiple biographies, documentaries, a biopic, essays, enough theses to choke a library, conferences, seminars, festivals, encyclopaedia entries and other devotions. And, to her mother’s displeasure, her grave not only came to be treated as a shrine, but one that more obsessive devotees thought they were entitled to an opinion about.[xiii]

Regarding the confiscation of Plath’s life and work, her daughter Frieda made herself clear in the poem  “Readers”. ‘While their mothers lay in quiet graves / Squared out by those green cut pebbles / And flowers in a jam jar, they dug mine up.’  And then, ‘They scooped out her eyes to see how she saw, / And bit away her tongue in tiny mouthfuls / To speak with her voice.’[xiv]  With more detachment, the poetry critic Christina Patterson called, ‘The sanctification and widespread appropriation of Sylvia Plath…one of the more peculiar cultural phenomena of the 20th century.’[xv]

There are those who, in the Calvinist, desiccating vocabulary of Theory-speak, lithe and nuanced as a coroner’s report, conscript Plath’s writing as testament for a certain, cold-blooded form of Feminism. Mostly, this demonstrates how much a language of formulae can only degrade a language of spells –  the creation of which relies on passion, instinct, and chance.

 

This is an extract from The Wind Pours By Like Destiny – Sylvia Plath, Asa Benveniste and the Poetic Afterlife, published by Unbalanced Books.

 

Images list: Asa Benveniste (date, location and photographer unknown), Benveniste’s grave in Heptonstall, Trigram Press advertisement in Ambit magazine (#58, 1974), Cover of Black Alephs by Jack Hirschman, cover design by Wallace Berman – published by Trigram, 1969, Aggie Falk and Asa Benveniste outside their bookshop in Hebden Bridge, Asa Benveniste at Sylvia Plath’s grave (both photos 1982 and courtesy of Alistair Johnson), Heptonstall, a cover image of Remains of Elmet by Ted Hughes, photo by Fay Godwin. Fay was once the wife of Tony Godwin, owner of Better Books in London, where English underground culture, including its poetry, was largely alchemized in the 1960s.

 

 

[i] Jeremy Reed, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Asa Benveniste and Trigram Press, Shearsman Books, Bristol 2016. p.13.

[ii] Iain Sinclair, Lights Out For The Territory, Granta Publications, London, 1997. p.132.

[iii] Jack Hirschman, “Kabbala, Communism and Street Level Poiesis” in Mysticism and Meaning, ed. Alex S Kohar, Three Pines Press, St Petersburg, Florida, 2019. p.61.

[iv] Asa Benveniste, “As a Valediction”, Throw Out the Lifeline, Lay Out the Course, Anvil Press, London, 1983. p.7

[v] B.S. Johnson, “Sylvia Plath’s Ariel”, a review in Ambit, 24, 1965.

[vi] Interviewed by Peter Orr for the BBC series The Poet Speaks on 30 October 1962.

[vii] Al Alvarez, The Writer’s Voice, Bloomsbury, London, 2005. p.105.

[viii] Ken Edwards, UK Small Press Publishing since 1960: The Transatlantic Axis, writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/edwards/edwards_press.html

[ix] poltroonpress.com/dead-poets/

[x] Roy Fisher, “At the grave of Asa Benveniste”, in The Long and the Short of It – Poems 1955-2010, Bloodaxe Books, Tarset, Northumberland, 2012. pp.193-4.

[xi] Interviewed by Peter Orr for the BBC series The Poet Speaks on 30 October 1962.

[xii] There were also some small children’s books, including The Bed Book and a number of limited editions. The Collected Poems won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize.

[xiii] Author’s interview with Frances Bruce, a former director of Calder Civic Trust, 12.02.22. The Trust had been contacted and asked if the path to Sylvia Plath’s grave could be signposted. The Trust wrote to Aurelia Plath for her opinion. In reply she objected to anything of the kind. Although she understood people wanting to see where her daughter was buried and that her writing and her life were ‘public’, the grave was ‘private’ and for the family.

[xiv] Frieda Hughes, “Readers”, POP! The Poetry Olympics Poetry Anthology, ed. Michael Horovitz, New Departures, London, 2000.  pp.64-5.

[xv] Christina Patterson, “In search of the poet”, The Independent, 6 February 2004.

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Old Woman 2023

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe-
box-sized flat, damp and full of black mould.

She had little money, couldn’t pay for gas,
her unheated home was horribly cold.

She developed a cough, became very ill,
called for an ambulance but she’s waiting still.

She didn’t have broth, she didn’t have bread
no visitors came and she died in her bed.

 

 

Tonnie Richmond is a retired local government officer who has spent the last couple of decades as a volunteer archaeologist, working on digs in Cheshire and on Orkney. Many of her poems reflect her archaeological experiences and love of Orkney. She has had poems  published by Yaffle, Dragon/Yaffle, Driech, Leeds Trinity University and others. She is currently working on her first collection.

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Fire in the Wire (episode eight)

Steam Sock

 

 

Tracklist:

 

Lloyd And Devon – Push Push
Sir Lord Comic – Ska-ing West
Burning Spear – Tradition
Keith Hudson – Darkest Night on a Wet Looking Road
John Holt Sister – Big Stuff
Dennis Alcapone – Teach the Children
L. Crossdale – Set Me Free
Ken Boothe – Set Me Free
Barrington Levy – Under Mi Sensi
Justin Hinds and the Dominoes – Carry Go Bring Come
King Sporty – For Our Desire
Randy’s Allstars – Mission Impossible
Chosen Few – Shaft
The Skatalites – A Shot in the Dark
The Victors – Reggae Buddy
Fabulous – Five Inc Arab Skank
Elizabeth Archer & The Equators ‎– Feel Like Making Love
Bob Marley and the Wailers – Sellassie is the Chapel
Jackie Mittoo, Errol Brown and Pablove Black – After Christmas
George Dekker – Foey Man

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Cosmic

Reaching Heavens beyond Heavens, these are not the extremities of the Universes. Between point and point these are not the voids of all knowledge, yet to the Spaces within Space and the Formed whole beyond Space, these reach near to the Perfect Heart of Love – yet come no closer than a Goat to a Pyramid.

Shall Searchers and Seekers be pleased that they know a little about the Whole, or presuming they know all of the Whole, which can be but little?

Sore are my days of wandering and dreaming; heavy are my hours with Time known, for time has the fragrance of Eternity, yet it has escaped into its own shortcomings – for all creatures who know Time, know nothing.

Let me then know not time, so that I might search a little closer to the Light. Grave valleys, foul fiends haunt the lower regions of Timelessness, closest to this Earth. Beyond are the parallels of elevated Normality, where even the speck of desert-wind-borne dust tells all its secrets. Beyond this the image of water rises clear for me, then onto Fire like a burning bush – for Air replaces this, and all elements become grounded and intertwisted with an Earth as yet unknown, beyond the reach of this Earth’s denizens. And still only a fraction of nothingness’ only a second of a second has whispered, then seeming stopped.

Beyond these Liturgies of Elements – what next?

The Hum of atoms and stars, the whistling of unseen seas, beyond the colours of the rainbow, tinselled with sapphires, running wet with red emeralds, crystal clear and dark as pearls – is all this gemset Heaven? Here music is born and song is the speech of angelic beings, light moss and old marble temples – dancing figures move and weave. All those who have progressed from ageless Time; here they haunt and roam and find their homes, for they live in a grain of dust.

Then on to the colour of Saffron where the Buddha lies, with words formed and being still – bespeak of all miracles and trivialities. All wonders with these Temples of Grace! Are they not fairer than all Man knows, or even Angels? And yet ’tis still an age when there should be no age. How devoid are we, how can we search, do we know the limits of our Mortality? Can we guess, and shall we ever reach on to the Nucleus of our heads’ crowning glories, still knowing it is perfection, yet not an inch near Divinity?

To Go Beyond the Frontiers of Time

Beyond the lands of dream divisions, beyond the scope of memory revoked, beyond the recorded heritages of nations, beyond the light of stars, lies the frontier of Time. Time transposed, so quiet it becomes a lake – then, shrinking, this lake becomes a small stream; then, from a small stream, it becomes a bubble laden with air; then one is beyond Time. Time is an abstract device formed by the heralding armies of the Sons of the Stars. To guide and guard Man they laid down decrees – in some ages Time was a rigid thing, in others much freer.

But that time was a necessary device will be explained: As you erect a fence to stop the offspring of cattle falling into a ravine, so the bounds of this limitation were set upon Man. As its Mother Religions were formed, yet mostly this served as but a blind cow that might unwittingly take its offspring to the ravine, and then jump in with it. So religions decreased, and shall do so until there is no religion except that of Man within Brother Man. This is the Truth.

Beauty, shaded by butterfly wings, takes on the semblance of stone arms when the Ungodly look upon her. But when Man with Man as Man looks upon her, then the gauzy film drops away until untold splendours show themselves. But time likewise guards Beauty, so that in some ages she sleeps and in others becomes abundant. She will not show herself in her entirety until Man becomes Man as Man with Man.

 

Joy Sheridan

 

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‘The Hijacking of Green’: From Beauty & Biodiversity to Fakery & Fascism

 

As many people must now realise, the word ‘Green’ has been hijacked.

It used to mean ‘natural’, ‘diverse’, ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘human scale’.

That was while bona fide ecologists still held sway over the way the word was used.

‘Green’ meant taking a responsible position concerning the management of planetary resources; having empathy for nature, fertility, ecological food and community involvement.

But then in 1992, ‘The Earth Summit’ (Rio Summit) happened, along with ‘Agenda 21’. And something called ‘Sustainable Development’ became the catch-all promotional spin to sell the prescribed medicine. The deception.

That was the beginning of the end of the ‘Real Greens’ and the arrival of the corporate, banker-backed ‘Fake Green’ agenda we live with today.

The central component of the scam was, of course, ‘Global Warming.’

Let’s remind ourselves. At first it was called ‘The Greenhouse Effect’, then ‘Global Warming’ and then ‘Climate Change’.

Polar ice cap doomsday theorists, like ex US Vice President Al Gore, came and went. But the ice didn’t.

In Britain the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sought to spearhead the ‘Stop Global Warming’ crusade.

IPCC gave lucrative contracts to around 2,000 scientists with instructions to produce a computer modelled climate graph which would show almost unstoppable ‘warming from CO2’….unless..

‘Unless’ strict measures were taken to – over a number of years – stop countries burning any more than their appointed allowance of fossil fuels. With ‘carbon fines’ imposed on those who did not conform.

Welcome – operation “He who controls the climate agenda controls the world.”

‘Green’ became a word conveying the opposite of its original meaning. From being a pro human, pro ecological symbol – it became a symbol of Corporate Green Fascism.

This was verified by Klaus Schwab, head of The World Economic Forum, in his 2020 Davos announcement of ‘The Great Reset’; an industrialist/banker led agenda with origins in The Club of Rome and Bilderberger groups of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s.

Two leading components of the Great Reset are ‘Green New Deal’ and ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’.

The omega point of the great Davos fanfare was/is ‘Zero CO2 by 2040’.

But please note, CO2 is depicted in ubiquitous media photographs, as smoking factory chimneys. But that has little or nothing to do with CO2. It is nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, water vapour and diverse particulates that form the chief components rising up out of those chimneys. There is nil science on display here. Except the science of the lie. The CO2 lie.

Zero CO2 quite literally means ‘no air to breathe’, as plant life depends upon carbon dioxide to provide the oxygen we breathe.

Mr Schwab is also pleased to tell us that ‘in order to save the world’ mankind is to lose its human identity and become a digitally programmed cyborg by 2030. An extension of a super computer programme. A ‘Transhuman’.

His chief advisor, Israeli professor Yuval Noah Harari, says “We will do better than God.”

In the meantime, transgenic/genetically modified food is announced as the future of the human diet.
To include synthetic foods produced from animal cells in laboratory petri-dishes and vegetables grown in vertical hydroponic greenhouses that use no soil. Just water and chemicals. This by 2030.

“Man must not be allowed to do any further harm to the environment” say the fake Greens. Instead, thousands of years of traditional ways of working the land must be phased-out in a single decade.

So, under ‘Green New Deal’ farmers will become redundant, their work taken over by robots. And farm animals, accused of being ‘methane polluters’ will go with them.

Redundant farmers and disenfranchised country dwellers are to be herded into digital 5/6G powered ‘Smart Cities’ to survive on a diet of insects and synthetic meat, synthetic dairy and synthetic vegetable products.

I report this as fact, since Klaus Schwab wrote it in his book ‘The Great Reset’, as well as appearing in somewhat edited form, on the World Economic Forum website.

So ‘Green New Deal’ is simply the contrived reaction to the contrived ‘Global Warming-end-of-the-world’ scare story. A story with not a trace of empirical science to back it up.

CO2 ‘the gas of life’ at just 0.04% of atmospheric content, was chosen to be the scape goat for a totalitarian planetary take-over, a fear based brain washing exercise.

An exercise to cow humanity into believing the end of the world is coming unless…..

Unless we embrace a totalitarian New World Order in which all private property is to be transferred into the hands of ‘the dictatorship’, ensuring that “You will have nothing, and you will be happy.” (Klaus Schwab)

Let us remind ourselves once again of the Great Green Deal ‘Save the World’ message: “For a Zero Carbon future, the world must end its dependency on fossil fuels. All energy must be renewable”.

But had anyone done their homework before this ’saviour pronouncement’ was made?

Seems not; as the intense mining of minerals and the construction of tens of thousands of steel, concrete and aluminium wind generators, combine to consume more energy than they give back.

All this manufacturing, including photovoltaic, relies heavily on fossil fuels. The very ‘CO2 causing’ agent supposedly to be kept under the ground. A Green Agenda, Herr Schwab?

At the top of the cult’s pyramid, they know this. The plan has always been to keep the ‘elite’ well housed, well heated and well fed on organic foods.

Fossil fuels will not be phased out, but will be steadily priced out of the market for ordinary people.

Sadly, this is what the fake political and non governmental ‘Green movement’ has also adopted as its ‘ecological message’.

They have been bought-out. They followed the money and not their hearts or their heads.

They ended-up supporting ‘Sustainable Development’. The Rio Summit lie that has, up until now, fooled the world. And they recently adopted as their leader, none other than the newly enthroned monarch of the United Kingdom, King Charles III

But is this political, corporate and royal lie already falling apart?

The impositions of trade restrictions on Russia was supposed to give the West the political ‘moral high ground’. A chance to show how well the ‘green energy saviour plan’ would work in meeting the needs of citizens of the European Union, when gas, oil and coal supplies are cut-off or drastically curtailed.

But instead it appears to have caused a frenzied rush to reopen coal mines and buy as much gas and oil as possible from other parts of the world.

So where is the fossil-fuel-free ‘Green New Deal’ now?

In many ways Covid has been the sweetener for Green Deal enforcement at the ground level. It was supposed to get us used to living in fear and permanent acceptance of the autocratic behaviour of megalomaniacs preaching global destruction.

But quite a few of us didn’t buy it. Quite a few of us held firm to the bio diverse, ecological, Real Green agenda for a living breathing planet earth. Bravo!

But ‘we who didn’t buy it’ must do more than individually shout from the roof tops. We must now come together. We must present an impregnable thin red line against the attempted advances of the criminals running this planet.

We must hold the line for truth, wisdom, honour, and a future in which ‘Green’ regains its status as the true ecological sign post to a healed planet and a healed humanity.

 

Julian Rose

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. He is Co-founder of the Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology HARE https://hardwickalliance.org/ . Julian’s latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is strongly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Object in mechanism

Snakes had been let loose in his life
and cleared the surrounding area.

What was far had never been so close.
What was close proved unsafe for trespass.

Things fell apart when he touched them.
People seemed to melt away like soap.

Logbook entry:
Tomorrow we sail The Bitter Sweet.

On this day, Shelley orders his boat.
A fire is laid, letters sent. It was done.

Let us pray events find their level.
No one was blocking moves for a sequel.

Everyone knew that doors would soon
be opened by force, clearing every room

all the way down to Jericho.
Blow trumpets blow. The hunt is riding by,

the long road back a tangle of wire
on racks of signalling equipment from the last war.

Rolling news and screen crawlers lay eggs in minds
strung out like lightbulbs across makeshift settlements

each hatching creatures bright and cryptozoic.
You think you know where they’re coming from.

You collide with large objects in your sleep.
How much of this have you not seen before.

 

Tim Cumming
Pic: Rupert Loydell

 

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The Knife Thrower’s Assistant’s Recurring Dream

The radio plays thirteen Mexican angels in
The valley of the sun and she is not wearing
A blindfold. Her face feels naked, not nude.

She’s strapped to the spinning target, but it’s
His wife and not him whose hands blossom
With a bouquet of throwing knives and looking
At her with jealous eyes. Like daggers, she thinks.

She feels like wet silk that had been pulled
Too taut and might rip at any moment.
As she spins the sequins on her limbs sparkle
The ruby in her navel feels like a bulls-eye.

She wakes in her caravan and gets dressed in a
Hurry, packing her bag and departs without leaving
A goodbye note. In her next job she will be an
Aerialist or be fired from a cannon. Something safe.

