The Art of Being

When the trick is all done
We search for the reality.

When all that is left
Is the email,
We search for an address.

I looked for a home
To relive my childhood dreams

When the fallen leaves
Scattered all around my home
I fell for your missing beauty.

When the orange sun kissed me goodbye
I romanticized with the glowing moon.

I have your handwriting
While I look for your signature
Inscribed in my heart.

The letters of yesterdays,
The spontaneity of future
All wandering between my recollections.

The river flows same
No joy to hide,
No pain to show.

 

 

 

 

Copyright Sushant Thapa
Picture Nick Victor

 

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Shush 

I see my weakness, most unseemly
the emptiness between four walls, and
my culpability. Have mercy on me,
humble door, where humanity 

has passed like smoke. Hello, yellow bird.
I raise my face to the sky. It seems it is
singing to me. My days will change. I’ve lost
my regrets and complicated desires.

There’s a hole here. Who am I? There’s
little left except a grown man in a dark
suit crying in public. The idea of death.
I don’t know what these people think. Come on,

I’m not afraid, but I would like something
to come to me from the infinite
where I can multiply. I have no mission
left to fulfil. One by one the mouths will close.

 

 

  
Ian Seed
Picture Rupert Loydell

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May, 2023

some days it was so warm
we sat outside
looking up into the sky
at the transient architecture of the clouds
or for anything that might appear
out of the blue
                        nothing did although
the dandelions all sprang up
when no-one was looking
their flowers morphing into clocks
sometimes we went down to the sea
stood on the shingle
waves lapping at our feet

I sit now with my back
to the dove that’s built its nest
on a ledge beneath this upstairs window
we maintain a companionable silence she and I
she incubates her eggs while I
write this and other things sometimes
I still walk round the fields
seeking chaos though more often
ruminating on the void

 

 

 

Dominic Rivron
Picture Nick Victor

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Blue Orchids, The Furrowed Brow and Autocamper

 

Another live ‘threesome’ night out … with Alan Dearling

This was a mad, frolicsome night. Rammed venue and an extremely eclectic musical mix. If this was fifty years ago it would have been dubbed, ‘Variety Night’!

Autocamper were up first. Young, keen to plough their own personal musical furrows. They looked as though they enjoy working together, and each member of the Autocamper ‘team’ contributed to the overall jangling soundtrack that they made sound just a bit off-kilter, but nicely so. Three of the band took turns on vocals, not just frontman Jack on guitar. Collectively, this added to the spicy ‘variety’. Niamh’s xylophone provided a hypnotic tubular bells-type edge to the proceedings. I thought that the drummer’s vocal was particularly individual. Overall, a modern take on the garage band with an added little bit of Byrds-like psychedelia.

From their FB page it tells us: “introducing… YOU LOOK FABULOUS! our debut cassette release! featuring ‘bonfire night’, ‘never end’ and a cassette only exclusive ‘Ken Hom’ recorded by John Harkins at the mill in Plungington and put out by discontinuous innovation inc!”

They  didn’t seem to have any cassettes left. A shame for them, they might have sold a few.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/automaticcamperband/

The Furrowed Brow

I own up. I had been watching the vids of The Furrowed Brow quite a lot in advance of the gig. They sparked my imagination. “Would I be getting the opportunity to watch a new major band at the beginning of their journey to star-studded Musical Heaven?”

Visually they are very imaginative. A potpourri of Bowie psych Ziggy, androgynous, playful, theatrical. A veritable circus of talent. Strong songs, dodgy, edgy lyrics, inventive performances. Plenty to watch and The Furrowed Brow are real crowd-pleasers.   They exude oodles of their own brand of mischievous fun and are obviously enjoying themselves thoroughly on their adventures into post-punk/glam Wonderlands in search of Alice and the White Rabbit! Masses of vital energy. Individual and thoroughly entertaining. Nice mixes of shadows and light. Darkness and Day-Glo. Scuzzy. It’s good to bear witness to some quality catchy pop music. Ear-worms to the fore!  They should soon be in the forefront of the new Manchester wave of young bands. Check them out!

https://www.facebook.com/furrowedbrowband

Single: ‘Jill’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIfO1vm6SjI

‘I threw the bathwater out’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OT49iUeS84

Furrowed Brow tell us: “We’ve been working on our next single: OUTDOORS MAN – we’ve cobbled together everything we need to record ourselves properly at Brow Towers so the entire thing – recording, mixing and mastering – is now 100% us. Fear not, we’ve still recorded everything live but it means we’ve also had as much time as we like to chuck in loads of weird and wonderful effects and it’s sounding really fucked up and amazing – just like the good Lord intended. Release date looking to be mid- June.”

Blue Orchids have been around a long, long time. Since 1979 in fact. They originally formed out of the proverbial ashes, when Martin Bramah left the Fall, after playing on the band’s debut album ‘Live at the Witch Trials’. They are often spoken in reverential, hushed tones as Nico’s backing band.

This live performance commenced with Martin complaining about the ‘smoke’ rolling onto the darkened stage and then telling the audience: “You won’t know any of the songs tonight, we are premiering our next album.”

I suspect, or guess, that the Blue Orchids like a bit of organic confrontation. Moody music, moody atmosphere.  They claim on their Facebook page: “…we speak with the tongues of men and of angels we have the gift of prophecy and can understand all…”

Here’s what was said about the band in advance of the show: “First conceived in 1979 after he walked out on Mark E Smith, the group has been through many changes. This year’s line-up is a wild mix of psych, post-punk and a strange kind of ‘city-folk’.

Pounding beats, pulsing bass, a maelstrom of melody and discordant lead-breaks, powers this beast that Bramah has created and nurtured through the years.

Follow them down a shady back-alley, if you dare, and watch as they reveal the dark, psychedelic mysteries at the heart of their music. Not to be missed!”

Online I can see that Blue Orchids have been critically acclaimed by some notable music writers. From Wikipedia:  “The NME’s Barney Hoskyns commented about them, “There is an economy of love and yearning in every chord, vocal or instrumental that breaks from the aching heart of the Blue Orchids’ sound” while the writer Paul Morley, reviewing their second single ‘Work’ said, ‘They rave but they are not mad’.”

‘Lucky Speaks’ (2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvgU3unB5T8

‘What thing is man?’ (2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FzA4y1yzaA

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BOBBY WOMACK: ‘THE POET’S STORY…’

 

Book Review of:

‘MIDNIGHT MOVER: MY AUTOBOGRAPHY’

by BOBBY WOMACK

(John Blake Virgin Books, 2007, £17.99, ISBN 1-84454-148-7)

 

Bobby Womack: 4 March 1944-27 June 2014

The cover-sticker proclaims ‘The True Story Of The Greatest Soul Singer In The World’. Well… yes, since by then Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, and James Brown were all gone, that was probably true. Bobby Womack was the last of the muscular old-style gritty blue-collar R&B shouters, from an era before the genre sophisticated into insipid vacuous gloss. But he was always more than just that. Sure, he had hits. And they were superb hits. But he was also a hugely prolific session musician and accomplished songwriter who played on so many super-cool records, and wrote more classic tracks than you could shake a funky tail-feather at.

The Rolling Stones first ever no.1 UK single “It’s All Over Now” was his, check the credits in brackets beneath the title. And “Midnight Mover” – which titles this playful autobiography, is another – a defining smash for Wilson ‘The Wicked Wicked’ Pickett. And it’s a great great story related with wit and humour, rich with highly entertaining anecdote and a wealth of insightful pen-portraits of the giants of Soul. Try the passage about the brothers catching a dose of clap from a white whore, and Solomon Burke’s terrifying fatherly advice about how to cure it!

Bobby was born 4 March 1944, a Pisces in Cleveland Ohio, one of five brothers so poor they grubbed through garbage cans for discarded pig’s tails, pigs’ snouts, ears and ox-tails, his father – Friendly Womack, even declared ‘fasting days’ when they had no food at all. The Womack brothers began singing by mimicking their father’s inept ‘Voices of Love’ vocal group behind their backs. Until his father bartered a guitar in exchange for giving four free haircuts. Risking a beating, while Friendly was out, Bobby learned to play it left-handed, with the guitar upside-down, learning his style by listening to Floyd Cramer – a piano-player! Soon, the results of his first-ever recording sessions with his brothers were ‘stolen’ and released under a bogus name – ‘the record business started screwing me then and hasn’t stopped screwing me since’ he adds ruefully.

Their next singles were done for Sam Cooke’s SAR indie-label, the second – “Lookin’ For A Love” as the Valentinos sold two million, rewritten by Bobby around an old gospel tune. His father promptly disowned them for selling out to the devil’s music. Schmoozing his way into playing a Dean Martin session – and getting thrown out for his pains, Bobby wound up playing on Sam Cooke’s 1962 hit “Twisting The Night Away” instead. Nevertheless, this burgeoning career ran aground when the man he called ‘my mentor, a second father’ was shot dead in a Motel 11 December 1964, and within three months Bobby married Sam’s widow. He was just turned twenty-one, she was ten years older. The troubled marriage, entered more out of loyalty to Cooke, was violently resented by both families, by fans and record industry insiders. Bobby began using coke to escape the pain.

He got a call from Ray Charles, and toured with his band, but quit because he was terrified by Ray’s habit of piloting the tour-plane himself! He did session-work at Chip Moman’s ‘American Studio’ which brought him into contact with the greatest artists of the era, Joe Tex and Jackie Wilson. He played on Aretha’s ‘Lady Soul’ (1968) and ‘Dusty In Memphis’ (1969). Previously unimpressed by Elvis, he found himself overawed by the King’s charisma when he played the “Suspicious Minds” sessions. Then, dubious about the white boy Jerry Wexler called in for another recording date, he found that Eric Clapton played more authentic Blues guitar than he did! Bobby toured with the violently confrontational Wilson Pickett, but had to fill his own debut solo album – August 1968s ‘Fly Me To The Moon’, with covers because he’d given all his own songs to Pickett.

He went through the coke-fuelled madness of Sly Stone’s ‘There’s A Riot Goin’ On’ (1971), emerging ‘too broke up to work’. He even faked blindness as an avoidance strategy to get out of playing live. Stevie Wonder called round to offer his sympathies. Bobby watched him through the fraying strands of his fake eye-bandages. His next record project was to be a C&W album he titled ‘Step Aside Charley Pride Give Another Nigger A Try’, until the distraught label changed it, and then dropped him.

To Bobby, ‘my view was, I wasn’t a guy you could put in a bracket.’ Yet despite much hilarious absurdity, the music flowed, he toured and recorded with the Faces and the Rolling Stones. Until his album ‘The Poet’ (January 1982) provided his major break-through into the big-time, and it’s classic defining Soul, even though record company politics ensured he would never receive his just rewards from its success. ‘I’m a legend’ he acknowledges wryly ‘not a rich legend’. For anyone with a passion for sixties music, for Soul and R&B, there’s a wealth of it here. Even if you don’t like Soul music and never heard of Bobby Womack, this book is still a wonderful trip.

 

www.blake.co.uk

BY ANDREW DARLINGTON

 

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Derive

As he had nothing specific to do that day Erik decided he would go out and simply wander around. He’d never done this before, and he felt a little self-conscious, but the idea of sauntering along observing things others missed, of simply drifting, appealed to him. Out on the street he found it harder than he had expected. His normal walking pace was quite brisk and slowing his stride to a dawdle took some practice. He got behind a couple who were ambling gently along and adjusted his speed to their leisurely step, though not without difficulty. So preoccupied was he with the problem of velocity that he barely noticed anything around him. People were looking at him oddly, he thought, though this may have been his imagination. He needed a place from which he could observe so he sat down at a table outside a café, where he ordered a coffee and, for additional emotional fortification, a slice of apple strudel with cream. The pavement was busy with shoppers and tourists. They were the usual people he’d expect to see, similarly dressed and generally doing much the same thing. The tourists posed for selfies in all the predictable places – the display of bedding plants in front of the municipal library across the street was a popular spot. He tried to remember what famous flanêurs had described in their writing. There were no beggars in sight, though there was a busker further up the street singing country and western, which was mildly annoying. The architecture around him was mostly modern, the history of the few older buildings unknown to him. He took out his notebook and scribbled down a few observations, then crossed them out. The coffee and pastry arrived and were excellent. He made them last as long as he could, watching people pass, customers enter and leave the café, a couple of scrawny pigeons foraging under the tables. He felt rather bored. Perhaps he should visit the Museum of Fine Art instead. There was an excellent restaurant there where he might have lunch.

 

 

 

Simon Collings
Picture Nick Victor

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In the lost

In the lost
but not found
couloirs
some treasures
are chasing out
the temptation.
And the arbor
of lucky bounds
has reached out reflection.
Please, let me
keep on searching…
You are lost
but I still hope
some day
some remedy
will be touching,
and you may glow,
you may shine
again in my line …

 

 

 

Dessy Tsvetkova
Picture Nick  Victor
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March

Pleasurable mid-morning as afterthought: the rained down dreams swish brushless from night-fevered mind. Wind once cleared abbreviates what seeded the advance toward forming memory to beseech potential held in stillness. One breath then feed of others’ energy within the virtual or imagined room. Palm sifts light, then light approaches the bonsai plant gifted me. One side, greening; the other, a gray-brown impasse. Foster living past intention once easy prior to the years that polish or erode what was seen ahead. Now calmer than before, surprising beauty even in weeds unnamed and accepted.

Faultline, reverence, tamped-down colors limber against a nest of sky

 

 

Sheila E Murphy

 

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The poem that changed the world 

 

On Friday night I had a blowout

I drank a six pack of beer and smoked two single skinned up joints

The beer was fresh from the local shop

But the weed was nearly a year old

 

It was my attempt at suicide

 

After the joints and downing the last of the sixth beer

I was feeling sick as I smoked on a conventional cigarette

As I lay my head on the toilet bowl waiting for it to come out

My head was being dragged down by an invisible force

I thought I was going to die like some of the greats

 

Local and global

 

I suddenly realised I didn’t want to die like that

As I got myself out of this vortex and walked back into my bedroom

I was starting to sweat in cold air

While taking off my cardigan and boots

I could only see the only daughter I will ever have

 

My dog Candy

 

And all I could think and say to her was I’m so sorry honey I have let you down

I dropped down on the bed like death

I was certain I was going to die from this ordeal

A little while later I made another trip to the bathroom

 

There was still no sick

 

And I even thought I would shit myself at one point

Once again I made it back into the bedroom with my dogs tail wagging

I still thought and said I’m sorry darling I have let you down so bad

 

There was one thing for certain as I went through these half-drunk and stoned visions

 

I didn’t care about my writing

 

What I did care about was leaving my beautiful Candy behind

It really put everything into perspective for me

 

No writing

Just love to live for

 

That’s pretty funny for any dedicated artist

As I lay there swimming through the universe I knew it was about to happen

I didn’t have the energy to get up again so I puked on my already dirty bedroom floor

From there and having puke in my hair I passed out for an hour

 

When I awoke from those forty winks I felt rejuvenated but I needed food

And something to watch as a distraction

I made a chicken sandwich with crisps and some chocolate

And I put on some Podge and Rodge

 

A scare at bedtime

What a classic

 

As I finished off my food and listening to those Irish puppets

I didn’t know if I was going to get any sleep again

But as the DVD was coming to an end I passed out

 

Of course the next day I was as hungover as fuck

And I had a hint of paranoia from the weed

 

I needed coffee and water all morning

I also knew I needed a bath so I put on the water heater

 

And I knew there was no way I was going to be able to face the world

So I text my mum to see if she could go to the shop for me and she said yes

 

I had my bath and dried myself off 

Don’t worry I got the dog walked okay

 

I lay on the bed for a while with nothing but a towel on

I eventually got dressed and then my mum entered

 

I didn’t really want to talk about what I tried to do

So I told her a little fib

 

I told her I had a few too many beers

Nothing about the weed or the suicide attempt

 

We ate our food and had a pleasant chat as I downed half a litre of orange Lucozade

 

She left and I didn’t feel too bad at that point

I knew I needed to watch something to take my mind away from things

 

But I sat talking to my own god

And I even took a wank

 

After a while I started feeling like shite again and took a diazepam

I would feel like this for the rest of the night

And even feeling like I was going to take a heart attack

 

I just didn’t want those hot sweats again

 

I would fall asleep eventually and wake up to the next dawning morning

And again I felt like shite

 

But I did my usual routine without the help of my mother

That was a Sunday and this feeling would continue into Monday

 

As today came

This is a Tuesday

 

This is the first day I felt alive and healthy again

 

Now I’m sitting writing down all this bullshit

In order to move like the machine I am with words

 

And of course love

 

With all the talking I did from being unhealthy

I could have written a dozen poems or a story or a screenplay or even an article

 

But something really stood out to me today as the sun shines through the blinded moon

 

When I was a youngster I felt nobody cared what I had to say

Like when all the adults were talking shite

Or when I was skating with my friends

Or past girlfriends I had

Or even fucking counsellors I’ve talked to

 

I always felt like they dismissed important shit I was trying to say

Like a pop up on your computer telling you they are keeping you safe and you click dismiss

 

It always seemed like they blanked that stuff coming out of my mouth

Until someone else said something better

They became more interested in what they had to say over yours

 

So when this writing and poetry bullshit came into my life

I took it because I felt like I could voice my opinions

And if they were interested in what you had to say

 

They would read it

They would listen to it

They would watch it

They would even come out to hear it

 

I guess this is why I do this and why I am so fond of it

I am not in it like most to be a genius

 

I am in it to have a voice in the world

When I felt like people didn’t want to listen

 

I know every writer thinks what they write is great

But you’re just another scribbler

 

Just like me and most of the world

 

I believe every writer has one good piece of writing in them

One that will make their career

Some will make millions from it

Fans and the money

But I know myself that I will only speak to the underground

 

Maybe I’ve already written my one good piece

Or maybe not yet

But either way it will come

Or maybe it already has

 

But what I realised after three days of paranoia and ill health is

 

That love is more important than being a cynical artist

 

I know the ending is the best part of any writing

As I leave it here and walk away to feed my dog

Maybe drink another coffee and smoke another cigarette

Wishing only the best for you out there in this world

 

& hoping for no more death

 

 

Paul Butterfield Jr

 

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Alan’s New and Old Music Reviews

 

Early Summer 2023 – Alan Dearling

 

Fred Again and Brian Eno: ‘Secret Life’

There’s sometimes an element of ‘London buses’ with Eno’s recordings. Many seem to appear almost simultaneously, often collaborative efforts, as is this one. On his ambient records, soundscapes take centre stage more than words or vocal performances.  That was true of 2022’s ‘Foreverandevermore’ with its whooshing sonic blips and swirling, pulsating rhythms. Vocals are an ethereal dream – and that is even more so on ‘Secret life’ his team effort with Fred Again (actually Fred Gibson of dance music fame for his widely acclaimed ‘Actual Life’ trilogy). There’s a lot of disembodied vocals and glacial stutterings and whispers. Many loops, repetitions and samples from across many genres and artists apparently including Lola Young, and John Prine. There’s a courtly elegance too in quasi-classical sounds on such tracks as ‘Follow’. There’s a beauty and sense of love and loss in Eno’s recent music. Likewise, Fred Again.  Oodles of vulnerability.  Stark beauty.  At times it is perhaps a tad too impersonally-personal, but if you like Eno, and possibly Penguin Café Orchestra, it’s definitely worth a listen.

‘Enough’ track video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpw6I11xj4M

Marianne Faithfull: (re-release/mixed) 1995/2023 ‘Secret Life’

Re-mastered for Record Store Day 2023. Marianne’s album working with Italian composer/arranger, Angelo Badalamenti, famed for the soundtrack for David Lynch in ‘Twin Peaks’. It’s not that similar to the Eno album despite sharing the same title, but it is darkly ambient, based on an orchestral score, and is lush with powerful vocals (and words) from Marianne. Released on vinyl, but with 3 additional tracks on the CD version including ‘You’re not in London anymore’. It’s worth checking out, especially as you will perhaps realise that you actually already know a number of the tracks.

Here is Marianne with Jools Holland in 1995 talking ‘…disembodied poets’ and music, poets and much more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFERiQzPWNA

The Church: ‘Hypnogogue’

Not really so much a futurist Sci-Fi story epic – more a return to the prog rock bombast of the mid to late ‘70s and beyond. This is the 26th album from The Church, Sydney’s psychedelic rockers. There’s definitely a cinematic energy to the whole affair. Pomp, majesty, melodic charm and strong vocals from Steve Kilbey. The album evokes dreamscapes, as the track, ‘Thorn’ suggests, a compute-generated “solace in a forest of dreams”. Likewise, there’s ‘Flickering Lights’ with an insistent background ethereal vibe. I couldn’t help but muse on ‘Wish you were here’, and the idea, slightly mockingly of being transported to the ‘Other side of the Moon’! The Church have a lot of self-belief and ultimately it’s contagious. The layered sounds (rather than the story-line about North Korean occultist, Sun Kim Jong and his dystopian future controlled in the Hypnogogue machine, that captures and distils dreams), crept up on me and almost despite some excesses, it conjures up a spectacle that can be imagined in a massive auditorium or festi with lights and sounds bombarding the brain-cells. Old Skool prog…

‘Thorn’ from ‘Hypnogogue’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtZp-Ljppc4

David Bowie: (film soundtrack) Moonage Daydream

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y9ttNYwzg0

This was released last year. It’s a double CD – a remarkable collage of highlights from the Bowie lifetime: words, songs, performances from across David’s richly varied career. As the film director, Brett Morgan says: “Bowie cannot be explained, but he can be experienced.”

Playing the collection at home on a decent sound-system is indeed an ‘experience’. A deeply personal one, one that is almost spiritual and offers sublime glimpses of the Bowie genius. So many aspects of music and art from the sing-along anthems of ‘Changes’ and the Ziggy Stardust era through the ambient and subterranean, labyrinthine music that Brian Eno produced with Bowie in the loosely connected Berlin trilogy, which includes ‘V-2Schneider’, ‘Sound and Vision’ and ‘Heroes’.

It’s a great memorial to the ever changing, ever-evolving artist that was David Bowie. Even if you already own all or most of his albums, this is a celebratory collection. Great stuff!

Elli De Mon: ‘Pagan Blues’

Blues Grunge. Heavy. As Elli informs us all: “I am troubled…Stay out of my way!” Elli is a one-woman blues sensation. I loved her last album, ‘Countin’ The Blues’, which was filled with highly original dark-renderings of blues classics.  This new collection is very much what it says on the label: ‘PAGAN BLUES’. ‘The Fall’ opens proceedings with a saturated sound and ‘I can see you’ spits venom. All but one track, ‘Catfish Blues’ are Elli’s original compositions. It places her in a space between a one-woman White Stripes,  Dr John the Night-tripper at his voodoo swampiest and possibly Tom Waits’ singing songs by Nico!

By the time you listen to ‘Desert Song’ you may be troubled with a temporary lobotomy!  It’s a musical equivalent of meeting up with Charles Manson and his Family out at the Spandau Ranch. ‘Star’ has Elli playing the Spiderwoman, witchy with fuzzed-up slide guitar before ‘Ticking’ which is a spectral, darkly sacrificial pentagram of sounds.  ‘Siren’s Call’ presents  a sitar-driven dance track. She hails from the north-eastern Italian town of Vicenza, but one hopes to see her at gigs and festies in the UK and beyond. Salutations to Her Dark Pagan Majesty!

The final album track, ‘Troubled’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSOO1sgYmpY

 

 

 

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Back to being

 



Listen! Listen!

To the soft vibrato
of the wasp’s wing,

to the bumble bee

pawing the pollen,

to the wandering woodlouse

clod-hopping, recyling,

to the butterflies

petalling and nectaring,

dancing out

their delicate days.

Listen! Listen!

To the multitude,
to the signature tunes on the wind,

to the refrain of the rock dove,

the wood pigeon, the choral of tits,

to the ladybirds and beetle bums,

free among the fern fronds.

Drop down!
Become small again!

Wander in WONDER!

The micro is COSMIC!

We are Earthlings! Earthlings: all.

Daisies don’t want to be in chains.
Dandelions are yellow suns,

feeding famished foragers:

pretty heads billowing

in a verdant hula hula forest!

Every branch is full of homes!
The leaves are veined and vibrant!

The slugs are in service!

Flies are fruitful, not fiends!

Spiders are spinning our future,

webbing the Oneness!

This breathing Beauty…

The squirrel is a selective gatherer!
The mole is magnificent:

it is we who have been blind!

Garden strimmers
are winnowing the wild ones!
Scything to silence

the Peaceable Kingdom

all around us!1

Silenzio! Silencio!

Banish the bodgers,
the mowers, the pruners,

the toxic sprayers,

the lopping tree ‘surgeons,’

the dead-headers,

the bull-dozers, brick layers, cement slurryers,

the crazy pavers!

And let it all BE.

Biophilia! Biophilia!

Live…and let live!

.

.

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Heidi Stephenson
Illustration: Claire Palmer



1 Since the 1950s Britain’s hedgehog population alone has been decimated from 36 million to less than 1 million, in large part because of garden strimmers, lawnmowers, forks, spades, chemicals, bonfires, netting and fencing which blocks hedgehog highways. Please see:

https://www.willowshedgehogrescue.co.uk/willows-hedgehog-rescue-strimmer-campaign.html

 
 
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Orpheus Crossing

Orpheus crosses the council estate
Returning home he hesitates   –
Best sidestep the limelight
And like the sky put on a hood of grey

This is no earthly paradise
This is England
A search for safety and survival manifest
In ready sombre-toned athleisure wear

John Clare crosses hard on foot from London
His fractured mind finds comfort
Passing through the villages of Harrold and Odell
Their mingled streams of birdsong and of water

Many cast-off by brief fame
London’s fickle favour and regard
Question they were born to be
More than an amusing passing moment

The ‘peasant poet’ on the road might ponder
‘Nature is a deep broad heart and never artificial   –
All I leave behind me are the games   –
Their fashion-plates disguised as poetry’

 

Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

 

 

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5 years since Shell threatended to sue me

HELL ANNIVERSARY

Time flies when you’re in Hell

 

This month makes it five years since Shell sent me a cease and desist over my anti-Shell merch. And then, somehow, all it took was me replying with few sarcastic emails for them to back down and leave me alone. I can’t believe it worked and I cant believe this stuff is still in my shop

The legal threat happened in 2018 in retaliation to a subvertising campaign organised by Brandalism in which some of my, and other artists’ anti-Shell posters were put up around the country in response to Shell’s greenwashing festival: Make the Future.

A day or two after the posters went up I received an email from Shell’s lawyers regarding the Hell merch I was selling on my website to help fund my artwork. They gave me 7 days to take everything offline or they would begin legal proceedings.

I was kindly offered free legal advice which warned me that it could be hard to win in court and if I lost I could be saddled with £40k+ in fees, so reluctantly I intended to acquiesce to their demand. But in the meantime I thought I’d reply to their lawyer anyway and see if I could wind them up. You can see the email exchange here:

After that last email, they stopped replying altogether and appear to have dropped the claim. Someone higher up the chain of command must have realised it was backfiring as I was posting the correspondence online and it was getting shared all over the place.

Apparently sarcasm is an effective legal defence.

I was really struggling for cash at the time so the sales generated by the legal threat actually meant I could keep my studio open, so, er thanks?

To this day and I’m still selling anti-Shell merch and it’s helped fund several Shell-based projects including the Hell Bus and some new stuff that’s in the works, and to celebrate five years I’ve had some new badges made up!

You can order them here. All funds go towards pissing off Shell.

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Massive thanks to everyone who’s bought any of this or my other stuff, it really helps me keep doing what I’m doing.

 

FRESH HELL

 

I’m bringing the Hell Bus back to Glastonbury this year (come see it in Shangri-La!) with it expanded to be the Hell Bus in a Hell petrol station.

I’ll also be taking the bus to Lambeth Country Show in south London (free entry over two days 10th – 11th June)

I’m currently building an on-fire petrol pump for the Hell Bus to have crashed into, using water vapour to simulate the fire (see the video below). I’ve been posting work in progress updates of this on my instagram story.

 
 
 
 
THE POSTTRAUMATIC

     
 
   
 
 

I’m in the newspaper! Specifically I’m in The Posttraumatic from Spain, edited by the brilliant Octavi Serra who I met at Trashplant Festival last year. The photo of the Shell Green Emissions poster above is also from this issue. Copies or a subscription to the paper are available from The Posttraumatic website.

DOPE

A spread of my subvertising posters is in the current issue of the brilliant DOPE magazine from Dog Section Press. They have a mutual aid distribution model so they give away thousands of free copies to anyone who needs to make a few quid, who can then sell it on the street and keep everything they make. If you can’t find a street vendor you can also subscribe via their website which helps them get thousands more copies into the hands of people who can use them. It’s a fantastic mag and a worthwhile cause. Support them if you can!

 

 

BEHEADED KING STAMP T-SHIRTS

 

I put this shirt design in my shop for preorder last month but there’s been a delay at the printers so I’m reopening the preorder for this weekend only, closes on Monday at 11am and they’ll go into production. You can order yours here.

 

 

PRIDE MONTH

 

A few years ago I added some vinyl lettering to the bottom of this Sainsbury’s pinkwashing ad during Pride month. It stayed up for a day before they took the whole banner down, and as far as I can tell they’ve never put another ad in the same spot.⁠

The only thing a corporation can ever proudly support is their ability to make profit. To them, social issues are merely PR opportunities to drive sales and enrich investors.⁠

Sainsbury’s largest shareholder is the Qatari Royal Family, a country where homosexuality is punished with 3 years in prison and a fine. It is also illegal to change your birth-assigned gender.⁠

Apart from the ownership issue, what was particularly galling about this poster was the inclusion of Sainsbury’s “150 years” anniversary logo, making it appear like the supermarket had been at the forefront of supporting LGBT+ rights for that long, as opposed to deciding a few years ago to capitalise on the life-and-death struggle of LGBT people in order to sell more pasta and baked beans.⁠

See also:

 
 
 
GREAT WAR
 
 

Couple of posters installed in Southend-on-Sea this weekend after I spent a day talking to students on The Other MA about how subvertising is against the law and why no one should do it. Seems my advice was ignored.

In particular I implored them to never use a T30, H60 hex and four way utility keys to open bus stops and replace the ‘6 sheet’ advertising posters (dimensions 120 X 180cm) with artwork instead of ads.

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

Here’s everything I’ve got planned for the next two months:

10th-11th JuneLambeth Country Show
London
Hell Bus at a free two day festival in Brockwell Park, will be in the “Eco-Village”

21st-25th JuneGlastonbury Festival
Glastonbury, Somerset
The Hell Bus crashes into a Hell petrol station in Shangri-La, Glastonbury.

I’ll also be taking part in a panel at the Silver Hayes Information Stage on Saturday between 13:15-14:00. The panel is called “The Power of Publicity” and includes speakers from Liberty, Notes to Strangers, and Pregnant Then Screwed.

 

24th June – 8th JulySteal This Poster
Florence
I have work in this group exhibition at an art space called ZAP (Zona Aromatica Protetta) vicolo di Santa Maria Maggiore 1

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 08:30 to 22:00

15th-16th JulyWhitecross Street Party
London
Bringing the Hell Bus back to London for a two day street art festival in Whitecross.

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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 I, Sisyphus


 
I wake to another morning
not to write a new poem,
but to start the same poem again.
I push my pen across the paper,
because it’s the object the gods put in my hand.
Each day the words find their places
in an endless game of musical chairs
and I’m supposed to call the music.
It’s hopeless, I know, but I persist,
prodding letters into place,
pulling punctuation in to order
the chaos of syllables struggling
against the rigors of reason.
Again and again I work against hope
only to start anew the next day
with the same cast of characters
still not knowing what they want to say.

 

 

 
Clif Ross

 

 

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Hunger

I prowl the canal,
sprawl like spilled oil.
Time is acid on my boots.

Thoughts blur and fail,
no longer words but sounds 
I haul into the night
as I go through the shuttered town,
shivering along damp gutters,
letting out yelps.

Need and want.
When one hollow fills, another howls.
The shadow in my gut is forever
sifting light from fire.                        

Women, who see me,
approach like wounded wolves
that have left bloodtrails for the moon.
Their heads are children
I hold in my lap.

Men close their ears, they take
their oxygen down into sleep
beyond the blue fingertips of the sun
where they think I don’t go.

Where stars’ teeth turn black, waiting. 

 

Peter Yovu

 

 

 

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Sliding into Chaos

It was getting late as we were circling
the backstreets and looking for a place
to hide away. The trouble with writing
biography is that it’s impossible as we

can never hope to decipher the code
and we have a situation that induces
panic. “This beetle is physiologically
adapted to stand on its head,” she said.

Where did that come from? We suspect
they are listening to the wind but much
of our marine life has been harried close
to extinction and there are certainly people

who try to steal or manage the emotional
lives of others. Size, of course, is not a virtue
in itself but modern states are obsessed with
demarcating their borders. At the end of this

film happiness for all may be just around the
corner. Put your paddle in the water and let’s go.

 

 

 

Steve Spence

 

 

 

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The Movement of the Whole I/The Movement of the Whole II


In explaining how the explicate,
manifest, sensual world
pours out of the plenitude of the void,
they called it a cup which is full, 
a concavity holding nothing,
from which everything flows,                    
you and me, trees and animals,
mountains and men, women and ribs,
flesh and feeling with all potential:
citizens of air, orderly principles,
as well as spite and murder orbiting
thought – wars black holes
something from nothing.

The Movement of the Whole II

In explaining how the explicate,                          
manifest, sensual world                             
pours refuse extraneous to humans                      
into the plenitude of the void,                       
we call it a cup which is full        
for some people,
a concavity holding nothing
for others,
a made up nothingness       
of things people don’t need,             
emptiness made out of the fullness
of self-interest – self-fulfilling        
prophecies                                         
from which everything flows,                                               
ozone and holes, forests and fires                                                                           
people looking to land, babies                     
bobbing the ocean with plastic
and fish, men of matter,
flesh without feeling, even the
paradox of all potential having
taken a wrong turning, as well as
the possibility of finding another.

 

 

Wendy Clayton

 

 

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The Paradox Tree

 

Now I see the bows and arrows, the catapults and vital purpose, the myriad possibilities.

Now the leaves have fallen,
revealing the curvatures and tangled complexities of the paradox tree.

Its nature is to bend
and bring buds and branches
into the service of animals and humanity.

A fine line between use and service,
love and peace, war and hate.
Between giving up and sacrifice. Between nest and shelter.

Dendrites make mathematical patterns, coaxing blue from pale
winter skies. They shield satellite-marked houses from each
other’s sight, blind eyes with lances and separate with fences.

Now gather in baskets the nodes of divine life,
and burn your weapons around campfires,
singing and strumming guitars, drumming up unity.

I see the hardening lignin,
the pulsating sap within,
the parts dividing and the wholeness,
in stages: a signpost, a railway sleeper,
a vision song, a messenger with open arms.

 

 

Sam Burcher
http://www.samburcher.com/home.html

Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

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The Black Cloud

When I sleep I dream
of sunny days,
only to wake and find it
waiting for me.
Sometimes I try to reason with it:
finally, in exasperation,
you’re a cliché, I say,
but it never rises to the bait,
leaving me to wonder if
the world I live in’s a cartoon
and everything about me, drawn.

I half-expect
someone inside it
(whoever’s behind it)
to let down a rope ladder and say
come on up, into the eye
of the storm, let’s talk? But no,
it just keeps following me around,
every now and again
unleashing a hailstorm,
stones the size of billiard-balls,
all bouncing around me
as I dive for shelter
under the coffee-table,
or heavy downpours
when I least expect them,
or, worst of all,
the lightning-bolts
which always just manage to miss me
(of course, I reason,
it’s toying with me.
All it would take
is one direct hit
and it would have to find
someone else to pick on).

Some of my friends try to help,
hustling me into their
spare rooms and cellars
when they think it’s not looking,
but it’s always there,
waiting for me
when I come out.
Others just don’t want to know.
I have to say to people things like:
Pardon my cloud, or
What have I done to deserve this, you say?
I’ve no idea but
Stay back or it might get you.

Let’s just say that
when you have a black cloud after you,
you get to know who your real friends are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dominic Rivron
Photo Nick Victor

 

 

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Fire in the Wire (episode eleven)

 

Steam Stock

Tracklist:
The Mad Lads – Ten to One
Sound Dimension – Ten to Ten
The Spanishtonians – You Wish Me Bad
Johnny Osborne – Ice Cream Love
Barrington Levy – Sister Carol
Augustus Pablo – 555 Dub Street
Stranger and Patsy – Tell it to Me
Derrick Morgan and George Dekker – Hey Boy Hey Girl
The Wailing Wailers – I’m Still Waiting
I-Roy – Yamaha Ride
Black Uhuru – Sinsimelia
Slim Smith – Never Let Go
Carlton and the Shoes – Never Let Go
The Abyssinians – Satta Massa Gana
Jah Scotchie – Man of Creation
Cedric Im Brooks – Satta
One Blood – Be Thankful for What You’ve Got
Trinity meets Dillinger – Jesus Dread
Scorcher – Put on Me Clarks

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GOODBYE BARRY & TED

 – a fond farewell from Kevin Short

Since dipping in and out of such classic series as Hill Street Blues, The Sopranos, Murder One, and the like, I have to say I have never been a fan of the never-ending series format. Fawlty Towers, for me, had it right. Stop while you’re ahead, and let other stories be told. Only when I discovered that two highly praised series were coming to an end in series three, did I allow myself to forego my reservations and binge-watch seasons 1 & 2 of each, in order to enjoy the weekly release of episodes in Season 3. The two titles are ‘Ted Lasso’ and ‘Barry’.

First to TL, which concerns an American who, with little knowledge of football, becomes manager of England’s AFC Richmond and over the series, along with his cohorts, leads the team on a perilous journey to gain Premiership League status, and the possibility of reaching the European Champion’s League, but no spoilers here. This could be a fictionalized version of what American actor, Ryan Reynolds, has achieved with Wrexham AFC in reality. Yet, Ted Lasso did it first. Maybe Mr. Reynolds found inspiration from watching the first series of TL in 2020, who knows? Either way, the story of the underdogs who, through strength of will and self-belief, succeed in goals (!) beyond their wildest dreams, is an age-old tale that never fails to tug at the heart strings. No more so than it does here.

No space to name all writers, actors, contributors, suffice to say that the series was based around a character portrayed by Saturday Night Live’s Jason Sudeikis in an NBC Sports campaign a decade ago, so, major credit must go to him. Although, this was a true team (!) effort in every department, and though a few episodes are a little hit and miss, if you stay with it, you will be rewarded with a magnificent finale that will make you laugh, weep, and hanker for another series, perhaps! You don’t have to be a football fan to love it, there are plenty of human stories between the goal posts, and many real-life celebrities playing themselves for good measure. In short, have a weekend binge-watch!

Now, to ‘Barry’. Not exactly an awe-inspiring title. However, because it’s both a Christian and Surname, could that be a clue to the central character’s double identity? Barry is a hitman by day, and an aspiring actor by night. From this inspired premise, we are taken on the most unpredictable of journeys any series has dared to try. Barry is nothing like anything before. I only became aware of its existence before Season 4 began (Sorry, I lied, 4 not 3 series, but Barry has 32 episodes total, TL: 34), and as with TL, I binge-watched the first 3 seasons, then waited with bated breath for the final ‘wow!’

‘Wow’ was the title of the finale episode, and it lives up to the exclamation in spades. The series is comedy, drama, action-movie, horror, fantasy, gangster, you name it, Barry is it! Oh, not forgetting love-story, and existential nightmares and realities of the here and now. Again, no spoilers, this is a series, like TL, that is best viewed with as little foreknowledge as possible. Even avoid Trailers, if you can. Simply wallow in the mind-expanding trip Barry takes you on and feel the impact of each bullet-ridden turning. Many actors, directors and writers to credit, but as with TL, Bill Hader – another Saturday Night Live(r) – along with writer/producer Alec Berg (Seinfield, The Dictator) should take major credit. Great cast, with the wonderful Henry Winkler (The ‘Fonz’ of old) among them.

I think, without spoiling anything, I can say that there is a moment in ‘Barry’ when we are shown a fantasy account of all the reality we have witnessed on screen, and just as the fantasy of Ted Lasso’s AFC Richmond may have been a precursor to Wrexham AFC’s reality, Barry’s denouement, like both these series, might be closing the gap between fact and fiction, truth and lies, good and bad television. I must admit, even as a non-lover of the series format, ‘Barry’ and ‘Ted Lasso’ are two examples of exceptionally good television. Such a shame the licence payer can’t see them for free.

 

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Notes from the Bloodless Revolution

 

Waving flags and singing songs, crowds march, demanding more than reason. They’re dressed in their best bibs and tuckers, ready to dance and dine, with wine glasses raised in a toast to the hauntological frisson. The glasses are tuned to the exuberant trill of Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! and the whole throng high-kicks to its martial disco beat. The word on the street is Party, and although responses are complex – some think Marx and some think Magaluf – a good time’s guaranteed as soon as the statues are toppled and they’re passing out the vodka and Red Bull. It’s like the poll tax or the miners’ strike, like suffragettes or luddites, or like villagers torching the castle, but with a touch of May Day and Mardi Gras, and a hint of what-the-fuck. I’ve a flag with a dragon and I still fit my wedding suit, so I pick up my song sheet and a fistful of unreasonable demands, raise my D minor glass, and hit the street singing.

 

 

 

Oz Hardwick
Painting Nick Victor

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Love While Departing

You are all
That makes me complete.
My imagination
Renders a statue
Like a thought-god
That speaks about
The love-wind
That blows from being
A stranger to a known friend.
Let’s measure the path to our hearts.
Love happens in departing ways
When I had to leave.
The flowers have surrendered
To the twinkling nights.
Spring blows wildly,
No taming virtue.
The bathing moon
Is so shy
But still I can see your face
Outside my window,
Where you scatter
Like playful tunes of love.

 

 

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 four books of poetry namely: The Poetic Burden and Other Poems (Authorspress, New Delhi, 2020), Abstraction and Other Poems (Impspired, UK, 2021), Minutes of Merit (Haoajan, Kolkata, 2021), and Love’s Cradle (World Inkers Printing and Publishing, USA and Africa, 2023). 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 and he also teaches literature and Managerial Communication to students of BBA and MBS respectively at Degree Campus, 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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THE UNCORRECTED independent publishers’ fair

“The world’s smallest publisher fair.”

The Peckham Pelican is to host the fifth edition of The Uncorrected Independent Publishers’ Fair.

Seven of the UK’s best indie publishers under one roof: Flipped Eye Publishing, Les Fugitives, Prototype, Repeater Books, Rough Trade Books, Strange Attractor Press, Tangerine Press + L-13 Light Industrial Workshop “dishonesty box”

11-6, Saturday 11th June 2022

Readings start @ 2pm: (Flipped Eye Publishing) TBC; (Les Fugitives) ERICA VAN HORN; (Prototype) ASTRID ALBEN; (Repeater Books) OWEN HATHERLEY; (Rough Trade Books) ROSE BLAKE; (Strange Attractor Press) TBC; (Tangerine Press) ARIANNA REICHE

Unexplained podcast (live) 4pm

Lilies in my Brain (acoustic set) 4.30pm

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Punk: Rage & Revolution

 

Exhibition 27 May – 03 September 2023
Leicester Museum & Art Galleries + Soft Touch Arts

Punk: Rage & Revolution focuses on the UK punk scene through original objects, information panels and ephemera, including the first retrospective of original clothing from the late Dame Vivienne Westwood. Alongside origins and influences, the exhibition also looks at punk’s ideology, attitude, fashion, music, art and legacy.

A story of rebellion, creative energy and the political landscape that gave birth to the 1970’s UK Punk subculture.

The exhibition focuses on 1977, a key year. Influences, original objects, fashion, music, art and more brings the Punk ideology, attitude, DIY ethos and legacy to life in an exciting, immersive experience.

The exhibition has been co-curated with young people from Soft Touch Arts, contributing ideas and creative work reflecting what Punk means today. Local punks, alongside Leicester creatives, offer new perspectives on this influential youth subculture.

The Punk: Rage & Revolution project features exhibitions at Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, Northampton Museum & Art Gallery, Backlit in Nottingham, The Gallery at De Montfort University, Soft Touch Arts and the LCB Depot. Events and activities will take place throughout the duration of the exhibitions, including a Revive festival in Leicester in August 2023.

For more information, visit the Punk Rage & Revolution website: https://rageandrevolution.co.uk/

Punk Rage & Revolution Website Trailer from Arch Creative on Vimeo.

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Tiger, Baghdad, 2003

I never liked it here anyway.
Too sodding hot, and it
Was always a two star hotel;
Full of Saddam’s jeering and poking
Children, the poor bloody workers never had time
To come and see the likes of me.
I’d only been here for a couple of years,
Out of Bengal by way of those
Prick traders in Thailand
Who’d make their money
Out of their mothers’ fingernails
If there was nothing else.
At least I didn’t get to be
Some kind of imaginary aphrodisiac.
Always a bit of a loner, me.
It’s the way I liked it.
My ancestors were big game for the Brits and Rajahs; then
For a while the boots were on the other foot
Though the villagers didn’t taste so good
After nuclear power settled in.
I never touched the water myself,
Instincts too bloody strong.
Of course those fools weren’t afraid,
Too busy dreaming
Of dancing girls, bad disco music
and Toyota Landcruisers.
That’s where religion gets you.
Just what I could do with now,
A nice fat tasty priest…
But this is where we’re at:
Since the zoo went
I’m skulking in the alleys like a common mog.
The trigger happy Yanks
Are blowing everything away
Whether it moves or not;
There’s not much cover left.
The locals are locked in cellars
With the remains of the food
Getting their stories ready
For the inquisition
So they can be the next oppressors.
Where the fuck does that leave me?
It’ll be a long time
Before the zoo’s back in shape
And I’m not so sure
I could strut my stuff
With the Stars and Stripes
Hanging over me like a shroud.
Best thing is to leave town,
Follow the stink of death from the desert.
I could live off the odd goatherd
And even an unwary vulture
Or two, not to forget
The goats themselves.
Undoubtedly the Yanks have the city
In a theoretical ring of steel.
I have to find my way out
Without scaring too many brave
Soldiers, or it’s curtains.
Here goes…

 

© Pete Brown

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SAUSAGE Life 272

Bird Guano’s
SAUSAGE LIFE
The column which knows exactly what 9% apr representative means, but refuses to tell you

MYSELF: What time do you call this?

READER: Sorry, the trains were on strike again. Why do they keep doing this?

MYSELF: Well, they want a pay rise.

READER: A pay rise? What for?

MYSELF: The usual, you know, food, rent, clothing, that type of thing.


READER:
How bloody inconsiderate! Who do they think they are?

MYSELF: Anyway I thought you were working from home?

READER:
Not since I got out of prison.

DEAD CATS SPOTTED IN CHANNEL
Semi-retired agent provocateur Nigel Farage, speaking from the top bunk of his air-conditioned Arron Banks-funded luxury motor home parked on the white cliffs of Dover, has reported a raft full of dead cats trying to cross the English Channel. “I was scanning the busy shipping lanes with my Arron Banks-funded Super Migrascope with radar-assisted cross hairs,” the weasel-faced stool pigeon told us, “when I spotted the flimsy inflatable vessel drifting dangerously near the wake of a P&O cross channel ferry bound for Dover. Being unable to spot any undesirable aliens, I assumed that the raft contained old, unused government proposals which had been cast adrift – that is until I noticed the cases of extra-virgin snake oil stacked in the stern, the pall of smoke and the tell-tale flash of mirrors. I immediately reported the dead cat sighting to Home Secretary Cruella de Braverman and the editor of The Daily Mail, who between them manufactured a jolly scary story with the headline DUNKIRK HEROES SPIN IN GRAVES AS FOREIGN INVASION CONTINUES “. My disciples (or as I refer to them on twitter, my ‘peeps’) were thus able to spread this manufactured crock of nonsense like well-rotted manure, over social media’s green unpleasant pastures.”

THE FAMOUS BRICK SHIP OF HASTINGS
In 1066AD, Hastings fishermen famously repelled Napoleon’s mighty armada with a ship made out of bricks. “England is a nation of bricklayers” Napoleon is said to have declared afterwards.
The following Spring, the one-armed French midget succeeded in attacking the English from the rear, this time with his navy concealed inside hollowed out wooden elephants. It was a strategy borrowed from his best friend Hannibal, which was to serve him well during his long and distinguished career as a ringmaster for Billy Smart’s Circus.

PICTURED: POSTCARD FEATURING A 1/5 SCALE REPLICA OF THE FAMOUS BRICK SHIP OF HASTINGS. BUILT IN 2002 BY THE PUPILS OF THE ST. LEONARD’S BRICKLAYING COLLEGE FOR THE VISUALLY CHALLENGED, IT SANK ON IT’S MAIDEN VOYAGE. 

 
 

KANGAROO CAUGHT
Mugabe the boxing kangaroo, (or as many journalists have dubbed him), Raabo, has finally been catured after almost three years on the run. He was tracked down at the Upper Dicker branch of Tuckerbag, the supermarket which caters for ex-pat Australians and confused Kiwis, where he was spotted buying cans of the popular antipodean soft drink Kookaburra Koala. A police helicopter arrived within minutes and after surrounding the store, tazered him and removed his boxing gloves. Trained members of the Upper Dicker Armed Kangaroo Squad expressed surprise after discovering that instead of the expected horseshoes, Mugabi’s mitts contained only Vegemite sandwiches.

The kangaroo escaped in 2020 from Strangeway’s holiday camp in nearby Herstmonceux, where he was employed to give small children rides in his pouch. He is now believed to have been staying at a Travelodge in Bexhill under an assumed name.
“Of course what the management of Strangeway’s hadn’t realised,” East Sussex Police Chief Hydra Gorgon told us. “is that the male kangaroo does not have a pouch. We think this gender confusion may have been a key factor in turning what was once a loveable, Disneyesque character into the rogue marsupial he subsequently became.”

 

MERGER MOST FOUL
It was reported in the financial section of The Fortean Times yesterday that The Knights Templars, The Illuminati, and The Elders of Zion are to be the subjects of an aggressive takeover bid by Lizard Empires, the misinformation company run by the track-suited guru of the gullible David Icke. In a recent interview with Bonkers magazine, Mr Icke suggested that it was about time all the bat-crazy theories of the world’s leading proponents of horseshit were brought together in one giant conspiracy.
“We now live in the tiktoking twittersphere of social media,” he told us from Lizard Empire’s headquarters in East Grinstead, “where the proliferation of so many differing theories such as 9/11, Pizzagate, Chemtrails, and QAnon, is sowing the wrong sort of confusion in the minds of the general population. In my opinion, the public would be much better served were they able to embrace one enormous all-inclusive nose-bag of Merde de Cheval.”
FAIR PLAY
Mr Edde, a spokesman for The Monopolies Commission however, had this to say:
“Existing legislation is quite clearly laid out in paragraph 447a of the 1949 Malicious Propaganda Act”:  
The spreading of total bollocks and the dissemination of horseshit shall be treated with the same consideration for proper competition as any other business. No pun intended.
“It is our view that this merger would simply narrow the public’s choice when it comes to deciding which particular pot pourri of half-witted balderdash they wish to swallow.”
On the same day, despite heavy rain, a well-behaved gaggle of around twenty anti-vaxxers and 5G conspirators added their high-pitched voices to the debate by converging on Parliament Square and marching up and down with banners proclaiming:
WAKE UP SHEEPLES! POLIO, MEASLES AND DIPTHERIA ARE A HOAX! and THE DEVIL MASTS OF DOOM ARE COMING TO EAT YOUR CHILDREN!

 

Sausage Life!

 

 

Click image to connect. Alice’s Crazy Moon is an offbeat monthly podcast hosted by Alice Platt (BBC, Soho Radio) with the help of roaming reporter Bird Guano a.k.a Colin Gibson (Comic Strip Presents, Sausage Life). Each episode will centre around a different topic chosen by YOU the listener! The show is eclectic mix of music, facts about the artists and songs and a number of surrealistic and bizarre phone-ins and commercials from Bird Guano. Not forgetting everyones favourite poet, Big Pillow!

NB: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A PAID SUBSCRIPTION TO SPOTIFY, THE SONGS WILL BE OF RESTRICTED LENGTH

JACK POUND: JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUN READER aka PASS THE INSTANT YOGA

 

 



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Natalie Merchant: Keep Your Courage (Nonesuch)

It’s been a while since Natalie Merchant made anything very exciting, and she’s never gotten near the early music of 10,000 Maniacs. Unfortunately hew new album sounds like hundreds of other AOR rock artists: overproduced, lots of brass oompahing away, lots of big backing vocals. Slick and deadly. Mostly gone is the open, awkward Natalie and in its place is smooth sophistication, with violins and careful arrangements undermining the whole thing. There’s just no oomph or energy or variety, even with all the listens I’ve given it. (The album came out over a month ago now.) Played loud or quiet, paying attention of half-hearing it doing something else, it’s passionless, careful and plodding. Whether it’s her guardian angel, the tower of babel (which she pronounces babble), Aphrodite or The Feast of Saint Valentine (which is the closing song) its all self-important and overblown, with nothing to say. And I don’t have much to say either. It’s a painful disappointment this one. I’m going back to listen to Human Conflict Number 5 and Secrets of the I Ching by 10,000 Maniacs as it’s been downhill ever since. Listen to those intertwining guitars, the fragile momentum.

Johnny Keep-It-Basic Brainstorm

Natalie Merchant – Tower of Babel

10,000 Manics – Grey Victory

 
There was light
And atomic fission
Swelling wind and
Rising ash
Tide of black rain
Cement seared shadow traces
Reminiscent of their
Last commands

Instantly one thousand
Flames arising
Ill scent of
Burning hides surrounding
A settlement
Debased entirely

Enola Gay had made a casual delivery

Please build a future darling
With our bomb
Cherish and love it
For the sake of
Earth bound kingdom come

The undersides of
Fallen metal trusses
Evil debris of
Human bodies
Each window’s glass
Shards pelted
Secure confines
Brittle collapse
Neighbors lay beside
Each other unknowing
Faces scorched
Of all familiar bearing
Too few hands
Wounds for closing
Marred by thirsting
Anguish
Fear
Lamenting

Here we stand
At the door to
Gold Atomic Age
Don’t spoil your faces with worry
Trust in earth bound kingdom come

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The Ear Eater

 

Dadda met this ear eater monster in the forest. It was once upon a time.
Dadda asked the monster what the ears tasted like. The ear eater fumbled for an answer. A few mockingbirds chirped in the chords of another species.
In the end the monster said that the ears taste like fish.
“Which fish? And what does that fish taste like?” Asked dadda.
” I, um, never ate one.” Confessed the ear eater.
” Are you serious? How can you say ears taste like fish?” Dadda’s voice echoed in the night. “There is a chippy outside this forest. My treat.”
Together they went to the shop. The monster had a second helping.
The savoury suited it. “I would not eat ears anymore” It said.

 

 

 

 

 

Kushal Poddar
Illustration Nick Victor

Kushal Poddar lives in Kolkata, India

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

 
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“Revolution” – Powering a Sustainable Future

 

 

a Multi-Fuel Rotary Engine Generator

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paultownley/revolution-a-multi-fuel-rotary-engine-generator?fbclid=IwAR007uzNzjPJBB1i5T6MwBgG7rrTmXcDiKSdg7eKpgjTJfPFMk0qpiO4JH4

Project image

 

 

 

After proving supersonic rotational speeds (918mph) with our previous campaign success and distributing the supersonic capable miniature machines to 5 different countries, we are back with our next offering!

We are excited to introduce our innovative multi-fuel rotary engine generator, a groundbreaking technology designed to address the growing need for cleaner, more efficient energy solutions.

.

Our system can operate on a wide variety of fuels, offering unprecedented flexibility and adaptability, while delivering outstanding performance and reducing environmental impact.

The Problem:

Current engines and generators face significant challenges in terms of efficiency, fuel limitations, and environmental impact. Traditional combustion engines often operate at suboptimal efficiency levels, wasting energy and producing harmful emissions. Additionally, many engines are designed to run on a single fuel type, which can be problematic in times of fuel scarcity or fluctuating fuel prices.

The Solution:

Our multi-fuel rotary engine generator is a game changer in the energy landscape. By incorporating a unique rotor set and pulse jet engine that work in sequence, we have developed a highly efficient rotary engine capable of operating on multiple fuel types. This versatility reduces our reliance on a single fuel source and allows for more sustainable and cost effective energy production. Our engine’s innovative design not only increases efficiency but also minimizes emissions, contributing to a greener future.

Where Are We Now?

So far we have built several proof of concept machines such as a pulse jet engine with no moving parts. We have built and destruction tested many rotary engines beyond the speed of sound (768mph). We have developed an in house rotor balancing machine and various contact free bearings.

Kickstarter Aim:

We want to bring together all of our current development and understanding to build a new precision 5″ rotor set and a metal casing that combines the pulse jet engine and the rotary engine, based on 4.5 years of research and development. This is the perfect size to enable scalability and modular expansion. The data gathered from our Kickstarter proof of concept will provide the design and roadmap for a production model, which we plan to offer in Q1 2024.

What Are The Advantages Of Pulse Jet Engines?

  • Have a simpler design than piston engines, which makes them easier to manufacture, maintain and repair.
  • Lighter than piston engines of equivalent power output, which can be an advantage in applications where weight is a concern, such as aviation or portable power generation.
  • High power to weight ratio, which can be advantageous in applications where power density is important.
  • Fewer moving parts than piston engines, which means they have less friction and wear, resulting in longer lifespan and reduced maintenance costs.
  • High thermal efficiency, which means they can convert more of the fuel’s energy into useful work. This results in lower fuel consumption and lower emissions compared to piston engines.

Off Grid Solution:

  • An off grid generator allows you to be self sufficient and generate your own electricity without relying on the power grid. This can be especially beneficial in remote areas where grid access is limited or unreliable. 
  • Generating your own electricity provides energy independence. You will be less vulnerable to power outages or price fluctuations in the electricity market. This can give you a greater sense of empowerment and control over your life.
  • Our off grid generator will be more cost effective than relying on grid power, especially in areas with high electricity prices or where extending the grid infrastructure is expensive.
  • Using our off grid generator will benefit the environment by producing lower emissions than traditional grid power sources.
  • Our portable or static off grid generator can be used in a variety of applications, from powering an off grid vehicle to providing electrical power for a home or business.
  • Our off grid generators can be designed to meet your specific energy needs, whether you need a small generator for occasional use or a larger system for constant power generation.
  • Our off grid generators can be designed with redundancy systems and backup power sources to ensure reliable operation, even in extreme conditions.
  • By generating your own power, you will improve your resilience to natural disasters, blackouts and other disruptions.

Technology Overview:

At the heart of our multi-fuel rotary engine generator is a cutting-edge rotor set, which works in tandem with a pulse jet engine. These components operate in a precisely coordinated sequence, allowing our engine to achieve exceptional RPM and efficiency levels. While we cannot disclose all the technical details of our proprietary technology, we can assure you that our system represents a significant leap forward in energy generation.

Development Stage and Roadmap:

We are currently in the advanced stages of developing our system, and with your support, we will create a fully functional proof of concept. Our development roadmap includes the following milestones:

  • Finalizing the system design (Q3 2023)
  • Building the proof of concept machine (Q3 2023)
  • Conducting extensive testing and optimization (Q4 2023)
  • Preparing for next campaign stage / mass production (Q1 2024)

Funding Goals:

Our funding goal is £30,000, which will be allocated as follows:

  • Workshop Rent & Utilities: £4,545
  • Engineering / Fabrication Costs: £10,000
  • Labour: £10,000
  • Kickstarter Fee £1,500
  • Payment Processing Fee £1,500
  • Buffer to Cover Any Miscalculations £2,455

Team:

Our team consists of experienced engineers, CAD designers, and entrepreneurs with a passion for sustainable energy solutions. Our diverse skill set and industry experience will ensure the successful development and implementation of our multi-fuel rotary engine generator.

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/paultownley

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/simontowell

Conclusion:

We believe that our multi-fuel rotary engine generator has the capability to revolutionize the way we generate power, leading to a more sustainable and efficient energy future. By supporting our Kickstarter campaign, you are investing not only in our innovative technology but also in a cleaner, greener world.

Join us on this exciting journey, and together, let’s power a sustainable future! Pledge your support now, and help us bring our revolutionary multi-fuel rotary engine generator to life and take back control of your energy supply!

Remember to share our campaign with your friends, family, and networks to help us reach our funding goal and make a lasting impact on the energy industry. 

Thank you for your support!

© 2018 – 2023 Nikola Tesla Research & Development Centre – All Rights Reserved

Project budget

£30,000
 
Making
£24,545
 
Taxes & Fees
£5,454
 
Multiple/Other
£0
Last updated May 10, 2023
 
This is a projected budget provided by the creator and may be subject to change.
 

Risks and challenges

We are well aware of the potential risks and challenges our project may face, including technical hurdles, regulatory compliance, and manufacturing complexities. To mitigate these risks, we have assembled a team of experienced professionals with diverse backgrounds in engineering, design, and business. Our team is committed to addressing any obstacles head-on and finding innovative solutions to ensure the successful development and launch of our multi-fuel rotary engine generator. Some specific challenges we anticipate are: Technical difficulties: As with any cutting-edge technology, we may encounter unforeseen technical challenges during the development and testing phases. We will work diligently to troubleshoot and resolve any issues that arise to maintain our project timeline.

Learn about accountability on Kickstarter

 

Environmental commitments

Visit our Environmental Resources Center to learn how Kickstarter encourages sustainable practices.

Long-lasting design

We don’t follow the corporate planned obsolescence path. Our designs are aiming towards products that last a lifetime, are modular, require no lubricating oil and little to no servicing. Any rotors will be dynamically balanced to a very high tolerance which will ensure no vibration. Unwanted vibration is the killer of mechanical machines.

Reusability and recyclability

All the materials that will be used are recyclable. We have a minimalistic design approach to ensure less material waste.

Environmentally friendly factories

We work with trusted engineering companies with a proven track record, who manufacture high quality components.

Kickstarter website
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paultownley/revolution-a-multi-fuel-rotary-engine-generator?fbclid=IwAR007uzNzjPJBB1i5T6MwBgG7rrTmXcDiKSdg7eKpgjTJfPFMk0qpiO4JH4

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burying

magnitude 7.8
dead nerves piling up
beneath the rubble
my shaking quandary
disposes hundreds
trapped in hundreds
below the aftershocks
i cannot recall
the damage of it all
nor begin to relay
the damage to a nation
swift in mourning
& hell’s damnation
no words reverse
from an angry god
whose senseless burst
neurons detect
the hurling out of
whatever’s next.

Clive Gresswell

 

.

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Swedish Mystery on a Stormy Night


 
                “Death is very popular in Sweden.”
                                Tomas Transtromer answering a question
                                during a 1988 reading in Tucson
 
There’s fog across the train yards.
The golden lights of bedtime
glow beside a canal. While a cold case smoulders
in the archives a girl is found face down
on a grassy patch that breathes for the city.
It feels voyeuristic to watch the detective drink
away his private life as the call comes in
for him to start work. Ignition. He’s driving
through the dark. Paces around the body while
he turns the shade of the moon.
Low pressure on screen
and a plot becoming difficult
to follow through all
the flashbacks and twists while the soundtrack outside
blows rain and self doubt
against the window. Insecurity never asks
to be let in; it breaks down
the door and settles on the sofa
between fact and fiction. Here and now begins
to feel like Stockholm on a blood-stained night.
Murder as entertainment. A tangle
of loose ends. It becomes painful to watch
the detective’s indecision. He has
a knife-blade in his soul
and appears inadequate
in the task of bringing equilibrium back
to the world. The storm blunders through the neighborhood
turning over every leaf
and tipping trash bins
to look for the truth. It’s no use: the sky
is shaking. The perpetrator’s on the run and can’t decide
which way to turn. Say goodnight
to the mirror with no face.
 

 

 

 

David Chorlton

 

 

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Extinction Rebellion’s The Big One Part 2 – What Next?

Thousands marched to the Home Office: “Climate Justice is Migrant Justice”: pink origami boats for MPs and Home Secretary Suella Braverman, 23rd April 2023[i]

 

The route to Parliament Square on Sunday, the third day of The Big One, was fraught with delays. Forget the *%$+£^g London Marathon! was my working title, not because in Greenwich I got stuck on the wrong side of it, but rather because, despite heavy drizzle and worse, as far out as Woolwich, spectators lined both sides of the course two or three deep. What a pity that all those people, after an hour or two of cheering for their friends – I’ve nothing against that – couldn’t move on to do something we all need far more desperately! With that amount of support for the environment and our common future, a better direction might have been forced upon our lickspittle cabinet in the very limited time available[ii]. Wake up and cut their strings!

Outside the Home Office in Marsham Street, 23rd April 2023

Several people I spoke to over the four days of The Big One, charitably believe that it is grief which prevents people taking action: that resignation has taken over, or that grieving for the gradual death of the Earth, they are in denial. Others, that the understandable fear of being arrested is a major deterrent to participation – a fear that, as intended, has been increased by the undemocratic powers enshrined in the Policing[iii] and the Public Order[iv] Bills. These bills have little concern for law and order – in fact their introduction is inciting the very reverse. They are purely about officious state control[v].

A protest[vi]supporting the Hong Kong 47[vii] under Waterloo Bridge, 23rd April. With the advent of the Policing Bill, is the democratic situation in disastrously Brexited Britain[viii] set to follow such examples?

 

But as well as grief and fear, our widespread complacency, I believe, largely arises from a combination of lack of awareness, of misinformation and of distraction . . . and yes, it’s that old cracked record I’ve been playing since I was 13: if religion was supposed to be the opium of the people, then consumer materialism with all its affiliated gifts and entertainments (rubbish films and television, spectator sport, cheap flights abroad – to give just a few examples) are its hallucinogen. In short, we have been cushioned into silence. Even in the current social crisis, rather than take action, the human tendency is to fall back on distraction.

The Marathon arrives in Parliament Square and XR keeps its promise, 23rd April 2023


XR promised (and stuck to their assurance) that the Marathon would not be disrupted and XR newsletters and updates urged us to give the runners – many of whom were running in support of environmental causes – our full support as they passed. As an ex cross-country runner myself – albeit one who identified with Tom Courtenay in The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner[ix] – I can see the joy or challenge of running itself . . . at least through the countryside on your own. But long-distance running as a spectator sport? The London Marathon has clearly become another of those traditional national distractions, which like assorted ‘royal’ events[x], have become more an excuse for a party than anything else. And perhaps, as we likely enter the last days of human society – and certainly the death of the careless myth of progress – consciously or subconsciously, perhaps distractions are all that many can face?

Funeral for the myth of progress, 4 minutes to 5, 24th April 2023


At London Bridge, no longer able to bear the crush of extra passengers literally jammed into the train, I thankfully broke out onto the platform and struggling through the crowded platforms and concourse was eventually relieved to be back in the rain. It was obviously going to be better to walk to Parliament Square along the south bank.

The second Anti Fossil Fuel March crosses Waterloo Bridge – towards where tourism used to end, back in the 70s . . .  24th April 2023

 

Back in the mid-1980s, long before the new Globe Theatre (or Shakespeare’s Globe)[xi] opened, Southwark cathedral used to be a very quiet backwater. Borough market also was a real – if possibly declining – place. At certain points between these areas and the National Theatre, there was no river access, no almost continuous riverside path. Basically, tourism ended just east of Waterloo Bridge with small enclaves for The Tower of London and Tower Bridge and the very isolated HMS Belfast. Further back in the mid-70s, this area still had an air of wartime bomb damage and many of the warehouses were abandoned. Who could have foreseen the crowds of tourists and weekenders ramming through 50 years later – warehouses poshed into swish shops, eating parlours or luxury apartments?