 

Bill Lewis

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The Grain of Loss

It might have been becoming memorable
Cut short by minimal or confused expectations
Resolution in shade and form
Bustling quietude, the carriage full
Why not position the dye, the eye
Striking mural reaches off into the night
Which is not mine
Steep climb to incomprehension creep
If I could ease your mind
Were it not for this contorted trouble
Let me out let me in
What comes first around here
Can I trust you to an apple strudel
Push or pull or just revolve, through glass
A window on the world
Unseen since when and how
I wish the gators numeracy, still
You might not believe this
But this one comes in packs of 11
All unused until purchase
Look you in the eye becoming blink rate medicine
The oil ran out three days ago
They’ve cut the power lines
We are not intimidated
Many strategies to any play you game n’t
I’ll save one for you before ejection jump (cut)
You’ve done better than this
I remember Rome after storm and Venice sinking
In its fleshy pounds
What world was that
In its sorry unmagnitudes
You may not have looked, these firing blanks
And orange tear gas
As they lifted one away
I do believe it’s for the best
If we could sit down chewed fat shooting breeze
The clouds as operative as ever, Paganoni
The gods conspired against irresolution
Lost at sea with a soaked through map
Wireless lost
But let us not dwell on that
The zoo chimps plotting rebellion after a cuppa
Saw you that morning distance recoiling
Get me one of these before the lights might out
They’re playing that one again
Softening bricks bring the back beat down
Somehow I knew fading out
That you were not to be trusted with the stash
Which you kept sealed and back pocket
Let me illiberate that for you
The meaning is clear
He must go go and stay and rise upon fall oh
These were just places I’d never been
Only waiting on the step baby carriage hovering
Powers speak of reinforcement cabbage and granular
The peak period for pitting shelves put
As I said to myself
Maybe I will understand this and you
In a year or two
Or it may be muddled as ever
With your regrettable provenance
For self contradiction
And not stepping up to the mark
The worst that could be said
Oh but Buddha saves I felt it clearly
As the walls shuddered in quake
I have no time for this money
Even while I go there tomorrow
Pretending to move in black jacket
Ace and the two of spades reach petrifaction
Back when it was good
Back in 1919
The twentieth muse
Declaring mind blanks
And shameless submission
He knows all this as does he
Lying mirrors deceiving all upon semblance
Given that my adversary is of the undead
One must keep the talisman handy

 

 

Clark Allison

 

.

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The Art

The darkness
Also has a color
When the painting of desire
Meets the willful soul.
When the individuality
Walks the path of universality
One mantra
Becomes vocal.
No the aim is not forgotten
When tattered dreams
Don’t even have pockets.
To keep the notion,
To survive,
To be heard
Is to find space.
The sad face
Only takes dry tears to smile.
An existence is a survival tool
When manifestations do not lie.
We are who we are
To find a clue in life,
Is to be someone.

 

Sushant Thapa
Biratnagar, Nepal

 

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Needing trees…

Because they breathe out
We can breathe in.

And when we breathe out
They can breathe in again.

We make a perfect circle.

But it’s not so much
Mouth to mouth
Resuscitation:

More an everlasting kiss.

 

 

 

 

Kevin McCann
Photo Nick Victor

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Innovations in Inertia

 

Only actions matter and we’re languishing in grey water. We’ve plans for papering cracks and managing inherited change, but but but soon we’ll hear the sound of gunfire, fireworks, and workmen arriving to dismantle the last remaining principles we have taken for granted. We’ve strategies for drawing down the Sun and dressing it in tried and trusted weeds, and we’ve bullet points for step-by-step step-changes in the way we get things done. Grey water is cold but comforting, and although there once were beautiful boats, with carved rails and billowing sails, this will do. This will do. Remember beautiful boats? Remember? They go without saying, they said, and there was no saying – and they went. Plans for curved keels came to plans for folded paper. There was gunfire in the night, there were fireworks as the Sun shed its comfy togs, and workmen arrived to whistle through their teeth at the potential cost of doing nothing. We wash our faces in grey water. Three words: only actions matter. Three words: but but but.

 

 

 

Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor

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Garage Boys

He had me training since I was young. So young I didn’t know any better.

He had me training in the basement of old an old nightclub. We trained on those blood, sweat, tears and spit flavoured mats, punch bags, focus pads and kick shields; we all fucking loved it!

Most of them were older than me, although my dad was the instructor; they treated me like any other student in the club and kicked my head in.

He would also take me to other clubs to train with their students and I remember one club had a logo: We’re not perfect, but we’re so close, it scares us!

I remember beating some of their best and my dad and their instructor laughed together looking back at me to say: FUCK HE’S GOOD!

I disconnected from my dad and his training. I was twelve then and I needed a little more out of life for a while.

Then a few years later I would come back but it was out of fear.

I got jumped one night, but the fucker who started it: I hit him so fucking hard that when he hit the floor he was half-knocked-the-fuck-out! I was about to finish it with a boot in the face until his friend stepped in and said he would stab me if I did it!

I didn’t want to get stabbed as I watched his friends helping him up, then someone shouted: RUN!

So I ran home, I never wanted to be jumped like that again. So I decided the next day to get bigger, stronger, more powerful and fitter, so no one could even last a minute or even a few seconds with me standing up or on the floor!

That’s when I met my dads Garage Boys.

This was sick training. It was a mixture of dirty boxing, dirty wrestling, powerlifting, long distance running and we all ate six times a day.

I immersed myself in this new life, like a bat hidden in a cave, so I could live it, breathe it, piss it and shit it!

We literally spent every night in there. We pissed into empty water bottles. People used to walk passed the garage every night thinking we were murdering each other and in a way we were.

My dad and me reconnected again. It was good and he could see after a short time I was getting fucking good… even better than him!

One time I was giving a few tips to some of his students to help them hit harder or lift more and he asked me to not undermine him in front of his students.

That’s how good I was getting, and he knew it!

So a year later he handed them over to me like it was a gift. That was a big honour for my dad to do that. He knew I was training outside the club with ex-bouncers and ex-army men who were just vicious bastards!

They would tell my dad at these training sessions: your son is so fucking good that it even scares us! They continued: if he gets into a scrap with someone – they’re gonna die!

About a year later, I bumped into that fucker who started that fight a few years before. He was walking towards me and he was on his own. He just sprinted off in another direction because I was too big of a threat to him!

I could see that in him and I could see it in women and even children when I walked passed them, trying to protect themselves from the ugliness I created in physical form.

I needed to change this, so I started reading books on philosophy and spirituality and psychology etc.

I came across a man who was a Yogi, who sat with the likes of Gandhi, eating food and praying together.

I came across a system that was all about cleaning yourself with a mantra. It was called Ho’oponopono, and they said: please forgive me, I’m sorry, thank you, I love you.

So I started practicing these forms. I started to shrink and lose the ugliness like I was a fat person losing weight.

I gave up the Garage Boys, and gave up on my training completely. My dad was furious!

He didn’t speak to me again for a few weeks. Then he asked me: what are you gonna do with your life now? I said: I’m gonna be a poet.

Then we disconnected again, like pulling a plug out of the socket.

It didn’t matter anyways because a year later he left us because of my ‘fuck off if you’re not happy advice.’

It left my mum in despair. She came back after confronting him one night with a black eye.

He was staying at his mothers who lived up the road from our family home. I walked up early the next morning furious!

He was scared as he heard me come through the door. We stared at each other with both of our fists clenched for the fight.

I knew I could kill, and he knew it too!

I kept repeating to myself, as I closed my eyes into total darkness: I am the poet, I am the poet, I am the poet.

Then I heard an involuntary smack, then a gasp from his mother…

And I was still standing.

 

 

 

Paul Butterfield Jr

 

 

 

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HOLY GHOST THE LIFE & DEATH OF FREE JAZZ PIONEER ALBERT AYLER RICHARD KOLODA

Jawbone Press, London
Published November 2022
ISBN 9781911036937

I first heard of Albert Ayler when I was in my teens. In a full length feature in the NME, sometime between the release of Little Johnny Jewel and Marquee Moon, I read that Tom Verlaine practiced guitar by playing along to either Pablo Casals’ recording of the Bach cello suites, or to records by Albert Ayler.

I first heard Albert Ayler when I was at university. In those days, style tips and cultural references took time to follow up, or track down. I was able to pick up copies first of Witches and Devils, and then Spiritual Unity, and was able to read some of Leroi Jones’ early reviews. Casals was left for later life.

Spiritual Unity was a touchstone for years. Every time I moved, it would be the first record I played in a new house or flat. No other recording leapt from the speakers like that – the first bark of the tenor, Gary Peacock’s bass tolling like a bell, and the patter of Sunny Murray’s cymbals. It was a ritual – part cleansing of the space, part territorial scent marking, and a very practical measure for determining how much racket my new neighbours would be able to tolerate.

Ayler’s tone was remarkable – he was often quoted saying he wanted to get beyond playing notes on the saxophone to playing sound – partly explainable by his choice of an open mouthpiece and a hard reed. This drive to abstraction was anchored by tunes that seemed to evoke marching bands and spirituals – simple melodies that were worked over endlessly in the course of a piece.

Murray and Peacock weren’t really a rhythm section any more. As Murray told Val Wilmer  “I work for natural sounds rather than trying to sound like drums. Sometimes I try to sound like car motors or the continuous crackling of glass… not just the sound of drums but the sound of the crashing of cars and the upheaval of a volcano and the thunder of the skies.”

The visceral shock of Spiritual Unity makes it one of the best places to start listening to Ayler’s body of work, and helps you to understand how he stood out from the rest of the “new thing” in jazz in the early sixties. His style influenced John Coltrane’s direction in his last years.

Koloda’s book is trailed by the publisher as “the first extended study” of Ayler. Although, it must be said, other extended studies are available. Peter Niklas Wilson’s 1997 study was finally translated from German and published in English this year. Typical, you wait ages and then two come along.

Koloda has spent twenty years researching and writing his book. He isn’t a flashy writer and the book escapes the twin pitfalls of a lot of jazz writing – it isn’t a rehashed PhD or a written to order potboiler from a music journalist

I haven’t read Wilson’s book yet, but Koloda’s book does have some advantages that might put it on top. Koloda had an extended friendship with Albert’s brother Donald so had more opportunity to consult him over the years. The book does much to restore Donald’s reputation, and there were times when I wondered whether the book might have been better as a study of both brothers.

Koloda is eloquent but not intrusive in detailing the legacy of their upbringing on the mental health of the two brothers, but also able to show the importance of religion and the culture of the church in shaping their approach to music.

Koloda also scores because of the amount of archival research he has undertaken, particularly around the circumstances of Ayler’s death. His preface sets out his claim to correct the historical record around Ayler’s life and career – a claim which seems justified. Perhaps with the proviso however, that there is much about Ayler that is unknowable.

Friends and acquaintances contradict each other in their recollections, and there is little extant record of Ayler’s own voice and views. His recorded legacy shows very rapid stylistic development. This is described by some as patchy and inconsistent, and his music is often described as primitive. This deficit based default has some roots in racism, and the overall lack of seriousness in much jazz criticism.

Ayler’s upbringing was middle class and he was well educated. All the accounts which Koloda gathers demonstrate Ayler’s technical skills and his ability to play conventionally – contradicting the narratives of Ayler’s life which have portrayed him as some sort of outsider artist.

Nonetheless, Koloda doesn’t gloss over some of the shortcomings – the personality issues and pragmatism which led to him recording whenever he was able, rather than being able to plan and curate his work. His green leather suit was his calling card and brand identity, but he never enjoyed a sufficiently settled domestic or financial situation to take a more considered approach to how his music was presented.

The book is structured rather conventionally with early chapters on Youth, The Army, and Scandinavia, but thereafter proceeding album by album. This isn’t the disadvantage it might seem, as Ayler’s albums have had a chequered history of being renamed and reissued – often with inaccurate track titles. Instead, you are able to follow his development chronologically and contextually – what, when and who. Koloda isn’t given to opinionating and is able to use contemporary critical debates to help us understand the reception of Ayler’s music and its burgeoning cultural significance.

The broad arc of Ayler’s life and work was well summarised in twenty or so pages by Val Wilmer in As Serious As Your Life. Although in some ways Koloda cannot add to this narrative, the care and seriousness with which he has approached this biography means that it will repay reading and provides a useful and comprehensive reference work. The bibliography and end notes are exhaustive, but it is a real shame that the book is not indexed.

Ayler’s work is still emerging in some senses – Revelations was released this year and contained previously unissued work, and ezzthetics are busily making unissued and previously unofficial releases available again with the cooperation the Ayler family and estate. While a discography might have been a useful resource in this book, it might have dated sooner than the rest of the book will.

 

Stuart Riddle

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Veganorganism

Despite my carnivorous nature
sometimes those vegan demons
possess me & make me
cook & eat healthy
& often organic
at times struggle & resist
& only brought to
vegetarian status
when the poltergeists
are exorcised
take my revenge
chunks of meat
simmer them until
they are pale
douse soy sauce
& tell those
leftist liberals
it’s tofu !!!

 

 

 

 

Pictures and words
Terrence Sykes

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Love is salt…

All of my life
I used the salt
to replace
you,
Love…

And more I put
the salt
above

the food, the brain…
the more I gain…
into the body
fluids,
bubbles,
butterflies…
All types of Pain…

And more I gain
as ballon type fish…
as Love I couldn’t live…

And all the love
I couldn’t give,
through life…
I kept inside
as Water and the Wind…
To put them over Fire Knife,
That’s why I have a thousands
years Life…

As Magic Flower Love,
I live Forever,
giving
my beauty flower leaves,
by smell,
by look,
by breeth…
some other couples to create
the Beath…

And here today
All of a sudden
I stop to use
The Salt,
instead of Love…

And I can really feel
and smell,
and breeth
as free of nest
bird, as a Flower…
And I am over streets…

Now I don’t dream to fly…

I simply do…

The salt is love…

My horse, my wind,
my Dragon prince!

I am the Flower of the Prince,
your magic flower
with the Wing!
I am the future Queen
who rule the Wind!

 

 

 

Dessy Tsvetkova
Picture Nick Victor

 

 

10.12.22

I love you more than salt,
my prince!

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The Insiders Outsider Vol 5

 

Caffeine

Busy brain, bossy brain,

busy busy bossy brain.

Bossy brain, busy brain,

busy busy bossy brain.

Bossy, busy, busy bossy,

Bossy, busy, bossy brain.

Brain brain, busy brain,

Bossy, busy bossy brain

Busy brain, bossy brain,

bossy busy, bossy brain.

Brain brain, busy busy

Bossy brain brain.

Busy busy bossy brain.

Bossy busy busy brain.

Brain brain busy brain.

Busy, busy bossy brain. 

 

 

 

Guthrie

The Native American softly sings ‘This Land is Your Land’ whilst sweeping up the cigarette butts outside the casino.

 

Mid-Morning Sherry, and Other Unfashionable Behaviours

Agatha, a women with purpose, walks in to what remains of the public library, taking long, sure strides. The sight of the job centre furniture annoys her instantly, as it always does. She cried in seventy three when the council modernised. It still smarts fifty years on. Arriving in front of the desk, she tuts loudly.

The librarian, (if you can call him that, in his American sweat shirt and jeans), greets Agatha without bothering to look up. He felt her coming. A pile of books comes crashing down on to the desk, with a deadening thump. Demanding the librarian’s attention. Calmly placing his pen on the desk in front of him, exhaling, the librarian raises his face. ‘Ms Warren-Smith, what delight to see you again.’

Agatha, her chin held firmly aloft, reminds the librarian that sarcasm is ‘the refuge of scoundrels’. The librarian smiles. Here begins the weekly ritual of dry humoured banter followed by a book list slipped across the desk. (Ms Warren-Smith’s continuing home studies are often discussed in the back room. Apparently, she reads a book and chooses three titles from the references in the said book, ordering them the following week. Like a rabbit through a hillside, she tunnels through information. Absorbing the knowledge of others to take to her own, workshop like mind.

The librarian studies the list, telling Ms Warren-Smith that he will order them for her. In return, Ms Warren-Smith asks, (knowing the answer will be to the negative), if any of the titles are on the shelves. ‘No’, replies the librarian, allowing Agatha to feel the warm rush of satisfaction she feels whenever modernity let’s her down. Assuring her sense of superiority in a world of useless men that had made such a ‘bally mess of things’. (A fact attested to by the majority of her male ancestors loosing their lives on foreign battlefields).

Standing up, the librarian turns to collect the books Ms Warren-Smith had previously ordered. Turning back to place them next to her ‘returns’. Quite quietly with little intention, as he lifts the returns from the desk, he utters, ‘these can be placed on the returns shelf next to the self service point’. Wincing in anticipation of the coming response.

Agatha’s anti self service tirade is delivered with an articulate accuracy capable only with extensive rehearsal, ending with the line, ‘should the library service wish to pay me for my time, I shall be more than happy to perform the duty of a librarian’. At which she scoops up her pile of books, cradling them to her chest.

Popping himself back in to his chair, the librarian, quite jovially explains to Ms Warren-Smith, that today is, in fact, his day off and he has volunteered to come in for the day, free of charge, to ensure the library should stay open whilst two staff members are off sick. The library service not having the funds available to either pay him any over time or cover the cost of agency staff. A mute point, he goes on to explain, considering the public libraries have been designated ‘warm rooms’, for members of the public who are unable to meet the cost of heating their homes. The librarian then begins to tap away on his keyboard, before looking up at Ms Warren-Smith to deliver a cheery ‘ho-hum’. Grinning through tight lips. ‘oh, for goodness sake’, is all Agatha can muster. Exasperated, she turns to leave.

With her internal dialogue formulating a speech on the state of contemporary society, Agatha scans the room, noticing a collection of silver haired people hunched over paper cups. These must be the ‘warm room’ lot, she thinks to herself. Always keen to explore a fresh cultural phenomenon Agatha moves some way towards them.

Four tables have been pushed together to make a large table with eight chairs around it. Six of the chairs are occupied. Agatha winces to see four of the occupants publicly self harming with newspapers. The remaining two are staring in to space. None of them, she notes are reading a book. As with other first encounters, Agatha stands just back from the group, observing. Processing the information.

She sees a group of senior citizens brought together by the necessity of warmth. The library being a public building with a heat source and furniture is, in a very basic capacity, the ideal choice. Being society’s last remaining public building, not requiring the paying of an entrance fee. (Disregarding churches, of course, which are she thinks, ironically, always cold).