“Extinction Beckons” – as a result of consumerism, obviously. Appropriate billboard glimpsed from the Fossil Fuel March as we crossed Waterloo Bridge on the 24th April 2023

 

Not far from Southwark, following the riverside path, a rumble of percussion could be heard gradually building. At first, I assumed it was on the north bank of the river, part of the route of the Marathon, but rather from across the Thames it came from ahead, rapidly becoming distinct – an exhilarating battering ram for use against a corrupt establishment: 

XR drummers from around the country drumming on one of the Thames tidal beaches, 23rd April 2023

 

For a while in the rain, I sat alongside the band with its changing players and conductor[xii], down on the beach as the tide came in. Then we headed off in groups towards Westminster Bridge. I talked to a group from Nottingham and other individuals from Cardiff, Norwich, Bristol and of course, London itself. I had assumed the band all knew each other, but many had only just met. Back beyond Parliament Square in Abingdon Street another workshop demonstrating Citizen’s Assemblies, which I’d explored the previous day, was winding down towards the start of the march to the Home Office to demand justice rather than persecution, for refugees and migrants. The densely-packed march, ended with an emotive rally below the raised shallow moat which fronts the government building, giving amongst others, an Algerian refugee the opportunity to share his feelings about a nightmare journey in a small boat. Shouldn’t trying to seek happiness be a human right? he implored.

Outside the Home Office, 23rd April 2023

After a long walk across Central and South East London, I caught a train to Woolwich and walking uphill was taking a photograph of Plumstead Radical Club when a very friendly man invited me in, despite that he had to pay £2 to register me as a guest. These days it is a social club and probably quite reactionary – though nobody complained about my badges, XR symbols and general get-up, so I could be wrong. Its cosy time-warp interior and welcoming family atmosphere certainly provided a very atmospheric end to the day . . .

Inside Plumstead Radical Club – here almost like a cosy railway carriage, 23rd April 2023

My granddaughters outside the Plumstead Radical Club on Monday the 24th April,with their own placards and ready for marching

 

Monday began with me wrapping duct tape around my disintegrating left boot. Amazingly, this still holds. After protesting all the way downhill to Plumstead station with few spectators to speak of – “Don’t let the world die!” – and on the train to London Bridge – “My Future is in Your Hands” – followed by the Underground to Westminster – “We Will Become Extinct, The Dinosaurs Did!” – my three granddaughters were still not lacking energy. Westminster Underground[xiii] with its Brutalist, totalitarian, inner style – let the bones show, no façade – was a welcome relief to a claustrophobic . . . all that S P A C E.  Yet there are undertones of Orwell’s 1984 in the place, very appropriate in proximity to the hypocrisy and wilful blindness of Westminster – as double-spoken by forked tongue, nit-brained, Tory world-scalpers, liars and criminals.

“My Future is in Your Hands” “We Will Become Extinct, The Dinosaurs Did!”, 24th April 2023

24th April 2023

 

Emerging from the station to be immediately swept into an unforeseen protest and the energy of a hammering, street band beat, felt through the pavement – an anti-fossil fuel precursor to the bigger afternoon version – was exhilarating. This morning route was short but very sweet, and being almost directly behind the band, my two elder granddaughters went into manic dancing patterns, waving their flag and placard respectively, occasionally joined by their more observational younger sister. Excelling themselves inventively, they had an enlivening effect on the crowd around them, being treated with delight – even rapture – despite the danger caused by their jabbing signs. Many asked if it was OK to take their photograph. It was of course. An XR journalist was keen to interview them along with my daughter-in-law, about the “impact of the day so far.”  A couple of hours later this might’ve worked, but at the time they were far too involved in the protest.

Houses of Parliament, 24th April 2023


Marching up Whitehall . . .

 

That afternoon’s Anti Fossil Fuel march was probably the climactic one in terms of buzzing energy. There was more anger here than elegy – if it is possible to judge a half-mile long procession from the one section you are in. As with all demonstrations, it makes such a difference depending on where you are in the column. 

 

. . . to Trafalgar Square . . .

 

 . . . and The Strand.  24th April 2023

 

My section of the march for the latter part of the distance, was comprised mostly of younger people from 16 to 18 up into their twenties – very friendly, yet justifiably filled with rage. Of all the marches, this one followed the best, most populous route, a route with plenty of engaged and cheering bystanders: up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, then past Charing Cross along the Strand to cross Waterloo Bridge, around the IMAX cinema, past planet destroying Shell’s[xiv] global headquarters and into the Jubilee Gardens by the London Eye.

Near Charing Cross, 24th April 2023


The Strand, 24th April 2023

What Next?

4 years ago, the UK Parliament declared a climate emergency… then did nothing.

Together, we did something. We got organised. We created an unprecedented     coalition working across divides and differences. Tens of thousands of people joined The Big One. And for four days, we picketed and marched and rallied.

We gave the Government until 5pm on the fourth day of The Big One to respond to us. They didn’t.

Tens of thousands of people sharing a single concern, gathering together peacefully,  not a single law broken – and they didn’t even acknowledge us.

We can’t wait another 4 years or 4 days. The time is now. Choose your future:

  1. Picket | 2. Organise Locally | 3. Disobey

 

So begins the statement which appeared on Extinction Rebellion’s Global Website[xv] a few days after The Big One, by which time both XR and Just Stop Oil had a multitude of actions planned. In fact, on Saturday May 13, I joined a Just Stop Oil slow march which temporarily brought traffic to a near standstill on Lancaster city centre’s one-way system. Naturally this creates a lot of ire, some of which is selfish and half-witted, some, more justified. Nobody likes being stuck in a traffic jam and the extra traffic fumes and waste of fuel are not good. So, considering that nobody carrying out these confrontational actions – potentially dangerous to themselves – is happy about having to do it, what is the point?

 The Strand, 24th April 2023


Firstly, as has just been illustrated by governmental silence and an almost total lack of media interest regarding The Big One, it seems that only actions create publicity[xvi]. While the media crave violence and confrontation for ratings and drama, the government simply wish demonstrators would go away – leaving them to pillage and prioritise their rich pals and paymasters in secret. Yet can this whole corrupt elite, really be stupid enough to believe that with profits made from destroying the Earth, they can isolate themselves in some fantasy bubble or luxury security compound indefinitely?

Waterloo Bridge Road, London, 24th April 2023

At present, the other chief reason for protest – one that everyone, without exception, should be standing up to support – is the very right to protest itself. Democracy in England is already tenuous enough with its outdated first-past-the-post voting system[xvii] and increasing rich-poor divide. Clearly the underlying aim of the Policing[xviii] and the Public Order[xix] Bills is to protect this status quo, to fortify the rift between the haves and the have-nots. Unfortunately, all too many of the have-nots, like loyal dogs, still identify with their owners.

Waterloo Bridge, London, 24th April 2023

Waterloo Bridge, London, 24th April 2023


In Lancaster on May the 13th, we gave way to an ambulance, a police riot van, (which looked at first as though it was there to take us all away), and two buses, but obviously had to re-block the road fast while walking backwards. I didn’t realise we would be blocking both carriageways of the one-way system as other city marches confine themselves to one lane. The two police liaison officers with us were very thoughtful, which was fortunate as several cars tried to get past us by mounting the pavement or revving, surging forward and tooting aggressively. A mere 17 or 18 of us holding them back, felt like too few[xx].

Waterloo Bridge, London, 24th April 2023


Climate change allied with the current social crisis you’d think, could and should form a consensus issue strong enough to force system change. Yet as was obvious in Lancaster on Saturday 13th May, with the engine-revving morons in 4-wheel drives and SUVs, plus other knee-jerks strolling the streets, all too many people just “don’t give a stuff” – as one particularly gormless man openly declared. It’s sunny, we have our shiny cars and new haircuts . . . all’s well with the world[xxi]They obviously haven’t heard or understood the IPCC’s[xxii] final warning that if we don’t take drastic action on the climate crisis now, it will be too late[xxiii].



What Next: The Lancaster slow march, 13th May 2023    (image, Just Stop Oil)


It is the mindless, grasping attitude of the neoliberal privileged elites which has forced us into slow marches and other actions. Those accused of disruption have no other option, no choice but to keep the issue of environmental collapse in constant view, nationally and locally. The government and global corporations and their trickle-down[xxiv] influence on the super-rich[xxv] are the root cause. That is the message everyone must learn if we are to survive. Which side are you on?[xxvi] Most of those inconvenienced by actions just haven’t realised which side they need to be on, nor how clearly destructive our consumerist attitude has become. Such aspirational “getting on” cannot (mistakenly) be seen as it was in the 50s and 60s, as ‘improving’ any longer. And no matter how big and shiny your car is (or how sharp your haircut), the other side will not let you join!

What Next: Slow march in Lancaster, 13th May 2023 – the road clear ahead. Holding the back banner, I could only grab this photo over my shoulder


Unfortunately, unlike briefly in the Lancaster photo above, the road ahead is not clear . . . and my personal impressions of the last five years are very mixed. The pre-covid London Rebellion of 2019[xxvii] lasted much longer, but was it bigger? I have no intention of analysing statistics on this, being wary of the quote attributed to Disraeli about “lies, damned lies and statistics”[xxviii] and well aware that everyone is inclined to believe the statistics which suit them best[xxix]. I only know that although I was at The London Rebellion of 2019 for about the same amount of time as this year’s The Big One, the news coverage in 2019, of an event based around unexpected actions, was vast by comparison. Long after I’d returned home, I kept hearing reverberations from 300 miles away. This is not a criticism of The Big One, the non-disruptive approach was worth trying and perhaps, alternating more family-based, everyone-welcome, non-disruptive events, with civil disobedience would form a good double-pronged offensive? Otherwise, the dilemma of choosing which way to go is clearly illustrated by the photograph below. News itself may not be important, but raising and maintaining public awareness and understanding is.

Rebel scientists state the tactical quandary facing XR UK.  Image from XR’s Global Newsletter 76.

 Waterloo Bridge Road, London, 24th April 2023


Just yesterday I overheard a ‘normal’ middle-aged person (he justified his comments thus: “I’m no activist, I’d rather be at home tending the roses”) on the bus to Morecambe telling a friend, how obvious it was now that all branches of the media “are suppressing news about serious weather events abroad”. No wonder the obliviously disenfranchised in Lancaster can believe in a nice sunny day!

 

IMAX roundabout, London, 24th April 2023


What still annoys me intensely about the whole covid era, despite the tragedy of it for so many, was that partying governments found the will to persuade or order everybody to stop their lives and yet have little or no inclination to act upon the infinitely greater dangers of climate change, simply by encouraging a slowing down. Within a few days of the first lockdown the positive effects on the environment were startling. Later on, as the period of lockdowns came towards an end, there was such a consensus for a better world when covid was over (or when governments decided it was over), yet it was obvious to me, that the power of global corporations and the temptation of acquisition in humanity, would be too strong for this new leaf to last.

Best flyer of all?  “We pay 1.7 million in subsidies every day to burn trees while the support for onshore wind and solar has been slashed . . .” [xxx]


The way in which covid temporarily killed the momentum of environmental action will also likely prove fatal to us in the long run, far more fatal than covid itself – which is why it is easy to see why those who go for conspiracy theories view the pandemic as part of a conspiracy. It was certainly very handy for our ever-derisory government, getting them off the hook just when they might easily have been dispensed with. Why could we all be bothered to make so much effort for something of infinitely less significance than climate change?

Waterloo Road, 24thApril 2023

York Road, 24thApril 2023

 

From my inevitably limited impressions of last month, many people – especially middle-aged and upwards, feel there is no chance of changing things fast enough now, but that we still have to try. The younger generation appeared more optimistic. How could they cope otherwise? Several older people said to me they were glad to be old and felt lucky (or guilty) to have lived most of their lives in a period of relative stability – to live in that post war period in which we could still believe the myth of progress and rising living standards for all.

 


Passing Shell’s global headquarters[xxxi] 24thApril 202324thApril 2023

24thApril 2023

But in the cheerful crowd at the end, underneath Big Ben, there were people both older and younger than me who were filled with optimism. Nearby, one of the bands raised the morale of anyone flagging – against the rain as well as the end of the four-day peaceful rebellion. Spontaneously drawn into conversation with a man I’d guess was a decade older than me as well as student Ally from Brighton, the latter raised my morale still further: “Wow man! I compliment you on the grandchildren – you don’t look a day over 30!” (I had a hat on and she must have had a lot of rain in her eyes) “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week,” was my reply as I got ready to leave for the walk to Euston in the gathering dusk.

24thApril 2023

24thApril 2023

 

Much later that evening, crossing Lancaster with the XR flag held high in the dark, three teenagers hailed me from across Market Street: “What’s that symbol?” “Extinction Rebellion!” I shouted back. All three punched the air with upraised fists “EXTINCTION REBELLION” they chorused.

We Will Not Be Bystanders, 24th April 2023

 

Just as I reached the end of this report feeling depressed that in almost four years since The London Rebellion, nothing has changed – four years since the UK declared a Climate Emergency[xxxii] and nothing been done – I had an uplifting email from a friend in Just Stop Oil “our northern teams are out on the road in London NOW! looking amazing and purposeful”. These teams are having an impact at three different locations in London, and being cheered from the roadside. They will be marching every week as an indefinite act of civil resistance. The next week for the northern teams is the week commencing July 2nd. Every single person matters!

What next: Slow march in London, 22nd May 2023 (image, Just Stop Oil)

 

Forget your inconvenience! If Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion can’t force change, we are all doomed. Get behind them now! juststopoil.org/get-involved/

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,

London and Morecambe, April-May 2023

[email protected]

                       

NOTES – accessed up to May the 24th 2023

[i]       extinctionrebellion.uk/2023/04/23/day-3-running-out-of-time-the-big-one-continues

[ii]     So little time now, that this government needs to be got rid of as soon as possible – not difficult, if all their opponents could forget their other distractions awhile and join together.

[iii]     libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/the-policing-bill-what-happened-and-what-now/

[iv]     gov.uk/government/publications/public-order-bill-overarching-documents/public-order-bill-factsheet

[v]     theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/09/police-bill-not-law-order-state-control-erosion-freedom

[vi]      hongkongwatch.org/pol-prisoners

       hongkongfp.com/hong-kongs-47-democrats-national-security-trial/

[vii]     theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/04/hong-kong-47-trial-of-dozens-in-pro-democracy-movement-set-to-begin-under-national-security-laws

[viii]     foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/01/brexit-britain-recession-economy/#

[ix]      imdb.com/title/tt0056194/ – though I was never in a reform school myself!

[x]       internationaltimes.it/in-her-kingdom-by-the-sea-part-5-the-platinum-jubilee-distraction/

[xi]       shakespearesglobe.com/discover/about-us/globe-theatre/#

[xii]      Sambista? Or have these bands with their clear political focus, moved too far from Samba to come under that title?

[xiii]      waltoncreative.com/portfolio-item/london-westminster-underground-tube-station/#

[xiv]     bbc.co.uk/news/business-65609795

[xv]     extinctionrebellion.uk/the%20big-one/what-next/

[xvi]    Chris Price, a friend of mine who also took part in the Lancaster Just Stop Oil slow march mentioned in this report, pointed out the following regarding non-disruptive protests versus actions:

 “Firstly, we are now in an era where the media are in lock step with the government, so if the government don’t want it being profiled, the press oblige.

 Secondly, if the government don’t acknowledge it, they don’t have to answer any of the              questions raised. This doesn’t quite look like the dystopia Orwell described but it has all the            trademarks.

Thirdly, disruption forces the government to comment. It still doesn’t address the questions but it cannot avoid the consequences of the activists’ actions.”

[xvii]   makevotesmatter.org.uk/first-past-the-post  Voter ID added to the essential unfairness of first past the post. “In a startling admission Jacob Rees-Mogg – who until recently was a government minister defending this policy – shared his views on what he thought Voter ID was meant to achieve versus his concerns at what actually happened”: youtube.com/watch?v=BWjJkzig35I&ab_channel=ElectoralReformSociety

[xviii]    greenpeace.org.uk/news/why-you-should-be-worried-about-the-new-policing-bill/

[xix]    Ibid: gov.uk/government/publications/public-order-bill-overarching-documents/public-order-bill-factsheet

[xx]    Cycling back from Dalton Square with this badly lettered placard protruding from my backpack: generated a few horn blasts, some blaring, others cheerful – with once a thumbs up. A red light halted me near the open door to a pub where some tough-looking types were hanging about. To my amazement they cheered, inviting me in for a “Just Stop Oil party”. Not sure if this was a wind-up, a ploy to get me off the street for unfriendly purposes or entirely genuine, but as I was running late, the situation was avoided for good or ill . . .


[xxi]    It’s hard to believe that anyone either supports or is tacitly prepared to put up with the current government – until you carry out an action like the Just Stop Oil slow march on Saturday 13th May and realise just how unthinking, ignorant or misinformed much of the electorate is. Coming from a working class council estate myself, working class Tory voters have always been one of my bête noirs, but to attack such people (whose situation is hardly of their own making in a world of little opportunity where most of the underclass is drip-fed a diet of right-wing tabloid trash) has always felt like class betrayal – despite that it is they who are betraying themselves. . .

[xxii]     Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  see: ipcc.ch/

[xxiii]    theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/20/ipcc-climate-crisis-report-delivers-final-warning-on-15c?link

[xxiv]    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

[xxv]     fairnessfoundation.com/national-wealth-surplus?link_

[xxvi]     en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Which_Side_Are_You_On%3F

Personally, my favourite version is Billy Bragg’s: youtube.com/watch?v=vbddqXib814&ab_channel=dprkspacemarine

[xxvii]      internationaltimes.it/the-london-rebellion-digression/

[xxviii]     york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/lies.htm

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

[xxx]     biofuelwatch.org.uk/

[xxxi]     en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Centre

[xxxii]    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_emergency_declarations_in_the_United_Kingdom#

 

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Pete Brown

Pete Brown, a cult figure on the British poetry and music scene, has died, aged 82, after a courageous battle with cancer. He’s perhaps best-known for the lyrics he wrote for Cream, but he was also a leading poet and performer in his own right.

Brown’s parents were Jewish immigrants. His father changed his name to Brown to avoid anti-semitism. Driven out of London by the Blitz, the couple settled in Surrey. Brown was born there on Christmas Day, 1940. When he was 11, his parents moved back to London, where he was sent to a traditional Jewish school. He had a difficult time there and the experience left him with a negative view of religion in general. As he recounted in his memoir, White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns, ‘At that point I was a fully-fledged anarchist in so many ways. In so many ways I hated authority. There was a few of us at that school that kind of gravitated to each other. We were the outsiders.’ He started reading poetry (at first, Dylan Thomas and Gerard Manley Hopkins, later, the Beats) and, when he was 14, had his poetry published for the first time, in a US poetry journal.

Brown’s career as a poet began in the late 1950s. He soon found himself taking part in live poetry and jazz events with Michael Horovitz. He was one of the British poets who read at the landmark 1965 International Poetry Incarnation at the Albert Hall, alongside Ferlinghetti, Corso and Ginsberg. He also, around that time, formed a band, the First Real Poetry Band, in which he recited and improvised poetry to jazz. The jazz scene brought him into contact with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, who were, at that time, putting together the band that became Cream. He wanted to write some lyrics for them and went on to form a long-lasting songwriting relationship with Bruce. Together, they wrote several Cream hits, among the best known being ‘White Room’ and ‘Sunshine of Your Love’.

When Cream broke up in 1968, Brown continued to work with Bruce, writing many of the lyrics for Bruce’s solo albums. He also formed a band of his own, Pete Brown and His Battered Ornaments. He found himself not only writing the lyrics but having to sing them. The first album they made, A Meal You Can Shake Hands With In the Dark (1969), is arguably one of the high-points in Brown’s career. Sadly, the band he’d formed went on to sack him on the grounds that they wanted a better singer. Listening to the band now, one has to wish they hadn’t. The amalgam of psychedelic jazz, folk and blues they’d come up with was quite unique. Combined with Brown’s voice (yes, voice) and lyrics, the result was, in many ways, years ahead of its time.

Brown then formed a new band, Piblokto! (the Inuit word for Arctic Hysteria). The jazz and blues elements were still there, but the sound was more rock-based than the Battered Ornaments. It went on to produce two albums. The first of these, Things May Come and Things May Go But the Art School Dance Goes On Forever (1970), met with considerable critical success. When Piblokto! broke up in 1971, he continued to be involved in a number of other musical projects. In 1973, he put out a mainly spoken-word album of himself reciting his poetry, The Not Forgotten Association.

Brown backed off from the music scene for a while in 1977 with the rise of punk, which is a shame, in a way. He was very scathing about punk. In this, I think, he was wrong: reading what he had to say about it, it’s easy to imagine poetry traditionalists talking in a similar way about the poetry he himself was writing in the 1960s. I can see there was a clash of sensibilities, but there was a raw energy to much of his poetry which was not a million miles away from the world of punk and the cultural changes that grew out of it. Fifteen of Brown’s poems found their way into Michael Horovitz’ 1969 anthology, Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain. The spoof ad in one of these poems, ‘Slam (for Spike Hawkins)’, could’ve come straight out of an Alexei Sayle set:

RENT A CHOCOLATE BISCUIT
FOR ONLY £30 A DAY,
THEYRE SLIMY AND COMFORTABLE!

In the late seventies, Brown turned his attention to script-writing. He achieved some success in this, writing the screenplay for Felix the Cat: The Movie. He also co-wrote material for the Rolling Stones video, Rewind. Musically, he continued to collaborate with Jack Bruce and got back together with Phil Ryan, a former member of the Welsh band, Man, who Brown had performed with in Piblokto! (Brown had also put some percussion on a couple of Man albums). Brown and Ryan worked together up until Ryan’s death in 2015, issuing four albums: Ardours Of The Lost Rake, Coals To Jerusalem, Road of Cobras and Perils of Wisdom. They were great friends as well as collaborators. They were both on the left and many of their songs had a political edge to them.  During that time, they co-managed two bands, first the Interoceters and, later, Psoulchedelia, to record and perform their work.

A lot of the work Brown did with Ryan has a soul/blues feel to it. (Listening to it, one is often reminded of something Brown said, that 85% of the musicians he liked were black). It’s easy to find oneself listening to Brown’s work over time, looking for some development of music style, when, in fact, what Brown was about was writing lyrics. He worked hard at his singing but it was always about the words and the collaborations he forged with musicians were always about the song-writing chemistry. The sound, the style, was an end product. That said, jazz (or, at the very least, blues) always had to be in there somewhere. How did he go about it? When he was working with Bruce, he generally produced words to fit the music, with Bruce throwing in the odd line or word. The result could be surreal and psychedelic or sometimes direct, as in ‘Politician’, written in response to the Profumo scandal:

 

Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
Hey now baby, get into my big black car.
I want to just show you what my politics are.

I’m a political man and I practice what I preach.
I’m a political man and I practice what I preach.
So don’t deny me baby, not while you’re in my reach.

I support the left, though I’m leaning, leaning to the right.
I support the left, though I’m leaning to the right.
But I’m just not there when it’s coming to a fight.

 

Brown recorded this song himself, with the Battered Ornaments. It might’ve been about the Profumo scandal, but it’s impossible not to listen to it without thinking of Westminster politicians today.

As the press release issued on his death states, Brown ‘lived the life of a warrior poet. He was proudly anti-establishment, and dedicated his life to his creative endeavours, in an uncompromising way’.  He was involved in so many projects in the course of his working life, it’s impossible to mention them all. Some were very successful, others less so (he was always keen to give things a go to see where they led). In 2010, he wrote a memoir, White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns and in 2016, he brought out a collection of poetry, Mundane Tuesday and Freudian Saturday, his first since 1968.

Brown kept working to the end, co-writing a song for Joe Bonamassa’s recent album Royal Tea and with John Donaldson on their new album, Shadow Club. Earlier this year, talking to his biographer, Marc Shapiro, he said: ‘It’s been a busy year. So long as we can all stay alive that’s the main thing. I’m still here and I still have much to say.’ It’s a tragedy that he never got to say it but, I think, for a man with a creative drive like Brown’s, that never dimmed, never slowed down and which was forever adapting to circumstances, it was always going to end like that.

Pete Brown is survived by his wife Sheridan, his daughter, the writer and singer Jessica Walker and his musician and restaurateur son, Tad.

 

 

 

Dominic Rivron

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Accidental Movements

Words are spilling, flipping onto the floor, bouncing around while the light pours in unchecked, someone hit the sun today, cracked the plasma without thinking about what could happen. Words are spilling, tumbling along the floor, following the pattern of the tiles, removing grass stains and mud, but you haven’t heard them, have you? They don’t make any sound, they have lost their extensions, lost their core, shifting and spilling on the once grassy, muddy floor.

 

Andrea Moorhead

 

 

.

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the man and the boy and the fish

 

the man holds a fish
and this small boy

swims on a floor
in a sea of purulence /

the man does not
see or hear the fish

speaking; he cannot feel
how it flapped and gasped /

the boy can only hear
his breathing as it

struggles in the cold
and hard waves lapping

like a pummelling, like
a punishment /
 
the fish is empty inside
and this boy survives /

the man still holds his
dead fish, but doesn’t

look it in the eye / he did
not understand anything

 

 

 

Mike Ferguson

 

 

 

.

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Template for a Transformation of Human Society

 

There are many thousands of groups that have formed themselves around the need to stand against the globalist attack on life on earth. There are thousands more presenting alternative vision/suggestions for a better future. And there are a small number who are doing both; declaring that one must commit to stopping the worst while simultaneously nurturing into life a new template for human and ecological emancipation.

It is the latter action which I subscribe to, because it strikes me that we have no choice other than to fight-off the most immediate threats to our fundamental life values; yet equally have no choice other than to recognise the obvious shortcomings of the day to day way of life that constitutes the accepted norm of most post industrial societies today.

Given this state of affairs, one finds oneself committed to taking a deeper look into both the causal factors behind the degradation of human values and what will form the key ingredients of a new society. That which emerges out of the darkness and leads the way beyond repetitions of the divisive trends destroying humanity’s integrity.

Quite recently I came across the term ‘Truth Movement’ and discovered that it stands for a broadly connected body of individuals all having a similar goal: the defeat of the globalists. This seemed to hark back to the term ‘truthers’ as applied to those ready to expose the 9/11 fraud.

What, I asked myself, would this ‘Truth Movement’ do if it were to actually succeed in fulfilling its ambition?

What would ensure that such a movement did not implode once faced by the responsibility for building a future purged of the ‘rotten apple’ factors that so often bring-down otherwise promising movements and visions?

By ‘rotten apple’ factor, I mean the tendency for jealousy, excessive ego, lack of importance given to trust, power complexes, political ambition and – I would add – the group psychology of demanding ‘consensus’ in decision making, thereby pulling down individual aspirations and ending-up with abdication to the lowest common denominator as the only way ‘to keep the peace’.

Within socio-economic structures which largely reject the notion of ‘leadership by the wise’, a palpable void opens-up when important/controversial decisions have to be taken which require more than a superficial five sense appraisal of the way forward.

When our Truth Movement is confronted by the need to decide the composition of ‘the new template for the new society’ it is to usher into reality, many different convictions are likely to be put forward.

For example: an end to racial discrimination; the common ownership of land; the dissolution of the banking industry and widespread redistribution of wealth; no more ‘government’; the rise of ‘rule by the people’; free green energy for all; organic food and farming being adopted as the prime means of food production.

So as to bring the dilemma presented by this situation to life in a ‘real time’ way, I’m going to paint my envisioned picture of how events might unfold.

As ideas pour in, a committee is established to find a pragmatic way to turn these ideals into political reality. A reality which reflects the broad banner heading ‘Truth Movement’, whose idealistic rhetoric has finally garnered enough support to overcome the long dominant globalist control system.

On this committee are the leading proponents of the various ideals deemed most essential for laying the foundation of the promised New Society.

However, the daunting task of turning this pool of individual potential into a unified body of pragmatic ground-breakers, leads to the realisation that some critically important ingredients have been neglected. Internal frictions start to come to the surface causing fractures in the once seeming unity.

Disagreements eventually come to a head and in a highly revealing and heated exchange, it emerges that the deeper significance of the word ‘truth’ has never been explored or even debated. Never understood as primarily a spiritual value, an inner commitment to the evolution of higher values, not just to outer changes in the functioning of society.

In an attempt to prevent the situation deteriorating into chaos, a respected analyst is brought to the table to put a few fundamental questions to the committee leaders:

How aligned are you in your personal lives with what you call upon others to do in order to solve the crisis in values you see around you?

How truthful are you to yourselves and to others, if you don’t consider it important to lead by example – but nevertheless expect others to live the changes you claim must be brought-about?

How committed are you to raising your own levels of consciousness? To gaining a higher level of awareness concerning your own ambitions and shortcomings?

Are you actually committed to ‘a path of truth’ in your own lives? To following disciplines that quieten the ego and develop your relationship with the deeper spiritual values that are, in practice, the only real expression of truth?

How determined are you not to be a hypocrite? To avoid turning-out like the very politicians you so readily condemn?

As leaders of ‘the truth movement’ can you honestly say that you are committed to uphold the highest standards of responsibility, integrity and trust in your dealings with others?

What specific qualities are necessary in order to lead your supporters wisely, honestly and effectively?

Faced by this penetrating examination, the room became strangely quiet.

Being asked to address an inner commitment to truth, as opposed to its relatively surface oriented outer manifestation, has led to the need for a traumatic reappraisal of ‘the order of values’. And has called for a new level of consciousness to be put at the very top of the agenda of what is most essential for the building of the new society.

I tell this tale so as to highlight the task which stands in front of all of us, as ‘activists’ and campaigners for a better world. For should the neo-liberal control system collapse or even be finally defeated, we will find ourselves at the forefront of a global situation in which the great majority are subjected to an uncharted sense of insecurity and loss of direction.

A life of slavery to task masters carries with it a kind of insurance policy of not having to deal with – or be responsible to – the wider world or one’s own inner quest for liberation.

Suddenly, or relatively suddenly, being placed in a position where the expectation of the majority is for those most vocal in exposing the wrong – to now step forward and establish ‘the right’- presents a formidable challenge.

At the centre of this challenge is a burning question which we should all be addressing now rather than waiting until the hour of need is thrust upon us.

The question centres around a very fundamental precept: is the decision making process – essential to establishing the new desired template – to be based on ‘leadership by the wise’ or by ‘group consensus’?

By a ‘committee of the wise and the good’ or by a continuation of ‘democratic representative governance’ and quasi-consensus decision making?

To put it a little more bluntly: a benign, wise dictatorship or an elected common denominator form of governance which has no base in wisdom or vision and which is very easily exploited by the power hungry?

Within the constitution of the British Isles and many other countries, there exists something called Natural Law/Common Law, which goes back a long way.

It states that there is only one indomitable law and that is the law of God. God’s law. A form of decree based upon universal truth and justice, founded upon the supreme wisdom of our Creator.

In a world overcome by rank injustice, the complete absence of truth, and no sign of wisdom, Common/Natural Law shines out as the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

The emergence of an earthly law that reflects universal law can only be brought forward by a committee of the wise and true. Indeed, God’s laws can be described as emanating from ‘the Supreme Benign Dictator.’

At the most basic level, they are reflected in the laws of nature and the predilection for an ever expanding biodiversity of plant, animal and insect life.

At the human level, they represent the (age old) quest for truth, love and full emancipation of the soul of man. Even when individuals do not consciously know it, this is what all are longing for – and now is the time to go public about it.

We have passed the point of no return for ‘democracy’ or anything resembling it, so we may choose to call what will really open our minds and hearts: a ‘Veritocracy’.

Veritocracy from ‘veritas’ the Latin for truth. ‘Way of Truth’.

Going face to face with a cult regime based on darkness and division, demands a steadfast commitment to the opposite. Truth, as the unrestrained manifestation of the call of our souls.

This is the one force that will disintegrate the forces of darkness and disempower the globalist control system, once and for all.

It is the one force that can unite all of humanity and provide the dynamic foundation for true leadership and true trusteeship of the planet.

Let us commit now. Let us be properly prepared to lead the world beyond ruination and into rebirth.

 

Julian Rose

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer and international activist.
He is President of the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and author of four books, of which ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’ is the most recent. See www.julianrose.info

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Something Went Wrong

The fenced off estate:
     deer and land as property
wealth as a tourist destination
     and a view from the train

Who owns the mudflats
     and abandoned boats?
The seaside and
     the harbour walls?

Stop the sky going dark

Stop the world exploding

     Make the summer come

Who would holiday
     in a caravan park
or collect animal carcasses
     from the side of the road?

Stop the world starving

Stop the world going dark

     Let tomorrow come

 

   Rupert M Loydell

 

 

.

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Notes from a Makeshift Utopia

 

Rents being astronomical and ownership out of the question, we’re living on borrowed time, where third-rate architects and fantasists live out their impractical utopias, where picket-fence suburban idylls squat cheek-by-jowl with impractical futurist pods and other failed machines for living. We dress accordingly: there’s a lot of gingham and a lot of nylon, though some of us like to improvise, and I like to rock a Dan Dare/News From Nowhere hybrid, with tinfoil robes in a cut straight from Chaucer or Dante. I’ve a matching costume for the cat but he’s not keen. We’re living on borrowed food that we’ll somehow have to give back later, and on borrowed air that we can’t keep in our lungs. I used to have a borrowed wife, but a coach and horses came to repossess her one storm-bruised night that was borrowed from Wuthering Heights. It broke my borrowed heart, but I haven’t told the owner. You see, the thing about borrowed time is that you can never erase all traces of all those who have lived in it before. I wander gleaming skywalks above chalets and bright caravans, and I wonder who it all belongs to, who’s keeping the tally? I suspect it might be the cat.

 

 

 

Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor

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Rupert M Loydell – The Age of Destruction and Lies

 
 
£12.95
In stock

Published 2023. Paperback, 104pp, 9 x 6ins, £12.95 / $18
ISBN 9781848618893 [Download a sample PDF from this book here.]

In this new book of poems Rupert Loydell writes about the world he now finds himself living in, questioning the damage caused by time, memory, lockdown, aging, politics, lies, neglect and disinformation. Whether grappling with social history, corrupt data, roadbuilding, Grenfell Tower, urban graffiti, faith and fine art, or ‘the fickleness of language’, these damaged prayers and disbelieving explorations are ‘configured for maximum twitch’. And despite the resigned conclusion that ‘we are only ever likely to have a clear backwards view’, and even though ‘it is totally absurd to expect answers that might help explain our world’, Loydell clings to the way that ‘memory is all about being able to change the past’, and notes that ‘the future is here right now’.

Rupert Loydell is the editor of Stride, a contributing editor to International Times and a Senior Lecturer at Falmouth University. He has many books of poetry in print, including Dear Mary, The Return of the Man Who Has Everything, Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone, all published by Shearsman, who also produced Encouraging Signs, a book of essays, articles and interviews. He has co-authored many collaborative works, and edited anthologies for Knives Forks & Spoons Press, Shearsman, and Salt. He also writes about post-punk music, pedagogy, poetry and film for academic journals and books.

‘At times hard-hitting, at times biting, Loydell’s poems pull beauty from the broken contexts of a rudderless society. It is poetry of rebellion and of urgency that underscores the need for poetry, art, conversation, and friendship in what is rapidly becoming an alienating, contextless world.’ —Andrea Moorhead

‘Rupert Loydell’s world is strangely beautiful, or beautifully strange, but it’s also strangely familiar. What I like about Loydell’s work is his commitment to a kind of truth, not to experience so much as to language.’ —Magma

‘Loydell explored how we navigate the world around us, seen and unseen; how we might wonder, explain, and start to understand.’ —Between

‘[…] brilliantly surreal, acutely observed and funny.’ —Ambit

https://www.shearsman.com/store/Rupert-M-Loydell-The-Age-of-Destruction-and-Lies-p542423549

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BROWN, THEN BLUE

(i.m Peter Ronald Brown, 25/12/1940 – 19/5/2023)

 

His words will resound for as long as there are films
And Rock music, for just as Scorsese savours
Sunshine Of Your Love in his films, so do the fans

Of Clapton, Baker, Bruce, Procol Harum, and his own
Unique oeuvre rejoice in the voicings that spumed
Words of fire from within Pete’s poem kiln.

Pete Brown was the original English Beatnik, and more,
A North London Bluesman. Psychedelicist, Progster,
And one part West Coast by the sea. He was like all

Of those bright jewish boys, who spilled out of London,
From Pinter and Wesker, to Berkoff and Kops,
Each dreamt free, and each of them shaped their own

Special corner.  Pete with his jew-fro in 1969
Could dare rooms. He told me that he learnt to sing
Later on, and crooned, after his Broken Ornaments

Shattered, before raising Piblokto! to a cultish peak
Where songs loom over all other art through what
They engender in others, and Pete’s energy and invention

Sustained and remained despite cancer’s pain.
It was only a few weeks ago he talked of the plans
He had on a phonecall, our friendship having flowered

After meeting on a Hastings bound train. Born in Surrey,
Soho was his stamping ground in the 60s. And before
That, in the 50s, in polo-neck and waistcoat,

He was part of the new poetry and with Michael
Horovitz, New Departures, defining British voices
To capture and let each line float. He sent me plays

Of his from that time; free associations on Alice,
With each moment more playful and in some ways
More charged than even Lewis Caroll’s chorale

Of disguised desire; Pete’s work was more carnal
And more open, always to art’s cards. But imagine
A man who elevated the poem and who then did

The same for the lyric practically the next year.
Starting and stirring for Cream the linguistic mix
In their menu, moving from bright blues to near metal

The White Room becoming a place to defeat each dark fear
With majestic music and words bound to both the heart
And the bedpost, and to the streets beyond, as evolution

In verses and lines became aim, and Pete always scored.
Those Thousands On a Raft sailed beside him as each word
Released oceans from which even those on dry land

Could still gain. But unlike Reid, or Sinfield, Pete became
A performer; a vanguardian using the avant-garde,
Rock and blues to conjure fresh colours from Brown,

Whether with Graham Bond, or Phil Ryan, whose death
Left Pete decimated and yet in counting the ways,
He stayed true. For as each partner passed, from Jack Bruce

To Ginger, this brightly bound Beatnik knocked on the door
Of intent; whether that was in Hollywood, or in an A&R
Office. Pete gave his time sweetly; short and adorable,

Shuffling, he was song’s soldier patrolling the poem
Parade to invent new ways to be, and fresh ground
To conquer. He was always on tour; Europe had him,

At nearly 80 years old on the stage. I saw him in ‘18
At the Cream 50th Anniversary concert, as Malcom Bruce,
Kofi Baker and Will Johns played their Uncle and Dads,

While Pete in his prime sang, singed and blazed beside them,
Restoring at once that explosion. To quote the Cream song:
‘I’m so Glad,’ Pete was the designated mourner also,

For that whole generation. A BBC Four commentator
On all manner of albums and styles. A documentarian, too
And Scrosese subject, a Go-to for the info on the high

Beyond those eight miles. He found lasting love
With his wife Sheridan and seemed to have the largest
Garden in England. His home in Hastings was both

Country seat and Sea view. Where we once talked
All night about films and politics, music, Leonora
Carrington and Viv Stanshall who he also knew

And helped: Noble Jew. Who while being born on
Christmas day was as in Jonathan Miller’s old joke,
‘Not really a jew, just jewish.’ Pete was for Palestine,

Peace and freedom, and for each life and line
His thoughts flew. So, read his books, hear the songs
And listen well to those lyrics. ‘Íts getting near dawn,’

Pete. We miss you. The colours are running. 
Its stunning, this sudden loss. Friends, fans, kids
And family kiss you, and we will always keep asking,

Where are you, Brownyboots?

Look:

                       we’re blue. 

 

  

   

                                                                   David Erdos 24/5/23

 

 

 

 

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The Dry Spell

It hasn’t been raining since it had.
I sound vague? You haven’t stared at
the spearhead of a midday road.
You haven’t tried to track rain and heard
the summer roar.

Everything set for the rain – that cup of tea,
those books and music, social media posts,
bad mood, sudden sex, uprooted sadness
that breathes on and perishes at the same time –
all hold a bowl.

No noise, tune, ting – the bowl remains
an arch of aching. It waits.
Nothing is nothingness; even a dry spell
gets wet with our sweating.
….

 

 

 

 

Kushal Poddar
Illustration Nick Victor

Kushal Poddar lives in Kolkata, India

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

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SINCLAIR’S SECRET SWAN

 

On Iain Sinclair’s Agents of Oblivion  (Swan River Press, 2023)

 

Iain Sinclair’s secret store can be found at source
In his stories; a semi-selective trove; buried treasure
Subject to chocolate-rich autopsies, peeled slow.

For as you prise past the taste of the slabs
Of the sweet meat he always serves, you see
Such succulence sat: prose dripped stanzas,

Sigils and signs, vision flows, as he stops to detail
These oblivion set secret agents; Algernon Blackwood,
JG Ballard, Arthur Machen, and HP Lovecraft

In his unique, sinewed style. For no-one can write
Like Iain Sinclair on this planet, and indeed,
While reading one detects an empirically alien view

And wry smile as he pinpoints light-shafts
Directed at the particular ghosts who surround him,
As these chosen heroes perform divine missions,

Cavorting for him and complicit in every dream dare
As diary, as if hallucination itself were work task.
Having set off for Peru to chase his Grandad’s expeditions,

Sinclair now swims back to London, snorkelling down
Paper rivers, where the among the supporting cast
Playing for him are Graham Greene, Moorcock, Driffield,

And even old Bill Blake through death’s mask. The return trip
Through these tales has a watery feel which seems fitting.
Dublin’s Swan River Press’s slim but strong hardback is a gift

To the eye and the hand, as it holds the delights
Of some of Sinclair’s founding forces, from his reverence
Of Roeg and Cammell’s Performance, to his own city-set

Celebrations for a time and a place where each writer
Could with the flick of the wrist create lands
Beyond all common ken, be that in Kensal Green,

Or some other stone palace; locations guarded now
By these agents whom Sinclair revives with his pen.
Blackwood begins, Sinclair follows the lure of his creation

John Silence to rip through star-fabric as he roams around
Shooters Hill, ‘unearthing’ Steve Moore, mentor and magus
To Alan, who if Blake had started in comics,

Would have had him easily equalled, if not bested still.
Sinclair is now in league and business with ghosts.
His bookseller past has been traded for love of the essence

And not just the substance therein. He is fixing his rhythm
Around the pulse and stamp of strange angels,
Such as Steve’s Artemis-Selene, his moon goddess,

Who appeared to both Moores on a sofa, straddling
Steve’s lap, child-like, naked and in line with such visions,
Clad from tip to toe in blue skin. When read again,

Sinclair’s lost London books are intrepid trawls
Through what’s living, and of what lingers, as all his reports
From Rodinsky’s room on Brick Lane, to John Clare’s Orison

And on, are now undercored by these ectoplasmic
Transfusions of people and place, duly written over
As each page sparks stark word-flame.

All of his phrases astound. Pick any page and you’ll
See them. Sinclair’s words burst like flowers,
Or have the exact same sting as a thorn,

With images stacked up like tomes in a mysterious
Westway book cellar, acting as cinema of invention,
Where Sinclair’s poetic prose is projecting on and into

The corners where both madness and myth can be born.
Books are births for Sinclair, and he has had many children.
As mid-wife and parent his potency is profound.

He can consider a point and conjure up a black-hole density
Volume. He can traipse through Beckettian bogs,
As well as Bosche-like forests, and compose

Sparked Sonatas from even the M25’s common ground.
And so Machen, his mystical antecedent breaks through
In this book’s second story.  House of Flies talks of boxes,

Pandora primed by Nick Lane, unleashing Crowley,
Jimmy Page, Stewart Lee (acknowledged Laureate
of the tin foil tray and Premier Inn), among others,

Including Stoke Newington’s Simon Toate, poet
Of the podcast, who becomes the day’s Virgil,
Leading Lee and Iain, and by inference Arthur,

From Abney Park back to Hackney in this Dante-esque
Ghost-fed game. It would seem that the Balls Pond
Road subsumes hope but at the very least grants adventure.

Sinclair as both guide and apostle is a Prospero-in-transit
Here, content to summon up sprites as he reviews
The magical island in motion upon which his work has settled.

The people he meets are wave-motion, but Sinclair is the sea.
This seems clear. ‘The scent of violets drowned in milk bottles’
Surrounds, another one of his phrases. Each tale transfigures.

At a gender fluid time, streets are Bi, changing both aspect
And shape as Sinclair treks along them. After over fifty years
Writing, he walks every word and line as thoughts fly.

For make no mistake, his books are birds.
They soar strangely, as if each carrying craft were creating
The skies and horizons to cross. Sinclair can both follow

And fly, as once more here, he is Norton. As seen
In Alan Moore and Kevin O Neill’s The Black Dossier volume,
The still on the throne London Magus, ruling by report

On time’s textures, while checking that each spell
Has it’s order as he pulls both forest and flare from kerb moss.
In London Spirit, Ballard returns, as Chief Cartographer

Charting chaos. Sinclair and Chris Petit, his comrade
In motorised charm fall instep, with all dead Jim knew
And with all he predicted; ‘beneath the elfin gardens  

of Tolkein Colonists,’ and under John Latham’s
Book towers, Sinclair’s regal visit to his past terrain
Can’t forget the pure poetics of place,

Be they in his own writing room, or the ghosted
Restaurant table, where Roeg and Ballard try to blend in,
And where on reflection it is as if Archimedes and Odin

Had stopped for sweet and sour pork, and escape.
It occurs as one reads that Angels of Oblivion is a memoir
Of things thought, done and essayed across this

And no doubt other worlds. Popular poets of the time
And of what is possible for the crowd, fall in line
With ordinary expectation. These are the performance poets

And slammers and the resistors to a book’s special sheets.
But Sinclair and co, his siblings in writing and film,
Breach such spaces to evoke centuries, even aeons

In under two hundred pages, on streets. And with every
Step and heartbeat an entire civilisation is captured,
Beyond how we are living now. And for me, this completes

And extends Iain Sinclair’s special mission. Surpassing
Shatner and akin to Kirk, his log entries have been sent
To the stars, a chased fleece. For these stories

Become odysseys, as in the last Lovecraft infused tale, 
At the Mountains of Madness. In taking Howard Phillips’
Title, Sinclair spots the point at which we all slip
Past the illusion of freedom, and recognise on re-entry
That cities are cages bound by the sigils and signs
Mentioned first. It took the eventual use

Of his freedom pass to expose that fact for us.
And so, Iain in his anec-dotage can fully unfurl flag
And curse. The writers and artists he admires,

And those with whom he walks are true poets,
Especially those unbound by verses, for poetry is prophecy.
And Sinclair and Catling and co., Kotting, Moore, Machen,

Ballard are the poets and prophets who give reason
And rhyme tenancy. They are travelling well known roads
To reveal the unknown underneath them. Oblivion’s ink

Is Time’s Tippex. We can thank the Monkee Michael
Nesmith’s Mum for all that. And yet here in this book,
A handsome, limited and thereby elusive edition,

We have a grail for the gaining; housed perhaps
In a tower hidden behind London flats. For in holding
This time-whipped tome, the book becomes

It’s own Babel, containing a High-Rise of heroes
Awaiting within, breathlessly. Dave McKean’s drawings invite,
As seen by the front cover’s branch entranched ladder,

Another of Sinclair’s bookish brothers, McKean in pen
And Ink transmutes form. As does this book, and the work
Of those featured in it; from angels and agents

To Alan, oblivion is enchanting. As with Harold Budd’s
Pavilion of Dreams, strange air shapes us. We feel
And peel for it. And in doing just that, stars are worn.

        

 

                                                                     David Erdos 22/5/23

 

http://www.swanriverpress.ie
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https://twitter.com/SwanRiverPress
https://www.instagram.com/swanriverpress

 

 

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Different soundz!!!

 

3 live bands. “Lively and diverse” suggests Alan Dearling who took the pics

Dead Raze

An impressive duo. They look good and sound even better! Formed in 2022 in Liverpool, they have been kicking up sandstorms – dark, rumbustious clouds of garage punk noise across the North-West of England. 

They describe themselves as , “…a two-piece punk/blues outfit.” Fronted by Irishman, Matthew Cawe with Ollie Fontaine on drums. Adding that, “The band takes influence from swamp blues and old school punk rock, playing slide guitar through a mudslide of distortion.”

I believe that Dead Raze have already recorded an album in Iceland, and are now gigging across the UK, and in the Czech Republic and Germany.

There are quite a few singer-guitarist/drummer duos on the go around the music circuit at the moment including the Pretenders’ James Walbourne’s ‘other’ band,  His Lordship, and from Halifax, the Hazy Janes. Dead Raze are great proponents of this genre. The Dead Raze sound, and particularly their attitude, reminded me of Dr Feelgood – rock ‘n’ roll melded onto punk. As I’ve already said, ‘Impressive’, and I gather they are very swiftly learning their stagecraft, added to which they have some powerful, edgy songs. A stonking set despite Matthew having to put one of his guitars aside with power problems. I look forward to seeing them again. Check them out…

Their latest video for ‘In the House’ is online: https://www.facebook.com/Deadraze/videos/5684734028298594

And here’s their track ‘Horrors’: https://youtu.be/HSbh2GKLRlQ

Freya Beer

Here’s some of what I read about Freya in advance of the gig.

“Upcoming Gothic-Disco Queen”

“Freya Beer is the newest leader of the dark goth pack” – Manchester’s Finest

“Freya Beer is the future pop diva, the 21st-century post-punk torch singer you will all fall in love with” – John Robb, Louder Than War

“…a voice as haunting and stunning as Lana Del Rey’s is, she is an incredible package stood before you” – RGM Magazine

Headlining the three-band night at the Golden Lion, Freya is certainly living an ‘image’. One of the ‘Queen Goth’, who is a mix of fashion icon and a member of the Literati. Live, the band offered a fairly poppy mix of material with plenty of opportunities to work as a polished unit. But, ultimately it is Freya who captures the spotlight. The audience was perhaps smaller than she is getting used to, partly perhaps, because it came immediately after a couple of days of rail strikes. But, the band played on, and there were glimpses of the ‘raw and thrilling new talent’ that has earned her on-going support from BBC6 Music.

‘Beast’ was her debut album in 2021 and ‘The Siren’ represents more than a slice of glam rock. She quickly followed ‘Siren’ with ‘The Calm Before The Storm’, a massed wall of grunge guitars and Owain Hanford’s thrashing drums.

From the online PR info, I believe that the album produced five singles including what they describe as, “the mesmerising crowd favourite, ‘To The Heavens and all its Work’ and the very different ‘Pure’.”

The band listing tells us that the Freya Beer Band features  Pete Hobbs (the Boy Least Likely To ) on guitar, Owain Hanford on drums and Arnoldas Daunys on bass. Freya also plays guitar in addition to front of house vocal duties.

Here’s the video for the darkly chilling, ‘Love Child’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuGF6aErYso

Freya has recently released two new singles: ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Galore’ to coincide with her short-ish UK tour.

Here’s the video for ‘Fantasy’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBIuZkocoTs

 

 

Wax-Tree-Cast

 

Wax-Tree-Cast hail from Halifax. They were formed in mid-2020, and consist of lead vocalist and bassist, Oolagh Hodgson, James Newsome on drums, and songwriter Blair Murray on lead guitar. Strong on glam image and matching stage clothes.  They’ve recently been out on tour with Steve Mason and are scheduled to be on the bill at the prestigious Piece Hall in Halifax in August supporting  The Charlatans and Johnny Marr.

Live – their sound is quite grungy. Much more so than on their videos and record. Theirs is a lively brand of jangling, noisesome guitar pop with an undertow of Germanic-styled vocals. ‘She’ which was a central feature of their live show is the latest single: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZGtZ_30yvg

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Impossible Worlds

The Shell Game, David Toop & Lawrence English (Room 40)
Impossible Worlds, Kevin Daniel Cahill (False Walls)
Halcyon Days, Michael Byron (Cold Blue Music)
Tiny Thunder, Nicholas Chase (Cold Blue Music)
The Basketweave Elegies, Peter Garland (Cold Blue Music)

David Toop & Lawrence English’s album starts with ethereal atmospherics, a whistling noise hovering over keyboards and drones, in an almost Tangerine Dream like manner, before slowly shifting into a denser, darker place. The rest of the album inhabits similar territory: this is a resonant, echoing place, full of disjointed textures, distant voices, field recordings and unfathomable details. Call it soundscapes, call it improvisation, call it noise (quiet and careful noise) or perhaps resurrect the abandoned term Isolationism which has now fallen out of current usage. Whatever you call it, this is a intriguing collection of careful and engaging, abstract, visceral music.

I must offer a shout out to artist Brian McHenry, whose surreal and disjunctive drawings adorn the fold out digipack, inner sleeve and booklet of Impossible Worlds. I’ve also just noticed the False Walls website says that this album is ‘initially ambient and isolationist’, so maybe the term is already back in use. The website details are also how I realised this is a guitar album, although once informed it’s easier to hear the guitar and perhaps place Kevin Daniel Cahill in a loose grouping of other guitarists such as Robert Hampson (recording as Main), even perhaps Richard Pinhas and Robert Fripp,  who mostly use guitar as a sound source. (Of course, I could have read the sleeve notes properly…)

Cahill’s album consists a long piece divided into 3 parts, and a briefer second piece. The long first piece is astonishing, a mostly timeless drift with an almost non-existent pulse underpinning it, an ebb and flow of echo and sustain. At times it almost collapses into stasis, just about stands still, before – like the tide turning – the lull ends and new waves of sound gently shimmer and combine together again. ‘Lamentation’ which occupies a larger slab of the long track is, as you might expect, langorous and sad, but it is never completely dark or hopeless. Trails of notes spiral and fade across an emptiness that is full of overtones and expiring sound. I’m less enamoured by the second track which has a kind of choral presence behind itself, diverging, accompanying, and offering sonic variations. I find similar voicings too present in much of today’s ambient work, but you might like it; and the album’s first track is simply stunning.

Michael Byron is a mainstay of Cold Blue Music’s wonderful output, and Halcyon Days is a wonderfully slow and meditative collection of music written back in the 1970s but only now recorded and released. ‘Drifting Music’ is a piece for tubular bells, which focusses on the sustain and decay of the bells’ ringing tones for six minutes, whilst the following ‘Music of Every Night’ sees percussionist William Winant move to maracas and marimbas for a piece which starts with the gentle swish and rustle of the former until a couple of minutes in, the marimba’s deep wooden tones arrive, gently meandering and sustaining the piece until it again fades out to reveal the soft shaking percussion beneath.

‘Music of Steady Light’ is a longer piece, with Winant playing an array of percussion. The first part is reminiscent of Philip Glass’ Uakti in tone and minimalist rhythmic interplay (that’s not a complaint), whilst part two goes all metallic and twinkling. The final part seems to reinvent the first but with clearer separation and a sonic clarity that builds in slow tension then slurs and slows to a close. The final two tracks are a four-handed piano piece which sets crashing chords beneath a lighter, higher pitched, faster and slowly evolving part; and a limpid, laconic piano solo, ‘Tender, Infinitely Tender’ which strays into Harold Budd territory. It is a beautiful piece to end this wonderful album.

Winant is also the percussionist on Peter Garland’s The Basketweave Elegies, but here he is confined to vibraphone. I have to admit I found the nine short tracks or parts here dynamically and sonically similar, and the album the least interesting of the three new Cold Blue releases. It is too self-absorbed and ‘pure’ for my taste, and mostly reminded me of the sounds of bell ringing, the variation and organization in evidence when a peal is played.

Bryan Pezzone is the pianist on Nicholas Chase’s Tiny Thunder album, which is almost an EP: its two tracks just clock in at over 30 minutes total. ‘Zubwang’ is even sparser than Byron’s ‘Tender, Infinitely Tender’ and perhaps a little warmer in tone, with tiny flurries of activity within its contemplative meander. ‘Tiny Thunder’, the longer piece, is no faster or busier but uses the lower end of the instrument to offer the odd rumble and musical shading. It’s an exquisite release.

 

 

 

Rupert Loydell

 

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The Ascension

 

Winter gives way to spring
The bullets in your chest will be replaced with love and hope
From Tehran to the Persian Gulf
Kurdistan to the dusty streets of Baluchistan,
The bloodshed, will be replaced with the blown tulips 

 O fellow tribe of valorous 
 O co-believer
 The echo of freedom
 Whisper, fellow traveller

The day of the ascension of the Phoenix, from the ashes of this dream
The day of the end of this nightmare, our arrival at the sea.
   
  You and I will not be captured by the night
   
  You and I cannot be separated from each other
    
You and I will build our home,
..together again…together again…

 

 

 

Milan Tajmiri

 

 

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DREAM IT NOW I: THIS PERFECT STORM

But look! Displacement of spectral lines Awww! How about that! Apart from the difficulties discussed, this is the maximum so you proceed to the Centre. Whoa! It’s been rubbish hasn’t it?

Characterised by the fact that a spherical surface – now what? Hiya kid! Yeah, really… so-so… waiting very anxiously certain considerations suggest this is not over yet, we need a bit of a drum-roll – don’t go anywhere! The continuum is everything – so let’s ride! Hello everyone what a nail-biter that was! We’re having a frank conversation – interested? Wacky moments, hell’s bells and whistles (serious stuff) fast-forward to now and the journey of a lifetime. So let’s get to it and keep it fun! First I looked into those pale blue pools: beyond the winged eyeliner I saw high altitude vapour trails and scattered fair-weather clouds. Now take us off-grid and to the very edge. Oh! Wow! This is gorgeous! I mean it’s been amazing! Totally bonkers! A five-star experience! Well, that’s about it from me. Ok, interesting. The name is found nowhere else dense tangled thicket evolving in various directions, but out on the high street nothing unusual was going on girls dancing men throwing things diverted traffic They can’t be wrong can they?

Meanwhile the world is watching for some full-on fun a frantic operation new research suggests.

There’s a bit of a buzz here now. We reflect on a day like no other, the emotional roller coaster we’ve been on elegant chic and affordable not so off-the-grid, but some quite treacherous conditions. Exactly what? Find out why find out how. The list is not exhaustive but strangely this frontier district is sometimes haunted by a mysterious stranger, a rookie agent.

From where?  

The other side?

Urgent calls for more action, new challenges, a new and better life: crises shockwaves dramas transit custom plug-in hybrids with street value and kerb appeal; we couldn’t rule out the odd rumble! That’s one to watch – actually we’re really very excited.

Pressure? Well, plenty. (Ouch!). Grab your popcorn! The action starts here!

And we can bring you the latest! Oh right – how are things? It’s been called a perfect storm it’s been called a dream story or whatever it’s so shocking as to impress at first glance; a very alarming incident with flashing images an absolute howler with distressing details, and there’s a big buzz around a day filled with confusion and horror. So, we’ll be going on a journey to find out why chasing down answers, hearing about the challenges: and we’ll be asking why a lot more needs to be done. Yeah that is amazing! Stay with it? Heck, yes. And you know what? They did. The question now arises: what does this all mean for us? Even if the mood music is more positive many scenes will shock some and dismay others. We’ll examine the impact on low-budget whodunits on poetry-in-motion, on fancy-free dough-balls and on choosing the right path in life – or whatever. But, look – for the crème de la crème – for the speed freaks and for gym managers it’s a game of who blinks first. How does that make you feel? It’s just so exciting I’m nervous already! Impossible to tell from the body language, yet it’s striking to see weird concrete forms emerge as spooky icebound spirits – all mist and murk and ill fog – it’s a jaw-dropping entrance – or whatever. Hello! Hellooo! How’s that for a cheeky little bonus? When life gets messy press firmly to activate, yeah, absolutely!

Crack open the fizz! Take it forward and slowly get a wriggle on hit the groove and what else? Game on! Weeee! And you know what? You didn’t cry, so well done. Yep, next question – or whatever: will lessons be learned? Absolutely! Yes absolutely! One hundred percent! Well let’s try – this is where it’s at – or whatever no worries! One! Two! Three! Be seeing you! What are you talking about? How serious do you think this is? All together now! One! Two! Three! Sorry we have to leave it there but do join us next time. Stay cool. Ding! She was zesty – gorgeous – original One of the must-haves of the season bo-ho chic smart-dolly crochet hat foot-stomping go-go power razor laugh free range legs in-yer-face gags and gaiety.

What’s the mood there? Powerful conflicting emotions far out and way up: talk us through that really that performance was the edge of freedom hit the dance floor, take stock, test the limits Intercept our suspect – kiss and run an out-of-this-world experience. Tell us a little more Ding! I don’t think so how much more do we know? Well… let’s be clear yhe indicators at this time show it’s still a challenge no doubt about it we’ll be giving it our best shot Look! See! Nice! (canned laughter). So profoundly moving, our darkest secret well let’s face it; what happens next? Ziiip! Twang! Whoosh! Searing scenes and candid comments, continuous flashing images and – Pow! Yes! What a moment! Exciting! Exciting! This is really hard to watch. You get my drift? Ding! So perverse and bewildering a very difficult balancing act nut still the hot favourite posing with a retro arcade machine They’re watching and they’re waiting and it’s not over yet make it magical an absolute gem! A life-changing encounter for all so we couldn’t be more excited than that. We’re on it! Let’s do it! Yeah how? Have a great evening, bye bye. On the go? Yeah! Always! So back to the here and now: we’ve highlighted the pressure right? Re-tune your no-holds spin-off drama Get off my toe you idiot! We were a couple of stylish geezers Skirt-crazy thrill-seekers melting hearts chasing down answers and – oh yeah! Looking for Pom Pom Club clubbers nubiles on the razzle – phwoah! Time to splash the cash right? Thought you’d never ask! Doncha love that Pina colada chill-out experience?

Ha! Ha! So what’s going on? I’m good! You? Laugh or cry? Smarten up your day no visible lines here’s the latest pop-up production sort of orbiting space junk unintentionally weird a big bold move – yet it’s more of the same oohs and aahs, hugs and tears, flounces – crikey!

Bring it on! Cummin’ up! Voila! Tres bien! It’s a people thing – how about that? Well that’s when the magic happens and it’s spine-tingling stuff! You gotta feel it to believe it right? Quite a pivotal moment – yeah well hi there! Cheesy grin thanks very much! It’s a day of mixed emotions almost amusing let’s take a look: lot of nerves jangling here Very tense situation – what more do we know?

A space storm warning from left-field I know this is a big ask just bring yourself to tell a surprising and untold story or whatever tempting? Just talk us through on stilts that was quite bizarre but we are where we are right? If you squint you can see from those crazy pictures roots branches knockout shapes and shadows night has fallen so just go with the flow no let-up in pressure on those regular updates Nu Disco invisible mending and a cuddly toy it’s the way of the world doncha know Technicolour Vista Vision opens every day human drama dodgy cigs shocking blue films to flip your vibe more sizzle makes it easy! Hurry! Hurry! Where’s the pause button? See you in court ducky – oh right ok ok ok this demands a moment of celebration an up-to-the-minute snappy-clappy chat well I said to them I said it’s what we do! That’s it! Back to you!

 

 

 

AC Evans

 

 

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What’s Ike Got To Do With It … In praise of Ike Turner

Rock n’ roll is often a thankless task.  Accolades commonly bring mental illness and self-destruction (from Elvis Presley to Tom Petty).  One can form indisputably the greatest rock band ever, (Brian Jones), or write and record the first rock n roll record ever, only get paid $20, have no technical credit on the disc and later choose a fantastic lead singer to front your band and model her image after your fantasy of the film character Nyoka in the jungle thus creating the Queen of Rock n roll, (Ike Turner), and be left as a shadow in the Pantheons. 

Like many people the world over, I was enthralled with the Johnny Depp trial last year.  I was proud and shocked at myself that I was participating in such a mainstream cultural phenomenon.  As someone who belongs more in the 19th century, or the future (I hope – y’know ‘common sense,’ an intrinsic distrust of authority, etc..), what most people find appealing nowadays, or do, I don’t.  You won’t even catch me looking down at a phone.  Anyway, caveat, I was on what was called, “Team Amber.”  And not because I am a woman. 

I pretty much watched the whole debacle, and very carefully, reading things into everything:  who’s telling the truth and who is full of shit (pun not intended).  And at the very ending, during the Ruling, when it was decreed that both, with or without validity, were guilty of trashing each other’s public persona, I started thinking about Ike Turner.

I am an Ike and Tina Turner fanatic.  I loved the ‘hit’ when I was a kid, and if it wasn’t for my racist father always making me turn off Soul Train when it was on American TV, I’d have been in way deep.  It wasn’t until I married, my young(er) husband (oddly enough), musician Mat Treiber, that I became immersed in the musical merit of Ike and Tina.  I love both Ike and Tina together, the magic they made, the records – my fave being the early 1970s stuff, a few years before it all nuked itself out of existence.  I must say, I am not at all a fan of Tina post-Ike, and I am not alone in that.  I could put it down to the 1980s, a decade of such disappointment culturally and especially music and records.  I did my own first gig at CBGB in June 1981.  I grew up dying to be music, and when I did, the era was a shit pie to the face.  No wonder I’m more popular these days where everyone’s psych is cleaned, emptied and circumspect, instead of trendy (usually anyway).   

Yes I saw Tina at the Ritz (in NYC), which was the pivotal show for her ‘comeback’.   Yes it was very good, but it wasn’t anything compared to the 1960s and 70s.  Luckily we have so much on youtube which can be enjoyed.  I download these clips, and a personal goal is to learn every Ikette move via my TV screen.  Did you know all that fantastic dancing for the girls was choreographed by Tina Turner herself?  Incredible!  Hat’s off!  The ‘Playboy After Dark’ concert blows my mind.  The interview is fab too, with the lovely Ike who, I’m sorry, does not appear to be anything like the way he has been painted.  A man painted, smeared and destroyed by his ex-wife. 

In Tina’s recent documentary, ‘Tina,’ released in Spring 2021, there was a scene that stunned me, an admission that floored me.  This is what came back to me as I pondered the Depp legal Judgement, watching the end of the trial.  The film tells the story of Tina trying in vain to get interest in her post the Ike and Tina days; trying to get a record deal, and any interest.  Her agents concluded that it was hopeless and that she HAD to tell ‘the story’.  She had to have a gimmick, (nothing wrong with that), and the gimmick was being a victim of domestic abuse.  The film goes on to state that at that point, the gates opened for her, and she was on and in; back in the music business and bigger than ever.  How absolutely vile to be ok with that as a gimmick.  I guess that is conveniently ‘allowed’ in Buddhism?  It wouldn’t be allowed in Christianity as both Ike and Tina were raised, where the act of forgiveness promises rewards, and closure.  Tina knew everything about Ike and his history more than anyone, until he wrote a book, in defence. 

‘Takin’ Back My Name,’ is an amazing tome put out by Virgin Books in 1999, with a forward written by a King of Rock n Roll, Little Richard, praising the founder of rock n roll, Ike Turner.  A book that reveals a man raped four times by different women before he was aged 12.  A man who saw the kind of racism up front and as close as seeing blood run, yet still never had a racist bone in his body towards whites.  Despite his personal trauma, he swam through it and developed his talents on piano, guitar, music arranging and producing, and became a star.  A man who designed the clothes for Tina and the Ikettes.  Ike rose above every horror that life threw at him enough to focus on music and becoming a star for himself and his wife. He was a man obsessed with his artAnd sex and love.  Yet unlike Tina who is dubbed a ‘survivor’ of Ike, Ike didn’t survive the trauma of Tina’s cast stigma.  Is annihilating revenge really admirable? 

The image Ike Turner was left with, as a wife beater and madman, an easy shingle to hang on a black man, is abhorrent in light of his musical accomplishments, and moral ones.  He was married to about six women before Tina, and had many lovers and married afterward, as well, yet during the time before and after his reputation was smeared, I cannot find any arrests or anything such as that would be expected of a man whom society paints in such a drastic horrific manner.  Ike’s autobiography also reveals that even Elvis was in awe of Ike. Elvis would sneak into some show in the deep south, as a kid, and watch Ike from behind and under the piano, watching his legs, and everything.  Elvis revealed this story years later to Ike and Tina themselves in Las Vegas. 