The library, to Agatha’s mind, is functioning to purpose, but it is municipal, with a bureaucratic ambience, offering little comfort. She tuts, shaking her head. ‘Surely society can do better than this’, she thinks to herself, as her internal dialogue sets to work devising solutions.

While Agatha assess  the scene, one of the ‘self harmers’, squints at her from across the table. Removing her reading glasses, she mouths, ‘Agatha Warren-Smith’ as she stands up to make her way around the table to where Agatha is standing.

‘Aggy?’ the women enquires, ‘Agatha Warren-Smith’. The sound of her name being spoken brings Agatha back from her thoughts. Blinking she looks at the woman and, without a hint of surprise, says, ‘Oh hello Bunty’, as if she had last seen her old classmate the other day, rather than when they’d left school sixty years before.

Bunty asks Aggy if she is going to join them at the table. With some affront, Aggy replies that ‘nothing could persuade her’. In fact, she was about to head to ‘The Lamb’, for a mid-morning sherry and a beef sandwich. Adding that she could see no reason why Bunty shouldn’t join her.

Shaking her head and looking horrified at the prospect of Aggy drinking at eleven thirty in the morning, Bunty declines. ‘Poppycock’, responded Agatha. ‘Sherry isn’t drinking, and anyway, it’s a perfectly civilised drink at a perfectly civilised time’. Going on to enquire as to whether Bunty had become one of these ‘Neo-Puritans’ she had read so much about. Before pointing out that Bunty was choosing to spend the day under fluorescent strip lighting in the company of the destitute, over a glass of sherry, by the fire, in a cosy pub with an old school chum. ‘Are you alright Bunty?’, she asked raising an eyebrow. Taking a look at the table, then another at Aggy, Bunty walks off to collect her things, and comes back to stand next to Agatha, in her overcoat, clutching her bag. Without another word, Agatha leads them from the library.

Cold air takes their breath away as the reach the street. Clouds streaming from their mouths. Agatha strides off in the direction of the pub as Bunty calls for her to stop. Letting Agatha know, that she can’t possibly walk that fast. Disgruntled, Agatha waits for Bunty to catch up before beginning the slow, shuffling walk to the end of the road.

Small talk and chitter chatter are of little interest to Agatha. Whilst Bunty remarks what a small world it is and how miraculous that the two of them should be reunited after all these years, Agatha, pragmatically deduces that it is a wonder that they have managed to not see one another, considering they both live in such a small town. More remarkable to Agatha is the fact that personal hardship had forced Bunty to be in the library, somewhere Agatha had visited on a weekly basis her entire adult life. Out of politeness Agatha decides against mentioning it and lets Bunty natter away. Choosing to interject with nods and affirmations when she feels they are needed.

Eventually, much to Agatha’s relief, the couple reach the door of the pub. Agatha pulls it open and a wave of warm, comfortable air washes over them. With a gentle push on the back, Agatha persuades Bunty in, suggesting that she take the table by the fire while Agatha goes to the bar to order drinks. Tony, the landlord is affable enough and before long Agatha is joining Bunty at the table, placing down two large schooners of sherry.

‘Isn’t that better? ‘, Agatha asks, hanging her coat on the back of her chair. Bunty grins. Not having seen each other for such a long time it is essential that a summery of their lives takes place. After a sip of sherry, (that she evidently enjoys), Bunty begins to tell her tale. After school she had gone to secretarial college, followed by a job in London, where she met her husband John, a civil servant. They had one son, Robert, who Bunty now, seldom sees. John and Bunty were married for thirty years in which time Bunty enjoyed the role of wife and mother. Finding the time to volunteer and fund raise for worthy causes. After John died, fifteen years ago, Robert persuaded Bunty to cash in John’s pension and made some ill-informed financial investments that came to nothing, leaving Bunty to survive on a meagre state pension. This latest energy crisis has really left her desperate, ‘hence Aggy finding her keeping warm in the library.’

Listening to Bunty’s story left Agatha feeling rather ashamed for having such good fortune. With reticence she shared her own tale. After school Agatha returned to her family’s estate in Kent, where she divided her time between studying and managing the estate with her father. When her father died at a hundred and four, both her elder brothers had already died, leaving Agatha as the sole heir. Seeing as none of her nieces or nephews were interested in running a country estate, she sold the old place, dividing the proceeds accordingly.

With her share, Agatha had bought a rather sweet, antiquated town house. With the remainder of the money she bought gold, burying it in her garden. Twice a year she digs a bit up and sells it for cash to keep her ticking over. ‘The great thing is Bunty, that it appreciates in value every day’. Agatha lifts her glass to make a silent toast before taking a sip.

Bunty asks if Agatha had ever been married, causing Agatha to scoff. ‘Good God no. Never found anyone worth the bother’. Bunty asks about love. To which Agatha replies that a good dog suffices. Causing Bunty to smile and remember a moment from their schooldays.

Tony arrives carrying a plated beef sandwich and two small side plates. Agatha orders another two glasses of sherry, (much to Bunty’s protest), and proceeds to divide the food on to the two smaller plates. Half a beef sandwich, a sprinkle of salad and a few crisps makes a tidy lunch. Bunty, having not experienced such luxury for some time, takes a moment to let her senses absorb the trappings of her good fortune, before tucking in.

Between mouthfuls Bunty finds it necessary to regurgitate the news. ‘Wasn’t this terrible’, ‘isn’t that awful’, ‘did you see this, did you hear that’, and ‘if it wasn’t for that terrible Russian’. Agatha sits listening, wondering if Bunty had any thoughts of her own. After five minutes she’s heard enough. ‘Cancel your direct debits’. Agatha barks across the table, with a mouthful of sandwich. Bunty sits agog, shocked by the unconnected outburst.

‘Stop paying the energy companies so much money, they don’t need it’. Bunty recoils slightly before replying that she ‘couldn’t possibly do that’, being afraid her supply would be disconnected, and ‘what would she do then?’ Agatha looks around the pub before leaning across the table to ask Bunty, ever so quietly, if she can keep a secret. Bunty, with a raised eyebrow, reminds Agatha that she can.

Agatha composes herself before asking Bunty how much she thinks Agatha pays for her gas and electricity. After a few moments of sifting through her brain to recall how much she pays, Bunty presents a monthly figure in excess of a hundred pounds. Agatha laughs, declaring that the sum total of her energy bills to be forty pounds a month. Bunty squints.

Agatha explains her method. When moving in to her new house she never arranged a direct debit, paying her energy bills over the counter at the post office. Some quarters she paid the full amount, other times not paying at all. Once a fairly substantial bill had been run up, the energy company took Agatha to court. Declaring to the court that she had no bank account and only a small annual income, Agatha explained that she was able to pay off her debt to the tune of twenty pounds a month and no more. As the offer had been made in court, the energy company were legally bound to accept it. Thus, Agatha pays them twenty pounds a month in arrears and twenty pounds on
her current bill.

Agatha sits back in her chair winking with her finger to her lips as Tony comes over with the sherry, asking if everything is OK with their food. Both women reply that all is well and nothing more is required. After they were sure Tony was

out of ear shot Bunty says in hushed tones that she could never do anything like that. Being much too scared to go to court. ‘There’s nothing to it’, declares Agatha, ‘It’s a process. All above board. Perfectly legal. You mustn’t let them bully you Bunty’.

         Agatha could see Bunty was glazing over, but it was too late, a diatribe of home spun philosophy was about to be unleashed. ‘The way I see it Bunty is, that should every member of the library’s ‘keep warm club’ hold back the price of a daily glass of sherry from their energy bills, and come here to stay warm rather than the library, not only would they feel more comfortable, they could also enjoy a sense of empowerment whilst doing their bit to help the landlord stay in business. Far more of an attractive proposition than throwing endless amounts of money in the bottomless pit of shareholder profits, don’t you think?’

Bunty wasn’t sure what to think. It was all just a bit confusing. If John was alive, he’d know what to do. The last time anyone explained anything to her about her finances, she’d ended up loosing a perfectly good civil service pension. Bunty explains to Agatha that She’d probably just carry on paying her direct debit, as she didn’t want the fuss. Going in to her reasons in lengthy detail, including a particularly detailed anecdote describing some of her sons rather unsavoury characteristics.

With Bunty waxing lyrical, Agatha’s mind wandered again. This time marvelling at the incredible success of societal hypnosis. Here was Bunty, an older woman, who had spent her lifetime absorbing mainstream rhetoric. ‘Do as your told, the government knows best, don’t step out of line or you will face unpleasant consequences’, terrified to act in order to improve her standing. All the while, the ones writing the rules disregard them as completely inapplicable to themselves, whilst considering those willing to obey unquestionably as fools. ‘It really is terribly unjust’, thinks Agatha.

When Bunty next draws breath, Agatha explains that she hadn’t been listening and that her mind had drifted off a bit. Anyway it was time to start thinking about getting home. Tapping the pile of books on the table next to her, she says, ‘More studying to do’

 
   

Bunty looks sad. Agatha asks Bunty if she knits. Bunty replies that she does. Opening her bag to reveal two balls of wool, a pair of needles and a tatty old pattern. ‘I’m making gloves for refugees’, she adds, lifting a limp, half knitted

mitten. ‘Good show’, says Agatha. ‘Maybe you’d be kind enough to come to my place and keep an eye on the fire for me, I’ve a terrible habit of letting it go out while I’m studying’.

Agatha sits quietly while Bunty vocalises the thought process that eventually leads her to agreeing to come for the afternoon and perhaps staying for tea. ‘It’s a marvel’, Agatha thinks to herself, smiling, ‘Bunty hasn’t changed a bit’.

 

 

 

 

This Truth Smells Like Cheese

 

British Banks daily earn

One hundred and ninety million pounds

In interest.

 

A mischievous look in your eye

Is worth more than that.

 

The Netflix production budget

for 2022

was twenty two and a half billion dollars.

 

The feel of your beating heart

Is worth more than that.

 

 

The assets of the British crown

Come to twenty eight billion pounds.

 

The laughter of the children

Is worth more than that.

 

The British government have set aside

Two hundred and seventy one billion pounds,

To spend on arms and warfare over the next ten years.

 

Your gentle, sleeping breath

Is worth more than that.

 

The net worth of Amazon

Is one point eight trillion dollars.

 

A single loving thought

Is worth more than that.

 

Global monies in the form

Of investments, derivatives

And crypto currencies,

Amount to one point three

Quadrillion dollars.

 

The sense of your touch

Is worth more than that.

 

 

 

Note to self

Neuroscience has come to an understanding that our perceived, subjective reality is formed through a neurological response to received sensory information. Have you absorbed anything nice lately?

 

 

b p r greenland

Walking Home 2022

 

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KIKI DEE & CARMELO LUGGERI: THEY’VE GOT THE MUSIC IN THEM

 

 

By ANDREW DARLINGTON

‘The Long Ride Home’ by
Kiki Dee & Carmelo Luggeri

(2022, Spellbound Recordings distributed by

Right Track/Universal)

 

‘View options? Allow? Launch Meeting? It’s not letting me click on anything!’ complains Carmelo.

‘I know, it’s a nightmare, isn’t it!’ agrees Kiki. But Zoom! adds a dimension above and beyond a telephone interview. ‘Yes, it does make a difference’ she agrees.

We are attempting to set up a Zoom! interview. Finally, I offer congratulations on the duo’s latest fine album collaboration, ‘The Long Ride Home’.

‘Thank you, thank you’ he says effusively. ‘Do you want to do us one at a time, or separately?’

‘Chat with me first… or both of us together? Whatever you like, Andrew’ says Kiki.

So we start at the beginning, a very good place to begin. With how does their partnership operate?

Kiki: We wrote all the songs together, yes. We met around 1995. We’d both been around the Pop-Rock industry a long time. And I think we’d both reached a point – separately, that we wanted to do some music without trying to be a ‘product’. If you get my drift? Without trying to get ‘the hit’ – you know? And so yes, we came together and we did some acoustic shows, and found that we really liked it, and we’ve just been going ever since.

Carmelo: Yes, we had a manager, a guy called Steve Brown. He discovered “Your Song” with Elton John many years ago and he worked with Elton for years. And he went way back with Kiki, and he got me involved on ‘The Very Best Of Kiki Dee’ (1994, Rocket 516-728-2) compilation producing a couple of ‘bonus tracks’, which is how we met (Carmelo produced two tracks “Love Is Everything” and Chip Taylor’s “Anyway That You Want Me”). Obviously, when I heard her I just thought ‘Wow! She’s amazing!’ It was Steve who encouraged us to write together. He was a kind-of mentor to us. He looked after Billy Connolly as well, then he left to form Tickety-Boo – his company (and label which issued the duo’s live album ‘Almost Naked’, 1995 and their ‘Where Rivers Meet’, 1998). Sadly, he died a few years ago, but it was him that sort-of set us on an alternative path, if you like, of doing what was true to us without worrying about whether it was going to go into the chart and what-have-you. And then we went from there really. So the first studio album we did (‘Where Rivers Meet’)… it took… every album seems to take two years, and that one has got everything on it. It’s got Indian orchestra, drones, flute, tabla, it was like a real east-west mix. For a while we toured with a tabla player – Pandit Dinesh, but when he went back to India for a while, we started doing shows on our own. We found the intimacy of that really worked. Particularly with the introduction of loop-pedals and all the rest of it, it frees me up to play over the top of it rather than just holding the rhythm down all the time. Yes – but I go back to Steve Brown, because, as Kiki has already said, we both came from band backgrounds really, and he knew me from other projects, and when we were doing a radio tour, just acoustic guitar and voice – and he said ‘there’s something happening when you’re together…’, he tried to get me to ditch the electric guitar – although I’ve re-introduced it a bit more on the last album, and we just kinda turned left, if you like, and we’ve just been walking that way ever since. In February it’s coming up to twenty-eight years I’ve been working with Keek, although we’ve only got four studio albums to show for it…

Kiki: …and two live albums!

Carmelo: But four studio albums! Although we love them. Because nothing goes out of the studio unless we absolutely love it.

Andrew: There’s pattering Indian percussion on “What You Wish For” on the current album.

Carmelo: There is. Dinesh features on one-and-a-half tracks. But it’s more drones, yes, the drones come in sometimes, but it depends on what you’re looking for in the songs, and in the production it’s the constant fishing game, you keep trying things out, and then something just hits you and you think ‘yes, that’s really good, that’s working.’ We invested in some latest string software. That was quite inspiring, to be able to get some really good string sounds. As you probably realise, that features every now and then.

Andrew: Is Kiki the primary lyricist?

Kiki: Yes.

Carmelo: I’m talking for her again – now, the thing is, you can edit me off later, whatever you like!

Kiki: (laughs) This is not radio! (her hand supports her chin as she leans forward).

Carmelo: The thing is, obviously, we’ve been working together a long time. Most people know Kiki as a singer. But if I said ‘oh, we split the songs,’ that’s a simplification, because she’s not just the lyric writer. Sometimes I’ll have a pretty ordinary-ish spark of an idea, and she’ll go in the studio and vocally turn my spark into something – ‘Oh! That’s so much better now!’ Kiki is an amazingly creative person. But we’ve never settled on one way of writing.

Kiki: It depends on the song itself. It might come from the title. It might come from – just as you say, a musical idea. But Carmelo is very good at vetting my lyrics and saying ‘oh, now that’s the direction you wanna go in, that’s the direction to take it. He’ll pick out a little gem, and I’ll go and finish the lyric.

Andrew: Kiki has worked in lots of different settings, from Music Theatre to The Kiki Dee Band.

Kiki: Yes. Yes. I’ve done it all, haven’t I!

Andrew: Is this duo setting the most satisfying for you?

Kiki: It is, in a sense. I was speaking to someone earlier – and most ‘heritage artists’, if you’re to see them, you know what you’re going to get. No-one’s ever got a clue what I’m going to be doing. Because it’s Kiki Dee & Carmelo Luggeri we’re able to tell people straightaway that it’s something that is not of the old Kiki Dee career. If that makes sense?

Carmelo: Although we do some Kiki songs live in the set. When I first met Kiki, and we started gigging, I said ‘Keek, if I came to see you, and I didn’t know you, I’d want to know what you’re going to do with ‘that’ song…

Kiki: What? “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”?

Carmelo: But there’s no way I was going to try to be Elton, or whatever! So I did an arrangement where it was slowed down, and Kiki sings it on her own, and it gives it a more mournful-but-soulful different aspect to it. And it satisfies that need. We still do a live “I’ve Got The Music In Me”, we still do “Amoureuse” – so, in between our stuff and our take on certain covers (Leonard Cohen, Lowell George, and even Frank Sinatra), yes, it kind-of works.

Andrew: The recent ‘Rocketman’ (2019) movie recreates that “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” video, with Rachel Muldoon taking the Kiki Dee part.

Kiki: Yes, it was so great to be in the movie, actually. Isn’t that exciting! To be actually played by somebody young and gorgeous. Ha-ha-ha. It was so nice.

Andrew: Was the recreation accurate to the way you remember it?

Kiki: Well, I mean, to me it’s a theatrical piece. That movie is like a stage musical. To me, it’s not an autobiographical sort of film, ‘cos it hasn’t got Gus Dudgeon in it – Elton’s producer, it hasn’t got the band that were with him from the beginning, Dee Murray, Nigel Olsson, Davey Johnstone. But it is a celebration of his survival, I guess, as a crazy artist – you know?

Andrew: Yes, after his gender and narcotic complications, it finishes by recreating the iconic video for “I’m Still Standing”. And it writes you into the history very aptly.

Kiki: Well, it’s nice to have been in it. You know, it’s funny that that song, we didn’t do it with any great expectations. It was going to be an album track for Elton. And it was Gus Dudgeon who said ‘why don’t you do it as a duet with Kiki?’ Yes, you never know in life.