I had my own positive experience regarding Ike Turner directly.  My husband covered one of his songs, and we were living in LA.  Shortly before Ike’s death of which those close to him call a suicide, we went to see him play in Malibu one evening.  The grand man sat down, did his whole set sitting down, but it rocked.  We wanted to meet him and there was the inevitable crowd and security around the backstage door.  I went up to the security guard and told him, “You see that guy over there?  He is a musician and he just covered one of Ike’s songs.  He’d love so much to meet Ike.”  When it was time to let some folks backstage, the security guard came out the backstage door and headed straight for Mat Treiber, and escorted him in, (not me unfortunately).  Clearly what mattered most to Ike was music.  It was always his blood, his medicine.  Ike didn’t remember the song at the first second when Mat told him which one it was.  Then he did, and started saying the lyrics. He gave Mat his business card which Mat still keeps in the very pocket of the jacket he wore.  Magic.  Love!  

It was the day after the Depp trial ended, and with all this drifting back into my head, that I wrote to Ike Turner’s daughter.  I told her what I thought, and how I felt.  I told her that in considering the Depp precedent, in regards to the destruction of persona and career, with or without evidence that Tina was telling the truth about everything, that she could take Tina to the cleaners in the name of her father.  The evidence being the most recent documentary where they are admitting to this scheme, for profit!  For self-promotion – hell this makes what the two present-day Hollywood kookoos did to each other, nothing – even with evidence it is absolutely clear that Tina Turner destroyed Ike Turner’s reputation, and career.

A legal proceeding as such would be the grandest moral circus of all, and the redemption of a man who went to his grave with a ruined name.  Ike’s daughter Twanna wrote back to me. 

            “It is amazing that you thought that. The thought crossed my mind, but there is a lot to consider. My father NEVER spoke ill of Tina although all of that negativity was placed out there to build Tina. My father saw what was going on and chose to take the higher ground. As you had to experience when you and Mat met him. My father was a magnificent human being. He loved people and he loved Tina. Being he did not pursue that avenue and he could have, I am going to follow his lead.” 

 What a classy response.  What a wonderful confirmation that was to me, beyond my own intuitions on the man and evidential influence he would undoubtedly have on his family.  I thought, this response is a story in itself, this is an essay.  Which is why I decided to write about it.  Tina till her death was still in the public eye today, riding on what began as a singer for a the man who created rock n roll (with his single Rocket 88), and still wagged her time with him as a way to legitimately stay ‘interesting,’ and find her a title as “survivor”.   I don’t really believe she had to do any of that.  We’re all tested in life.  Was the music business that closed to her?  Perhaps she just needed some patience and the assistance of an astrologer to pass that moral test.  I’m not a psychologist, but choosing that route assured no closure.  A fan base of women identified with Tina as a battered woman, women battered by brutes.  Ike’s genius surely set him apart from the archtype wife-beater, yet it was the archtype victim that identified with Tina, painting her ex-husband as their own.  A monumental, world-wide  psychic attack parallel to black magic, for profit and success. 

In the seeds of writing this article I began by wondering if there was any real technical evidence in all the abuse claimed.  Tina walked into a police department one day, with a bruised eye, and split?  People knew they were volatile; Keith Richards joked in the press that Tina beat Ike up too.  Then on the heels of my plans to write this essay, there was a new book out by former Ikette, and friend of mine, PP Arnold.  In this book Pat (PP Arnold), states that Ike raped her.  That was the most outrageous accusation of Ike Turner I’d ever learned of!  It blew my whole Ike-is-a-saint image.  What a shame!  I told Pat I was writing this article and I wanted to talk to her about Ike.  “I don’t wanna talk about Ike,” she told me in her dressing room recently in London.  I said, well the article I’m writing is in praise of Ike.  I thought maybe that could get a rise out of her.  She repeated what I said, as a question.  And then followed with her offering, “Ike was a tremendous musical talent”.  End of.  Forgiveness I guess, isn’t it beautiful? 

RIP Tina Turner, the music lives on.

This article was (finally) written on Monday 22 May and completed Thursday 25 May, the day after Tina Turner’s death, who passed a year exactly to the era of the Johnny Depp trial when the seeds of this essay took place.


 

Roxanne Fontana

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COLIN GIBSON: AT HOME WITH PETE BROWN (1940-2023)

English performance poet, lyricist, and singer best known for his collaborations with Cream and Jack Bruce. Brown formed the bands Pete Brown & His Battered Ornaments and Pete Brown & Piblokto! and worked with Graham Bond and Phil Ryan.
Pete sadly passed away on May 19. This interview first appeared in The Hastings Independent Press September 2015

In the big comfy kitchen of his newly moved-into house, Pete and I fell to discussing how odd it was that our paths had never crossed during our music careers, and that we were only introduced last year (2014) by my old friend the Newcastle poet Tom Pickard. Tom was reading at Hasting’s Black Huts Festival of Writing, Music & Film, and I was intrigued to learn that not only had he and Pete hung out together in Newcastle in the early sixties, but Pete had been the first reader at the legendary Morden Tower, the poetry venue set up by Tom and his then wife Connie Pickard, which attracted poetry luminaries such as Allen Ginsberg, and Basil Bunting. I knew I had to start at the beginning.

CG: I was going to ask you a bit about the pre Cream days.

PB: Well, that was really my first professional experience. I had this mad notion, inspired by reading about The Beat Poets in America, (which I got wrong. They weren’t actually doing hundreds of gigs and hitchiking everywhere), nevertheless I ended up doing just that. Sometimes it was ten shillings (50p) and a girl….if you were lucky. There was no “performance poetry circuit” to speak of, so we kind of created one, starting around 1960 when I met Michael Horowitz (founder of  New Departures and publisher of William Burroughs and Samual Beckett). Previous to that meeting I’d been published in America but never in Britain, and Michael wanted some of my stuff for New Departures.

CG: So who was publishing you in America?

PB: Evergreen Review, which was the bible of The Beats and the alternative culture, so I was very happy. I always had this relationship with America – and obviously it was America that really went for Cream, in a big way. Before that I would be sending out reams of poems to British magazines and nobody wanted to know because it wasn’t anything like the stuff people were doing currently. Then suddenly I’m in Evergreen Review, which everyone thinks is the best culture magazine in the world at the time……

CG:  So what kind of circulation did the Evergreen Review have?

PB: …….Big, big. It sold in all the hip bookshops in London, and was very successful in America, so suddenly there was this kind of confirmation that what I was doing was not complete nonsense. (laughs). It was just a nice little thing that told me, maybe I’m on the right track.

CG: So this was like an early CV, a message to reluctant publishers; Pete Brown has appeared in the Evergreen Review!

PB: Yes quite. You have to remember that at this point the British poetry scene was in the grip of the establishment, which was the very thing that Horowitz and I were fighting against; for instance you couldn’t get on radio poetry programmes, few and far between though they were, if you were from Newcastle or Liverpool, or, like me, had an accent bearing traces of the East End. You’d  have actors reading your poetry! And they all had posh voices which belonged to the kind of class you just didnt figure in. But gradually – particularly via the Liverpool scene and because we were now starting to get around a lot – things began to change. Suddenly you heard these great regional voices on radio and people began to accept them as having an authenticity that seemed to be heralding significant cultural change.

CG: And then bands like the Beatles came through, riding the wave of this huge cultural shift.

PB: Absolutely – and interestingly I remember this disagreement with Ginsberg, at the time, who says to me “The Beatles are going to change the world.” – at that point I was a bit of a musical snob because I was in love with jazz – and so I’m saying to him “its just about jazz…I don’t hear the other thing”… I could hear the blues of course, because blues lyrics were always an inspiration to me, right from the early stuff. Mamie Smith and Victoria Spivey in particular wrote some fantastic lyrics. Then there were the country blues people…..obviously Robert Johnson who I loved, and particularly Sleepy John Estes who I still, to this day, find absolutely amazing. Blind Willie McTell is another one  – imaginative, incredible lyrics that always turned me on. On another level, I started to listen to Waynone Harris. She featured great lyrics – Dont Roll Your Bloodshot Eyes at Me – I’m Scared To Smell Your Breath – You’d Better Shut Your Peepers Before You Bleed to Death. I mean those lines are so fucking good! I grew up listening to all that.
When the poetry thing took off, after the big Albert hall reading in 1965, we were sort of making a living, some of us anyway…. it was like 5 gigs for £20 a week, but it was growing. A year after that, Cream asked me to write and of course because of my knowledge of all that blues stuff, I was ready…almost..(laughs)..I didnt quite know what I was doing to start with, but I got into it fairly quickly.

CG: Was it an instinctive thing?

PB: Yes, as the lyricist in most of the songwriting partnerships I’ve had, I found a facility there.

CG: Where do you suppose that comes from ?

PB: Its because you listened to all that stuff…..whatever was playing in my house. Rock ‘n Roll from my older brother and sister, Nat Cole & Glenn Miller from my parents. And I would be hearing these great lyricists like Cole Porter And Irving Berlin

CG: Tin Pan Alley!

PB: Well that’s another thing, some of the great standard repertoire is incomparable, and of course I grew up with that too. My particular favourite though was E.Y. Harburg, one of the true american socialists. They called him Yip Harburg, and he wrote “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” “April in Paris” “Buddy Can You spare a Dime?” –  He was at that unique place in American history, and a man who influenced many of his great successors, notably Mose Allison, one of my idols, whose songs, like Middle Class White Boy and Your Mind Is on Vacation but Your Mouth is Working Overtime are just some of the best. I had Mose round for tea once, and we were just talking about stuff that had influenced him and I said “What’s your favourite book?” and he said “Well I guess my favourite book is The Journal of Albion Moonlight by Kenneth Patchem.” Patchem predessor of the beats and basically a poet, he was another honest socialist who genuinely wanted to change the world and make things better for people. Of his longer prose books ,this was the one I really liked, because it was articulated it in what I considered to be a great way. I found it heartening that Mose was into him as well, because at that time most Americans struck you as being, well terrible capitalists, (laughs), and you know, sometimes you despair. I mean…I won’t mention a name…. but one of my managers got me a writing job with a famous guitar player in America. a stadium-type guitarist and a very good musician which is why I wanted to work with him.

CG: So he wanted you as a lyricist?

PB: Yes, but in fact he had hardly anything, so I ended up writing half the tunes as well, because he just had a kind of collection of riffs and chords. Anyway, I won’t mention his name, but I was staying in San Francisco, while I was doing the job, and the US Marines Air Display Team were flying outside – I could almost lean out of my hotel room and touch these bloody planes, it was really frightening.
CG: You were in a high rise building?

PB: Well no it was only about ten floors, since they don’t do tall buildings in San Francisco.

CG: Of course – in case they fall down!

PB: Exactly (laughs), and these planes were so low, with all this horrible kind of macho flying, I just couldn’t bear it. And you know one of the things I had in common with Alex Harvey was we were both strong pacifists yet fascinated by war…….and I mentioned the story to this guy I was working with, and he said “Oh yeah,  I’ve just written an anthem for them” and I thought waaaah? (big laughs).  It reminded me that we once had a request from the Band Of The Finnish Air Force who wanted to do a version of I Feel Free… 
(Interviewer collapses with laughter),

PB: …where…..seriously….they had rewritten all the lyrics, so they were something like; I feel really free because I’m flying over my enemy and bombing the shit out of them…

(Sound of tea being expelled from interviewer’s nose),

PB: …and we went; “Oh no. Fuck no. Definitely not. Thank you very much. Not for us no. Thank you”

CG:  I so want to hear that!  Not a lot of people are aware that the Finns’ inherent sense of surrealism, goes way back, despite our notion that it was invented in the 1920s by André Breton.

PB: I know, I know. Somewhere, in a box, I have the lyric they sent me. It was frightening. It was like the 1933 Nazi manifesto you know? I mean, unbelievable. You could certainly say the Finns are off-beat. Those films of Kaurismäki, they were great, but also incredibly miserable too.

CG: Ah yes, but off-beat misery. As a touring band, it can be so easy to get a bad introduction to a beautiful country like Finland, no?

PB: True. I remember our first visit. We went there after being diverted from another gig. they said, “You’re not playing in High Wycombe tomorrow, you’re playing in Finland. OK right…so we get on a flight to Copenhagen for the first leg, but then get put on standby, and we’re thinking we might not make it, so when we finally get there – its been a difficult trip you know – no sleep,  we say, “Where’s the hotel?” “Oh no,” they say,  “you’re onstage in 20 minutes.” (laughter) so we go “OK, how many people are there?” – “Oh around 20,000.” And we get there and play, and the audience are throwing beer cans and other stuff on stage! So we ask the promoter “Why were they throwing stuff?”, and he says “Oh that means they like you” and I say “Oh really? What if they dont like you?” and he goes “Well, then they will throw knives.”

CG: It’s in those situations, where you’re really not sure what’s happening, you recite to yourself that old showbiz cliché, the show must go on. when in reality you should probably have done a runner.

PB: I know, you have to learn! (laughter)

CG: To change the subject, I was intrigued to learn recently that when you first got the invitation from Cream, it was with a view to writing with Ginger Baker, is that so?

PB: Yes sort of. He was the one who made the call, and I did try to write with Ginger. Part of our upcoming documentary is concerned with the controversy about all that. Ginger was not easy to write with, but he did have some very interesting ideas. I did write lyrics for a couple of his things and then he sort of claimed to have “lost them on a plane” and things like that, you know? He wanted to do it all himself really.

CG: I remember we did a couple of his numbers with Airforce (Baker’s post-Cream band) , and they were OK.

 

PB: Yes, obviously I loved Pressed Rat and Warthog, and all that.

CG: I remember a particular favourite of Ginger’s was My Baby Has Gorn Down the Plughole which we recorded, and he wanted to put that on the album Airforce 2 .

PB: I know, that was an old music hall song. But  Ginger is a terrific drummer. I loved Airforce, and he could do that whole jazz, rock, R n’ B thing like no-one else – as a musician I had no problem with him at all, but he’s a horrible person – I mean you know what he’s like, and we’ve all seen the film (Beware of Mr. Baker).

CG: Oddly enough, myself and Kenny Craddock, (Hammond organist & guitarist 1950-2001, who joined Ginger Baker’s Airforce at the same time as me) never really encountered any of that, perhaps because being only 20, we came with no baggage. I certainly get the impression, with hindsight, that Ginger is a man with deep grudges, some of them going back to the 1950s! (laughter)

PB:  He enjoys his grudges. He still enjoys them! He doesn’t let them go. Kenny was a terrific musician wasn’t he?

CG: Extraordinary, and very sadly missed. Of course you had a long association with Graham Bond (Hammond organist and seminal figure in the history of British R ‘n B, member of Airforce and leader of The legendary Graham Bond Organisation), whose drummer was Ginger Baker.

PB:  Ah Graham. A couple of years ago I produced a four CD set of all the old Organisation stuff including some unreleased tracks, and I’ve just finished another one, Volume 2, based on all the BBC stuff plus other tracks I’ve acquired which is coming out at probably the end of October.

CG:What about Live At Klook’s Cleek?  I had that album as a teenager.

PB: I still have it, it’s in storage with the rest of my vinyl. It was recorded by Georgio Gomelsky (see link below), who occasionally releases it and nobody gets paid at all. Apart from that one, the four CD set was fairly definitive, and then we began discovering some other stuff from the BBC sessions and ended up with another 4 CD boxed set. I have a good relationship with Repertoire Records, who are putting these out, and I do some archive things for them. I still have a toe in the archive thing, especially when I find it’s a worthwhile subject which I think ought to be out there. The first Graham Bond set sold incredibly well and at £40 a pop, we all made money out of it, so we’re hoping the next one will be just as good.

CG: You’ve produced a lot of stuff since Cream

PB: I got to producing quite a lot of records, and then I didn’t do it for a bit, just bits and pieces. Then a couple of years ago I was doing a gig in Germany with The Hamburg Blues Band, who I was a guest singer with alongside Maggie Bell and Miller Anderson, and the support act was this guy called Chrissy Matthews – an incredible guitar player, really gives a hundred percent – and he approached me with a view to doing some work together so I said I’d take a look at it, see what he’d got. Anyway I ended up producing his album, and co-writing all the songs except for one Blind Willie McTell cover. And I had a great time doing it because he’s such a great guy. I’d been a little bit apprehensive because every now and then you come across things you get asked to do – and people are very precious, they won’t move, and they don’t listen to you. You’ve been there, of course you have – and you think “why am I doing this? What the fuck do I need this for? But this was such a nice experience I thought I’d quite like to do a bit more, so I’ve been doing some bits and pieces, with young acts this time, and they’ve been going well. But when I do gigs with Chrissy’s band or The Hamburg Blues Band, I like doing a few Cream numbers you know?

CG:  That repertoire is yours!

PB:  I’ve always liked doing the live stuff, and of course yes, I wrote the stuff. There was a time, of course, because Jack was such a great singer, for a long time thought I shouldn’t be doing this. But after  I had six years of singing lessons, I felt comfortable with it.

CG: We were talking earlier about the Hammond organist and alto saxophonist Graham Bond, and how much he was willing to encourage younger players such as my (then) self.

PB: The great thing about being friends with Graham, and eventually having a band with him for a year was that he would always encourage you. Unlike a lot of the old jazzers who would go “oh you don’t want to do that” blah blah, you know, that attitude. Graham was never like that. He would always go “do it man…try that” That was the thing, especially about Graham, that he never had that sort of modern jazz attitude although he was a more than capable modern jazz musician, but you knew when you played with him that you would give more than your best, that you would go beyond, you would give it that extra few inches you know? Because whatever you thought of all those guys – Jack, Ginger, Dick (Heckstall Smith) and Graham in particular – they always gave one hundred percent. There was never a time when they wouldn’t do that. They were not coasting – never –they always hit it. Yes sometimes it was a bit wild and ragged, whatever, but most of the time it was right on and always delivered with tremendous power, enthusiasm and passion.

CG: They’re not all like that unfortunately.

PB: Unfortunately not, its like you were saying earlier, it’s not always good meeting your heroes. Van Morrison and Hastings favourite John Martyn, both seem to have suffered from it. Goes with the territory, I guess.

CG: It seems so unneccessary to be a shit, just because you are a great artist.

PB: John Martyn, what a madman. I opened for him in Edinburgh, we were doing the soundcheck and there’s this spiral staircase coming down on to the stage. Suddenly there’s this tremendous crash and he and his brother in law, or his cousin who was his tour manager, the two of them came rolling down the stairs on to the stage, fighting. Two Scots, proper fighting you know…..kill. Blood all over the place, and we’re just trying to get out of the way. (laughter)- Jack (Bruce) hated him. He was playing- again in Edinburgh- with his band, and John Martyn comes staggering onstage out of his mind, and tries to jam with him, and you can’t really do that with Jack’s songs unless you know them, you know? Complex structures and twists and turns. So he tries to play with Jack, Jack wants to kill him and it all kicks off.

CG: Two more angry Scotsmen.

PB: If you’re making a decent living why have a king size chip on your shoulder? If doing what you like makes you so miserable go get a job in a bank, or try digging up the roads, you know?

CG: It all seems a bit counter-productive. I wouldn’t particularly want to go for a pint with Van Morrison either.

PB: Zoot Money has a great story. It was when Georgie Fame was playing with Morrison, and he’s invited Zoot over to a reheasal, thinking that Zoot would be able to cover for him when he wasn’t available. So they go down to Van’s house in Bath or wherever to rehearse. Van’s manager is there, and Zoot sits down at the piano and starts playing with the band. Van’s standing there, and they all seem to be enjoying Zoot’s playing, and he’s singing a bit you know? Suddenly Van rushes out into the garden. Everyone can see him pacing up and down, poking his phone and the manager is still in there with the band. Then the manager’s phone rings, he picks it up and……

CG: No, Is it Van?

PB: It’s Van! From the garden! Apparently he’s saying “I want him out of here, he’s gonna upstage me.” He’s getting paranoid because Zoot is getting on really well with the rest of the band. As you know Zoot is extroverted, outgoing, pleasant, humerous, in other words everything that Van is not, so Van can’t bear it. He can’t bear it that everything’s going so well.

CG: (unsuccessful ulster accent) “You come round here, cheering my band up. Do you know how long it’s taken me to get them that miserable?”

PB: Ha ha! Ridiculous but true.

CG: I see you are featured in the upcoming doc, Psychedelic Brittania. I suspect Zoot’s psychedelic band Dantalian’s Chariot are in there somewhere?

PB: Oh I loved that band. And I’ve always said this, because I’ve worked with Zoot quite a bit over the years here and there, that Dantalion’s Chariot was my favourite psychedelic band. But the reason it didn’t work was because the psych audience didn’t really understand the humor. And for me…I remember watching them at Middle Earth whenever I could, and apart from being really great musically, the humor went way above everyone heads. I fucking loved it. I thought the combination of psych and humor was really great.

CG: You’re saying the psych crowd had no sense of irony?

PB: Not much. Not usually. They were too out of it to get their heads around humour.

The conversation drifted to the days when a “demo” was regarded as de rigeur in the recording process, and was always insisted upon by record labels. There was small independent studio in Islington called “Pathway” where we had both recorded many times.

PB: Pathway studios! Mike Finesilver and engineer Pete Kerr – I did all my demos there. They co-wrote Arthur Brown’s hit Fire and set up the studio with the money from that. I did several albums there, and hundreds of sessions as artist and producer, as well as the demos of course.

CG: Demo syndrome! The tracks would never sound as good in a “proper” studio and you spent half the time trying to recreate that “demo” feel.

PB: Very true, but Pathway later became known for its sound, and people like Dire Straits recorded their first album there, Elvis Costello too – it was a magic studio. 

 

LINKS

https://thestrangebrew.co.uk/remembering-pete-brown/

White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns, the documentary by Mark Waters featuring Pete. Featuring Martin Scorcese, Fay Weldon, Robert, Wyatt, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, it will be broadcast in spring 2016, and later released on DVD.

23rd October, before this issue, Psychedelic Brittannia, Mark AJ Waters’ documentary about Pete’s career went out on BBC 3. Catch it on iplayer.
/
11th October saw the broadcast from London’s Roundhouse of The 50th anniversary reunion of 1965’s First International Poetry Incarnation, where over seven thousand people packed the Royal Albert Hall to hear such luminaries of the beat scene as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Felinghetti and of course Pete Brown. Catch it on iPlayer.

Arthur Brown.

Zoot Money

The Roundhouse

Colin Gibson & Kenny Craddock were members of Ginger Baker’s Airforce 1970-71 – useful links:

Kenny Craddock

Lindisfarne

Graham Bond

Giorgio Gomelsky

Klook’s Kleek

Ginger Bakers Airforce

useful links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Horovitz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yip_Harburg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Review
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morden_Tower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamie_Smith
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Spivey
http://www.stmichaelshospice.org/get-involved/events/event-calendar/view/609/barefacedblues-festival

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A Playful Child

A school going child
Desires to play with
Her grandmother’s hair
After she comes home
Back from school.
She carefully plaits
The locks of hair;
Believes in herself with the intention
To caress
Smooth fall of hair
That reaches down
Her grandmother’s waist.
Time ticks by
The child grows daily in
The playground
That has also been
Her grandma’s identity
Of owning the long hair
From her youthful days;
Like the peaceful gushing
Stream of waterfall.
The homemade beauty salon
Has become the child’s playful abode.
The child is a craftsperson
A measure of free play
Long like the falling hair.
No school bell rings
That tells the child
To leave her playful salon.

 

 

 

Copyright Sushant Thapa
Biratnagar- Nepal

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SAUSAGE Life 271

Bird Guano’s
SAUSAGE LIFE
The column which believes that a laughing stock is only the prelude to a laughing gravy.

MYSELF: You’re looking a bit stressed
READER: I’m going to have to stop watching football on TV.
MYSELF: Is it the poor quality? Is your team doing badly?
READER: No, it’s the bloody row. The boot boys, sponge-men, assorted ground staff, the pot-bellied fans in full kit, all of them bellowing at the players in some kind of made-up language. It’s giving me disturbing childhood flashbacks.
MYSELF: Goodness. Can you be more specific?
READER: Yes. Imagine if all the members of the DUP came round to your your house at once.
MYSELF: A terrifying thought upon which I would prefer not to dwell. Would some curious facts from around the world of items sooth your infantile Freudian soccer-angst perhaps?
READER: Bravo! That’s more like it! I feel better already!

BLIMEY! CURIOUS FACTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD OF ITEMS

Did you know that the spider is not an insect, but a mammal, which can break a man’s arm with any one of its eight wings? 

Did you know that the Montezuma Quail is witheringly sarcastic, and is not to be trusted with money? 

Did you know that the late Ginger Baker, ex drummer of The Cream, recently turned down the role of Dr Who? 

Did you know that Nigel Farage, the Caribbean white supremacist has his own miniature one-man submarine? 

READER:  I have a feeling that one of those “facts” is not true. 

MYSELF:  Well spotted, which one do you think is false? 

READER:  Let me see…. I know Nigel Farage owns a miniature submarine and is definitely from the Caribbean, because I saw a video of him limbo dancing under a horse in St Kitt’s. As for number 2, I myself was once grossly insulted by a Montezuma Quail after I rashly lent it £10. 

MYSELF:  So, could it be the late Ginger Baker as a potential Dr Who perhaps? 

READER:  Well, that definitely has the ring of truth about it, even though he is dead, which just leaves the limb-fracturing arachnid. Can I phone a friend?

MYSELF:  You don’t have any 

READER:  I’m just going to have to guess.  Is it the spider? 

MYSELF:  You are going to kick yourself. The odd one out is the Montezuma Quail, a polite, charming and trustworthy bird with whom you would happily go into business. I can only suppose that the Quail you lent money to was suffering from stress. 

READER:  I recall it having the cool demeanor of a practiced confidence trickster. 

MYSELF:  Perhaps it was another type of bird altogether, wearing a Quail costume? 

READER: Ah….  Now you come to mention it… it may have been a Hoopoe.

IRISH STEW
We are obliged by the Press Council to publish the following letter
Dear Mr so-called Guano,
in these more enlightened times, must we, the ordinary folk of Ireland, still have to put up with cheap stereotypical so-called “irish jokes” like the example on display in in last week’s Sausage Life? Contrary to (un)popular opinion, we are not a nation of potato-eating bumkins, permanently fluthered on too many jars of the black stuff. Nor are we rib-ticklingly amused by ridiculous cod-Irish names, like Toby Shaw which your ‘reader’ claimed to have changed his moniker to in honour of St Patrick’s DayThis type of puerile humour may well appeal to your low-level Jackeens, your banjaxed Bosthoons or certain classes of eejit – but I feel sure that the loyal readership of your respected and venerable organ would be better served were you to rise above this type of thing.
Sue Atiz, B. Gobb, Mahogoney Gaspipe (Mrs)
Poltroon, Limerick

YOU CUN’T FUCKING MAKE IT UP
Ever since Chef-Swear, Gordon Ramsay’s chain of upmarket kitchen utensil stores posted a severe profit warning, it has been rumoured he has been looking for a way back into TV. The potty mouthed hash-slinger is rumoured to have agreed a deal with Channel 5 to present Ramsay’s Council Nightmares, a new series in which Gordon will go into borough councils around the UK and try to improve their efficiency.
“This is going to lift the lid on the fucking appalling state of UK local councils,” he is alleged to have shouted during an interview with Stan Wok, a journalist from the catering magazine Shock Chef, “you wouldn’t fucking believe the state of some of the fucking town halls I’ve been in!” he screamed, “One, which I won’t name, had a dis-fuckinggustingly filthy agenda cupboard containing the rotting remains of hair-brained policies covered in fucking mould!” Punching Wok hard in the solar plexus he continued:  “Some of the fuckers were well past their fucking sell-by date and stored next to rafts of raw proposals and dirty plastic trays containing fucking pre-cooked processed plans. All this obnoxious shit was lying there waiting to be zapped in a twatting micro fucking wave and served up to the poor unsuspecting locals as fresh.”
Asked to comment, Douglas Pancake of Upper Dicker, an official spokesman for the unnamed council, told us: “We welcome Gordon’s intervention. This may be just the breath of fresh air this council has been looking for. Let’s face it, if Chef Ramsay can turn around a corrupt, anachronistic, run down organisation as grossly inefficient as ours and at the same time secure massive TV coverage, it’s got to be worth a little bit of public humiliation. I for one am perfectly comfortable with being called a “worthless fucking slug” or indeed the more comprehensive “a totally fucking unqualified fuckwit of a wanker who couldn’t organise a fucking shit in a fucking bucket”

WENDY WRITES
Your favourite Agony aunt is back, rehabbed, replenished and refreshed, with non-confidential, unqualified advice for the needy, the lovelorn or the just plain confused. Sponsored this issue by Wurlitzer Organs UK.

Dear Wendy,
I’m frantic. My husband Harry’s 50th birthday is three weeks away and he has all the gadgets a man could ever wish for (including a mechanical device he keeps in his shed but refuses to say what it’s for). He’s very musical, but recently returned from a business trip in the Far East with chronic incontinence which has sadly prevented him from continuing with his part-time job as church organist. Wendy – what can I buy him for his special day?
Mia Tryfel (Mrs),
Rumpelstiltskin, Kent

Dear Mrs Tryfel,
Let me assure you, there is no such thing as the man who has everything. I can think of no more appropriate a gift for your musically talented yet cruelly afflicted spouse, than the Pump ‘n Dump Commodium by Wurlitzer. With the aid of this medically-approved portable self-flushing combination reed organ and commode stool, your husband can safely resume his part-time occupation. His musical doodling will no longer be curtailed by the ominous rumble of nature calling unannounced. As your husband’s errant bowel is gently regulated, the pneumatic foot pedals pump pressurized air into the Commodium’s unique U-Pipe disposal pistons. Once the system is plumbed in to an external septic tank, any unpleasant waste is efficiently dealt with by the chaise percée-themed hygienic mahogony commode stool.
The Wurlitzer Pump ‘n Dump Commodium comes with a free starter pack of ‘sheet music’ toilet paper, featuring organ maestro Gottfried Schtumm’s moving selection of ‘relaxative’ melodies including Exodus, I Shall Be Released, The Old Log Cabin and many more.

 

 

 

 

Sausage Life!

 

 

Click image to connect. Alice’s Crazy Moon is an offbeat monthly podcast hosted by Alice Platt (BBC, Soho Radio) with the help of roaming reporter Bird Guano a.k.a Colin Gibson (Comic Strip Presents, Sausage Life). Each episode will centre around a different topic chosen by YOU the listener! The show is eclectic mix of music, facts about the artists and songs and a number of surrealistic and bizarre phone-ins and commercials from Bird Guano. Not forgetting everyones favourite poet, Big Pillow!

NB: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A PAID SUBSCRIPTION TO SPOTIFY, THE SONGS WILL BE OF RESTRICTED LENGTH

JACK POUND: JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUN READER aka PASS THE INSTANT YOGA

 

 



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Ithaka: The fight to free Julian Assange, this Sunday


All credit to ITV and Dartmouth Films in London for an ITV showing this Sunday, 21 May, of Ithaka, the moving story of Julian Assange’s family’s struggle to get freedom for Julian.

When I last saw Julian in Belmarsh prison, where he is held awaiting extradition to the US, it was clear he survived on hope that the public in sane societies would see through the grotesque charade of his persecution and come to his aid.

Julian is a political prisoner.

That is not a rhetorical term; his extraordinary story is the collapse of justice for those who dissent against the state in declared democracies. It signals the demise of truth-telling in public life and of independent journalism.

Please support Julian by watching on Sunday: ITV at 22.20. Then speak out for his freedom. It could be yours.

Follow John Pilger on Twitter @johnpilger

 

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Lunch/Sky…..

LUNCH

I have been invited
to somebody’s
“Book Lunch”

It might be a misprint
but
I hope it’s not

SKY

The sky
is like a painting
of the sea

only upside down

STRIKE

Half the country
is on strike today

so

No poetry writing for me today!

MEDITATION

My mind
wanders

Must buy
cheese!

LADDER

There is a man
over the way
on a ladder

I hope he doesn’t –

oh, he did

 

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Eric Eric 2023

 

 

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Irony


                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                             for John Phillips
 
 
I think you’re probably right that I don’t
do or get irony very well, if at all some
 
times, but I question whether it’s because
I’m an American. Is it? You’d know, over there,
 
being an Englishman living in the Slovenian
countryside. I’d write this poem if I could.

 

 

  

John Levy

 

 

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ORPHEUS  SON OF APOLLO

 

Roman Orpheus
Bear your lamb from harm   –
Protector of the lost and newly-born
The tender creature draped upon
Your adolescent shoulder
The only princely mantle you lay down

To frolic with the nightingales and fishes
Concordant yet transcending nature’s power   –
Your simple tunic boasts
No purple trim   –   authority
Lives only in the grace-notes of your lyre

One naked foot is pierced
By time’s narcotic thorn
But your eyes see all too clear   –
And so the ikon-makers shall suggest
Your candid poet’s face
A pattern of harmonic countenance
Beneath the un-recorded face of Christ

‘The Good Shepherd’ you become   – also
‘The Harrower of Hell’

Where hides that wounded fawn Eurydice
Your shy Byzantine princess?
‘Don’t look back’   –   she has become
In semblance of her bridal fresco
The numinous white flame of the Holy Virgin   –

South of Tiber’s sage-green trailing ribbon
Fountains   groves of olives   lemon gardens
Are her veil

 

 

Bernard Saint  
Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

 

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Memory

Close to the church doorway

St. Mary’s, Harrow-on-the-Hill

Graves dot the steep hillside

Souls we never knew

If only they could stand

Look out beyond where they lay

To the vistas of Harrow Weald

For 1000 years from this citadel

If only they could hear each other

And dance in memorial shadows

Bluebells and forget-me-nots

Gathered around their stones

Robins, finches and sparrows sang

 As the sun crept over the horizon

A tethered cross leans by the chapel wall

Where stained glass figures look on.