Andrew: It’s frequently overlooked that, although they’d both had hits before that, it was the first time that either Elton or Kiki had ever had a no.1 UK single. So that was a first for Elton. Yet – how can I phrase this tactfully?,  any one track on Kiki & Carmelo’s current album is a better song than that was. It was catchy and contagious, but it’s not Elton John at his best!

Kiki: Well, I’m glad you said that.

Carmelo: That’s life, Andy, isn’t it.

Kiki: It’s a good Pop record, isn’t it? It’s made a lot of people very happy. We get mail from people who got married to it. And fortunately, for me – I can only speak for myself, I’m in my later years, I don’t know how many years I’ve got left…

Carmelo: HA!! (He whoops with laughter).

Kiki: I’m able to go out and play, I’ve still got my voice, and look after myself, and this is the most authentic I’ve been on stage, as well as in the studio.

Carmelo: I guess we took that decision, as I said earlier, a long time ago to let’s see where we can go, just doing what we choose to do live. It doesn’t go into the set unless we think – yeah, that’s really good. Without sounding arrogant or big-headed or whatever. We do our best to try and create a show that we would like to watch. But equally – what we’re aware of is that thing of, I think, even the people I love, if I went to see them, and they just said ‘alright, tonight we’re going to play our new album,’ you’re kind-of ‘oh god,’ you almost sink a bit, don’t you, whereas you try and get that mix right, that blend – but, in terms of the writing and the albums, to be honest, it’s something that I’m constantly saying to Keek when we’ve been in the studio – because, I’m really pleased that you do like the album but all our stuff, I’ve always tried to make it so that it’s an album from start to finish. I’m looking at you, and thinking ‘OK, I think we come from the same era?’ – where we used to listen to albums all the way through. I remember if a Pink Floyd album came out me and my mates would go round somebody’s house and we’d sit there and we’d listen to the whole thing, and no-one would say a word until the end. It was like a piece of art or something. And that’s how I see it. And in this day and age of people just downloading one track – I notice Adele had that thing a while back when she wanted her album to be heard in her own preferred order. In the same way, I hope that someone listens to all of our album, because particularly, sometimes I’m on the last track and we’re spending a lot of love and time on it, and I’m thinking ‘who the hell is going to get to this point, to here?’ – but I just hope that they do, because that’s how we listen to stuff.

Andrew: I’ve been glancing through your tour schedule, and it’s pretty intimidating. Do you enjoy touring, or is it simply business as usual?

Kiki: We love it. It’s a big part of the music that we record. It comes from our live presence, and what we write. The dates are quite spread out, Andrew, a lot of them were rescheduled from last year, because of Covid, but I don’t like to do more than two nights running, ‘cos I get very tired otherwise. So yes, it goes all year – but it’s spread. So that’s do’able.

Carmelo: The live shows, they are quite different, because obviously you can hear that the album’s got a lot of stuff on there, so live – it’s like, OK, there’s only the two of us, we don’t particularly like doing playback and stuff…

Kiki: No way.

Carmelo: But like I said, I’ve got the loop-pedal, and we create just enough to make what we feel are truly representative versions with just the two of us. But the whole live experience, again, is different, and the thing that I guess I’ve enjoyed and that we’ve kind-of developed over the years, the live thing is all about the connection, and it has to start with our connection – well, you first (to Kiki), you’ve gotta kind-of get into it and believe it and be into what you’re doing, then we’ve got to connect, and then hopefully project to the audience, but it always happens sooner or later. You can feel a certain – how can I put it? Like a magic in the room. Sometimes it happens quite early and it’s ‘Wow!’, occasionally it might be a few songs in, but you can feel it happen. I don’t know if it’s in our heads, or if it’s for real, but as far as I’m concerned, even if it’s just in my head, that’s real enough. It’s a fantastic thing when you get that feeling, and that’s what we’re striving for all the time, when we’re playing live, always looking for how we can get this feeling, and it might be a really small audience, but when you get that feeling from the audience, and it’s particularly amazing if they’re loving what you’ve written.

Kiki: I love that.

Carmelo: It’s a great thing. A scratchy little idea that might have started off, or Kiki might have hummed something into an iPhone, and then you watch that develop onto the album, and then you see it live, and people responding. It’s the best, you know. And when you’re doing that, and you’re in that moment of doing that, you couldn’t care less about the charts or whether it’s… you know, you’re having that creative intensity then.

Kiki: It’s actually a privilege. The new songs are going down well. We’ve only been doing four of them so far – we haven’t had time to rehearse any more. But the new songs are going down really well, and it’s a lovely feeling when you’ve written a lyric – for me personally, that means a lot to me, and then you get that feedback. There’s nothing like it.

Andrew: I like the track “I’d Be Undone”, which sees love as surrender, or release from self.

Carmelo: Bless you.

Andrew: I always loved your hit single “Amoureuse” – with that line about feeling ‘rainfall on another planet.’ All first loves should be like that.

Kiki: Shouldn’t it just. (She spells her words out with articulate hand gestures.) “I’d Be Undone”, that’s one of my favourite tracks. I like them all actually, if I’m honest. I love the album. Isn’t that good! What I like about that song is – I lost my sister at the end of last year, at the end of August, and it makes me think of her so much. It’s not just a love song. It is a love song. It’s the only real one-to-one love song on the album, but it also has a bigger meaning for me. You know – ‘I’ll be with you what-the-hell-ever, I’ll cross the great divide, I’ll be there for you.’ And yes, I’m glad you like it, thank you.

Andrew: You are originally from Bradford, in Yorkshire. Do you still have family there?

Kiki: I’m a Bradford lass, yes – I’ve got my brother, who is eighty-two. He’s really looking forward to hearing the album. He should get it today. I’ve got his son and their family, and then I’ve got my niece who lives in London. But I’ve got quite a bit of family in Bradford.

Andrew: Did you go to the Alhambra Theatre while you lived there?

Kiki: Oh gosh, I played there when I was twelve, and won a talent contest! I’ve got the photo, if you want it? I played there and won a talent contest, and I also went back there many years later with ‘Blood Brothers’, the musical – which was very emotional, to go back home and do that.

Andrew: You recorded a series of singles for the Fontana label through the late-sixties. Which of them still stands up in your estimation?

Kiki: Well, you know, the funny thing is that when that album was released in 1963 or 1964 or whenever it was (the first single, “Early Night”, was 1963, the debut album ‘I’m Kiki Dee’ Fontana TL5455, was not until 1968), for ten years I didn’t think that anybody had really heard it, and then in the early seventies I started to realise that some of the tracks were Northern Soul hits – you know, “On A Magic Carpet Ride” (c/w “Now The Flowers Cry”, 1968) is, I think, a single that fetches about £500 on something online, and another track – “The Day Will Come Between Sunday And Monday” that I did on Tamla-Motown (1970), that’s quite popular as well. So yes, I think I’d go with “On A Magic Carpet Ride” because it’s a Northern Soul hit.

Andrew: The London music business must have been a lonely, uncertain and predatory place for a teenage girl?

Kiki: You know what, I went down with my Dad for the audition, and I think I was just at that age where I wanted to explore and fly the nest – and can you imagine the sixties? For a sixteen-year-old, there was film, there was music, there was art and fashion, it was just mind-blowing, it was really happening and the world was changing, and so I really loved it. I moved down there as quickly as I could. Moved into a little room that was £10 a week to rent, I think, and you know – I had a glass of wine with dinner when I was seventeen which was quite exciting, ‘cos no-one had a glass of wine with dinner in Bradford in 1965…

Carmelo:… a cup of tea, maybe?

Kiki: So yes. They were heady, heady times. But you know, I’ve always had a very stable background, my family was very stable, very loved, working-class background, and so yes, that’s held me in good stead through my life, all the ups and downs of music.

Andrew: You did session-work with Lesley Duncan and Madeline Bell.

Kiki: You know, we did some gigs about three years ago with Robert Plant for his ‘Saving Grace’ tour, and we got to do some shows with him. He’s so creative and always moving forward. And he told me that I sang on a track of his in 1965 called “You Better Run”. So I looked it up and it was true (it was a cover of a Young Rascals American hit, recorded as part of Robert’s band Listen, November 1966, CBS-202456).

Carmelo: But you’d forgotten about it?

Kiki: And then I did Dusty Springfield, I did “Some Of Your Loving” (and “Little By Little”). I love Dusty. I think I was a bit of a sponge because I was taking in her talent – if you like, in the studio. She was one of the first female singers of that time in the UK who knew what she wanted musically, and I just watched her stand up for what she wanted. And I loved her version of “Some Of Your Loving” – the Carole King song, she sounds so happy on it, and her voice is effortless. It’s just beautiful. Then I sang on “Everlasting Love” as well, the Love Affair no,1 hit. We got six quid a session for that. It kept you going. It was good. I loved it.

Andrew: It must be amazing to hear tracks on the radio and think ‘I sang on that!’ I enjoyed your track “Sidesteppin’ With A Soul Man”, from the ‘A Place Where I Can Go’ album (2013, Spellbound).

Kiki: Do you like that one? That was about Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder ‘cos there’s a line about a ‘talking book’…

Andrew: Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder can be seen in the back-projection imagery in the video… but isn’t there a glimpse of Carlos Santana too?

Carmelo: That’s how it started for me, guitar-wise. It’s in the biog somewhere, but my Aunt owned a hotel in Italy, right on the seafront, in Puglia, and the only entertainment was this massive jukebox, it had everything in there from Demis Roussos to Pop stuff to Italian things, you know, and one day I was just sitting on the wall looking out at the sea, on came that “Samba Pa Ti” – bowmb, bowmb, bowmb – and I was just flipped, that was it. So he was a big influence – all the others, as usual, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Hendrix, all that lot. But he was my first love. (born in England of Italian parents, later Carmelo was signed as writer and artist for Bill Wyman’s Ripple Productions, he co-wrote with Julian Lennon (“OK For Me” on his ‘Valotte’ album), arranged material for Billy Connolly, Jimmy Nail and produced for the fictional ‘Strange Fruit’ movie-band (1998), as well as working with Paul Rodgers, Ralph McTell… and Andy Williams!).

Andrew: Do the two of you argue?

Kiki: We don’t argue about music. We used to argue when we were touring, before SatNav. I used to get…

Carmelo: I’d be in traffic trying to find the gig, and I’d say ‘Keek, is it over there?’ and they’d be bibbing me from behind. Is it left or is it right? She’d go ‘I don’t know, I don’t KNOW!’ So that doesn’t happen any more because the old SatNav can take us. But, you know what is really weird, Andy? – we commented on it before, but musically – I’m speaking for Kiki in a way, we seem to agree on everything musically. We both love the same things. But one of the other – I guess I’d call it a talent again, is Keek’s instinct for stuff. ‘Cos normally I’m sort-of at it in the studio and she’ll be padding around, she’s very quiet sometimes, and then she’ll just say one thing, and if she says something, I listen, because she’s invariably right…

Kiki: I don’t know about that!

Carmelo: In fact, I was going on about ‘fishing’ earlier, when you’re looking for ideas, you can have days with nothing… you know what’s just popped into my mind? I’m sure you’ve watched the Beatles on DisneyPlus, the ‘Get Back’ thing, it was amazing – have you watched it? It was mind-blowing, wasn’t it? partly to see the birth of some of those songs. And in another way I found it comforting how they struggled too, sometimes, with the writing process. They’d go ‘oh, let’s just play a bit of Chuck Berry’ or whatever, and then they’d go back, just looking for a spark, and that’s what you’re doing all the time. But in terms of… I’ve lost my thread of what the question was…

Kiki: Do we ever argue.

Carmelo: Do we ever argue? Not about music. That’s really strange. We seem to be alike on music. On plenty of other things. What do we argue about?

Kiki: Not much. It’s a good job we’re not married, isn’t it?

Carmelo: It’s just as well that we don’t argue.

Andrew: Yours is a purely musical relationship?

Kiki: Oh yes.

Carmelo: She’s ‘Auntie Keek’ to the family.

Andrew: Are there other stories behind the album tracks that you’d care to share?

Kiki: Oh yeah. I like all the tracks. This morning, before I came down to talk to you, I had a listen to “No Angels Tonight”. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to listen to all the tracks. That’s quite… nice to listen to, for me.

Carmelo: Kiki and I created that one by double-tracking the gospel choir. Yet there was something missing. And we know a guy called Tommy Blaize – you probably know him if you’ve ever watched ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ on TV, he’s one of the singers there, and he’s amazing. We know him through the SAS Band that we do gigs with sometimes. We had to work it remotely, of course, because of Covid. We said ‘add your voice to this,’ and when it came back it was like ‘Oh YES!’, he doesn’t come in until the end, then the vocal goes ‘BANG!’, it really made a… technology, you know!

Kiki: And “The Ballerina Inside”, “What You Wish For”.

Carmelo: What is interesting – I don’t know how into this you want to go really, are you concerned with the technical side of things? I don’t know whether this will be part of the interview. I’m just mentioning it anyway. One thing I’ve noticed with the advent of digital recording – when we used to use tape, when we used to do like Queen with “Bohemian Rhapsody”, all that vocal overlaying, every time you did an extra take it just sounded brilliant, but there’s something weird about digital that doesn’t appeal to me. So every time we try to actually double-track, in other words, let’s say Kiki did a part, and did the same part again if you like, to thicken it up, it didn’t quite sound the same. So Kiki will do three harmonies, and I will do three, then Tommy will do three. It’s better when it’s three different voices, if you see what I mean, rather than the same voice doing the same part. So yes, we just did the overlaying like that. Obviously, when you’re in the studio you can just do it again, until you get it right.

Kiki: I did actually try to get Madeline Bell to be on it as well, but she couldn’t get to a studio ‘cos of Covid and stuff.

Carmelo: She was in Spain.

Kiki: So she wasn’t on it. That would have been nice to have had Madeline.

Carmelo: I think – as I said, at the moment, it’s taken about a week to NOT listen to the album, before I could begin to listen to it as an entity. ‘Cos otherwise what you’re doing, you can hear every little bit…

Kiki: You don’t hear it musically.

Carmelo: Obviously the opening track – which was going to be at the end, because it’s a bit of an epic if you like – “The Long Ride Home” itself, and I thought that’s one way of maybe carrying people to the end, but the guy from the distributors – from Right Track, Niall, he said ‘why don’t you put that first?’ We went ‘alright’.

Kiki: So we did.

Carmelo: So we did it first. But I’m particularly proud of the way we’ve got that reprise at the end. Now, sometimes we can be all day doing it, fishing – as I keep saying, and not getting anything. But then it was one of the hottest most purple half-days I’ve ever had. I just had this idea go fucking crazy, it was all happening. You know when the inspiration-window is open and it just happens to go, and I did that in no time. That’s what I can’t believe. Sometimes I can be guilty of going on a bit. When you’ve got studios like you’ve got now, where you can just add and subtract at will, you’ve gotta know when it’s the end, if you like.

Kiki: Too much time, sometimes.

Carmelo: Getting back into that thing of instinct. Just feeling something. There’s something that goes ‘we’ve got it now.’ So yeah – as I said, I don’t know if Kiki mentioned it – no, she didn’t mention it! what is interesting from our point of view anyway, is that most of the lyrics were written before Lockdown, yet a lot of them seem to apply – ‘relight the light of Eden,’ ‘the long ride home,’ ‘What you wish for,’ they all seem to apply somehow. Which is kind of coincidental really, but we find that interesting. The whole process is – as I say, fascinating. That we can do it. Of course, getting it into the world is the other side of the story, speaking to people like yourself, that is another thing altogether. By then you’ve done the work. Now how can we get to people – as Kiki mentioned earlier, how can I put this without being disrespectful, she kind-of hinted at it earlier, if – I’m not going to mention any names, but if somebody of let’s say Kiki’s ilk – heritage artist as she put it earlier, a lot of them, if they bring out a new album, I don’t think I’d be incredibly surprised at what they do. It would be good versions of stuff, and I’m pleased that they can keep carrying on their career and everything, but what we’ve been kinda up against from the beginning is “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”, and people’s perception of what Kiki does. And it’s how we go about changing that. These days, personally, I’m proud that we’ve got something that hopefully people go ‘Oh, I didn’t know she could do that!’ And most of our shows, Andy, we get loads of emails from people saying ‘I remember “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” – my wife dragged me to this gig, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I loved it blah-blah-blah – which is most of the time. Every now and then somebody might say ‘do “Star”’ – but I just can’t make an arrangement for that one that works. Hopefully you’ll come to see us?

Kiki: It’s such a thrill. I’ve done interviews with a couple of ladies mags today – like ‘Best’, magazine. I was thinking like ‘Christ, what are they going to ask me?’ But it’s been lovely to do a music piece. Thank you. I hope you’re going to be able to decipher us chattering away together, and you’re going to get enough information?

Andrew: Most people have never heard of most of the artists I get to interview. Yet everyone’s heard of Kiki Dee!

Kiki: Well, I suppose that’s because of Elton isn’t it, really, a lot of it. But if you stick around long enough someone’s gonna remember you…

The cover art:
Carmelo: It’s beautiful. We worked like mad on this cover. It’s the best cover we’ve ever done.

 

THE LONG RIDE HOME

Kiki Dee & Carmelo Luggeri
(April 2022, Spellbound Recordings distributed by Right Track/Universal)

Ten tracks:

(1) ‘The Long Ride Home’ (6:50), ‘mystery runs deeper’, the guitar buzzes like a trapped bee, the lyric appeals Stop, think of what you’re saying, don’t ask the Preacherman or the Sinnerman, with a sweet instrumental break that builds into surging electric over the acoustic guitar strum, a major track, immaculately scored and colour-textured. Although Carmelo’s sublime playing skills are highlighted to good effect throughout the album, his trusty Stratocaster makes a cameo appearance on the rousing climax of this title track.