Remembering, in the early morning light

A man stands quietly, cups an ear, listens

Says, ‘spread your wings, the angels call’

Places precious flowers on the new grave

  
 © Christopher 2023 

 
 
The young Byron sat on a tomb at St. Mary’s to write his poetry.
 
 
 
 
 
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Hospice Nurse

Her way of comforting plashed the grief that sprawled in syllables along pathways not woven fallen falling across once keepsake leaves on acres felt. Each footfall dotting a horizontal plane destined to reach unwanted locus imperfectly alone. Fragility resists insight while needing one fresh day unequal to escape. There is no living past what remains unfinished joy. Devotion interrupted shifts compass away from chanted true north as though a real concerto resisting what finality is imagined to achieve. 

Predicate, predictor, sheaths of color dimming toward transparency

 

 

Sheila E Murphy

 

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If every


If every moment is made of moments does every one of those moments require an explanation? Propagandists sniff at the perfumed corpse of the past to carry their own stink into what’s left of the future: Those were the days when… But this most recent was a summer of tipping points, flowers abundant on roadside verges here while north and south polar ice sheets were melting. Can it matter to a nearly blind mole and his black velvet hide that he has all this while been tunnelling through coal spoil? With these out-of-season weathers how am I now to read the rain?

 

 

Sam Smith

 

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COLOUR OF PAIN

When I see your rage
at fate’s vandalism
ripping the stitches
from your life,
I imagine your mind
holds a silence of red.
 
When I see the envy
as the world enjoys
its same old shams
you can`t now reach,
I imagine your mind
as a riot of green.
 
Yet I can`t tell the colour
that invades your mind
due to the depth of pain
your eyes aren’t hiding,
spreading its education
across your face.
 
But it must be
darker than black.

 

 

 
 Gordon Scapens

 

 

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INVENTING LEMMY {from Motorhead}


From the open platform of Hyde Central

The modern absence of chimneys
Would have overwhelmed the Victorians

What do people do
Without mills and factories
How do they pay the rent
Afford new hats

Perhaps they all work in Woolworths
Weighing sweets and selling
Just the Top Twenty singles, nothing

Wild or esoteric, nothing
By Motorhead

Did I mention that Lemmy
Lived (briefly) on Hattersley?

He was seeing a girl

I never met her
But I’ve no reason to doubt
The accuracy of the story

Why would you invent it?

 

 

 

Steven Taylor

 

 

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Don’t Say Nowt

     

Don’t Say Nowt

 

Jumble Hole Clough’s creator, Colin Robinson, describes it as ‘music influenced by the landscape, industrial remains and experiences around Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. Forgotten things half-hidden beneath the undergrowth.’ Robinson has now created forty-three albums under the Jumble Hole Clough name, the latest three being a trilogy based on written-down dreams (‘the minor transient documents of everyday life’, as he describes them). Over the previous forty, Robinson had moved gradually away from his self-imposed local brief. This trilogy, however, brings the world around Hebden Bridge back into focus: the calls of the curlews the crows and the sound of the church bells rising up from the valley (everyday experiences for anyone living around Hebden Bridge) mingle with more exotic, surreal dream-images. For example, someone – in one of the catchiest songs in the trilogy – has mysteriously filled the back of his car with riot-shields. I can’t explain why I like that song as much as I do any more than I suspect Colin Robinson can explain why he dreamt it.

The first album of the trilogy, with its ambiguous double-negative title, Don’t Say Nowt (and other dreams), contains conventional songs. Correction: conventional JHC songs, which is not quite the same thing. Conventional in JHC terms means short, sonically diverse and full of tongue-in-cheek surrealism. These are the dreams you were dreaming the moment you woke up: brief, vivid narratives with a logic of their own, which seemed perfectly reasonable while you were dreaming them.

Check it out on
https://asithappens55.blogspot.com/2023/05/dont-say-nowt.html

 

Dominic Rivron

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Steam’s Groove – (episode 24)

Steam Stock

Tracklist:
Galt MacDermot – Hair
Foxy – Madamoiselle
Ronnie Laws – Tidal Wave
Roy Ayers – I Like the Way You do it to Me
Ohio Players – Smoke
Soft Touch – Plenty Action
Betty Davis – Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him
The Gaturs – Gator Bait
The Undisputed – Truth Ball of Confusion
Barry White – Playing Your Game Baby
Vaughan Mason and Crew – Rock, Skate, Roll, Bounce Pt.1
Vaughan Mason and Crew – Rock, Skate, Roll, Bounce Pt.2
Odyssey – Our Lives are Shaped by What We Love
Dionne Warwick – You’re Gonna Need Me

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DIRTY DIANA


Fluttering her eyeleashes at Kings, Billionaires,
Doctors, Soldiers, she flirted further
Than Cleopatra’s appeal.

There seemed to be no end to her need
To embroil every man; from rejection,
She still founded a kingdom from the walls

Of want most men feel. Today there was news
Of her saucy postcard sent to a former King
Of Greece. Her cum-punning, showed a low

But high sense of humour, and yet,
One can also discern the zones of danger
She courted; often indiscreet, her distemper

And that little girl blush cast a net
Snagging her as she snogged, promised more,
Or gave gladly. She could have played grandly

Into the studied hands of the dark
Who shaped restraint and the dire demand
For order, outdated now, but back then,

In the 90s, tradition could still stain and mark.
Of course, it was just a postcard. So this
Is little more than conjecture. Diana’s rule

Has grown greater than if she had made it
To Queen.She had a virtual army of men,
as did Margaret Thatcher. She could well have wrought

a republic from how high
She chose to raise her skirt seam. And God knows,
She had the divine right to do so; taking the pip

And piss is the province of those who are free.
And yet this piece of paper I saw, this tranche
Through tree makes me wonder; just how do we

Rouse the rebel if we are to sustain anarchy?
Women know best. But then they always do.
There’s no question.. Now, in the dream-world,

Diana is, while perhaps playfully posing,
Laughing with abandon as she teaches
Love itself how to be.

 

 

David Erdos 16/5/23

 

 

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Andrew Weatherall: AW60 – aka The Guv’nor

Some words and pics from Alan Dearling

A weekend of live music, DJs and mixers. Co-ordinated by Todmorden’s Golden Lion crew. A celebration of what would have been music producer, musician and DJ, Andrew Weatherall’s 60th birthday.

Eager crowds of dancers, plenty of May Bank Holiday high spirits immersed themselves amongst lots of memorabilia of Andrew’s life and musical careers, plus the presence of many members of the Weatherall family. Andrew W was last at the Golden Lion with his many world-wide and local fans and friends for the 5th ALFOS weekender (A Love From Outer Space) with Sean Johnston and others in June 2019. Sadly, it took place only a relatively short time before his untimely demise at the age of 56 in February 2020. I was there for most of that weekend, and had opportunities to chat with him, finding him to be gentle, warm, companionable and deeply knowledgeable concerning many styles of music. The range of music he played over three days was genuinely genre-defying. It encompassed rockabilly, blues, psychedelia, techno, electronica, rave, hip-hop, rock and dance.  But I guess, Andrew will be most remembered for being centre-stage of Acid House and as the producer of Primal Scream’s ‘Loaded’ and ‘Screamadelica’ and My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Soon’. His own electronica trio, The Sabres of Paradise released three cult albums.

And so the 2023 ‘AW60’ event was a thoroughly mixed musical bag. It physically and sonically overlapped with the Todmorden Folk Festival weekend – Morris Men, clog dancers, fiddles and bagpipes were melded into the fabric of the local area, down by the Rochdale Canal and inside and outside venues, pubs and bars, cafes and eateries throughout Tod’s market streets and gunnels.

Sunday night at AW60, a variety of DJ sets and live, Andy Bell and Chris Rotter. Two guitarists…a relaxed, improvising-style set. More of a jam than a show, but delightfully intimate. Andy Bell is something akin to rock-royalty having been the co-founder of the band, Ride, often named as the creators of the ‘shoe-gazing’ style of music. But, Andy was also in Oasis for nearly ten years and in Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye. He’s an innovator in electronic music, but is primarily a guitarist and bass-player, but most definitely with ‘added loops, pedals and effects’.  He’s also been working on his solo work (most recently the double album ‘Flicker’ 2022), new compositions with Chris Rotter and in Glok, plus occasional reunions with Ride. The sound of this duo gigging was strangely ethereal, jangling guitars and interweaving of soundscapes. Strange, but overall entrancing and enveloping. And a fitting tribute to Andrew Weatherall, who Andy Bell had worked alongside in many musical conflagrations. All in all, a magnificent party for the Guv’nor! Live Video: https://vimeo.com/822933811

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Revelation

My mind is a river bank my friend
The water keeps touching it.
It is a sentiment my friend
The memories keep recalling.
The wide sky
Paints its canvas;
It leaves
The caricature of togetherness.
Only the living code is the color of life
Under the blue sky.
Find me in a grain of sand
The horoscope of my working palm
Shows my fateful lines.
I create my meaning
Inside the deep cave
Of felt affection.
All abstract,
The weight of meaninglessness
Is like plucking the flowers
Without planting the seeds,
Aware of appreciation
Without knowing about the flower.
The cool water again,
Keeps touching the woods,
And time keeps reaching
The banks.
A revelation shows its face
In the morning mirror.

 

 

 

Copyright Sushant Thapa
Biratnagar-13, Nepal
Picture Nick Victor

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The Guilt Directory

 

It takes a long time for the threads of Empire to fray, and you still find them caught on your jewellery after you’ve pushed through the narrow library, with all its mythical heroes and unused telephone directories. You wonder which, death for death, was the most pernicious empire; but more than that you wonder what mythical heroes would make of telephone directories, being more used to scrolls and Roman numerals. Imagine Icarus running his waxy finger down the page as he searched for a cab to the airport, or Medusa checking for a local hair salon, both confused by these strange symbols that you take for granted. You read somewhere that Britain transported over three million Africans to its colonies between the mid-seventeenth century and 1807, but these numbers are too big to mean anything to you, and you feel like Pandora, face pressed into an empty jewellery box from somewhere your grandfather called The Orient, desperate for the residual scent of hope.

 

 

 

Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor

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Cease & Resist – Sonic Subversion & Anarcho Punk In The UK 1979​-​86

This is the sound of attitude, argument, resistance and revolt, birthed long after the first punks came into view, owing as much to DIY bedroom experiment as ‘punk’ music. Anarcho Punk was more to do with politics than music, and if it at times it became simplistic propaganda, it never failed to provoke discussion and encourage the alternative networks of concerts, fanzines and music that existed at the time, pre-internet of course.

If at times the scene was reduced to slogans painted on knackered leather jackets, ripped jeans and spiked hair, it also produced surprisingly poppy music at times, and also the ‘sonic subversion’ or Crass and their associates like Annie Anxiety, both featured here. Anxiety’s track here, ‘Hello Horror’ is a still shocking aural collage, in total contrast to the accessible pop punk of Zounds, who kick off the compilation.

Elsewhere most of the music on here, even the Crass track, is more simplistic thrash, although synthesizer sounds beam into The Hit Parade’s contribution, Andy T declaims his poetry over abstract feedback and random radio, Alternative TV are just plain weird as usual, and the alternative version of The Mob’s classic ‘No Doves Fly Here’ is still achingly despairing and nihilist.

Whilst it’s disappointing that this compilation ignores the more experimental stuff Crass, Flux of Pink Indians (called Flux by then) and the Poison Girls released, this is neverthless a great double album, which is available from THE Optimo Records Bandcamp for just £10, with all profits being donated to Faslane Peace Camp and the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

BUY HERE: LINK   https://optimomusic.bandcamp.com/album/cease-resist-sonic-subversion-anarcho-punk-in-the-uk-1979-86?from=search&search_item_id=1078696940&search_item_type=a&search_match_part=%3F&search_page_id=2602140370&search_page_no=1&search_rank=5&search_sig=7e3bc17f7e0e711faecd93105cae7cc4

Andy T – Death is Big Business

Chumbawamba – Revolution (Liberation/Stagnation)

‘Don’t sit back, it’s time to act
This life is ours, let’s snatch it back
Even though we disagree
we share a common enemy
Our methods may not be the same
But together we can break the chain
Different aims, different means,
with common ground in between
Don’t sit back, it’s time to act
This life is ours, let’s snatch it back
The time has come to make a choice
Stop taking orders from His Master’s Voice!’

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All About Love

 

O Sun O Moon, Bruce Cockburn (True North)

There was talk a little while ago, of Bruce Cockburn’s new album being like some of his (much) earlier work. For some of us that hopefully meant a resurrection of the Tom Verlaine-esque guitars on parts of 1978’s Further Adventures of, or the acidic despair and social observation of divorce album Humans and its follow up, the even grittier Inner City Front. But actually what it turns out to be is a return to the kind of music Cockburn made even before those: O Sun O Moon is a laid back singer-songwriter album, exquisitely arranged and produced, with vocals and acoustic guitars to the fore.

Cockburn is 78 and still going strong. He’s been making albums since 1970, I’ve been seeing him in concert since the late 70s; I even wrote my undergraduate dissertation on his work. Every time I think I might not worry about listening to new Cockburn albums any more he releases one that tries something different and re-energises my interest. At times that has been a renewed political engagement, at others a change in his band line-up, producer or just the fact he manages to succinctly capture the moment.

O Sun O Moon is a surprise turn away from political and social satire or commentary to a more personal, and also seemingly more straightforward, blues and folk based music, where texture and arrangement are the focus. It’s subtle, enticing music that isn’t afraid to remain stripped back but also welcomes clarinet, upright bass, accordion, glockenspiel, saxophones and marimba into the mix as and when required.

Cockburn sounds relaxed and slightly gruff vocally throughout, quiet and contemplative, whilst the album sounds as though it was recorded next door. It’s warm and enticing, with love – be that romantic, spiritual or sexual – often posed as not only the answer but a command from above:

   The pastor preaching shades of hate
   The self-inflating head of state
   The black and blue, the starved for bread
   The dread, the red, the better dead
   The sweet, the vile, the small, the tall
   The one who rises to the call
   The list is long — as I recall

   Our orders said to love them all
   The one who lets his demons win
   The one we think we’re better than
   A challenge great — as I recall
   Our orders said to love them all
          (‘Orders’)

There’s also what reads as more zen acceptance than despairing resignation, as long as his lover is there:

   What will go wrong will go wrong
   What will go right will go right
   Push come to shove

   It’s all about love
    The sight of your smile fills my heart with light
          (‘Push Come to Shove’)

Overall there’s sense of what-will-be-will-be and contentment. Wars and politics aren’t bothering Cockburn much at the moment, he’s not angry but more concerned with domestic routine (he has moved from Canada to San Francisco, and has a teenage daughter) and ageing gracefully. In fact dying gracefully. ‘O Sun O Moon By Night’ is a reflective song that looks backwards in time and forwards in hope:

   Pain brings understanding
   Your mistakes will set you free
   To sink into the spirit

   To clear your eyes to see

   O sun by day o moon by night

   Light my way so I get this right

   And if that sun and moon don’t shine
   Heaven guide these feet of mine

   To Glory

whilst the final song, ‘When You Arrive’ starts with the lovely lines ‘Breakfast is Mahler and coffee
 / Dinner’s Lightnin’ Hopkins and rye’, but notes that

   You’re limping like a three-legged canine
   Backbone creaking like a cheap shoe
   Dragging the accretions of a lifetime

   But you ought to make another mile or two

before optimistically suggesting that the dead will welcome him in the end. (Yes, I know it says ‘you’re limping’ but I read it as poetic license.):

   And the dead shall sing

   To the living and the semi-alive
   Bells will ring when you arrive

Cockburn is an astonishing musician, performer, songwriter and political activist. Over the course of 38 studio albums he’s charted the ups and down of life, relationships and friendships, faith and doubt, embraced the urban and rural, pointed out political lies and encouraged revolutionary fervour. He’s visited and documented refugee camps, war zones and tropical paradises, campaigned for various causes and charities, turned nature into mystical visions and kept making great albums. This is one of them.

 

Rupert Loydell

                        Bruce Cockburn • August 2023 UK Tour

                        Thursday 24        Oxford           02 Academy
                        Friday 25              London          02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
                        Saturday 26         Kettering       Greenbelt Festival


Photo by Daniel Keebler

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Restoration, Repair, Regeneration

Broken, Katie Treggiden (Ludion)

I confess that this book’s subtitle ‘Mending and repair in a throwaway world’ but mostly the fact that the Foreword is written by Jay Blades put me off reading this book for a while. Both are in many ways irrelevant to what this book is actually about; it certainly has very little to do with the tearful nostalgia peddled by TV’s Repair Shop (which Blades presents) as they return mended items to their grateful owners. It is also not about ‘making do’ or ‘patching things up’ but much more radical and interesting topics such as ‘Repair as storytelling’, ‘Repair as activism’, ‘Repair as healing’ and ‘Regeneration as repair’.

These are the titles of the book’s individual sections, the first of which is to do with the seemingly more ordinary ‘Restoration of function’, which talks to makers who have skills such as chair caning, and to the inventor of Sugru – a plastic I have never heard of but looks absolutely fantastic. It is a ‘mouldable glue’, made in a number of vibrant colours, which has the ability to be wrapped around or between all manner of previously difficult-to-repair items such as cables, zip tags and, if you don’t mind a crazy paving look, ceramics. Some of those featured here talk about resisting a throwaway society but also more importantly of the fact that ‘Fixing objects is a way of taking ownership’. Disappointingly, Vincent Dassi who I have just quoted, along with Jude Dennis & Hannah Stanton, who ‘use furniture as a medium for the exploration of ideas’, create objects that most people, myself included, will probably not want in their home. That’s actually unfair to Dennis & Stanton, as they use their chairs as sculptural props in performances designed to provoke their audiences to ‘think differently about their furniture, what’s in it, where it comes from, and who has made it.’

‘Repair as storytelling’ is about the history that objects we own sometimes contain, and that we perhaps need more than we think as humans living in a throwaway society where built-in obsolescence is the norm. Whilst we find it hard to manage our clutter and possessions (let alone digital information) we all too often end up rootless and unable to position ourselves within familial, communal or social histories and geographies. Keiko Matsui notes that ‘People will not repair a broken object if it is not personal, valuable or historical… it must have a story, a connection to the heart, in some way.’ Re-animating, discovering or perhaps even inventing such stories seems to be what the artists in this section are doing. Celia Pym highlights the darns and repairs she makes in bright colours to construct fashion items which map ‘where holes happen’, but also makes sculptures or reliefs from stitching wool into paper bags, emphasising the crumpled textures and darning interventions.

Bouke de Vries reassembles broken ceramics in a deconstructed manner, sometimes highlighting the repaired cracks with gold leaf, at other times placing the pieces in a glass version of the original pot. Matsui at times does something similar, drawing on the art of kingtsugi, which embraces damage and repair, but she is also exploring yobtisugi, where missing fragments are replaced with pieces from other ceramics. In her case this often involves using ‘old shards if blue and white Japanese porcelain, in a way that integrates [her] identity with the cultural connection to my new home in Australia.’

Raewyn Harrison explores similar ideas of cultural connection by curating and assembling found objects, often from mudlarking expeditions by the Thames, into handmade porcelain boxes or thrown pots. Hans Tan initiated a design project in Singapore to challenge design students to repair objects for an exhibition he curated, R for Repair. The students also had to produce a little ‘repair kit’ which would enable others to do something similar. This wasn’t simply about ‘mending’ but totally rethinking and recontextualising the object. So a watch became a clock by being set in a wooden block; a tote bag was turned inside out, with elastic rope netting added to the (now) outside as extra storage; a precious cup with its handle broken off was smoothed down to make a usable drinking vessel for its owner, whilst the handle was given a small wooden box to rest in.

In the next section some makers appear to work in similar ways but frame their practice as political resistance, not only to capitalism’s demands for endless production and purchasing but also the way it ignores poverty, environmental issues, and our broken community and society. It is craft as a form of protest. Sometimes this is in-your-face sloganeering, for instance Bridget Harvey’s giant jumper with the slogan MEND MORE BUY LESS on, carried on the Global Protest March back in 2015, other times it is a more subtle highlighting of the beauty of wear and tear, the inbuilt stories in what we wear. Aya Haidar produces witty installations of used clothing hung on washing lines, with each item’s particular history annotated in stitch: ‘Produced Milk’ declaims a slip, ‘scrubbed poo off pants’ announces a pair of pants, ‘Painted fence’ states an old rag; whilst in other works she highlights stains and marks and tears by stitching colours around them. Other works here may be political acts but once again, you’d have to like them a lot to want Paulo Goldstein’s anarchically DIY repaired furniture in your house or the naively painted, smashed and awkwardly reassembled pots which Claudia Clare sees as a metaphorical representation of sexualised violence against women.

Perhaps more subtle and interesting is the work in the next section, which considers ‘Repair as healing’, referring to personal healing, not the objects concerned. Ekta Kaul’s embroidered textile work explores lost connections, with an early piece mapping out her grandmother’s Indian neighbourhood as a way of exploring her cultural and family past. Later pieces such as ‘Portrait of Place’ were co-created with community groups who learnt traditional Indian stitching techniques in addition to being able to produce a map of their West London, where the workshops took place. (It also happens to be my West London!) I was surprised and delighted to see artist Lucy Willow’s work showcased here, particularly because the work discussed is from an exhibition I saw in 2022. Drawn from the Well was an exploration of grief in response to Willow’s almost 16 year old son dying back in 2006. The work included charcoal drawing and porcelain ceramics, some broken and exhibited as pieces on the floor, others organic yet abstract shapes containing textiles made from her son’s clothes. Deeply personal symbolism, and the artist’s acts of creating by ‘tearing, ripping, stabbing, breaking’ re-present a raw, personal response to loss, and offer a space for others to remember, mourn and think; perhaps to even be healed.

Aono Fumiaki makes sculptural assemblages from what others have discarded, but it is perhaps his reinvention, which he calls ‘restoration’, of items from the great East Japan earthquake and tsunami that is the most striking. Here, original damaged items are seamlessly combined with other items as sculpture or objects: a TV remote is cradled in shaped driftwood, a section of a wrecked boat merges with two occasional tables and rests on chests of drawers. They are strange and alluring, unsettling even, in stark contrast to the more traditional (but beautiful) tables and chairs made by Marie Cudennec Carlisle & Daniel Barco which follow. These craftspeople share woodworking skills through an academy teaching schoolchildren and young offenders, offer free workshops to members of the public on low income, and run a joinery where they make and sell bespoke furniture from donated and rescued wood. They are also active in their community running The People’s Kitchen, which uses surplus food to make restaurant quality meals and offers a space for meeting and eating. They somehow bridge the extreme gap between poverty and affluence the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea offers. Bachor and Linda Brothwell are also hands-on artists in different communities. The former fills in potholes and often tops them with mosaic images, whilst the latter uses skills to intervene, decorate and repair in public spaces: wood inlays in benches, missing letters in old signs replaced using beautiful brass. These are all parts of her Acts of Care project, which she documents as she goes along.

The final section is mostly about sourcing material, being aware of where stuff comes from, and helping to sustain the Earth. It is about makers who choose to build a relationship with not only the materials they use but those who provide it. Artist and designer Fernando Laposse returned to Mexico, where he grew up, and was appalled by the environmental and social changes. He now provides a market for those who grow agave – a resilient self-sufficient plant which helps create good soil that corn can then be grown on – because sisil which is used to make rope is a by-product, and has also invented a veneer material made from the waste products of corn. Sarah Grady and Alice Robinson have established ‘a new network for producing leather in the UK, utilising hides from the farms whose regenerative practices they want to support’. As part of that they ‘maintain traceability through all stages of production’ and give other ‘designers and brands a choice when it comes to the leather they use.’ Sebastian Cox manages his own woodland and uses only coppiced wood in the making of his furniture. He remembers being amazed as a child just how quickly a deforested landscape grows back. Gavin Christman is more of an interventionist: he produces blocks, bricks and posts which offer homes for bees, bats, swifts and sparrows, all of which re made to standard sizes and can be included within otherwise normal construction practices

I don’t like all of the work showcased in this volume, and there are questions to be asked about how fine art or crafts can change the world beyond highlighting or showcasing issues; especially when they remain part of the capitalist marketplace. But many of the projects here which also intervene to mend, repair and change attitudes, communities and skillsets are provocative and fascinating to read about. I also remain drawn towards Willow’s exploration of grief (something our society does not cope with very well), Harrison’s recontextualisations of what the Thames offers up to her and us, along with Haidar’s subtle evocation and highlighting of personal histories embedded in clothing.

As I implied at the start of this review, this book isn’t really what I expected it to be. It’s much wider, more thoughtful, more diverse and much better in its content, contextualisation and considerations. I can’t summarise it better than this quote which prefaces Katie Tregidden’s own Introduction:

    … other things can be repaired. Objects, of course.
     Traditions can be. Hope can be. Emotions eventually.
     But it requires cautious handling, patience and care.
     Old hope can age beautifully.
          – Otto von Busch

 

           

Rupert Loydell

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LOVE!

Love……

A place where dreams and hopes take flight,
A vision that fills with delight.

It requires patience, trust and respect,
And gives us wings to fly and perfect.

A seed that blossoms and grows,
An affection that overflows.

A force that moves the world,
A flame that burns eternal and unfurled.

A gift that is given and received,
A bond that cannot be deceived.

A light that guides in the night,
A beacon that shines bright.

A mystery that can’t be defined,
It’s an emotion that transcends time.

A depth of feeling that runs so true,
A love that will refresh brew.

 

 

 

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 100 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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A Mirror At The Base of A Third World Store

Even before the infusion of the dark
roasted beans and the water,
even before I wake up
and realise that I am awake, I stroll
amidst the empty market
towards its lone magazine stall.

I pass one makeshift shop
on the pavement, built
with the junkyard jewels.
It has a mirror fitted granite top
of some washbasin as its base.
The store depends on the top’s sturdiness.

I stop every morning, stare at what
my old tutor would have described as
juxtaposition and I gaze
at my feet reflected in the glass.
There they are – floating, baseless.
I walk my ghost through the playground
of clouds, thin air, standstillness, stupor.

 

 

Photo and words Kushal Poddar

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Unicorn

 

 

Sophie was asleep, curled up on the settee, the head of her favourite unicorn pressed close to her face. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I went into the bedroom as soon as my mobile started to ring. It was Sam. He asked me, had I noticed anything strange about Sophie recently? It was a strange question for an absent father like Sam to ask, I thought, but I didn’t say so. I just said no, which was the truth. Run your fingers across her forehead, he said. I can’t right now, I said. She’s asleep on the settee, curled up with Roxie. I don’t want to wake her up. Who on earth’s Roxie? he said. Her favourite unicorn, I said. You should know that, you’re her father. Well, do it when she wakes up, he said. Check if it’s smooth. What are you going on about? I said. This unicorn thing, he said. She could be turning into a unicorn. See if you can feel a horn growing in the middle of her forehead. I jabbed the phone, cut him off. I can do without him phoning me up, taking the piss.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again. It was Sam. I thought, should I or shouldn’t I, then answered it. I wanted someone to talk to and arguing with Sam was better than nothing. It passed the time. He carried on where he’d left off. I’m being serious, he said. Kids are turning into unicorns. Yes, whatever you say, Sam, I said, in my tired, fuck-you voice. Goodnight.

I didn’t believe a word of it, but I googled it nevertheless. It turned out, of course, that he hadn’t made it up. There were stories out there. There were pictures, video clips even. It’s so easy to fake stuff, though: to take it all at face value you’d have to be as stoned as Sam was most of the time. It was all just too stupid for words.

By the following morning, though, it’d hit the headlines. It wasn’t just an internet rumour: it was official. Children were turning into unicorns. Nobody knew quite what to do about it. We were told not to panic. A journalist with a microphone standing outside Number 10 said he understood the government COBRA committee were meeting later that morning. Plans would be made. Guidance would be issued. Days went by. Advice sheets came in the post and posters appeared on school gates. It told you what you could do to reduce the risk (not a lot, at that time) and what to do if your child turned into a unicorn. Otherwise, life went on as normal, at least round our way.

About a week later, the government started publishing a graph on the internet every day, telling you how many children had turned into unicorns. There was even a map of Britain, too, with unicorn hot-spots shown in red. Manchester, Newcastle and London were the worst hit back then. Leeds was blue, which was worse than green but better than red. We were dark green, which was just slightly worse than light green.

Everyone remembers those first few weeks. The government called in the army and got them to erect emergency stable blocks. It quickly became clear too that, within days, Britain would run out of hay. There was talk of imports, although other countries in Europe were facing the same problem. Unicorns need space to graze. Sheep farms were requisitioned for grazing and farmers compensated. It didn’t come to much, though. A few people were found grazing for their offspring-turned-unicorns, but many more weren’t. And then, even well-provided for unicorns often ran away. Most of them ended up grazing in parks or on the grass verges of ring roads and suchlike places. Many got knocked down (like they still do). One Tory MP found herself ridiculed for suggesting the government was doing too much: horses were less bother than children, she said, and surely everyone had space to graze a unicorn. Another suggested that if there were too many unicorns, and as they weren’t human beings anymore, perhaps the best thing would be to cull them. This, on the whole, was accepted with a shrug by older people, but greeted angrily by young people with families. Fresh advice was issued: if your child turns into a unicorn, don’t give it too many sweet treats like sugar lumps because it’ll rot their teeth.

I remember the first time I saw a unicorn (doesn’t everyone?). It was in the small play-area at the end of our street. It’s all grass, with a swing and a slide in the middle. There’s a privet hedge and a fence all the way round it, so the children can’t run out into the road. The poor thing was about waist-height, bright pink and glittery. It looked confused and agitated. It kept cantering from one side of the area to the other. Every now and again it stopped in the middle and tried climbing sometimes onto on the swing, sometimes the slide. It’s hooves kept slipping off the equipment and it kept almost falling over. Then it would whinny and start cantering around again. I kept my distance and kept walking. Everyone takes them for granted now, but it was frightening back then. I felt so sorry for it, though. It was obviously still a child on the inside and couldn’t understand why it didn’t have arms and legs like a human. That’s what it’s like for them, they say, straight after they turn. It takes them time to adjust. Luckily, Sophie never turned, but I heard other parents at school say how, when they do, if you can get close enough to them to look into their eyes, you can still see the child in there. I’m not quite sure what they meant by it, but that’s what they said. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking.

I suppose the unicorn cults started up about then. They claimed the children who turned into unicorns were special children. They went out looking for unicorns and started venerating them. They claimed the whole thing was nothing to worry about. We were privileged to be living through a very special time, they said.

As the weeks went by, the scientists began to find out more about what was going on. Children with unicorn toys, they decided, were the ones most prone to becoming unicorns. Parents were told to confiscate and destroy them. There was much talk about a batch that had been imported from the Philippines but, as we all now know, it was all unicorns. Worryingly, they discovered that once a child began to turn, but before the changes became visible, they could pass the condition on to other children.

Of course, I was worried about Sophie. One night, as she slept, I carefully withdrew Roxie from her grasp. I cut him up into tiny shreds and put him in the bin. The next morning I told her that unicorns were magical animals and you never know when a unicorn might be called away to the magic unicorn land and that, however much they love you and want to stay with you, when they’re called they have to go. I remember thinking it sounded a bit lame and I should’ve come up with a better story, but she seemed to accept it.

As time went on, scientists discovered that the condition only affected children under twelve. The sense of relief when Sophie’s twelfth birthday came round was palpable. It was around that time she told me that of course she knew I’d taken Roxie and thrown him in the dustbin. She never lost her love of unicorns, though. When she left school she was lucky enough to gain an internship at the local unicorn sanctuary. She still helps out there.

After a few years, the unicorns started having baby unicorns. Foals grazing on the roadside became a common sight. Talk about cute. There was talk in parliament about birth control for unicorns, but it never got very far. The scientists, though, finally managed to come up with a vaccine for humans. The unicorn cults were against it, but most people were all for it. When it was rolled out, parents queued round the block with their children at the vaccination centres. You still get the odd one – usually, kids whose whose parents refused to get them vaccinated – but, generally, children don’t turn into unicorns anymore. Politicians began to talk about ‘living with unicorns’.

As everyone knows, unicorns have magic powers. It’s said that a unicorn’s tears have healing properties. The unicorn cultists bottle them and sell them. The same goes for unicorn horns. At first, unscrupulous people took to sawing the horns off roadkill but as time went on, a black market for powdered horn developed, fed by sinister poaching gangs. And not only that, but, as unicorn numbers increased, people began to notice a change in the weather. There’s a great deal more in the way of fine drizzle than there used to be. Whenever you look up into the sky these days, the chances are somewhere you’ll see a rainbow.

 

 

 

Dominic Rivron
Picture amalgamation Nick Victor

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HOW TO SHINE

 

On Insight’s Lost in a Summer (2023)


With a Lotus Eaters still sheen, Insight’s Lost in a Summer

Song-shimmers; a piece of more than perfect pop pressing
Spectacular sun through the rain
                                                               of an Essex recording day

Where Nathan Wacey produces, summoning George Martin,
And Glyn Johns and Leckie, as he steers young musicians
From first stumbling steps to sound fame.

And this should be a band on the rise as this song sounds ecstatic;
Full of joy and the struggle of the eager heart’s wanting way.
For there are tears in the eye bred by the waters of yearning

As singer, songwriter and bassist, Ben Brocklebank’s mind
Has its say. From the first few seconds we know
That this is a quality product. Jake Doy and Callum Pitt’s

Guitars are a chorus singing for us through the strings.
Dan Doy’s drums keep us fixed to the pulse of love
Passing through it, as Wacey weaves each part wisely

Following the thread as Ben sings. This first song
Elevates and escalates past perfection. In sound, it brothers
Reference and reminders, but is original, fresh, and a friend,

Ushering in former songs without being like them.
It has Lotuses, La’s, Cast, Kubb, others, while showing that
Wacey’s own House of Love has no end.

There is a trace of the Cocteau’s Robin Guthrie here too, 
As dreampop meets Shoegaze, as I feel the years washing
From me, rinsed by the sound Nathan’s caught.