(2) ‘Small Mercies’ (4:07), beyond rhyme or reason, there are acts of kindness, Carmelo’s guitar adds Americana slide. Its unbridled optimism typifies the duo’s ‘glass half full’ approach to their music

(3) ‘What You Wish For’ (4:28) pattering Indian percussion with rich Spanish acoustic guitars and gurgling synth, if that sounds an impossible juxtaposition, it works with superb logic, while the lyric casts a healing light on the old ‘wish upon a star’ idea. The unintentionally prescient lyrics strike a salutary chord for these locked-down times.

(4) ‘The Ballerina Inside’ (4:29) her voice is dancing out of her skin, standing out strong against the sympathetic instrumentation, ‘Take my hand as we dance’. Carmelo says ‘this album has many influences, experimenting with country blues, dobro and pedal steel guitars seems to augment our sound in a unique way.’ His delicate arrangement of ‘The Ballerina Inside’ is a case in point where Kiki’s voice is beautifully captured, lending an additional poignancy to the music.

(5) ‘Light Of Eden’ (4:56), jazzy-liquid melody, smoky and dextrous as ‘the mystery unfolds’, re-light the fire, with subtly supportive harmony voices and gliding guitar

(6) ‘Can’t Fix The Maybe’ (4:44) ‘Gonna shake this feeling that I’m running out of time,’ don’t stop me now, folk-chording guitar, strutting blues structure with stinging guitar solo. ‘I don’t read palms, I don’t read tarot’ but ‘the gipsy in me’ is released on this stand-out track.

(7) ‘No Angels Tonight’ (4:38), ‘when all else fails and you’re on the rocks,’ no supernatural agencies will intervene to save us, with a gospel-flavoured harmony back-up. A plaintive cri de cœur for all of us who’ve tossed and turned in the wee small hours hoping for divine consolation.

(8) ‘Eyes Of Understanding’ (4:19), busy chopping guitar, ‘would you meet me halfway? Would you be my soothsayer? Would you be my vision, would you be my saviour?’

(9) ‘I’d Be Undone’ (5:06), a pledge of love, like a phoenix starting to fly, ‘could it cut any deeper, could it be any sweeter?’ Love as surrender, as release from self, ‘a woman’s heart is strong when it comes to life’s tender thorn.’ Out and out love songs are a rarity in the Kiki & Carmelo writing canon, but the wistful ‘I’d Be Undone’ bucks that trend beautifully.

(10) ‘Happy Now (4:25), through the storm, the comedy and dead-end dreams. ‘What you get is what you see’ descends into an intimate whisper ‘as I descend the staircase down.’

Personnel:

Kiki Dee: lead and backing vocals

Carmelo Luggeri: all guitars, bass, keyboards, programming, vocals and string arrangements

Martin Ditcham: drums (except tracks 5,7,8 and 10)

Jeremy Stacey: drums (on tracks 1 reprise, 5,8 and 10)

Fabian Jolivet: drums on track 7

Pandit Dinesh: tabla on tracks 3 and 8

Tommy Blaize: backing vocals on track 7

Rob Bond: additional pedal steel on tracks 4, 5 and 9

Graham Pleeth: additional keyboards on tracks 5 and 8

Tim Keep: mixing

Dick Beatham: mastering

 

 

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The expanses of imagination

Love Letter to an Imaginary Girlfriend, Kenny Knight (Shearsman)

This is a stunning collection. These long poems stay with me, like nothing since I read, by accident years ago, the poems of Jaroslav Seifert, the Czech Nobel Laureate. They have a similar mixture of close intimacy and expansive mapping; at times they are tied to very specific places and yet they always exceed them, push at their edges, and at the edges of the people inside their lines; these are poems about travel and dreams of journeys never taken, of girlfriends never met, of the zone between parting and changing, loss and seeing anew. The poem ‘Blue Gone Grey’ ends with lines that seem to microcosm the whole collection:

   I sit here in the quiet of my room
   on the doorstep of the wild Atlantic
   and read the love letters of Miss Havisham
   to a sea monster playing jazz.

The poem is sited, placed, it’s about love, vaporisation and the promise of an escape by water, and then comes the visual stutter… the reader of ‘Love Letter to an Imaginary Girlfriend’ is repeatedly thrown about by this ‘wild Atlantic’ of poetry. There is a melancholic tenderness throughout:

   This old bruise of romance
   is my heart

But the image never settles for long before it is disturbed by ‘something broken and nomadic / reassembled on the road’. Part of the wonder of the collection is that these are poems made on the move, all about leaving and letting go, saying goodbye and losing, and yet for all their unfixedness – ‘Sometime after that / I declared myself Switzerland’ – they always come back to details, the materials and the precise atmospheres and feelings of the real:

   Out of mud comes beauty….
   ….the queenfisher….
   She’s got a hairstyle made for
   a punk rock night in Bretonside….
   ….and she’s gone
   diving like a paintbrush.

Is there a better description anywhere of that bird; a bird that in the poem is bird and more?

The imagery is repeatedly startling: ‘like a ghost through butter’, ‘leaving in an old pair / of sleep-walking boots’, ‘a traveller hunched over a table / out on the Atlantic / watching cups slide / like disembodied ice skaters’, but that isn’t enough to represent these poems. They are each a crafted adventure, full of judders, accelerations, long yearning snapped up in a phrase, and they make the reader work while giving the reader everything they need. In the poem ‘Making Mary Shelley’ are two lines – ‘I made you out of bits and pieces… stuck paper all over your body’ – which almost sound as if one leads to the other, but only by the circuitous route the reader has to take themselves.

The poem ‘It was ducks not blackbirds’ deserves to be repeatedly anthologised and widely known. It is a classic. Rooted around Kenny Knight’s home patch of Honicknowle in Plymouth, it recounts the first day the young Knight arrived home with poetry in his head and blurted it out:

   Without any preamble
   I grabbed a broomstick
   Making my debut
   On the Plymouth Poetry scene
   To an audience consisting
   Of my mother and the family cat
   And in the applause that didn’t follow
   I climbed the stairs to the quiet
   Of my room where I looked
   Out the window across the Tamar Valley
   And in my imagination
   Sent an innocence of crows
   flying north across the sky
   To Woodland Wood.

Funny, ordinary, completely extraordinary, dreamy and down to earth; this book deserves a huge readership of people to enjoy its tender journey across the vast expanses of a very remarkable imagination.

 

 

 

   Phil Smith

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behind the yellow line

Behind the yellow line
Behind the yellow line
A black pandemic mask 
Discarded
On the narrow towpath 
The calmness of the canal
When bypassing the weir
The long stretch of 
Victorian factory buildings
Reflected in the water
Like a Monet
Reflected in the water
Like a Monet
If he had painted red bricks
Instead of lilies
Red bricks
Instead of lilies
Red bricks
Instead of lilies

Behind the yellow line
Behind the yellow line
Passing trains cause turbulence
All alone on the platform 
Airbag impact
Bespoke glasses
Frame bent 
Lenses intact 
He walks from the wreckage 
Like a Marvel film protagonist
Physically unscathed
Shouting primal abuse
Across the three lanes 
Across the three lanes
Alleviating internal pains
Alleviating internal pains
Until the ambulances arrive
Until the ambulances arrive

The fallout
The fallout 
Some say
Nine lives of a cat protection
Protection 
Protection
Resurrection 
Resurrection
Job not Christ he replies
Job not Christ he sighs
Buries his face in his hands
Buries his face in his hands
Only he understands
It seems

Behind the yellow line
Behind the yellow line
A black pandemic mask
Discarded
On the narrow towpath 
The calmness of the canal
When bypassing the weir
The long stretch of 
Victorian factory buildings
Reflected in the water
Like a Monet
Reflected in the water
Like a Monet
If he had painted red bricks
Instead of lilies
Red bricks
Instead of lilies
Red bricks
Instead of lilies

Red bricks instead of lilies . . .

    © The Red Propellers

Available at https://theredpropellers1.bandcamp.com/track/behind-the-yellow-line

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EVENT HORIZON


 

                          Cultivate the un-sacrosanct: scepticism, cynicism, dissociation – the principium individuationis finally grasped – finally realised – but how?
                          Through estrangement, alienation, angst, despair and loss – it is disillusion we need now, not more illusions – tear away the veil of transcendental perfectionism – refuse to enter the cave, root out the imago dei. The next frontier is an event horizon – find freedom in nihilism.
                          There is no turning back!

 

 

 

A.C. Evans

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Two Tributes: Terry and Viv

 
YOU WERE SPECIAL
                      To Terry Hall
 
 
You could have been Peter Sellers firstborn, despite the fact
He died younger. You had the same stare, equal features,
And a slight sonambulance to your stance. Depressions, too,
 
We were told, which your forlorn soul mixed with humour,
And like tragic Peter, you ‘gooned’ your defiance with every
Footstep in the 2-tone Punk led dance. And now a new band
 
Has enlisted you as their singer. That early voice, sharp and nasal,
Softened and smoothed over time.  It is just what stars need
When they strive to retain what feels human; something small,
 
Witheld, fragile and yet reminiscent of city streets and torn rivers;
Boulevards for the broken eager to regain the composure
Of a romantic refrain to the mind.  Our Lips are Sealed was the song
 
You wrote with Siobhan Fahey. You had a short relationship with her;
Two English pop singers moving to become something more.
And then Walk Into the Wind, with and after she’d married
 
Dave Stewart in the equally short-lived dim-lit band, Vegas,
You seemed more Beatnik, and yet more soul-stung and sweet than before.
In The Specials your look was one that Annie Lennox soon copied;
 
Close-cropped hair, close to orange, with a slim-jim suit uniform.
Setting the stride for every socialist soldier and singer,
And marking the sad streets as asylums in which the sane
 
Had been sanctioned and subsequently told to conform.
But now the Ghost Town reappears; a Shangri-Lo!
For those living. With its secret song, where those singing are part
 
Of a quite different clan. And which exists beyond our ken
And Jerry Dammers; these spectral streets escape Thatcher.
They exist in a class set apart for each man. Now you walk
 
Through a new Colourfield, where water weeps
Through the grasses, and where skies capture soul-scapes,
And light itself textures towns. And where your small, sweet
 
Horn of a voice can play through cloud as sound spirals
Across a place where Too Much Too Young achieves balance
And where the joys sourced with Mushtaq In The Hour of Two Lights
 
Finds fun’s clown. With Horace and Lynval you laughed. Lifting
The stare that glared starkly. In and for Terry Hall we now gather.
Singers in death become prophets; filling the air in high spires
 
Of whatever faith stars share, with their sound. 
 
 
                                                             
 
                                              David Erdos,  20/12/22
 
 
 
 
 
 
FROCK AND SHOCK
 
                            for Dame Vivienne (Swire) Westwood
                            April 8th 1941 – 29th December 2022
 
 
Yesterday’s dress will now shine
Despite the dark of death’s cupboard
As you close the door to the showroom
And walk the way shadows walk
 
into a new form of light
Where the saintly will now meet the sequin
And where the young girl from Derby’s
Still designing as her crowds comprise deep   
                                        dream talk.
 
From war baby to Dame. From SEX
To Branson’s Virgin Air Stewards
Your control of the image and the shape
Of female need shifted seams
 
From unfashionable gusset to gain
And then on towards glamour
You polished the diamond
That with a punk stung swipe made spit
                                      Gleam
 
Before smoothing all as the clothes
You made became anthems
Of outrage, and liberation as motion
Turned to World movement and the ripped
 
T-shirt as totem stood in a fiery field
Of its own. The leather dress walked
Your way. Fishnet and basque broke desire.
As your art framed all women or as women
 
Framed you, dares were thrown.
And courted by you. Whether beside or post
Malcolm. When he shot the bolt
With the Pistols you were remaking it
 
Across thread. Each stitch was a stance.
Each template a teasing. Each ease
And constriction a way to make a dress
A thing said. If not a poem, a song
 
Or a cinerama of being. Dear Vivien
Today, shoulders are colder as your streak
Of sensation follows the untimely trek
Of the dead. But as you step aside,
 
A new catwalk continues, bridging
Dimensions as angels and stars
Vie for you. They’re after a new outfit now
For which you can reimagine the astral
 
Let’s have God look like Lydon
And then dress the Devil in punk pink
Like Jordan or like something from Jarman
In a pretty boy spunk stained blue.
 
English rose, you raised thorns
Into fashion spiced buttons.
You made from dresses desire
And changed with one sketch, attitudes.
 
So, stake your claim with such stars.
The women weep. The men shudder.
Your uniforms for love’s armies
Win more than mere platitudes.
 
You changed the way we behave.
You made clothes destination.
McQueen and Versace and the scene
Shapers still here dream of you.
 
Just as you dreamed for them.
Vivien, what are you wearing?
What will we wear when time takes us?
Angel’s wing? Fire? Somewhere perhaps
 
In what’s left us we will at last in fading light
Glimpse what’s true.
 
 
 
                                          David Erdos 29/12/22
 
 
.
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Old Paint [2003​-​2014]

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
1.
 
2.
 
3.
 
4.
 
5.
 
6.
 
7.

about

Retrospective revised release

tape recorded 2003 – 2014

cs

credits

released December 12, 2022

H.O.F.S.

license

tags

 
 
 

about

C.Strøm Norway

 
 
 
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Twisted Nerve 25th birthday party

 

Pics and words from Alan Dearling

Twisted Nerve Records is a Manchester, England-based record label, founded by Damon Gough (AKA Badly Drawn Boy) with the main-man, Andy Votel, real name, Shallcross.

Andy is a musician, dj, record producer/mixer and graphic artist. He was the compere for the Twisted Nerve 25th birthday party. He introduced the artists and while introducing Rick Tomlinson he told the audience that his name is not Votel, that is actually an acronym for the name of his original band, Violators of the English language!  

He added that he had hoped that Twisted Nerve wouldn’t become home to any more ‘acronym’ acts, and then Rick Tomlinson came along performing as VOTSW, which stands for Voice of The Seven Woods.

However, in reality Andy Shallcross seems to be in thrall to pseudonyms, including Applehead and Slant Azymuth.

Twisted Nerve is probably best known for being the home of Badly Drawn Boy, Andy Votel and Alfie, especially between 1997 and 2012. They also worked on releases from the Doves, Jarvis Cocker and Elbow. Less active more recently.

Badly Drawn Boy

Melodic pop for the bed-sitting room, maybe? Some super classic songs, but an unusual musical ‘super-star’.

Chorlton 2022: mistakenly ‘identified’ when he was sitting in a car outside McDonald’s. Not ‘spotted’ as Damon Gough, AKA Badly Drawn Boy, but as a local drug dealer. Fans have re-dubbed him as ‘Dodgy Drawn Boy’! But, he will long be best remembered for his Mercury award winning, ‘The Hour of Bewilderbeast’ (2000) and the film sound-track music, ‘About a Boy’ (2002).

Have You Fed the Fish? (2002)

One Plus One Is One (2004)

Born in the U.K. (2006)

Is There Nothing We Could Do? (2009)

It’s What I’m Thinking Pt.1 – Photographing Snowflakes (2010)

Being Flynn (2012)

Banana Skin Shoes (2020)

 

Banana Skin Shoes (2020)
Is this a dream? Is the latest video from the 2020 album: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ_BRDrb5WE

And, here’s my video of him at the live Twisted Nerve birthday gig in Todmorden:
https://vimeo.com/780370300

Badly Drawn Boy: ‘Shake the Rollercoaster’ live at the Golden Lion. He is an understated, unassuming and loveable performer. All hail Damon Gough.

 

Voice Of The Seven Woods

Rick Tomlinson is an English, Bolton-based musician, best known for one of his projects, Voice of The Seven Woods, with Chris Walmsley and Pete Hedley. Folk freak, experimental psych-rock. Multi-instrumentalist. His live set reminded me a bit of Nick Drake, Pentangle, with hints of Davey Graham and John Fahey; gentle melancholia. ‘Voice of The Seven Woods’, a Finders Keepers’ album from 2007 on Twisted Nerve. Hauntingly beautiful…

‘Sand and Flames’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0lsbPyJMeY

‘Silver Morning Branches’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp0Gkd9grD0

Rick’s albums appear to include:

Voice of The Seven Woods – CD / LP (Twisted Nerve, 2007), Voice of The Seven Thunders – CD / LP (Tchantinler Recordings, 2010), Phases of Daylight – LP / MP3 (Voix Records, 2017), as Rick Tomlinson and En Dag – LP (Voix Records, 2018), as En Dag.

 

Toolshed

Visually exciting. A veritable wall of sound. One heck of a lot going on.

Here’s an old, but informative video from way back in 1999. Graham Massey’ co-ordinated collision of free jazz with dance and techno. Enjoy!

https://www.mdmarchive.co.uk/artefact/31946/TOOLSHED_SEAMING_GRAHAM_MASSEY_PADDY_STEER_CONTACT_THEATRE_VIDEO_1999

Here’s what it says on-line about Toolshed at one of the Graham Massey sites:  “Call it Kosmiche-freakout-spacerock, call it avant-freejazz-opera, call it what you want, but one thing that it most certainly is not: music to have on in the background.

Graham Massey’s Toolshed were formed as a houseband at Manchester’s seminal club night of the same name some 20 + years ago which hosted a wide variety of acts over its five year residency, including Autechre, Matthew Herbert, Add N (to X), Leila Arab, Kruder and Dorfmiester, Broadcast and Squarepusher.

Not merely content with having redefined dance music with 808 State in 1987, Graham Massey steers Toolshed into uncharted music territories. Comprising various members of Homelife along with a host of other musical mavericks, Toolshed grew into a psych-jazz-techno-orchestra, culminating at one point in a 28 piece big band performance commissioned for a three day workshop alongside Nitin Sawney at The Contact Theatre including a huge brass section culled from the Royal Northern College Of Music as well as a string quartet.”