There are so many groups in so many corners
But unlike every small spider, or insect these beatling
Brothers in flesh and faith have now taught

How youth in its climb can claim the stars quickly.
Each chord they play glistens courtesy of the desk.
At 2.56 there’s a pause as the message sounds redelivered.

Brocklebank’s voice climbs the star-steps as we can’t wait
To hear what comes next. At 4.36 this one song for me
Restores visions. Times, too and feelings that I went through

At their age. When Pop did not pass, and yet also meant
Transportation, from the slow world of men barely stirring
To the faster States of becoming. Songs were spells.

I remember. And so here with this magic I, in one listen
Predict a bright future in which these small stars start
Shining, in either Essex, or Eden. They are not lost.

They hold summer. Dream as they dare.
Seek their stage.

 

                                                                    David Erdos 7/5/23

 

 

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Well I didn’t vote for you

Monty Python’s Constitutional Peasants


Repression is Nine Tenths of the Law

ARTHUR: I am your king!

WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings.

WOMAN: Well, how did you become King, then?

ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,…

   [angels sing]

…her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.

   [singing stops]

That is why I am your king!

DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

ARTHUR: Be quiet!

DENNIS: Well, but you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

ARTHUR: Shut up!

DENNIS: I mean, if I went ’round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away!

ARTHUR: Shut up, will you? Shut up!

DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.

ARTHUR: Shut up!

DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I’m being repressed!

ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!

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The Good Luck of Your Bad Luck

Marcus Aurelius on the Stoic strategy for weathering life’s waves and turning suffering into strength.

The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings)

  • Maria Popova

marcus aurelius portrait, side profile

Most people live with a great deal more suffering than is visible to even the most proximate and sensitive onlooker. Many have survived things both unimaginable and invisible to the outside world. This has been the case since the dawn of our species, for human nature has hardly changed beneath the continually repainted façade of our social sanctions — human beings have always been capable of inflicting tremendous pain on each other and capable of triumphal healing.

There is, however, a peculiar modern phenomenon that might best be described as a culture of competitive trauma. In recent times, the touching human longing for sympathy, that impulse to have our suffering recognized and validated, has grown distorted by a troubling compulsion for broadcast-suffering and comparative validity. Personhoods are staked on the cards dealt and not the hands played, as if we evolved the opposable thumbs of our agency for nothing. In memoirs and reality shows, across infinite Alexandrian scrolls of social media feeds, the unlucky events of life have become the currency of attention and identification.

There is a way, with moderate moral imagination and considerable countercultural courage, to subvert this tendency without turning away from the reality and magnitude of suffering that we do live with — a way to esteem in attention and admiration not the unluckiness of what has happened to us but the luckiness that, despite it, we have become the people we are and have the lives we have by the sheer unwillingness to stay in that small dark place, which is at heart a willingness to be larger than our hurt selves.

It is not a new way of reframing personal narrative (which, after all, is the neuropsychological pillar of identity). It is a very old way, common to many of the world’s ancient traditions but most clearly and creatively articulated by the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (April 26, 121–March 17, 180).

Because the modern mind calculates validity of vantage point by estimating the comparative value of suffering, it must be observed that, later in life, Marcus Aurelius had it easier than most of his contemporaries, being Emperor; it must also be observed that, earlier in life, he had it harder than most, being a fatherless child and a queer teenager in Roman antiquity, epochs before the notion of LGBTQ rights, or for that matter most human rights. It is hardly surprising that he turned to Stoicism for succor and training in living with the uncertainty of events and the certainty of loss.

His timeless Meditations (public library), newly translated and annotated by the British classics scholar Robin Waterfield, were the original self-help — Marcus wrote these notebooks primarily as notes to himself while learning how to live: how to live with more agency, equanimity, and even joy in a world violently unpredictable at all times and especially so in his time.

In one of those self-counsels, Marcus Aurelius considers the key to regarding one’s own life, and living it, with positive realism:

Be like a headland: the waves beat against it continuously, but it stands fast and around it the boiling water dies down. “It’s my rotten luck that this has happened to me.” On the contrary, “It’s my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I still feel no distress, since I’m unbruised by the present and unconcerned about the future.” What happened could have happened to anyone, but not everyone could have carried on without letting it distress him. So why regard the incident as a piece of bad luck rather than seeing your avoidance of distress as a piece of good luck? Do you generally describe a person as unlucky when his nature worked well? Or do you count it as a malfunction of a person’s nature when it succeeds in securing the outcome it wanted?

With an eye to “what human nature wants” — what life ultimately demands as it lives itself through us, and what our highest answer is — he concludes:

Can what happened to you stop you from being fair, high-minded, moderate, conscientious, unhasty, honest, moral, self-reliant, and so on — from possessing all the qualities that, when present, enable a man’s* nature to be fulfilled? So then, whenever something happens that might cause you distress, remember to rely on this principle: this is not bad luck, but bearing it valiantly is good luck.

Complement with an equally counterintuitive and perspective-broadening modern case for the luckiness of death and Alan Watts on the ambiguity of good and bad luck, then revisit other highlights from the indispensable Meditations: Marcus Aurelius on how to handle disappointing people, the key to living with presence, the most potent motivation for work, and how to begin each day for maximum serenity of mind.

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In Memoriam Gordon Lightfoot

 

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. CC OOnt (November 17, 1938 – May 1, 2023) was a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s.[1] He has been referred to as Canada’s greatest songwriter[2] and his songs have been recorded by some of the world’s most renowned musical artists.[3] Lightfoot’s biographer Nicholas Jennings said, “His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness.”[4]

Lightfoot’s songs, including “For Lovin’ Me”, “Early Morning Rain“, “Steel Rail Blues”, “Ribbon of Darkness“—a number one hit on the U.S. country chart[5] with Marty Robbins‘s cover in 1965—and “Black Day in July”, about the 1967 Detroit riot, brought him wide recognition in the 1960s. Canadian chart success with his own recordings began in 1962 with the No. 3 hit “(Remember Me) I’m the One”, followed by recognition and charting abroad in the 1970s. He topped the US Hot 100 or Adult Contemporary (AC) chart with the hits “If You Could Read My Mind” (1970), “Sundown” (1974); “Carefree Highway” (1974), “Rainy Day People” (1975), and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976), and had many other hits that appeared in the top 40.[6]

Several of Lightfoot’s albums achieved gold and multi-platinum status internationally. His songs have been recorded by many notable artists.[7] The Guess Who recorded a song called “Lightfoot” on their 1968 album Wheatfield Soul; the lyrics contain many Lightfoot song titles.

Robbie Robertson of the Band described Lightfoot as “a national treasure”.[8] Bob Dylan, also a Lightfoot fan, called him one of his favourite songwriters and said, “I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like. Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever…. “.[9] Lightfoot was a featured musical performer at the opening ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta and has received numerous honours and awards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Lightfoot

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FRED CONRAD PETER

 

FRED
 
Fred had some worrying appetites
A couple of which kept him awake most nights.
 
He wanted to see beyond all seeing,
To pierce the veil that engulfs all Being;
 
In Fred’s family this kind of thing was typical:
Ma and Pa and sister Flo were also metaphysical.
 
 
 

CONRAD
 
Conrad was often approached by tramps
who wanted to know if his head was held on by clamps.
 
Disconnectedness of mind from body
might prompt him to share his giant rum toddy.
 
But Conrad had no intention of sharing his booze
and what happened next made the 11 o’clock News.
  

 
PETER
 
Peter the Poetess advertised themself on Twitter
as available for readings and workshops, and as a babysitter
 
but readers and parents are mostly inclined
to think gender is real and not just a state of mind.
 
Be that as it may, their rates are quite reasonable
but, at a push, they are also negotiable.
 

 

 

Copyright © Mark Halliday & Martin Stannard, 2023

 

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language abused

 

a language used
by the immeasurably cruel
about the most vulnerable

is not dissimilar to a
policy of the most vulnerable
abused by immeasurably cruel

language
language
language

 

 

Mike Ferguson

 

 

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BIRTH


 
Over there,
the other side of worries,
a way out.
 
Like a gambler
with a calculating eye
you’ll take your chances.
 
No thinking through,
no saying twice,
just catching the flow,
 
and to the opening
you are the right face,
no ticket required.
 
You’ll be forgiven
for being a stranger
in your own language,
 
but the borrowed home
slipping your grip
has no voice.
 
You can feel the day
and accept the gift
of the only road.
 
A geography of fears
makes up the journey
of where you’ll be.
 
Then your host will hold you
like a planned future.
You’ll learn how to be you.

 

 

 
Gordon Scapens

 

 

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Average Vegan Teen by Christen Mailler

Once you get beyond the nail polish, Midnight Kitten eyeliner, selfies and bubblegum of the beginning, (which, in truth, could do with a bit of a haircut,) the magic really starts to happen. Cusping 13, Kessa reluctantly heads out to her dad’s lakeside, wilderness home in Maine for the summer, and unexpectedly discovers that she has The Gift. The living world responds to her. Animals approach her, naturally trusting her and talk to her mind to mind, (our ancient, cross-species, prelimbic telepathy,) and she to them. They show her who they really are: intelligent, individuated, relational beings, with their own agency, wants, needs, personalities – and purpose. From Bucky, the beloved, family dog, to Mihku, a wild squirrel and Sippy, a sparrow (Kessa’s animal guides,) they tell her their stories. They are her allies too: Moxie, a rainbow trout, helps save a drowning toddler, signalling to Kessa mind to mind, image to image, where Daisy has fallen in the vast Wabanaki lake. 

Kessa is an empath and an animal communicator, in the very real vein of Anna Breytenbach, Pea Horsely and Maureen Rolls; and she is also a healer (it is clear): all the plants respond to her gentle, natural touch and, at times alarmingly, grow and burgeon in an instant! 

This is wonderful, aspirational, New Paradigm, teen lit, as appealing to younger readers as it will be to teenagers (and adults too.) There’s all the thrill, excitement and flushed anticipation of first love with Arthur, and a real sense of coming of age. There are painful moments too, of course: the shattering realities of parental abandonment and divorce, the death of Bucky – and when Kessa feels the grief of a young bull who, forced to wear an abominable, spiked nose ring as a calf, was stopped from suckling his mother’s milk (so that we humans could steal it,) inadvertently hurting his mother so badly she was forced to kick him away. He miraculously escaped the slaughter-truck: “Time to send them off!” – fleeing the long line of terrified, male babies by bolting and hiding out in the woods. But he saw all his bovine brothers go, and he heard the devastated wailing of their mothers: “A strained wail echoed around the farm.” It is a moment he can never forget, but Kessa helps him with his depression, (and opens our eyes, hearts and minds in the process.)  Kessa and Arthur come to the aid of a sad, lonely and hungry alpaca too. They feed her apples, carrots and bananas under cover of night and liberate her to far better circumstances at a local animal sanctuary, with the eventual cooperation of the old man who just didn’t know how to look after her and totally neglected her.

There is a beautiful sense of teenage empowerment here – and the motivation to do the right thing, to go the extra mile when anyone vulnerable is in need – whether it be a toddler, a bull, or an alpaca.  Kessa manages to get the Green Corn Festival fireworks (which terrify and harm so many of Wabanaki’s birds and other animals,) to commit to a laser show instead. (She’s a budding writer and she puts it to good use.) A loving ethics is at the forefront here. This is inter-species cooperation at its best, and an inspirational clarion call, delivered via a gripping, page-turning story. Kessa’s veganism is no ‘fad’ and we really get to understand that, to see that it is the only humane and just way to live.

I’ve been vegan for 16 years, but my tofu will be scrambled with turmeric and onion salt from now on, and my cakes will be baked with apple-sauce! This wonderful, teen adventure and skin-tingling, lake-side romance, is not only peppered with compassion and wisdom, it has some great tips too!

Heidi Stephenson

 

 

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In memory of Ellie – who deserved so much more…

A teenage sadist
rapes his ‘pet’ cat.

He handcuffs her
so that she cannot escape
his brutal advances.

He cuts out her tongue
as ‘punishment’
for screaming out…

He smirks as he tortures her.
He strangles her repeatedly.

Months of abuse follow.
He dissects her living body!

Until torn, beyond all healing,
she dies. Her body and spirit…broken.

Ellie raped, tortured and murdered
by a human MONSTER,
by a psychopathic sadist
who assaulted her relentlessly
month after month, relishing
his evil power over
a vulnerable cat,
who should have felt SAFE!

Beautiful, adorable, Ellie,
who should have known LOVE.

Where? Where?
were his family, in all this?

Let us not make EXCUSES
for Bani J. Mezquititla, aged 18!

Let us not make any ‘allowances’ –
he knew exactly what he was doing!

 

Heidi Stephenson

 

Please sign this petition to ensure that Justice is done:

https://ladyfreethinker.org/sign-justice-for-cat-handcuffed-and-abused-by-teen/

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Dominism

Men of experience will have different styles,
whilst citizens think of everything together.
Culture saves some ability to expect
high standards. Goal-serving people.

Think on: processes will see concerns,
independent cases, allegations.
We can’t work together.
Frustration in the end.

Passionate about delivery, across the years
seeking the best way possible.
Strange servants are committed to import.
Forgive me, I just see tragedy.

 

An erasure poem taken from the transcript of an interview between Laura Keunsberg and Oliver Dowdon

 

 

 

Peter Kay

 

 

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The Road


 
There is a road that runs through my heart
opening backwards to all I’ve lived.
It’s the gold road, the royal way,
the small narrow path a foot-width wide
lit only the distance of a single step.
I know I can follow it any time I want;
all I have to do is turn around
and start walking in silence,
through darkness.
But it’s much more fun to dance in the citylight
jump and twirl down highways of lively crowds
passing through the bright colors of high life
where night never arrives,
beneath the spotlights and streetlamps
where we lose ourselves in the crowds.
And where would it lead, anyway?
Into dark cold, a cave, or dead end?
Into rain and wind and solitude?
 
No, better to shelter in the city
in the midst of the multitude
than to lose yourself, alone on the way.
And so this wisdom saves me
from the dark path back to my birth
as I run in company the other direction
trusting those at the front
who seem to know
where we’re going.

 

 

Clif Ross

 

 

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Self-Storage

Wish I Was Here, M. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail)

One of M. John Harrison’s chapters in his ‘anti-memoir’ is called ‘a character in your own fiction’, although it seems that mostly Harrison is a character in his own allegedly non-fiction autobiography. Like the author’s last book it works mostly by allusion and misdirection, mood and atmosphere, with a large amount of narrative jump-cuts and tangential self-reflection.

Harrison is all too aware of the perils of nostalgia and the danger of reading too much in to recalled moments, so he tends to present them and move on before commenting or interpreting. Sometimes he names versions of himself, so Map Boy is – unsurprisingly – obsessed with maps and places. Sometimes, episodes or stories are presented as dreams, whilst at other times there are brilliant satirical fictions mocking genre conventions and clichés, such as ‘a fantasy in five volumes’ where ‘The Elf Queen, who’s eaten nothing for a week but the wadding from Benzedrine inhalers, has sex with Cootchie Cootie in the back seat of his 1951 Fleetline, while Tolkien and C.S. Lewis look on in passive aggressive disavowal.’

Her husband, ‘Eldrano the Elf Lord is wheeled to bed every night on a reinforced composite and titanium gurney’ and recalls that ‘the Queen left him a hundred years ago with her dwarf.’ Later, after ‘the Elf Queen’s underjaw has thickened’, and she plans some time away on her own, her dwarf ‘knows that their relationship is over’. Soon after, there is the ‘Last Transmission from the Deep Halls’ and a disappointing tour of the palace, which ‘turned out to be a stuffy, disappointing warren that just reeked of dogs.’

     ‘Q: Do you identify as a science fiction writer? A: No, I identify
     nightly, or at least every second night or so, as someone who
     would like to be rusting under the Thames.’

Map Boy, or whoever Harrison decides to be on the page you choose to read, prefers the likes of William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon and William Gibson to Muddled Earths. He is also inclined to try and keep the author out of his own writing as much as possible, although it appears to be him describing his cat, reading the letter from Dan Dare that turns out to actually be from Uncle Don, and pondering his own creative process. However, Harrison mostly keeps himself at a distance, observing and reporting as though he is a Martian watching Earth.

     ‘Writers write to find out who they used to be, to predict who
     they might be next.’

But the question is ‘Are we bored with this old future now? Have we read it all before?’ Well, yes and no. Harrison’s worlds can be vague and ethereal enough for us to have do the heavy lifting, to visualise and co-create the setting; or they can be surreal and difficult, or tentative and undefined. They can concentrate on the rockface itself as much as the camaraderie of the climbers, or they can get lost navigating the dream archipelago or crossing the road to the corner shop. So no, Harrison’s futures may be in the past, but they are not boring. Mostly because the future is still uncertain.

And so is the past. Is Harrison scared to tell us about it, or has his mind’s Super-8 film of memory faded away or burnt up in the projector? Are these snapshots simply selections from the brain’s photo album or all there is? Or maybe this a computer-generated experiment in biographical literature? Or is it just a story about a storyteller by a storyteller? ‘Even when you’ve forgotten them you’ve remembered them.’

And so is the present, a world where the writer loses notebooks and discusses creativity, inspiration, writer’s block, fiction and reality. He watches the birds in the garden, the rain falling, then sits in the dark until the electricity comes back on and the computer restarts and then reconnects to the web:

     ‘What am I like, someone on the internet wants to know, in real
     life? A bit stiff in the joints. Not a fiction. Always walking away
     from myself.’

It is quite a feat, this walking away whilst pretending to walk towards himself, and an even greater feat to walk away from the reader at the same time as pretending to offer up himself. It’s all done with smoke and mirrors, lies and sleight of hand. Language. Words. But Harrison won’t get away with it for ever.

     ‘One day soon I’ll walk through a door, begin to say something,
     then get a surprised expression on my face and fall over dead in
     front of everybody.’

Until then, Harrison is ‘interested less in the future than the deflation and melancholy of the people the future leaves behind.’ Wish I Was Here is Harrison’s contribution to what will remain, a self-deflating, melancholic, hilarious and provocative self-invention. This book is old school experiment, several unrelated episodes from a literary reality show, a kind of negative biography with a big author-shaped hole in the middle waiting for the reader to fill based on all the evidence around it. It’s also one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.

 

Rupert Loydell

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Mysterious River.

Introduction.

Detailing the myths and legends of the River Severn from ‘The Fair Lady Avona’ to the ‘Bristol Channel UFO’. The reader will experience a journey of topographic areas and tales from a time immemorial until the present day.

The Fair Lady Avona.

Celtic deities are known from a variety of sources such as written Celtic mythology, ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, religious objects, as well as place and personal names.

Celtic deities can belong to two categories: general deities and local deities. ‘General deities’ were known by the Celts throughout large regions and are the gods and goddesses called upon for protection, healing, luck and honour. The ‘local deities’ that embodied Celtic nature worship were the spirits of a particular feature of the landscape, such as mountains, trees, or rivers and thus were generally only known by the locals in the surrounding area.

In the folklore of the Bristol area, Avona asked Goram and Vincent / Ghyston to drain a lake that stretched from Rownham Hill to Bradford-on-Avon and whoever completed the task first she would offer herself in marriage. On completion of the task, Vincent took Avona’s hand and she gave her name to Vincent’s Avon Gorge and the River Avon which flows into the River Severn, while Goram, his heart broken, hurled himself into the Severn where his head and shoulder can still be seen poking out of the mud as Flat Holm and Steep Holm.

But who was Avona? We know that she appears in the above legend and in variants she is a beautiful giantess from Wiltshire or the goddess of tides and protectress of animals, the divine guardian of the people of Bristol, making her the female personification of the River Avon and possibly a distant memory of an ancient goddess or spirit. Preserved eternal in the gorge that forms the backbone of the city, like a beating heart, her love still surges daily through the land itself. While the ‘Gloucestershire Historical Pageant’ of 1908 contained the narrative chorus styled as the rivers of Gloucestershire – the Thames, Sabrina, Avona and Chelt.

There are many river deities in the British Isles and if Avona is the River Avon as Sabrina is the River Severn, then the word ‘abona’ is of interest because it represents knowledge of the Romano-British river-name deriving from post classical tradition and not from the spelling or the pronunciation in the 14th: century (or even the 6th:). It is thus a conventional latinization and not simply the then-current name written into Latin, which would result in the Avona seen in the Goram and Vincent legend. While the name ‘Avon’ is a cognate of the Welsh word ‘afon’ ‘river’, both being derived from the Common Brittonic ‘abona’, ‘river’.

Perhaps a line from ‘The Poetical Works Of William Somerville’ printed in 1793 still begs the question:

where thro’ the vales the fair Avona glides’

Sabrina, Goddess of the Severn.

The name Severn is thought to derive from a Celtic original name *sabrinnā, of uncertain meaning. That name then developed in different languages to become Sabrina to the Romans, Hafren in Welsh, The Saxons called it Sæfern and Severn in English.

Sabrina is the Celtic Goddess of the River Severn, which flows from its source in Wales through Worcestershire to Gloucestershire and empties into the Bristol Channel and then on into the Celtic Sea.

She appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘The History of the Kings of Britain’. The legend of how the Severn got its name begins with Brutus of Troy. He led a band of Trojan exiles to Britain and the land was named for him. On Brutus’s death, the land was divided into four parts and given to his three sons, Locrine, Camber, and Albanact and his good friend Corineus. To cement the alliance, Corineus’s daughter Guendolen was promised to Locrine in marriage. Before they were to be married, Britain was invaded by the Huns and Locrine led the fight against the invaders. A princess named Estrildis was one of those captured and Locrine fell in love with her. He asked Corineus to let him out of his engagement to Guendolen, but Corineus would not hear of it. Locrine married Guendolen, but he had secret rooms built under the castle where he hid Estrildis away. For the next seven years, Locrine continued to see his true love, using the excuse that he was making offerings to the Gods. After a time, Estrildis gave birth to Locrine’s daughter, Hafren.

When Corineus died, Locrine divorced Guendolen, sending her back to her father’s kingdom and acknowledged Estrildis and Hafren as his family. The jilted Guendolen raised an army of her father’s men against Locrine and he was killed in battle. Guendolen ordered that Estrildis and Hafren be thrown into the mighty river that ran through Locrine’s kingdom. She then declared that the river would be henceforth named after Hafren, so that Locrine’s infidelity would be forever remembered. When the Romans invaded, they changed the name to their own version, Sabrina, which means ‘from the boundary’.

Geoffrey of Monmouth also tells the story of three sisters, who were water spirits, meeting on the windswept slopes of Plynlimon – the highest point of the Cambrian Mountains in Wales – to discuss the problem of finding the best way to the sea. The first decided to take the most direct route and headed westward, becoming the River Ystwyth. The second loved the landscape and made her way through hills and valleys, becoming the River Wye. The third decided against shortcuts and took 180 miles to reach the sea passing through many cities and never being far from people. She became the River Severn.

Milton writes of Sabrina in ‘Comus’, in which the water-nymph is conjured and rescues the Lady from her plight because she is pure of heart. As an agent of freedom, Sabrina is seen as powerful, mystical and sympathetic to women who fall victim to a patriarchal system which undervalues and confines them.

The ‘Fountain of Sabrina’ stands on Narrow Quay, Bristol. The fountain depicts Sabrina and three naked boys at the moment of her rebirth from the depths of the river and her transformation into a goddess. She rides on a seashell in the manner of Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’.

Mermaids of the Severn.

In British folklore, mermaids were associated with water, love, marriage, procreation, danger and also wisdom. They probably started out as ‘water spirits’ and had the mermaid label attached later, with Celtic mythology roots. Water being the portal between this world and the other world. They often had long blonde hair. The sea living mermaids had a range of supernatural powers, some could shape shift, if they married a human they became a human. If the mermaid was treated well you would have good luck and they would bring gifts, for example, water for the crops. But if treated badly you would be cursed and they would bring deadly storms and waves which caused destruction and loss of life. Human husbands would live with them for all eternity. Some mermaids lived in the sea and also had farms on land. According to Ruth Tongue, (Folklorist, born 7 February 1898 – died 19 September 1981), the name ‘sea-morgan’ was the Severn Estuary term for green-haired water maidens who lured people out to drown with their songs. Sea-morgan is a direct translation of the Breton ‘mari-morgan’ and as such, the origin of Morgan le Fay may be connected to these Breton myths.

There are many folktales to be found throughout Great Britain and Ireland of mermaids and the often uglier and rougher mermen, who could assume normal human shape. The Norman chapel in Durham Castle, built around 1078, has what is probably the earliest surviving artistic depiction of a mermaid in England. While a ‘wildman’ was described by Ralph of Coggeshall (died 1227) as being caught in a fishnet and was entirely man-like though he liked to eat raw fish and eventually returned to the sea. ‘The Mabinogion’ are the earliest British prose stories. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th: – 13th: centuries from earlier oral traditions, although a plausible range of between 1060 to 1200 seems to be the current scholarly consensus. In the Fourth Branch – Math fab Mathonwy’ – it tells of Arianrhod’s son, Dylan ail Don. As soon as Dylan comes in contact with his baptismal waters, he plunges into the sea and takes on characteristics of a sea creature, moving through the seawater as perfectly as any fish. Dylan is a Welsh sea-god and was killed by his uncle and the clamour of the waves dashing upon the beach is the expression of their longing to avenge their son. Perhaps the most popular tale of these isles is ‘The Mermaid of Zennor’, where according to legend, a mermaid came to the Cornish village of Zennor and used to listen to the singing of a chorister, Matthew Trewhella. The two fell in love and Matthew went with the mermaid to her home at Pendour Cove. On summer nights, the lovers can be heard singing together. But, our tales do not concern all the legends of the British Isles, only those of Gloucestershire, Somerset and South Wales within the Severn Estuary / Bristol Channel area.

—————–

Many churches in the area depict mermaids from the 14th: century until the 17th: century. St: Mary Magdalene, Baunton in the Cotswolds has a 14th: century wall painting of St: Christopher with a mermaid depicted in it and said to represent ‘Pride’, one of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. The monumental brass of Thomas de Berkeley, 5th: Baron Berkeley (died 1417) in the Church of St: Mary the Virgin, Wotton-under-Edge shows the detail of his mermaid livery collar. St: Mary’s Church, Tenby, dating from the 15th: century there is a craving of a mermaid holding a comb and mirror. In Bristol Cathedral, among the fanciful misericord carvings there is a mermaid, carved in 1520. The Church of the Holy Ghost, Crowcombe, in Somerset, has a twin-tailed mermaid (or merman?) carved on a bench-end dated circa 1534 similar to that in Zennor. To further muddle the myths, the Church includes another carving combining the pagan myth of the Green Man with the symbol of two mermen from around the same date. At St: Stephen’s Church, Bristol there is a mermaid and faun on the Martin Pringe / Pring Monument. Pringe died in 1627.

Mermaids and Mermen are rare in Welsh folklore, although Gwenhidw / Gwenhudwy was the Mermaid Queen of Wales, her name means ‘White Enchantment’. In modern stories she owns a herd of white horses that run along the crests of the waves. In older versions of the tale, the foaming waves were her ewes and every ninth wave was the ram of the flock. This conception of the incoming tide is preserved in a 16th: century poem by Rhys Llywd ap Rhys ap Rhicert in which he described a boat trip to the monastic island of Bardsey (Ynys Enlli) from the Lleyn Peninsula. The passage is notoriously choppy and he described the sea as. –

haid o ddefaid Gwenhudwy

a naw hwrdd yn un a hwy’.

(a flock of ewes of Gwenhidwy

and nine rams with them).

While the fairies known as Plant Rhys Ddwfn sometimes appear as mermaids in Pembrokeshire folklore. Some Welsh mermaids befriended and even married humans.

A local story from the early 1800’s tells of a farmer who came across a sea spirit curled up on the rocks at Aberbach Rocks in Pembrokeshire. He managed to get close enough to touch her, carrying her off to Treseissylit Farm where he imprisoned her. That night he awoke to her mournful singing, calling to her fellow people to rescue her. She escaped as a shadow of grey resembling the local seals and pronounced that no child would be born in the farmhouse – a prophecy which held true until the middle of the 20th: century.

* ‘The Sea Morgan’s Baby’. – An oral tale from Somerset, circa 1916. – A fisherman and his wife found a baby sea-morgan under a waterfall at St: Audries Bay, which had been accidentally left behind by her people who had gone from the rocks and into the tide when they heard them coming. His heart was sore for the little daughter he had just left in Watchet churchyard and his wife’s heart was broken. So he picked the baby morgan up and carried it home. His wife could never get the little creature’s hair dry, not even in the sun and hill wind and it always smelt of the sea. They raise the child as their own between them and the baby grows and likes nothing more than to be paddling and dabbling in the spring-pond and the trout stream. But she was marked by her love for water and her constantly wet hair. When the villagers from Doniford and Staple turn on her once they learn what she is, she hears a voice calling her from the ocean and cheerfully returns there. A wave carries her away and she is never seen again.

From Brockweir in the Forest of Dean on the eastern bank of the River Wye comes an early 20th: century folktale where Dick Hulin and his friend Isaac would tell the tale of how they caught a mermaid in their nets while fishing in the River Wye and who had cursed Dick and his descendants when she escaped.

* ‘The Sea-Morgan and the Conger Eels’. – This tale was told to Ruth Tongue in the 1960’s, but there is also another version as we shall see later. In the estuary of the River Severn, the local merfolk – known as sea-morgans – used to entice men out to the quicksands with their bewitching songs, so that the conger eels could have human flesh to eat. In this eternal struggle, the sea would sometimes claim its victims from the land and the land would sometimes claim its victims from the sea: conger eels were, after all, a local delicacy. The morgans of the Severn were eventually defeated by a deaf fisherman who had been born on a Sunday and was the son of a witch. He used his mud sledge and slid his way safely across the quicksands with no distraction from the songs. When the conger eels came, summoned by the singing, he speared so many of them that all the people of Stolford and Steart / Stert, two villages in West Somerset, had conger eel pie to eat for days. The morgans left in sorrow, and were never seen again. – A circular Medieval and / or Post-Medieval conger eel trap which lay east-north-east of Minehead Harbour, visible as a structure, was mapped from aerial photographs taken in 1999 and was found to have been made from beach stones up to 300mm high and 19m: in diameter with a break to the southern side and the remains of a stone heap in the centre.

The same story is told of a deaf man from Churchdown in Gloucestershire which also involves Sabrina the Sea-Morgan and attributed to Wellhouse Rock off Sharpness and now some say that Sabrina returns to the river as the ‘Severn Bore’. She can be seen tickling a fish and dolphin in one of the misericords of Gloucester Cathedral from the 14th: century. While the north porch of St: Bartholomew’s church in Churchdown, which dates back to the 12th: century, has a mermaid, with her square mirror and double-sided comb in the doorway. She is a crude figure and was first mentioned by GG. Coulton who noted two letters, ‘I’ and ‘B’, on either side of the figure. He stated at the ‘Proceedings of the Cambridgeshire Antiquarian Society, (26 October 1914 – 24 May 1915)’.

The mermaid, if the letters belong to it, must be post-medieval’.

The figure was also mentioned by Doris Jones-Baker in her article ‘The Graffiti of Folk Motifs in Cotswold Churches’.

Modern critics have voiced doubts about the unique creatures and distinctive style found only in Tongue’s works and have raised the possibility that she fabricated stories and borrowed material from other books and so, the Wellhouse Rock mermaid could be the older of the two versions.

But, Sabrina is no mere mermaid, she is the tutelary goddess of the River Severn. While Nodens, a Celtic god associated with healing, the sea, hunting and dogs, is also said to ride a seahorse on the crest of the ‘Severn Bore’.

The two worlds are out of kilter now, we dredge and trawl the land beneath the waves and over-fish the waters and we no longer hear the mermaids sing.

Lundy Giants.

Lundy, which is off the coast of Devon, is about three miles long and 0.6 of a mile wide and has had a long and turbulent history, frequently changing hands between the British crown and various usurpers. The name ‘Lund-ey’ is Norse for ‘Puffin Island’ and gets a mention in the famous 12th: century ‘Orkneyinga Saga’. While being associated with a race of giants, the Island is also said to be an entry point to the Celtic underworld and connections with various saints including the Welsh St: Elen, St: Patrick and St: Nectan of Hartland. It also forms part of a Lunation Triangle which includes Preseli – the location of the bluestone site – and Stonehenge, the exact north-south and east-west lines complete a right angled triangle via Lundy and Caldey Island. In Old Welsh, Lundy is called Ynys Elen, the ‘island of the elbow, or right-angle’.

During harvest time in 1851 islanders on Lundy digging foundations for the wall of the rickyard, came upon a pair of granite coffins, 2 feet underground, each covered with a large slab, one of them was said to have been ten feet long and the other eight. When these sarcophagi were opened, the excavators found the skeletons of two eight feet tall humans, seven other skeletons of normal stature and other assorted human bones. Either in the coffins themselves or beside them were found some pale blue glass and copper beads and some fragments of pottery. The larger grave was provided with a lump or pillow of granite, hollowed out for the reception of the head of the gigantic skeleton which lay within. The feet rested on another block and measured 8ft: 5in: and male. The smaller cist, which also contained a skeleton, was 8ft: long and that of a woman, differed from the other in having no head or foot rest. Both were covered with a pile of limpet shells. Close by seven other skeletons were discovered, but these were of ordinary stature and buried without stone coverings, with their heads to the West. At the end of the line lay a great quantity of the bones of men, women and children, which were buried in one common grave – precluding the idea of being the slain in battle, but rather the indiscriminate slaughter of an entire population. The remains were buried again, but damaged by the workmen in doing so.

The date attributed to the beads and also the graves, is anywhere from Roman times to the 14th: century. The beads were apparently sent to Bristol Museum but there seems to be no record of what happened to the human remains. The glass beads (variously attributed to Early Iron Age, Roman or Viking period by the British Museum in 1925, and to ninth-century Danish origin by Bristol Museum in 1960). While the red pottery, now also lost, may have been Samian ware – normally used only to refer to the sub-class of terra sigillata made in ancient Gaul. But what of the two larger skeletons? Are they from the Celtic period and did the Celts produce such giants as the pair interred in the stone coffins? Or are they the bones of Hubba the Dane? – (Ubba), probably died 878 was a ninth-century Viking and one of the commanders of the Great Army that invaded Anglo-Saxon England in the 860’s. – The proportions are certainly rather Scandinavian than Celtic and undoubtedly, it was the custom of the Danes to remove their more honoured dead, with Lundy being the nearest point to which the defeated army and ships could retreat after their bloody battle near Appledore.