Aidan Smith

Kind of discovered by Damon and Twisted Nerve Records in 2003. From Eccles, Manchester. Self-recorded over 70 tracks before getting support for his first commercial album. Aidan explained to the audience that he’s not a ‘professional’ musician, but was given his ‘break’ by Andy.

Sam Cooper (in an on-line review) wrote about Aidan’s album ‘At Home with… “Some songs are amusing as well as clever – (for example) ‘Song to Delia Smith’, ‘Some piece of drab’.”

Song to Delia Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pGxPxTTBp4

Sam McLoughlin and Otis Jordan with Dan on violin and bass

Not what I expected based on words on-line about ‘cut-and-paste’ environmental music and watching a video on-line, which is full of weirdness – found sounds.

‘Water for Fire’ experimental  video: https://vimeo.com/530430820

But, the reality was melodic explorations. Texturally interesting and full of imaginative interplay and a diverse range of ‘sounds’ produced on all manner of instruments. Dan told me afterwards that he’d had just one three hour rehearsal with Sam and Otis at their Robinwood Mill studio.

Here’s Sam’s on-line site: https://www.samandtheplants.co.uk/

Otis Jordan has released his 3rd album in 2022, ‘Dodger  Point’ on THEM THERE Records.

Otis’s musical adventures are seemingly located in the murky realms of lo-fi, DIY, found sounds, field recordings, drones and synth rabbit holes is a strong sense of rhythm and melody.

They say that, “SAMANDTHEPLANTS provide support, laying a fertile bed for a next generation. Connecting and channelling the transitory, ethereal and mystical through self-made instruments into the now!”

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BEAUTIFUL WONDER!


I am fragile,

But that doesn’t
Make me weak.
I am soft,
But that doesn’t mean
I am not strong.
I am more tidal,
Than water.
I am more hail,
Than rain.
I am more lightning,
Than thunder.
Yes,
So much time has passed,
And still I think of you.
Do you think of me, too?
I wonder, I wonder
Do you still love me
The way I love you?
A love that isn’t really love
But is more of a
Beautiful wonder.

 

 

Monalisa Parida


Bio:- Monalisa Parida is a post graduate student of English literature from India, Odisha and a prolific poetess. She is very active in social media platforms and her poems have also been translated into different languages and publish in various e-journals.

She has got 80 international award for writing poetry. Her poems have been publishing international e-journals “New York parrot”, “The Writers Club” (USA), “Suriyadoya literary foundation”, “kabita Minar”, “Indian Periodical” (India) and “Offline Thinker “, “The Gorkha Times “ ( Nepal), “The Light House”(Portugal), “Bharatvision”(Romania), “International cultural forum for humanity and creativity”(Aleppo, Syria), “Atunispoetry.com”(Singapore) etc. And also published in various newspapers like “The Punjabi Writer Weekly(USA)”, “News Kashmir (J&K, India)”, Republic of Sungurlu (Turkey)” etc.
One of her poem published an American anthology named “The Literary Parrot Series-1 and series-2 respectively (New York, USA)”. Her poems have been translated in various languages like Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, Persian, Romanian etc. And she is the author of the book “Search For Serenity”, “My Favourite Grammar”, “Paradigm”, “Beyond Gorgeous”.

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The Oil at the Heart of a Star

 
 
On the plight of Louis Petit and his parents Chris Petit and Emma Matthews
 
 
With the music of each parent’s face and a tone
From his father’s voice, he calls to us; Louis Petit, a painter
Of promise and poise beyond youth, who after a handful
Of years has spent half his span in a landmine, borne
Not from bombs in the earth, but the body; with his nerves
 
And mind jarring in (dis)order to demonise his firth truth.
Nobody knows how to tame the bite to the brain this strain proffers;
Instead victims suffer as Doctors prescribe drugged pot-luck.
Young Petit first endured at age 12, removed at once from those moments
That all kids should be part of as memory was decimated
 
By dosage and the loss of cognition first struck. Hallucinations
Result, along with the disconnect of exhaustion. The young
Louis ‘deep Aliced’ as his former Wonderland winces,
And looking glass turns to knives. While his parents, Chris Petit
And Emma Matthews look on, horrified by his story,
 
As their son’s childhood is stolen by unplanned plot-spoiler
In the book they had wanted to write of their lives.       
Louis has a form of epilepsy which strained each medical strand
Applied to him. The testing of one drug after another
Eventually addicts time to withdrawal and curse
 
As successive strategies are soon essayed and the cure
For a loved son as subject sits at the summit of a mountain
Of medical files still to climb. Louis was assigned seven drugs
In sixteen combinations, each one worsening size and seizure
As his particular variant was complex. As if his Film Editor Mum
 
And Novelist and Director Dad were now dealing with
Their prized love as project; a mystery without clear
Suspects. In Louis’ Story, their film, you see this handsome
Boy at all ages; carefree as a toddler and then removed
Later on. Before at Nineteen, the salvaged soul
 
Can start once more to speak to us showing how
‘the malignant choreography of his demons’ has rearranged
His pure song. After a thousand attacks, this grandson
Of a military man fought a warzone, happening to him
In his bedroom or in his mother’s car. As his body shook
 
To the beat of the Devil’s drum disease plays for,
And where the promise of peace was as distant as Alpha
Centuri’s last star. And yet as each removal wrenched him,
Louis kept painting. His earliest drawings are pictured
As are his finely detailed new scenes. Montaged and collaged
 
Scenarios etched with sophisitication and skill across paper;
Forms of two-dimensional sequel, if not to the films of his Dad,
Then of dreams. Characters collide in his art, floating like notes
On staved settings; a fine art for the future as his City and Guilds
Course allows. Won after long years of endurance and pain
 
And gothic experiment- after Shelley, from which one salvation
Was seen to emerge and carouse the survivors of a torn
Battlefield as medical cannabis came to kiss him, curing
As it has done thousands for decades, while receiving
No approbation, and taking no acclaim, praise, or bows.
 
It is what has saved this boy starved of the ease of youth.
He’s brow beaten. But as he looks at you in this sequence
From beneath his bohemian fringe he avows that his life
Could be saved for so much less money than it takes
To secure him in the Care home predicted by Doctors
 
Who told his mother to grieve for the childhood soon to lose
Itself in death’s house. His parents even left England for him,
Finding cannabis’ prescribed cure in Holland, as the Homeland
Houses little but the conservative curse on all things.
Deny and demur the soft word on which the counter-culture
 
Was founded, and from which so many vision makers
And musicians have learned what to see and shape
And then sing.  But this isn’t the puff that might have primed
Leonardo. It isn’t Cezanne’s sun-spun suture that Van Gogh
May well have imbibed. It is not what Cary Grant took,
 
Or Tony Curtis. This is oil not weed rolled for the Beatles,
Or for Krautrock and co, or lost tribes. This organic assists
And does not align just with his lifestyle. It is this boy’s right
And the pigment placed within pen and paint. It is the sauce
And the source of hope for his coping. It is the fuel for his future
 
And the ease to quell all complaint. And now its denied 
By an NHS pressed into service; as if the wound was subduing
The bandage for bleeds that soon taint and taint for life
Every suffering soul and each voice-stung victim. Sunak seeks
To cap it, as each cut delivered stabs ever deeper into
 
The drought of the stream on Christ’s side. We are all made
Martyrs by fate and by the odds stacked against us.
After nearly ten tears of struggle Petit’s prose and promise
Reveal care and cure’s true divide. Society too often separates out.
But we can all parent each other. We can look after this boy
 
And his Mother and his father too with one act, 
Sent to restore and to enhance a new visionary who in excelcis
And in the health he should have can retract prior pain
And enhance the way we see and understand our condition.
As Soul and Society seizure, the young painter, Petit
 
Asks you to consider how can we now help each other
And by doing so, stay intact. Help him. Hear him.
House this PETITion. Your signature is a chorus that even
Those who play deaf start to hear. For the disconnect
And dream state in which a boy of twelve was once frozen
 
Can be thawed by sympathy’s summer and by a climate
Which in striving for stars stalls earth’s fears. Let one new
Artist become your own passion project. Artists are mirrors;
They show us what we survive and suffer and what it is
To hold dear. For if they are the art then we are the canvas.
 
We frame hope with our conscience
And then welcome  the image which shapes
The medium and the message, from which
In an instant we finally understand
 
                                    Why we’re here. 
 
 
 
                                                                                    David Erdos,  24/12/22
 
 
 
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
 
 
 

You can see more of Louis’ paintings and read about his story here.

Twitter Justice for Louis

Instagram Justice for Louis

/
 
 
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SAUSAGE LIFE 255

Bird Guano’s
SAUSAGE LIFE
The column which employs an infinite amount of monkeys but has only one typewriter

MYSELF: A very happy and preposterous 2023 to you and all the other readers.

READER: Both of them? Haha! And the same to you! How was your Hogmanay?
MYSELF:  The same as always. 6 hours of New Year’s Eve bagpipe practice followed by a kilted yoga session until midnight when I toasted in the new year with a glass or two of McGinty’s Goat fortified elderberry wine. At 2-30am I took my customary 5 kilometre swim in the sea, followed by a naked run to Upper Dicker and back.
READER: Naked? Brrrrr! That must have been painfully cold.
MYSELF: Not in the least.  I took the precaution of covering myself in goose fat left over from the Christmas roast potatoes. Did you make your new year resolutions?
READER: Naturally, the same ones I always make, namely:
1. Give up gambling
2. No more putty
3. Stop going to Hull
4. Drink
5. Fags
6. Etc, etc

4 and 5 are already broken by the way, along with etc, etc

MYSELF: Jolly well done! Here’s a little summing up of the past year’s cultural events.
READER: Hoorah!

MUSIC
The September reopening of legendary Cockmarlin venue The Cat’s Pyjama redesigned in the Sunderland style by installation artist Bandy Sponk, was the event to be seen at, featuring as it did the reformed and much missed Imaginary Chairleg.  With original guitarist Tit Bingo at the helm and children of the original road crew, the band powerhoused their way through a 3 minute version of their 1997 chart-topping hiphop crossover anthem Drive By Shouting, before handing over to DJ MC Squaid, whose unique blend of Psychotic Garage and Plantaginet Plainsong challenged even the most enthusiastic dancers. Regrettably the venue closed its doors the following week after the proprieter disappeared with the owner of the cake shop next door

BOOKS:
Many people wrongly suppose that professional footballers are stupid, and barely able to string two clichés together, however I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Footballer’s Names for Children, was written by goalkeeping wizard Reg Trubshaw of Etchingham Moths FC, who is currently serving life in Chiddingly Secure Institution for biting off an opponent’s ear and eating it. 


READER:
 Life? Today’s namby-pamby pink-booted footballers don’t know they are born! When I was a lad we played soccer underwater, in deep-sea diving suits, with itchy woollen underwear, and lead boots. The referee and linesmen were heavily armed and officiated from a miniature submarine. The spectators in the cheaper seats who couldn’t afford scuba equipment had to hold their breath for 90 minutes plus injury time. On the other hand, it certainly comes to something when an innocent cannibal going about his unlawful business can be banged up in Broadmoor.


MYSELF:
 Thank you for your invaluable interruption, perhaps we can discuss this on another occasion. Meanwhile here are Reg’s top ten footballer’s children’s names:-

BOYS: Calfstrain, Cruciate, Ebola, Hamstring, Asbo, Nutmeg, Groin, Asteroid, Squidgame.

GIRLS: Tapestry, Caramel, Rapunzel, Marmalade, Rubella, Lividia, Wah-Wah, Handbag, Adultery. 

TELEVISION
Swedish TV critic Lars Vegas highlights some of the spectacular failures of 2022 including: Date Nights Gone Wrong, Strictly Come Lion TamingBust That Bra and the controversial Tatto My Sack 

PATENT NONSENSE
Director Epiphany Wildebeeste’s fly on the wall documentary about Hastings inventor professor Gordon Thinktank scored high with viewers, particularly the section on the  inventions that didn’t make the grade for one reason or the other such as: Unperforated teabags for people who don’t like tea.
The umbrella he designed for superstitious people which, when connected to the internet, will not open indoors.
Less fattening chips made from foam and seaweed which can also be used as packing when posting delicate pottery.
Numberless maths for arithmophobics and silent bagpipes for the blind never got past the blueprint stage.
There were runaway successes of course, like Scrof, the imitation dandruff crystals for embarressed toupee wearers, (£19.99 per kilo, enough for 10 toupées or 3 full wigs) or for those awkward acquaintances who love sushi and barbecues, Gordon’s Flameproof Fish (£29.99 per family sized shoal). One highlight featured Ex-England and Yorkshire Test bore Geoffrey Boycott praising Thinktank’s ingenious revolving steam-powered bat with a gas boiler in the hollow handle which also serves as a hand warmer for playing cricket in cold climates.

SPORT
Hastings & St Leonards Warriors FC’s new signing Angus Doppleganger from AC Daffodil made an instant impression in the boxing day match against Upper Dicker Macaroons, when he felled big centre back Bill Noone with a clever upper cut followed by a kick in the groin area whilst the referee was having a smoke.

WHO KILLED ROUND ROBIN?
Did you get one of these seasonal letters from the middle class friends you met once at a dinner party and to whom you mistakenly handed over your address?
Dear Fill in name here,
It seems an age since we saw you, so as its Christmas we thought we’d drop you a line. The geese are mating this fall, and Howard has his first tooth, although its coming through the sole of his foot (perhaps he’ll be a mountaneer!) Poor child. Talking about coincidences, about a week ago Ralph and I had a serious discussion about our financial situation, and right after we decided to take all our money out of cocaine and put it into prostitution, Kylie went on a school trip to Okeefanookee Swamp and never came back. Sure we’ll miss her, but Ralph started right away converting her room into a small discreet brothel along the lines of the Cat House in Nevada. To think he has a degree in tree psychiatry! Season’s greetings

(Fill in name here), and here’s hoping that one day you will be as wealthy as us!
Celia & Ralph,
The Hassocks,
Long Island

 

 

 

 



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Christmas in Arrowsby-on-Lyre

(Hest Bank not Arrowsby-on-Lyre in the 70s). 12th December 2022


“It’s too hot!”
proclaimed the Golden Fleece, returning to their lunchtime spot to collapse into the variegated shade. “What’s that book?”               

“It’s so different to what it’s like in winter,” stressed Gypsy Moth leaning on the tree to regard the long hill on the opposite side of the river. “I can’t believe that’s where we sledge.”           

“It is very different,” agreed Volcano, still half resident on a Mediterranean isle. When it was this warm, it was a rare luxury to think of snow and twilight. For eight months of the year the house was far too cold, and for more than half that time, colder still. He started to tell the children about winter in Arrowsby-on-Lyre and was drawn in himself. Fascinated, he thought of long-dimmed, school Christmas services, their spouted hymns and hypocritical sermonizing – the experience of which seemed virtually universal.

(Hest Bank not Arrowsby-on-Lyre). 12th December 2022

 

As he tried to fathom aloud that distant atmosphere, either the children were interested or else too hot to move away. Despite the inconsequence of what he and his past friends must have said, the banality of their declarations, and the weight of meaning that must have been added in hindsight, somehow, he felt that each character he recalled should not merely be a foil for another. Still less should they resemble mannequins mouthing the pathways to a foregone conclusion. Perhaps it was only a sublime nostalgia in his head, that made the apocryphal half-truth of those annual winter journeys to a Victorian church (the whole school, a column of enforced pilgrims), lose all the dullness it must have had at the time?           

“It can’t have been more than a mile and a half,” he told his listeners, “but in memory it has the scale of an epic. As if we were a wagon-train of settlers crossing the old west.” This eccentric comparison, he knew would appeal particularly to Gypsy Moth’s love of Westerns. Perhaps they would even see cacti and Indians transferred to Arrowsby’s December twilight? “At one point, the column trailed past the Electricity Board depot, where your Grandad used to work . . .”           

In fact, that whole Pilgrims Way was a tour of places past and future, of relics and suggestions from the 22nd Try. There was even a distant view of the willows at Swan’s Reach.           

“The last bit went up the hill of the High Street, passing the site of the earlier railway station, demolished when I was very young. There used to be an old Council office where tenants could pay their rent in cash – that was demolished too. Further up was this wholefood shop where I painted a jungle mural for a friend – but I’ve told you that story before?” Both children nodded, looking jaded. He went on to describe The Railway Café, but without much conviction, returning to the point where the travelling column had to march over the Arrowsby canal on a narrow concrete footbridge:           

“Although it was well policed by sporting-hero prefects and their nervous intellectual aides, as well as by reluctant or over-eager teachers, here we were forced to taper to single file. This widened the spacing of the guards and you could see the concern on their faces – the diminishing of their identity as they lost power! Even before now, a kid or two had vanished down a side-alley, or through a garden gate – the odd sub-prefect been stuffed hastily down a manhole!” A slight laugh from the Golden Fleece encouraged his phrasing to become more arcane: “But far worse than either of these crimes was the vexed question of the diminishing hymn books! Pupils were surprised at not having to sign for these before quitting the school premises.” He paused, remembering the actual resentment beneath his farcical tale.           

“As the canal bridge approached, scholars would size-up their position in that uniform ant-train and the relative deployment of its martinets. At well-timed moments would come a volley of splashes, as from the crown of the bridge, hymn books were dropped or hurled into the murky polluted waters!”           

Now his listeners were both smiling – livened by this rebelliously wanton destruction. “In the winter twilight, more and more arms flung out their unwanted volumes. Next day, it was rumoured that a dredger had to be summoned – all the way from Bulward Wharf on the main Grand Union.”

No hymn books block this frozen canal . . .  Hest Bank 12th December 2022


Gypsy Moth and the Golden Fleece had walked off towards home, and thinking back on his tale, Volcano realised that it was impossible to feel those events from inside. Instead he felt as though he watched from the roof of a canal-side terrace, or as if he were a camera focussed on that steep concrete bridge from behind the curtains of an upper window.
           

Was such distancing mesmeric, or did it break his suspension of disbelief? To be reminded that all this happened decades ago – or perhaps never happened at all.           

Despite this uncertainty, he could at least dwell now on all the characters from that school: Shipley, Horatio, Rainy Isobars, The Lothario of Wychert – he could show their faces in close-up as they toss their hymn books into the canal. Or breaking the vice of tradition, there might be girls from the neighbouring school; or Lucy and Ellie, Jonah and Queen of the May. Even those who were not born – his children and others – might appear. And instead of hymn books it is something else they throw from the bridge. Something to do with Time or conditioning; something significant to them alone, profound yet ambiguous, not quite visible, waiting to reveal itself . . .           

That all this was allegorical, did not stop the procession of close-ups from reminding him of the end of Goodbye, Mr Chips, when Robert Donat as he is happily dying, sees all the shining faces he taught over the years and corrects those standing by his bed, telling them that they are quite wrong, he had hundreds of children – “and all boys![i]           

Why did this come to his mind, and did it enrich his feeling? Did it make it clearer? How long would it be before knowledge of those old films died out, and such invocations – no matter how they aim to provide a short-cut – required explanation?           

Was his expansion just another reflex to counter his sense of being stuck in time? Another consolation for all the eras and places he would never see?

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,
Morecambe December 2022 – (Extract from Maze End, 2013)

 

 

NOTE      checked December 2022

[i]   www.imdb.com/title/tt0031385/  Goodbye, Mr. Chips – the 1939 film starring Robert Donat and based on the book by James Hilton.

 

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Where have all the animals gone? (II)

 

 


“You shall not kill!” ((Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17)

“And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” (Genesis 1:29)

Where have all the turkeys gone? Short time passing
Where have all the turkeys gone? Short time ago
Where have all the turkeys gone?
Trussed up, murdered, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the lobsters gone? Short time passing
Where have all the lobsters gone? Short time ago
Where have all the lobsters gone?
Live-boiled, screaming, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the young pigs gone? Short time passing
Where have all the young pigs gone? Short time ago
Where have all the young pigs gone?
pigs “in ‘blankets’” every one!
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the young ducks gone? Short time passing
Where have all the goslings gone? Short time ago
Where have all the feathered gone?
throats cut, bare-plucked every one!
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

A new re-versioning of Pete Seeger’s 1955 political folk song “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” to help turn the tide on the bloody season, and inspire a nonviolent New Year which actually honours the loving, and animal-loving, Jesus.

 
 
Heidi Stephenson

 

 

 

 

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Generation Skate

Four Wheels and a Board: The Smithsonian History of Skateboarding,
eds. Betsy Gordon and Jane Rogers (240pp, £33.00, Smithsonian Books)

Back in 1976, when I started skateboarding, I’d never have imagined that the Smithsonian Institution, with their mission of ‘the increase and diffusion of knowledge’, would have a collection of skateboards and associated clothing, photographs, magazines and ephemera, or would issue ‘A History of’ book! Mind you, I would never have foreseen the demise of skateparks, the turn to ramps and street-skating, the return of skateboarding to both sport and fashion circles, or that skateboarding would become an Olympic sport. So what do I know?

Back in late 70s London my friends and I were spoilt for choice… There was a quarter pipe under Westway, a youth club snake run near where the M40 branched to Shepherd’s Bush, the Undercroft at the South Bank, and Meanwhile Gardens. Soon we discovered the very wonderful Rolling Thunder skatepark in a Brentford warehouse, Solid Surf in Harrow, the Mad Dog Bowl in the Old Kent Road, and undertook day trips to Romford, Knebworth and elsewhere.


       Rolling Thunder skatepark

Soon, however, bulldozers and property developers moved in. It was a sad day when we took our last skate in the remains of a half-demolished bowl at Rolling Thunder, but Harrow and Meanwhile 2 remained, and we often visited them at night, sometimes skating the former using our motorbike headlights. I kept skating until the late 1980s, mostly using a wide Lonnie Toft deck and Green Bones wheels I had picked up in the States the summer I worked for Camp America. We built a makeshift wooden ramp at the camp, and I visited concrete skateparks in Detroit and New York before I flew home. There were some other skaters back home at college in the 1980s, but when I moved to Devon it all became a bit much: I seemed to be the only 27 year old hanging around on the car park roof with a skateboard, amongst groups of 12 and 14 year kids. I haven’t skated that much since, though I’ve still got my main deck. (Sad to say, my older deck, with original Red Kryps wheels went AWOL a few years ago.)

While I wasn’t looking, those who kept skating commandeered and rode street furniture, shovelled the sand, earth and rubbish out of skateparks that had been filled-in rather than demolished, started skate zines, and assembled massive wooden pipes and bowls instead of concrete ones. These facilitated the development of massive aerials, turns and seemingly impossible new tricks, leading to further media attention, a groundswell of new skaters, skateboarding’s place in the likes of the X-Games and the selections as an Olympic sport. Meanwhile, new skateparks were being designed and built, whether in wood or concrete, with a focus on shape and transitions rather than making a quick buck. The South Bank got saved from redevelopment, and Romford got Grade 2 listing and protected status.

The picture seems to have been pretty much the same the world over. A sport returning to its ‘sidewalk surfing’ roots and gaining massive popularity as a countercultural or ‘punk’ alternative to establishment sports. Find a smooth patch of concrete, or a kerb, a tarmac path or a sloping wall, and you could skate. And just as surf clothing became mainstream fashion, so too did skateboard clothing. Indie board makers, clothing manufacturers and new zines sprung up, community groups, local councils and funding bodies got together to raise money for new facilities.

There have, of course, been skateboarding books before. From rip-off ‘how to’ illustrated manuals to nostalgic overpriced collections of photo from the 80s, via Trawler’s superb documentary publications of 70s UK skateparks, ramps, and drainage pipes and Tony Hawk’s biography, the scene is now well documented both currently and retrospectively. There’s even a new edition of Ian Borden’s Skateboarding and the City, an academic book about architecture and the skateboarding experience, and a 10th anniversary reprint of the wonderful Disposable Skateboard Bible with its endless catalogue of skateboard decks. And of course, social media and Youtube are stuffed with stunts, tricks, injuries and close scrapes; experts and idiots showing us their skills and/or sometimes damaging self-determination.

There hasn’t, however, been a book quite as comprehensive and wide-ranging as Four Wheels and a Board though. It really gets the bit between its teeth and tries to cover everything: history, clothing & fashion, skateparks, gender and sexism, punk, technology, ramps, music, counterculture and skating personalities. Drawing on their now well-established collection of skateboards and accompanying skateboarding artefacts and ephemera, the book is fully illustrated and is a diverse and exciting compilation of history, opinion, and memoir, along with many surprisingly personal sections such as Tony Hawk’s ‘My Last 900’, Brian Anderson’s ‘Coming Out to the Guys in the Van’ and Dan Mancini’s ‘Skating While Blind’.

If at times the book is prone to a sense of self-importance about the Smithsonian skateboarding collection, and to attempting to ‘get down with the kids’ and understand youth culture, its editors and contributors are nevertheless to be applauded for its inclusivity and diversity as well as the comprehensive range of approaches to its subject matter. Whether you are into hardware, graphics, graffiti, clothing, nostalgia, or the social, industrial, countercultural and business elements of skateboarding, or culture in general, there is something for you here.

 

 

 

 

Rupert Loydell

 

 

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Imagination/A Crisp Wind/An Attic/Artists

Imagination

cream of creativity
taste of insanity
holding hands partly

 

A Crisp Wind

a crisp wind
unlock the curtains
of my cherry skin

An Attic

an old man
holding his door latch
out of a suitcase

 

Artists

artists lives
full of nothingness
in Present’s head

 

 

 

Monobina Nath 
Picture Nick Victor

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Fragrant Bypass

‘a dense and diverse city engages people in a particular way. […]
You could say that people have to engage in a kind of self-disordering.’
        – Pablo Sendra and Richard Sennett, Designing Disorder

It is a modern revolution, which offers an impressionistic vision of a future where dread no longer clutches the cold and hungry and the city air smells sweet. Capitalism, violence and greed have been replaced by a revelation of deeper meaning. There will be repercussions: I can see evidence of fear in the wealthy and those who can no longer afford to pay for their own protection.

Discontinuity offers us all the chance to change how we live and who we are. The hours grow longer the less we work, the light grows stronger the less we stay in the dark. I live in a country of trees and clouds, have left the city of my mind. Investment and the accumulation of wealth are impossible ideas; you cannot buy time and we do not need answers to those questions any more.

I have an idea what shape my story should take but there are hidden lovers in the soil and no end to dreaming. There are other models for the structure of events, with the best a strange confluence of instinct and coincidence. Each of us will wash up somewhere sometime soon, and if we embrace possibility and trust each other, what must be written will be written, what needs doing will be done.

 

   © Rupert M Loydell

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Nurture Our Nature!

Let’s nurture our nature,
Because it’s a garment of this dear earth,
And a life-giving momentum.

Let’s protect our creature,
By not hunting them,
Because they are our ecosystem.

Let’s save our river,
By not dumping debris and chemicals in it,
Because it’s a home for Dolphin, Fish and Lobster.

Let’s keep our air clean forever,
By not burning too much plastic and paper,
Because it’s a surviving factor for all living creatures.

Let’s enrich our atmosphere,
By planting more trees,
And being in the company of rich biodiversity.

Let’s flourish the wheel of Dharma,
By accumulating good Karma,
And spread love, care and kindness.

Let’s be a committed citizen,
By protecting everything,
That makes the Earth wonderful.

 

 

Monalisa Parida

Bio:-  A post graduate student of English literature from India, Odisha and a prolific poetess. She is very active in social media platforms and her poems have also been translated into different languages and publish in various e-journals.
She has got 80 international awards for writing poetry. Her poems have been publishing international e-journals “New York parrot”, “The Writers Club” (USA), “Suriyadoya literary foundation”, “kabita Minar”, “Indian Periodical” (India) and “Offline Thinker “, “The Gorkha Times “ ( Nepal), “The Light House”(Portugal), “Bharatvision”(Romania), “International cultural forum for humanity and creativity”(Aleppo, Syria), “Atunispoetry.com”(Singapore) etc. And also published in various newspapers like “The Punjabi Writer Weekly(USA)”, “News Kashmir (J&K, India)”, Republic of Sungurlu (Turkey)” etc.
One of her poem published an American anthology named “The Literary Parrot Series-1 and series-2 respectively (New York, USA)”. Her poems have been translated in various languages like Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, Persian, Romanian etc. And she is the author of the book “Search For Serenity”, “My Favourite Grammar”, “Paradigm”.

 

 

 

 

 

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transfer of power

After the election with its quills of
dread we come to the sea the way
long-haulers crash at a rest-stop after
a sleep-deprived amphetamine run
we come to offload the cargo we
never meant to carry most everything
damaged and marked return to whatever
sender mis-ordered and here too
where in the storm a week before
the sea waves indulged in a
predictable juxtaposition of fury
and grace as they swept twelve children
into the surf rescued at the last minute
but not without the retch of drowning
still in their throats.
 
Four years of rabid mischief
and four hundred before that
such that the blood of the
nation’s thought gone thrombic
with loss turned bat-blood dark
no longer finds the coherence
to avail against the self-
inflicted scourge the daily
broadcasts of massacres and
mascara clotted on the tube
Bluetooth of portents posted
by stay-at-home future
cadavers making tea and memes
as the dried orange gloat of
the sociopath president
puckers and floats as the emperor
of Western Trivialization.
 
Some called it a brand new
Incarnation and that’s when
we hung the fear curtains
put up the catastrophe
decorations sometimes stole
a kiss under the fresh cut
misgivings dangling over
our heads while forced to
listen to the sermons of the
promised extinction banquet
the hymns of mortal discontent
Zoomed into seances where
every false prophet
signed up to appear.
 
Then as if by a miracle
it was over or so we thought
up here in Mendocino’s
chapterless flow where
the heavy wings of fog fall
over the town then rise like
a ghost bird dissolving into light
our still-clinging sense of doom
offscouring in the sea’s swarm
of anti-depressant ions
no second thought of god
demanded or revoked in
that perennial joke
the sea keeps telling yet
apparently the punch line
wasted on those disciples
of the rage messiah wroth
as it’s said for they know their
time is short murderous
with indignation at their
savior’s sudden demise
heaving pipebombs at
the tomb’s stone that
refused to roll away
their guns catechismal
to every head as
the sea swells kept
pounding at what we
once thought
the shore to be.
 
Yet maybe there’s a finality
when everything turns to music
all songs converging in the
arching substrate waves at
the sub-atomic core of all
beauty and today how odd
that in the inauguration
of a president is that
power transposed into
the stature of a poet
too old for her years
too young to have
metabolized the fear
she declares is pulled now
into the retreating surf
of all the tears
that had seized us.

 

David Fetcho
 

 

.

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Marcus Aurelius Christmas Fair

 

Gifts you find in my Christmas Fair
Include an Absence of Fear
Absence of craving Fame or Fortune Cookies
Absence of the Suffering both engender
So Absence too of Anger
I name this place of equanimity ‘Fair’

When you choose to open your Gift
Let there be a lamp of clarity
Separating false from real affection
Illuminating for each individual
The miracle you are

‘Everything Must Go’   –
All our frolics now are seen
Mistakenly for centuries
Exorbitant worship of Saturn
Extended all year round   –
When only in limited season
Could such ritual appeal   –

Where Greed is ‘good’
Where Impudent Misrule
Involves we wear half-masks
Playing ‘Simon Says do this/do that’
Jocular gifts once given between friends
Become impressive bribes to those
Who offer reciprocities of business

Set this Saturnalia aside   –
Gluttony and Bling and Bing
Crosby on White Christmas champagne binges
Charging as white rhinos party to party   –

This season I give ‘Nothing’ as a gift
Remembering in essence we must ‘pass’
And in our passing leave perhaps no trace
But history’s ‘Chinese Whispers’ for a toy

Once upon a time in Rome
I looked askance at Christians  
Hammering one empty tomb into a Mystery-Cult  
Now I see some merit in their bold mythology   –
I welcome new-born babies to The Senate
In whose eyes still earth and heaven meet
Inviting facile Senators the while
Shut their ‘traps’ in silence at this season   –
And let the future speak

 

 

 

Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

 

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The Winter Angel of the Chiricahuas


 
She appears between the ice-lined clouds
with lace cascading
from her wings.
                        She’s watching for the fox
at midnight’s hairpin bend
along the snowy trail .
                                   She has a blessing
for a cast aside backpack and the map somebody
threw down when they realized
they were lost.
                       Her left eye
is a hawk’s, her right
a Great horned owl’s set in
a woodpecker’s face; one to see
in daylight one
by night.
              When last
a jaguar did pass from these mountains to
the Peloncillos and poor men came
to seek their lives on
a frosty night
                    she knelt upon a cloud
and summoned moonlight from a spring
between the stars to guide them.

 

 

David Chorlton

 

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POEM OF LONGING

            for Li Min

I wish it would snow. I would
send you some. Poem of longing.

Failure of words.

Ode to the loss of enthusiasm
and enthusiasm replaced by
boredom. People wondering if
they can afford to be awake
while I fall asleep . Poem of ennui.

I wish it would snow. I would
send you some. Send you some snow.

Poem of longing. Poem of longing.

 

 

Martin Stannard

 

 

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Contra-Dogmarel


 
Neither fish nor fowl, it’s dished out
in doctrines and trite truisms
without music or rhythm,
or else it’s straight-up dogma
in doggerel wrapped in rap,
rant or raving,
but christened “poetry.”
 
You’ll hear it at every venue
where chic revolutionaries hold services
without having seen a revolution
except on two-week tours through Cuba
when their minders served as blinders
as they viewed the circles of hell
they’ve come to call “heaven.”
When they return, their verses
serve as hymns to the victory
of socialism, battle cries for wars
they’ll never witness.
 
Cheap words like ads
for last year’s fashions,
doctrines drawn from the leader’s
speeches, interviews and texts,
then barked and growled
in North Beach readings,
waterfalls of rhetoric
oceans without salt,
storms without rain,
sermons without salvation,
but at least inspiring enough doggerel
to make me write some
of my own.

 

Clif Ross

 

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Miguel Hernández was Born on a Day Like Today

I’m sorry they were out of soy
this morning.

Miguel Hernández died in prison.

And that your d string
napped again.

Of tuberculosis.

I’m sorry most people drive so poorly.

At the age of thirty one, leaving
his wife and son no bicycle, briefcase, or custom bagel slicer.

It’s a shame, yes, we don’t get the respect we deserve at work.

Franco’s goons came for him in the night wearing
their triceratops skulls, intoning Beniamino Gigli arias. 

Could have done better on that ninth hole.
A cabin up north sure would be nice.

He wrote on the wrappings of his stale bread, on folds of toilet paper.

Did you decide on the lilac one or go with the Ukraine-blue?

Those sons of grasshopper warlocks,
decked out in their dog entrails,
could not fathom how the steel bars failed to stop
his discourse with the quince Madonna.
How their snouts bristled,
finding color still cupping his face
where she had brushed his cheek in sleep!

I’m sorry pop music will forever stink like blood-soaked rags.

Miguel Hernández was born on a day like today,
clouds the color of rotting onion,
a day of pulverized diamond with
shards of pots moaning under Roman roads.
The coffee grounds swirl in the cafe cups
as the sky tightens like the secret policeman’s holster,
and the sheep huddle under the dripping trees.

 

 

Thor Bacon

 

 

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New Work & Xmas Stuff

 

FRESH HELL

 

While in La Palma recently I noticed the Shell petrol stations had these very appealing 2D signs that were just crying out
for a slight adjustment. Lacking a means of transporting very long ladders,
(and being a bit of a wimp when it comes to heights anyway),
I developed a contraption to allow the vinyl to be applied from the ground.

You can see the video of how I did it on my (new!) TikTok page, also on my blog.

 

 

SUPPORT THE STRIKES

 

Recently finished this poster in support of all striking workers.

You can download a free printable file of it from my website, please feel free to share and print one to stick in your window.

(Non-commercial purposes only!)

The poster on the right was spotted in Weymouth by Bod

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A POSTCARD FROM HELL

 

Earlier this month as part of Trashplant festival in the Canary Islands I made this matte painting forced perspective photo opportunity in Los Llanos De Aridane in La Palma, so tourists could take a postcard photo of what the city could look like after a fossil fuel powered flood.

I was invited as part of Trashplant Festival alongside some incredible street artists, including my old friend the brilliant Isaac Cordal.

 

WORLD CUP STICKERS

Late last month I unveiled a Qatar World Cup sticker project I’ve been working on for a while. I printed 6500 of these stickers and distributed many of them resealed in sticker packs and returned to shops, dropped into sticker albums on shop shelves and generally left around the place.

I had some backlash against this from people who thought kids would find the stickers distressing (as if children had never seen a cartoon skeleton before), so I was delighted and touched to get a message from a mum who’s son had found the stickers in a pack they bought from the supermarket. He’d been writing match reports and wrote a special report to bring into school about the situation faced by the workers. It reads:

“A sad report from the world cup. In building stadiums some bad things happened. Workers were not treated with respect and they eventually died from being too hot. Human rights are good.”

 

 

 

 

I made a video documenting the project below:

 

ANTI-GIFT GIFT-GIVING GUIDE

 

 

If you’re looking for xmas gifts and in case I haven’t mentioned it before, I have a large range of unnecessary, obnoxious and infuriating merchandise available in my online shop. I also have limited edition signed prints of my work and some cheaper posters.

Royal Mail is struggling at the moment due to the strikes so its best to get your order in early and 1st class is advised, (although RM say last posting date for 2nd class is 12th Dec, I’m a bit skeptical). After the 16th I’ll look into other courier services.

You can also order online to collect from the Museum of Neoliberalism which will be open every day from the 12th to the 21st for people to collect orders and have a look round. (Please book in advance so I know when I can leave to run errands etc.)

 

I also have some of these NUKE boxes back from the Berlin subvertising show. They’re a signed limited edition of 70 boxes. Available here.

 

XMAS CARDS

I’ve a new bumper pack of 14 anti-Santa Christmas cards which includes the new Santa gravestone one above.

I also have these A7 size Blair family xmas cards based on a genuine card they sent out a few years ago. Sales of which help keep the Museum of Neoliberalism open.

And if you’re a fan of the anime AKIRA get yourself a pack of AKIRA Nativity cards here.

 

 

 

NEW SOCIAL MEDIAS

With Elon Musk destroying Twitter and Facebook sending me threats like the one above (for ‘promoting suicide’ for an old post about my ‘Become a Suicide Bomber‘ Royal Navy poster) I’ve been testing the waters on other social media platforms.

I’m now on Mastodon and TikTok, you can also subscribe to my videos on Youtube.

This update is public and shareable so please feel free to pass it on. If you’re not on my mailing list but would like to be
you can sign up here.

Eternal thanks to anyone who’s ever backed my work on Patreon or through the shop!

And thanks for reading!

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Heredity

The glooming colours
are shining
through.
And it is sombre
in pale…
And it is mournful.
Mesmerizing bubbles
of climbs
over.
Where is the light
of the forgotten city,
no one knows the gravestone park…
However
the great grandchildren
are still playing
in the schoolyard,
which is actually
above it.

 

 

 

Dessy Tsvetkova
Photo Nick Vctor

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The Orb in the North on their re-scheduled 30th Birthday tour

(a year late, I believe!) 

Alan Dearling shares images and words from some of those who witnessed the Mighty Orb in action.

Rammed gig. Thanks to Waka for the invite and all the team at the Lion for their hard work and inspiration…

Here is a selection of pics from quite early on in the evening at the Golden Lion in Todmorden. Looking at The Orb official site, I think that what we saw was OSS: On Sum Shit. This is Alex Paterson with his younger Northern mate, Fil Le Gonidec. It’s the latest version of The Orb Sound System, which seems to have the same initials: OSS!  Matt Hum worked the decks before and after The Orb.

 

The latest Orb album remixed: https://www.theorb.com/abolition-of-the-royal-familia-guillotine-mixes-2/

I saw The Orb at Glastonbury Festival in 1992 and 1993. This was no longer the original two-person version founded by Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty (who left to form The KLF with Bill Drummond). I don’t even know who played, but by then Youth (Martin Glover), Thrash and Jah Wobble had at times joined Paterson at the Orb helm along with Kris Weston and Steve Hillage. Many others jumped on board the space ship Orb over the years. The Orb kick-started the ambient trance scene with albums like ‘U.F.Orb’ and thrilling live shows.

For mostly health reasons, I had to leave the gig early. So I’ve asked friends who stayed, jigged, swayed, grooved and enjoyed The Orb to share their thoughts and comments on another slice of Orb ‘history’.

Many thanks and respect to Keith, Andy and Will.

Keith B.

“Back in 1992 Operation Desert Storm was dominating the headlines, but rave culture, hot air balloons, crop circles and little fluffy clouds provided me with a much needed distraction. And The Orb were there to provide an ambient post-rave comfort blanket for those attending raves like Fantazia, Dreamscape and in my case heading to the now legendary, Shelley’s most weekends. The Golden Lion has a reputation for putting on some amazing acts and this was one of the most anticipated for a long time. I have to admit I’m not a huge fan of nostalgic journeys with acts I loved 30 years ago, but this was something that could not be missed. 

On entry to the familiar surroundings of the Lion the venue was already three quarters full and the bar busy with a friendly crowd of people getting ready for a great night. DJ Matt Hum was spinning some great tunes and the anticipation was building. It was a nice change not to be the solitary old raver, with the majority of the attendant throng being middle aged with a smattering of youth. 

The venue was now full and things get kicked off.  The crowd are instantly into it, with the decks and effects set up pumping out some familiar tunes. Instantly one thing stuck out and took me back to those heady days of the early ‘90s, when there were no people stood behind their phones recording the gig, but just a bunch of people living in the moment and loving it. The night is flying by, propelled by beats so familiar it’s hard to fathom how they’re three decades old. One other old skool moment of note was Alex’s use of CDs instead of a memory card. I have no idea how he keeps track of what is what. 

Things came to an end far too quickly and I think everyone in the place wished this would have been held on a Saturday night and that it went on for much much longer. The Orb delivered on all levels without just banging out all of the hits, they took me on a journey back to the ‘90s and left me wanting more.” 

Andy H.

“Circa 1992 – in one of the cavernous auditoria at Manchester academy I found myself at a gig.

While not advertised as a sit-down gig, that’s what it became – air thick with smoke of varying legality – trippy projections of the moon landings, and so on.

 

A thundering sound system dispensed an exquisite blend of slow dubby techno, and reggae – with a generous sprinkling of ethereal auditory ‘bits and bobs’ … a signature if you will of the Orb.

To this day it ranks among the top musical events of my life.

30 years later to my astounded disbelief – I learnt the same outfit would be performing in the Golden Lion pub – Todmorden, a small town nestling in the bleak but oh-so-beautiful Pennine moors.

Rarely have I anticipated a gig with such relish – I was almost nervous. 

Did they disappoint? No – far from it. The magic had only matured – like a fine wine. 

I found myself smiling in a way I hadn’t done since the days of the Hacienda. Nostalgia bias? Maybe… but the attendees – old and young alike – seemed just as immersed and enthralled with the spectacle as I was. And make no mistake – the Orb is a spectacle like no other.”
 

Will B.

“Though familiar with The Orb’s impressive catalogue, not to mention the work of the many dissonant offshoots that have sprouted and given life to various twisted sounds over the decades, I had never seen them live up to this point. The borough bothering bass and crystalline melodies that floated through the small gaps between the cross-generational tangle of limbs soon made me question why. An alchemic blend of taught electronica and dub reggae inspired fusion unfurled over an epic two hour set that chicaned through their vast oeuvre warping and re-shaping classics with compelling new material. From the eclectic sounds to the broad spectrum of people attending this special evening exemplifies why the best gigs give a starring role to contrast and togetherness.”

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Spirit Rising – Call to Action


Image: Benjamin Franke

To be birthing something vital at a time of extreme fragmentation and dissolution is a statement of defiance. Defiance of the tapestry of fear which hangs over those unwilling to question the direction of travel they are being ordered to adhere to. Ordered by the soulless cabal presently controlling almost all the arteries of this material world.

So it is that The New Now steps boldly forward to throw light on the true nature of the simian darkness through which we struggle to hold our true course, and whose demonic undercurrent reveals it as a desperate attempt to hold-down the lid on humanity’s rising levels of spiritual awareness.

Largely missing from conversations concerning what tactics to deploy against this anti-life cabal and its infamous ‘lockdowns’ on vast numbers of essentially good, peace loving and healthy people – is the possibility of raising our energetic powers in direct counterpoint to the low vibrational state made manifest by Luciferian forces of darkness.

Up until now many ‘meditators’ have expressed the belief that to take direct action against an outside force – to directly confront the source of a problem – is contrary to the spiritual ethos of inner concentration on the Divine.  In other words, blocking out the troubles of the world by entering into a state of inverted consciousness.

However, the vital work of raising one’s spiritual awareness is only one half of the task we need to undertake, without the other half it becomes an escape rather than a vehicle of intent to bring about change.

 

What is this other half?

 

To be ‘whole’ we must also embrace the outwardly directed practice of giving service to humanity.  Service of this nature includes confronting the despotic power-pushers severing our basic civil liberties/human rights and making humans into slaves of the state hierarchy. To take action against  this anti-life cabal is the outgoing part of the equation – the outward breath as it were – whose complementary with the inward contemplative breath is entirely organic and natural. 

A true spiritual exponent will embrace both inward and outward actions, recognizing them to be two dynamic parts of one whole – just like breath itself! Neither inward, on its own, or outward, on its own – will ever change life for the better. On the contrary, it will guarantee more destruction.

Grasping this, we can then apply it to the inherent need to be an ‘inward seeker’ and an ‘outward actor’ – both.  And this has been the mistake made in the past; it has been assumed by many that you can’t be both meditator and activist, and certain groups have used this as an excuse to hide themselves away from taking active responsibility for the health and welfare of Planet Earth. Some activists equally have used it as an excuse to shun the development of spiritual disciplines.

But today we have arrived at a fresh dynamic: The New Now is “Wholeness.”

The New Now obliterates the false divisions created within individuals and societies and reveals the oneness of all apparent opposites. Oneness is a Divine state.  It embraces the necessity of outward fight as equal to the necessity of inward reflection. It reveals them to be One force.

All life is expressed through movement. When fully immersed in ‘Now’ one is aligned with the vibrational essence of the Universe, and providing one is open to its deep mystery, will experience a subtle state of tingling ecstasy.

That state is something all of us have within our reach, but it is illusive and cannot be tricked into existence. Ecstasy comes about as the result of friction between two complementary opposites i.e. Yin and Yang -creating a third state.  Just as a man and a woman create a baby as a blissful expression of Divine Spirit incarnated in a human body.  An expression of innocence, full of wonderment about this new world he/she has just arrived in. This is the rudimentary form of ecstasy.

To be alive in a world in which the expression of supreme joy is recognized and encouraged, is to experience genuine freedom.  That’s where we want to be.

But we do not live in such a world. For us freedom will not come about without a great struggle. If we want ‘peace’ to be manifest on planet Earth we have to rise-up physically, mentally and spiritually – against the forces that are blocking such peace from manifesting. How else can we win this battle? 

Now that we recognize the existence of anti-life forces explicitly attempting to anesthetize the rising consciousness of mankind, we are called upon to channel our energies into actions that will prevent such a situation from coming to pass.

Here is a direct – and unavoidable – clash between a dark agenda and the manifestation of light. One in which the light gains strength precisely because of the directness of its challenge to the darkness.

To help it do so, we need to raise our level of determination to overcoming the planet’s despots low vibrational trail of destruction. We are, in effect, specifically being called upon to raise our capacity for self empowerment and leadership within the context of a direct attack on the very foundations of human existence. As the saying goes “When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty”.

At a time like the present, with a fascist dictatorship establishing itself right under our noses, injustice has become law – and resistance does more than become duty, it becomes critical to our very survival.

Here lies the key.  We know that higher vibrational energy fields exist in dimensions beyond our third density ‘five senses’ experiences. Many of us have witnessed glimpses of fourth dimensional existence and beyond. Now, with the main oppressors of mankind at our door, armed with every conceivable form of divisive weapon, it would seem like we are overwhelmed, lacking any significant means to fight back. But how wrong we are!

 

The Fight Back

 

Amazingly, we are in possession of a weapon far exceeding the power of our oppressor’s physical and mental armoury. All we have to do is activate it – and maintain its momentum in all confrontations with forces intent upon cowing us into submission. 

We need to be moved to take action by a deep sense of emotional outrage “I will, so long as I’m alive on this planet, never give-in to the anti-life thieves of all the beauty and bounty we have been gifted with on this priceless world.”

Our ‘weapon’ is a gift bestowed upon us by Divine decree. A gift so great in its potential exigence, that, once activated, no dark force can come near. In fact the very act of invasion presently manifesting itself on this planet, creates a powerful stimulus for our secret weapon to be activated and to sweep clean the satanic energy fueling the poisoned ambitions of our would be destroyers.

‘The embracing of wholeness’ is a vital imperative in this struggle. It behooves us to rise beyond imposed divisions – such as those of ‘activist’ versus ‘spiritualist’ – and to reconnect the two into the One they actually are. In this example, the actor and the meditator fuse into ‘the spiritual warrior’, on a crucial mission to bring balance into a world torn by division.

The birthing of ‘The New Now’ is a celebration of a higher threshold of individual and collective consciousness.  A state that translates directly into a vast array of actions for the emancipation of an endangered humanity.

Readers will instantly recognize this call because it is nothing less than the direct response of our very own divine spark to the imminent survival threat being imposed upon it.

Our rising power quite simply affirms this unstoppable force of transformation – and its extraordinary ability to turn everything completely around.

 

Julian Rose

 

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher.  He is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and Co-founder of the Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology HARE. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is strongly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

 

first published on https://newagora.ca/spirit-rising-call-to-action-by-julian-rose/

 

Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through

 

To find out more and to purchase the book click here : 

https://dixibooks.com/categories/ecology/overcoming-the-robotic-mind/

 

 

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What Megan Made (with Harry)

A somewhat sickening attempt to make everyone love them,
While seeking license to stand the celebrity shield on its side,
Sums up something new on Netflix today as H and M launch
Their series; revenge and hope floating across the Atlantic

And Public V. Royalty divide. For this is a fairytale freed
Of both Prince and Princesses, as, extricated, fame’s fugitives
Forsake all into which he was born; a Britain bred on excesses,
As they look out on Canadian and then Californian sunsets,

To hear the serenade of the songbird while heeding Hollywood’s
Latest call. They met on Instagram, so we’re told. Do you have anyone
Like that on your insta? Now that tweets can reach Elon and be recorded
By him, well, who knows? We can potentially meet anyone.

Theresa Russell, I love you. After all these years, Kate Bush,
I’m tapping, in the vain and fruitless hope you’ll disclose.
So, to me, their plot points seemed pat, which is not to deny
Their love story. A contemporary Cinderella, albeit with prettified

Friends slash sisters climbs the still greasy pole to a place
Of career dash contentment. A hit TV show calling for her,
Movies made. Fate unwinds. Revealing a boy whose set
Trajectory stunned him; from the tragic death of his mother

To the kind of life lived by his Dad all this time; a period
Of protracted transition perhaps, but with the actual transformation
Uncertain, won only on matters of death and connection, and
The unnatural loss of your line. Apparently H didn’t fit at all

The whole while; the alphabet of privilege speaking for him.
Although in Episode One, he is careful not to proportion blame
On the family still inside. No, it is the paparazzi, instead,
Those bastard sons of Fellini, who make La Dolce Vita

Seem bitter when swallowed down fast and imbibed.
Their intrusions distort. Why then seek this attention? You wanted
To go. You departed, and with a Netflix deal as sweet jibe. Because
Of the books and articles written she says by those unknown to them.

But why then sell your story when attention like this pierces hide?
Why not just disappear with whatever settlement goes with Gucci.
As Jimmy Choo shoes spark and clatter are sweatpants and pumps
Social slide? Why should we care, unless you wish to create a new royalty;

One which will mirror with glitter the way that those set in a certain
Style live their lives. What is your point? Your production company
Make this programme. You have done a deal for exposure and now
Seek the story of how the misunderstood start to thrive.

You used Oprah as your maid and made of Piers Morgan a dragon;
(For him an intemperate creature), but in pulling the red rug under
Royalty, do you want Will and Charles to survive? Or Kate
And Camilla of course. Along with all of those countless children.

Dismiss Anne. Forget Edward. And fuck Andrew! Fuck Andrew!
For falling in step with Jeff’s jive. So, what do you want?
Is this your new show with more acting? Is this Green Card,
Harry meeting Sally, Shameless in Seattle, or a new and untamed

Shrew to assize? Will we be watching some form of Shakespearean
Strain, Romeo and Juliet meets Measure For Measure,
Or a modern Miranda, maddened and married to an acceptable
Caliban at her side? There is no Prospero here, but now they live

On their own magic island. Where their private lives can be public
And where the rules of former secrecy start to die.
Regicide rules. In whatever form it can muster.
The Queen is dead. Watch the Princes. For, in abdication

And across a sliding scale I would wager that time is no healer
And that a life lived chasing light yields no prize.    

 

                                                                                                         David Erdos 8/12/22

 

 

 

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