In 1928 and 1933 two separate attempts were made to re-discover the Giants’ Graves. These were unsuccessful in that no cist structure was found, though more individual burials were revealed and these appeared to be dated by coins and pottery to the 15th: century. In the 1960’s, two sites of relevance were discovered, a rock-cut ditch associated with occupation material of the mid 12th: century and possibly the site referred to in the ‘Orkneyinga Saga’ as a ‘stronghold ‘ to which Sweyn Asleifsson (c. 1115 – 1171) pursued Hold of Bretland unsuccessfully. This was sea led by a massive 6ft: 5in: thick wall, ostensibly part of the 13th: century stronghold of the documented Marisco family.

Here Be Dragons.

Beowulf’ is the oldest extant heroic poem in English and the first to present a dragon slayer. The legend of the dragon-slayer already existed in Norse sagas such as the tale of ‘Sigurd and Fafnir’ and the ‘Beowulf’ poet incorporates motifs and themes common to dragon-lore in the poem.

A slave steals a golden cup from the lair of a dragon at Earnanæs (a location in Southern Sweden). When the dragon sees that the cup has been stolen, it leaves its cave in a rage, burning everything in sight. Beowulf and his warriors come to fight the dragon, but Beowulf tells his men that he will fight the dragon alone and that they should wait on the barrow. Beowulf descends to do battle with the dragon, but finds himself outmatched. His men, upon seeing this and fearing for their lives, retreat into the woods. One of his men, Wiglaf, however, in great distress at Beowulf’s plight, comes to his aid. The two slay the dragon, but Beowulf is mortally wounded. After Beowulf dies, Wiglaf remains by his side, grief-stricken. When the rest of the men finally return, Wiglaf bitterly admonishes them, blaming their cowardice for Beowulf’s death. Beowulf is ritually burned on a great pyre in Geatland (Götaland) while his people wail and mourn him, fearing that without him, the Geats are defenceless against attacks from surrounding tribes’. – ‘Beowulf’, lines 2712 – 3182.

JRR. Tolkien also used the dragon story of Beowulf’ as a template for Smaug in ‘The Hobbit’.

The oldest account of the legend of the Deerhurst Dragon is contained within the pages of ‘The Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire’ by Sir Robert Atkyns. The account was written towards the end of the 1600’s but unfortunately Sir Robert gives no idea of how old the legend was at that time:

There lived in the vicinity of Deerhurst a serpent of prodigious bigness. It poisoned the people and the cattle and ravaged the land. The King issued a decree to the effect that whoever could rid the land of this menace would receive a grant of land, the estate of Walton Hill. The task was undertaken by one John Smith, a labouring man. He went to the serpent’s favourite place where he found the beast asleep in the sun. With a mighty blow of his axe he cleaved the head of the serpent from its body. So ridding the land of the beast forever’.

At the time Atkyns was writing he tells us that descendants of John Smith were still living on land at Walton Hill and indeed that the axe itself was in the possession of the widower of one of those descendants. However, no further evidence exists to support the legend. We cannot date it, no record of the grant of land is forthcoming and there is no sign of the axe.

The serpent first slithered out of the nearby River Severn. Was this a parable about Viking raiders, coming up the Severn on dragon-prowed longships? Perhaps defeated by Saxon warriors wielding their two handed axes? The priory was raided by the Vikings and just a little distance away is Odda’s Chapel, once part of a royal palace complex which Earl Odda a Saxon nobleman had built for the benefit of the soul of his brother Ælfric, who died on 22 December 1053. Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester consecrated it on 12 April 1056: could the dragon story have originated around the fire in the great hall there, told by a bard in return for his supper? Perhaps it stretches the imagination further, but another local link can be suggested: Edmund Ironside and Canute signed their treaty in 1016 at Deerhurst. This settled the wars in England for a time, dividing the country between them (Edmund dying mysteriously young and suddenly only shortly afterwards). Could the dragon tale be a parable of the settlement, the Norse dragon lulled into lethargy by the Saxon king?

St: Mary’s Priory Church is one of the most intriguing and architecturally fascinating Saxon churches still in existence and has many dragon carvings along with snarling wolves. Wolves were both revered and reviled during the Anglo Saxon era, a curious paradox where the animal was held up symbolically as a noble and wise beast but practically as a bringer of death and a constant threat to livestock.

A similar tale, ‘The Coombe Hill Drake’, comes from around the 15th: century, in the hamlet of Coombe Hill, Gloucestershire, where there was talk of a large sea serpent. A long time ago a large sea serpent – possibly a Knucker Dragon, which was a type of water dragon that lived in damp, wet environments – came up the River Severn and settled on the riverbank at Coombe Hill. At first it only hunted sheep and chickens, but soon tired of this diet started preying on children and milkmaids. Before long, the villagers were all in fear of their lives and many left. A local lad called Tom Smith started leaving food out for the serpent and by doing so the monster gradually came to trust him, to the point where Smith was able to feed it by hand. One day, whilst feeding the beast a large marrowbone, he took his axe and smashed it on the head killing it instantly.

Are the Deerhurst Dragon and the Coombe Hill Drake one of the same? Deerhurst and Coombe Hill are approximately 2.8 miles away from each other and both slayers have the same surname of Smith and use an axe to kill their prey. The story of a hero slaying a giant serpent occurs in nearly every Indo-European mythology. In most stories, the hero is some kind of thunder-god – In folklore, axes were sometimes believed to be thunderbolts and were used to guard buildings against lightning. In Celtic mythology, Taranis is depicted with a wheel and thunderbolt. – In nearly every iteration of the story, the serpent is either multi-headed or ‘multiple’ in some other way. Furthermore, in nearly every story, the serpent is always somehow associated with water. Or, perhaps the storyteller was relating a long forgotten battle between Saxon and Viking.

According to historians we now know that in 877AD, Vikings camped in Gloucester for the winter under Guthrum. While in 894AD a band of Vikings sailed up the River Severn and fought a bloody battle at Minchinhampton (this may be the product of an over fertile antiquarian imagination) against King Alfred the Great and the Saxons. There has always been a story that there was a battle in Cambridge in 894AD which the Saxons won, where three Viking princes were killed and the fighting could have ranged over a wide area of the Berkeley Vale and also there is a strong case for stating that the Vikings made camp, possibly on the River Cam, when they made a big assault up the River Severn to the Midlands. The name Heslinbruge has appeared as an early name for Slimbridge and was commonly used by the Vikings when they built a stone pass, usually not much more that 300 metres from where their boats were moored, to their campsite.

She Shows No Mercy!

Over the years the River Severn has claimed many lives. But has also provided for the people with food, energy, recreation, transportation routes and water for irrigation and for drinking. She is one of ‘The Three Sisters Of Plynlimon’ – Ystwyth, Hafren and Gwy, rising from a peat bog in the Cambrian Mountains. In Celtic Mythology they were the Niskai, who desired to visit the ocean and to explore the mysterious region of the Celtic Sea and the wonders that lay beyond. Hafren was also a legendary British princess who was drowned in the River Severn.

But both her selfe, and eke her daughter deare,

Begotten by her kingly Paramoure,

The faire Sabrina almost dead with feare,

She there attached, farre from all succoure;

The one she slew in that impatient stoure,

But the sad virgin innocent of all,

Adowne the rolling riuer she did poure,

Which of her name now Seuerne men do call:

Such was the end, that to disloyall loue did fall’.

From ‘The Faerie Queene. Book II. Cant. X’. By Edmund Spencer, first published in 1590.

Of the other two sisters / rivers, Vaga is the Celtic goddess of the River Wye, the ‘Awakener of Truth’, while the River Ystwyth gave her name to the town of Aberystwyth in Ceredigion.

From the ancient Welsh book, ‘The Mabinogion’, comes the tale of a Cornish relative of King Arthur who tried to kill a wild boar which escaped across the Bristol Channel to Wales. Apparently, the story reflects the booming trade across the Severn Estuary when Gwent was famous for exporting wheat and honey, with a major iron-age trading port in the Sudbrook area. Archaeologists highlight the similarity of the remains of forts and stone circles from this period on both sides of the estuary. Immigrant Celts had crossed the river and installed their culture on the South Wales levels, trading and associating with their neighbours on the English side more than with the inland Welsh, as river travel was much easier that overland travel.

* ‘The Romans and The Noose’. – The Noose is a notoriously perilous stretch of the River Severn and is where the Severn Bore starts and can reach a height of 25 feet and surge 14 miles upriver at a speed of 15 knots.

Around 46AD, the Roman army, reputedly the 2nd: Augustan legion under the command of Aulus Plautius, first Governor of Britain, attempted to cross the Severn in their campaign to capture Caractacus, a British chieftain of the Trinovantes tribe. The ‘guerilla’ leader had escaped into the west and was leading the warlike Silures, a powerful and tribal confederation of ancient Britain, occupying what is now South-east Wales and some adjoining areas under the control of the Druids who were being forced to flee the Roman genocide against their caste. The legend says that the Druids were assembled with a vast band of ancient Britons on the west bank of the river, directly offshore from Awre near a large sandbank known as The Noose. Here the river is over a mile wide surrounded by two shifting narrow channels. It was low tide and the Roman army was goaded by the wild dancing of the British to engage in battle. The army comprised armoured foot soldiers and cavalry, who quickly crossed the small channel of the eastern bank.

When the army reached the far side of the Noose and as the Druids chanted to the river goddess Sabrina, the Romans were horrified to see the river sweeping up the western channel in the flood tide. Unable to cross they retreated back across the sands, but on reaching the eastern side their retreat was now cut off by the tide flowing back down and around The Noose to meet the flood tide still moving up the eastern channel.

As the army struggled to get to the east bank the soldiers and horses became trapped on the sand, as the bore tide swept across The Noose. Legend says that, in their panic, the army was totally drowned in front of the eyes of the Roman general and his standard bearers on the eastern bank.

The Druids had triumphed over the might of Rome and most importantly, the warrior goddess, Sabrina, was embued with a power beyond all things. The River Severn became viewed as a mighty natural obstacle by the Romans and marked the western frontier of their empire for fifty years.

Caratacus resisted the Romans for almost a decade, mixing guerrilla warfare with set-piece battles, but was unsuccessful in the latter. After his final defeat he fled North to the territory of Queen Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes, a Celtic people living in what is now Northern England, who captured him and handed him over to the Romans. He was sentenced to death as a military prisoner, but made a speech before his execution that persuaded the Emperor Claudius to spare him.

* ‘The English Stones’. – The English Stones are a rocky outcrop in the Severn Estuary between Caldicot and Severn Beach. The river itself, at 220 miles long, is the longest river in Great Britain and has the second largest tidal range in the world – 48 feet and flows into the English Channel. At its estuary it is 5 miles wide. Until Tudor times the Bristol Channel was known as the Severn Sea, and it is still known as this in both Welsh and Cornish (Môr Hafren and Mor Havren respectively, with môr meaning sea). During the highest tides, the rising water is funnelled up the Severn Estuary into a wave that travels rapidly upstream against the river current. The largest bores occur in spring, but smaller ones can be seen throughout the year. The bore is accompanied by a rapid rise in water level which continues for about one and a half hours after the bore has passed. The name Severn is thought to derive from a British sabrinā, possibly from an older form samarosina, meaning ‘land of summertime fallow’.

There is a tale, often repeated in 19th: century and later guidebooks, that during the English Civil War King Charles was chased across the river from Portskewett: the pursuing Roundheads were drowned after being landed at low tide on the English Stones by the boatmen, after which Cromwell ordered the ferries to cease operation. This story originated in a deposition given by Giles Gilbert of Shirenewton during the course of a 1720’s legal case regarding rights to operate the ferry and which was later printed by William Coxe in his 1801 ‘Historical Tour of Monmouthshire’. While Gilbert claimed to be ‘credibly informed’ that a group of Parliamentarian soldiers had perished while pursuing the King, another witness in the same legal case gave evidence that the incident had in fact involved a group of twelve Royalists who ‘in haste to pass’ in November 1644 had forced the boatmen to take them across at low tide. The antiquary Octavius Morgan, on investigating these stories, found that the ‘Iter Carolinum’ and ‘The Diary of Richard Symonds’ proved that Charles had intended to use the Black Rock crossing to reach Bristol on 24 July 1645, but had been dissuaded. Morgan however noted a contemporary report that Charles had a ‘narrow escape of being taken near the Black Rock’ in July 1645 and suggested that some of Charles’s party had crossed the Passage on the evening of 24 July ‘probably sent purposely to mislead the enemy and the result was death by drowning of the pursuers’. – Black Rock, Portskewett was an important crossing point of the River Severn for many centuries and was in constant use throughout the Roman period, on the route between Aquae Sulis (Bath) and Venta Silurum (Caerwent).

The Bristol Channel floods of 30 January 1607 drowned many people and destroyed a large amount of farmland and livestock, wrecking the local economy along the coasts of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary. The known tide heights, probable weather, extent and depth of flooding and coastal flooding elsewhere in the UK on the same day all point to the cause being a storm surge rather than a tsunami. Pamphlets of the 17th: Century depicted the great flood as a destructive and violent event.

Worlebury Hill dominates the landscape with its Iron Age Hillfort and here there is also a fisherman’s cairn named ‘Peak Wina’, also called ‘Picwinnard’, as the fishermen walked by to tend their nets, they would throw stones onto the cairn and wish for a good catch saying, ‘Ina pic winna / Send me a good dinner’. Ina was the King of Wessex (689 – 726) in Saxon times and at the suggestion of Bishop Aldhelm in 705, had a church built at Wells which later became Wells Cathedral and the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ records he had a minster built at Glastonbury, which may refer to an additional building or rebuilding to the monastery already there.

Out spake the captain brave and bold

A merry wight was he

Though London Tower were Michael’s hold

We’ll set Trelawny free

We’ll cross the Tamar, land to land

The Severn is no stay

Then one and all and hand in hand

And who shall bid us nay’.

A verse from ‘The Song of the Western Men’, also known as ‘Trelawny’, a Cornish patriotic song, composed by Louisa T. Clare for lyrics by Robert Stephen Hawker. The poem was first published anonymously in ‘The Royal Devonport Telegraph’ and ‘Plymouth Chronicle’ in September 1826, over 100 years after the events.

The Severn Serpent.

The Severn Serpent or the ‘Sharpness Devil’ is a mythic creature reportedly sighted in the Severn Estuary. The River Severn is the largest river in the UK and has an extreme tidal range. Sightings of the Serpent are recorded at least as far back as 1866.

Writing from Overton, Gower in Wales dated 12 July 1877, Silvanus Beven, FRS, asked his brother if he believed in the sea serpent seen in the Bristol Channel?

For over a century there have been sightings of sea serpents slithering their way through the waters along the Cornish Coast between Rosemullion Head and Toll Point. One was spotted by two fishermen at Gerrans Bay in 1876. Also in that year, a ‘half-mermaid half-whale’ washed up on Porthleven Beach. The ‘Sea Monster’ was found by two boys before villagers came to see the spectacle for themselves.- ‘Plymouth Herald, et al.’ While the last was in 2002 by two seamen near The Manacles off of The Lizard. Dan Matthew and George Vinnicombe say they saw it while in different locations on the same day. – CornwallLive’. The two 1876 Cornish sightings pre-date Bevan’s letter by a year, but are not the earliest. It was reported in the ‘West Briton’ dated 20 October 1837, One of those great serpents . . . . was brought into Mevagissey last week, by a fisherman named John Hicks, which weighed 95 lbs: It is supposed to be the largest ever caught there. Many reports from the 1800’s and earlier may seem rather fanciful describing sea serpents. But, Cornwall may have played a larger part in unravelling the early history of the sea serpent, as it was the first location in the United Kingdom where an oarfish was found at Mounts Bay in February 1791. Even today, ‘Morgawr’ meaning ‘sea giant’ in the Cornish language is still talked about.

A book written by Anthonie Cornelius Oudemans was published in 1892 titled ‘The Great Sea-Serpent. An Historical And Critical Treatise’ which contained 187 appearances and 82 illustrations and was a work of suppositions and suggestions of scientific and non-scientific persons and the author’s conclusions, including the sighting of 1883 which appeared in ‘The Graphic’ on 20 October, where it was seen going down the Bristol Channel towards the Atlantic Ocean.

Ships Log. 9 August 1888’. Captain EB. Hathelford aboard the Kennet writes. – Approaching the Scilly Isles from North-North-West when First Mate Rodgers pointed out what looked to be a long serpentine neck projecting 6 to 7 feet above the water twice with a greasy trail behind it. – A greasy trail is a trait sometimes exhibited by seals and sea-lions.

In 1907, Captain Arthur Rostron – who would later captain the ocean liner RMS Carpathia when it rescued hundreds of survivors from the RMS Titanic after the latter ship sank – aboard the cargo ship Brescia, which served the Mediterranean region wrote that they were heading south of Ireland to the Bristol Channel when a serpent was seen with its neck 8 to 9 feet out of the water, the neck being 12 inches thick.

In the 1930’s there were a number of supposed sightings and a postcard appeared of the creature photographed near Anchor Head, Weston-super-Mare. The photograph was dismissed as a hoax as this was not long after the famous Loch Ness Monster photograph taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynaecologist which was first published in the ‘Daily Mail’ on 21 April 1934.. Wilson’s refusal to have his name associated with it, led to it being known as the ‘surgeon’s photograph’. Since 1994, most agree that the ‘surgeon’s photograph’ was an elaborate hoax.

 

The Severn Serpent off Anchor Head, Weston-super-Mare

In the 1950’s, Mrs: Belmont who resided in an hotel in Weston-super-Mare and prone to sleepwalking mentioned she saw a sea serpent on a misty night.

During July 2010, Gill Pearce took a photograph of what appears to be a long-necked sea creature stalking a shoal of fish 30 yards off Saltern Cove south of Goodrington Sands in Devon. The neck was greenish-brown with a reptile-like head. Reported to the Marine Conservation Society, a spokesperson stated that it looked like a plesiosaur. – ‘Interesting’, (my italics). But at the moment it remains unidentified. Graham Oakley from Paignton also saw the creature in the sea. – ‘We Are South Devon, et al’. In the ‘Codex Boernerianus’ which has been dated to the 9th: century and is currently housed at the University of Dresden in Germany. An Irish scribe describes a pilgrimage to Rome:-

Prepared to be sent to Rome from the seaside by Torbay. May Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, give it safe conduct and not let the false man bear it away. In the fogs of the bay, amid the waves of the sea. Sea walls and sea whirlwinds, sea monsters and mermaids’.

Sylvia who lives in Worle stated that she has seen it on numerous occasions at night which leaves a silvery-grey trail. She also called the sea serpent ‘Morrigan’. In Celtic mythology, sea-serpents were a terrifying creature that reminded people of their mortality and often impending death. The Irish Morrigan (the death aspect of the triple lunar goddess) would often take on the form of a sea-serpent when confronting heroes.

David Barker who swims in the River Severn off of Weston-super-Mare, one day felt something brush against his leg and also mentions seeing a greasy trail.

The most recent widely reported sighting was in April 2019 from Clevedon by Jacky Sheppard and her husband who were outside the Little Harp public house when they saw something looking like the Loch Ness Monster going south in the Bristol Channel from Clevedon Pier to the Marine Lake. Ali Robertson also spotted the monster through her binoculars and stated that it was a large piece of wood in the Bristol Post’. There is a constant supply of debris, trees, et cetera, which comes down river from Gloucester and down the River Wye. The River Severn discharges into the Bristol Channel, which opens into the Celtic Sea and from there into the Atlantic Ocean. Its tidal range of 50 feet – one of the largest in the world – and high winds blowing in the opposite direction to the tides can create lethal conditions causing strange and violent motions, currents.

During February 2021, ‘BBC Radio 4’ broadcast the 45 minute programme ‘In Search Of The Severn Serpent’ by Annamaria Murphy investigating recent sightings of the Sea Serpent in the River Severn.

On 25 February 2021 the decomposed body of a Basking Shark was washed up on Broad Haven South Beach in Pembrokeshire which was confirmed by the Natural History Museum. – ‘WalesOnline’. While back in January 1885 another leviathan of the deep, a common Fin Whale, became stranded near the brick and tile works at Littleton-upon-Severn and the wharf is still known as ‘Whale Wharf’. But this was not the first whale to venture into the River Severn, as in 1849 a Bottlenose Whale was caught at Haw Bridge, near Tirley in Gloucestershire.

As for the Severn Serpent, all evidence of its existence is anecdotal. Why would people believe they have seen a plesiosaur when the most recent bones are 60 million years old? Or is there really something in the water?

The Green Meadows of Enchantment.

Throughout Britain, the Celtic Otherworld has been conceived as a separate country, with its own landscape, rivers, agriculture, buildings and climate. This belief was especially strong in England and Wales during the Middle Ages. Steadily, the fairies’ realm tended to shrink, until they were squeezed into the corners of our world. In some parts of Wales, the idea persisted in a slightly altered form, where the Fairies moved off-shore, to isles scattered around Britain and beneath the waves, so that they remained credible and occasionally visible, but rarely accessible. These lands were called ‘Green Spots of the Floods’ (the abode of the Tylwyth Teg, For more information, see below), ‘Green Meadows of the Sea’ (the Green Fairy islands of Wales), ‘Green Land of Enchantment’ (the name in a fragmentary folksong collected by RL Tongue which sounds similar to ‘The Green Spots Of The Flood’ mentioned by Southey) or ‘Gwerddonau Lion’ (‘Welsh Triads’, a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts). In Celtic mythology, green became a symbol of harmony, growth, abundance, vitality, healing and nature, radiating a feeling of fullness. The Green Man was the God of fertility. A sacred colour. Later, Early Christians banned green because it had been used in pagan ceremonies.

Another such island, ‘The Green Meadows of Enchantment’, is believed to lie in the Bristol Channel, somewhere between Somerset and Pembrokeshire. In the 19th: century, many a sailor returned to port boasting that he had weighed anchor on the Green Meadows which lay out to sea west of Grassholm Island and made merry with the elfin women, or had seen the island suddenly vanish. While some of the people of Milford Haven used to declare that they could sometimes see the ‘Green Islands of the Fairies’ quite distinctly. Strangely, no one could ever find it on a map.

From the ‘Pembroke County Guardian’ of 1 November 1896 comes this report from Captain John Evans. – Once when trending up the Bristol Channel and passing Grassholm Island, in what he had always known as deep water, he was surprised to see to windward of him a large tract of land covered with a beautiful green meadow. It was not, however, above water, but just a few feet below, say two or three, so that the grass waved and swam as the ripple flowed over it, in a way quite delightful to the eye, so that as one watched it made one feel quite drowsy. ‘You know, I have heard old people say there is a floating island off there that some-times rises to the surface, or nearly and then sinks down again fathoms deep, so that no one sees it for years and when nobody expects it comes up again for a while. How it may be, I do not know, but that is what they say’.

A more recent report comes from ‘The Glamorgan Gem’ dated Monday 31 July 2017 under the heading – A mystery ‘island’ off the coast of Porthcawl! – Local photographer Keith E Morgan explained: ‘At about 13.45, a ‘mysterious island’ appeared to rise out of the waters of the Bristol Channel and loom very clear on the horizon to any observer on the seafront of Porthcawl. This materialization did not last long, but the island was also noticed by the coast watchers on duty in the Old Watch Tower and they identified it for me as being the Selworthy Beacon on Bossington Down near Minehead on the Somerset coast. Due to a natural phenomenon, the background of the Somerset coast was lost in the mist and the headland appeared to be isolated and cut off from the mainland, as well as being enlarged by some form of light refraction’.

Is it light refraction that caused a mirage to those ancient mariners and townsfolk?

The Bristol Channel UFO. – A Cover-up?

A more modern mythology concerning the river is that of sightings of UFOs.

On Saturday night, 24. September 2016 at 21.30, Police in Bristol were left baffled after the force’s heat seeking helicopter camera captured what is believed to be a UFO. The round object was spotted while officers were flying 1,000ft: over the Bristol Channel. Confused police said the mystery craft was flying against the wind and was undetected by air traffic control at around 21.30 on the evening in question. – At this point, it must be added that the Police admitted that the clock was wrong by one hour and the correct time was 20.30. – The object, which could not be seen with the normal eye, was captured by thermal cameras and was filmed for just over seven minutes.

 

Still from the Police helicopter caught on thermal camera over the Bristol Channel

But now, comes a cover up of the whole episode.

A former detective, Gary Haseltine, is calling for a scientific inquiry into what footage caught by the police helicopter actually shows. He has submitted Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to find out more, but says responses so far have not been forthcoming and believes this case is a major UFO event. Journalists have also sent requests to the police to find out all the details of the incident, but have also not received any replies. – This was back in January 2017. It is also believed that the police have not published all the videos and have hid from the public the full record of the meeting of the helicopter with a UFO in the sky over the Bristol Channel.

Nothing was revealed as to what the mysterious craft was and I am surprised by the lack of journalistic investigation regarding this. We know about the smoke, so now it would be nice to be told that the truth is out there.

The following is from the Freedom of Information which Haseltine received sometime later:-

FOI 4096/16

Re: NPAS St Athan ‘UFO’ sighting.

The response states that the audio track to the recording has been withheld. The audio is stated to have consisted of material that could compromise a police operation and which could lead to the identification of named individuals (thus breaching their privacy). These are uncontroversial exemptions and are discussed below.

Appendix to response letter, setting out FOI exemptions applied (two pages).

Section 30 (1) – Sections of footage have been withheld from the responsive material. This is because the video was recorded during the investigation of a crime and to release the whole recording could compromise police operations.

Section 40 (2) – Sections of footage conflict with the provisions of the Data Protection Act (1998). The withheld material contains sufficient information to enable the requester to identify a private individual (either directly or by inference). There is no reason to doubt that these exemptions have been applied in an appropriate way. The responsive material was recorded unexpectedly during an unrelated police operation. Therefore the video and / or audio recording might breach the security of that operation. It might further breach the privacy rights of a suspect or suspects, people who are not relevant to the investigation, or the helicopter crew themselves (since a voice is as much part of a person’s identity as their face or home address).

Since then and following on from Heseltine’s attempts to obtain more information, the Police released the full video footage in June 2021, which lasts around eight minutes and the footage shows the camera changing settings as the Police appear to try to identify the strange phenomena. Heseltine passed the video to retired Police Officer and former helicopter crew member Simon Conquest who provided expert analysis of the video for magazine ‘UFO Truth’. He estimated the object was travelling at around 106 mph and said he believed the object was not a lantern, a bird, a meteor, or a known aircraft. Conquest went on to add that he believes the craft appears to be moving under its own power – leading him to conclude it was either an advanced military test craft or potentially a vehicle of alien origin. At the time, It was reported the object appeared to be flying close to the Hinkley Point B Power Station.

There had also been a report of a silver cigar-shaped UFO hovering over the Bristol Channel during May 2020, but this is clearly distortion from the atmosphere, as six ships were anchored in the Channel as oil traders were being forced to store a record amount of oil offshore in container ships due to the market turbulence at the time.

So, now we know. Or perhaps. We will never know.

 

 

© Stewart Guy. 2023.

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The End of the World Party in Parliament Square – Extinction Rebellion’s The Big One – Part 1

Parliament Square, 21st April 2023


A historical moment undoubtably – April 2023 – but assuming there is anyone around to remember, will this time only be viewed in the future as the days in which selfish governmental marionettes in the thrall (and pay) of global companies, hammered the last nails in our communal coffin, while much of the human race just looked on – too frightened, grief-stricken, busy, indolent or unaware, to object to our forthcoming murder?

                                      

“Shell profits from Hell on Earth”, Parliament Square, 21st April 2023

Local groups gather for the March for Biodiversity, Broad Sanctuary, 22nd April 2023 – Earth Day

Without the rage and aggression, the blocking of roads and attacks on the buildings of offensive organisations, do events like Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) The Big One[i], become almost invisible to the wider public? In the environs of Parliament Square over the four days, a sense of festival or Mardi Gras often took over, anger taking a back seat. Children and younger teenagers are often best at this. It is a relief to see and gives others hope, no matter how fleeting.

Dancing to samba: “Don’t Let the World Die” / “My Future is in Your Hands”, 24th April 2023

Parliament Square, 22nd April 2023


Black and bitter costumes and slogans were contradicted by the desire of a cross-generational movement to shake itself into the oblivion of fun. I even shook hands with a tree. Solidarity!

21st April 2023

Parliament Square, 22nd April 2023

The tree that shook hands with me, Abingdon Street, 22nd April 2023

Understandably, not all younger people are inclined to party, Abingdon Street, 21st April

It’s clear that every branch of social and ecological resistance is growing and that even lethargic consumerists are beginning to realise that only drastic system change can save the human race. At one level this is political – banks need to be controlled, global corporations made to pay heavily, many of them terminated altogether, as with the multi-millionaires also. The rich[ii] need to share or be phased out. We cannot afford such parasites.

By Westminster Abbey, 22nd April 2023

Queen Elizabeth II Centre, Broad Sanctuary/Victoria Street, 21st April 2023

Horseferry Road approaching Millbank, 22nd April 2023

Even if the world’s wealth could be distributed more evenly[iii], at a social level, system change will inevitably involve sacrifice even for the poorer of us – a reduction in consumer aspiration which will fall particularly on upcoming generations. We must learn not to waste food, gradually become vegetarian or vegan[iv], give up flying[v] and cut travel to a minimum. The education and health systems – “essential backbone and future of society”[vi] – need a major rethink to understand and adapt towards radically different priorities. The military needs to be made fully accountable and reduced to a minimum[vii]. Many will be reluctant to face such changes, but it cannot be business as usual any longer. We have no more time to dither or tolerate the plundering of the earth by global companies aided by increasingly fascistic ‘governments’ – among which the current UK’s Cabinet (“obfuscating on thin ice as one placard worded it”) is such a pathetically dismal example:

“I’ve seen smarter cabinets at IKEA”    Parliament Square, 21st April 2023

The Global Justice March forming up in Parliament Square, Friday, 21st April 2023

 
The March for Biodiversity, Broad Sanctuary, Saturday, 22nd April 2023 – Earth Day


Too much disruption and public sympathy can be endangered, yet if direct action is suspended – and Extinction Rebellion have clearly stated that this moratorium was temporary[viii] – a sensation-obsessed media quickly transfers its attention to some vapid celebrity, or such comparative trivia as the London Marathon or the irrelevant Coronation – an ignoral which feels like a baiting. It’s seriously worrying, that despite being supported by over 200 organisations[ix], so many concerned people were not even aware that Extinction Rebellion’s The Big One was taking place.

Friday, 21st April 2023

 Saturday, 22nd April 2023 – Earth Day


Mainstream media coverage was appallingly bad – something you’d expect from the majority of newspapers, but even the BBC[x] seems to have become a puppet for the government – a puppet of puppets. I’m not quite sure why I write “even the BBC”, perhaps because I still like to believe in some ideal version of the BBC my mind . . . in something which mostly died a long time ago. Just as I continue to believe in some ideal of freedom[xi].

Section of a banner pondering the extinction of life in the oceans, 22nd April 2023

Saturday lunchtime, 22nd April 2023

 
Pickets at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Victoria Street, 21st April 2023


When I first arrived on the Friday, turning left from Charing Cross station and walking south down Whitehall, of the fifteen people’s pickets[xii] outside government buildings and the numerous other protest groups infiltrating or dominating a wide area, the first I encountered was Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, (CND), outside the Ministry of Defence, highlighting the Nurses not Nukes campaign[xiii]:

CND banner outside the Ministry of Defence, 21st April 2023

Enigmatic protestor by the gates of Downing Street, Whitehall, 21st April 2023

Lourdes Huanca of Peru, Whitehall, Friday 21st April 2023


Just along from CND, Lourdes Huanca of Peru[xiv], president of the Federation of Peasant, Artisan, Indigenous, Native and Salaried Women of Peru (FENMUCARINAP . . . not exactly for short!) emphatically addressed the crowd, with pauses for translation into English, outside the Ministry of Defence. Contradictorily, in Saturday’s more consistent sun a large crowd gathered at the same location for a demonstration which should not have stayed mysterious to me for long. Initially, I was drawn to the yellow placard below which begins: WELL BY THEIR SELL BY DATE AND INFESTED WITH MAGGOTS . . .  

Russian, anti-Ukrainian protest outside the Ministry of Defence, Saturday April 22nd 2023


On the face of it, these targets (the Anglo-American Empire, London’s City trading markets, and NATO) are all justified game – but having no access to reference devices, and before a Ukrainian group arrived to counter the protest[xv], I did not twig that this was a Russian group protesting against British support of “the Nazis in Ukraine”. Another placard stating the Russian group’s denial of climate change, perfectly illustrates the complexities of multiple protests and the potential for confusion, especially in an age of often ridiculous conspiracy theories – such as the ludicrous idea that XR was created by the CIA! If that one’s true, then the CIA seriously miscalculated[xvi]. Also, the impressive black banner below was still in my mind from across the road the preceding day:

There’s nothing tricky or propagandist about the Movement for the Abolition of War[xvii]


The first march I joined on the Friday was for Global Justice, a procession which moved sombrely around Parliament Square before branching up Great George Street towards Birdcage Walk. Eventually it turned right to end on the steps near the Treasury on Horse Guards Road. The shouting was minimal. Instead, a vocal elegy gradually spread through the crowd, partially led in my section of the column, by an XR choir from Dartmoor.

I found myself near the Dartmoor Group again on Saturday’s March for Biodiversity


Though in four days I only met one person I knew from the North West, one of the group from Dartmoor, I encountered three times, and we finally talked during Saturday’s March for Biodiversity during which conversation she echoed my pessimistic fear, a lack of hope that anything can be saved now: “It’s too late,” she said with inner devastation, “but it’s better to know we tried. Better to belong to something rather than nothing . . .” Later, glancing down at her placard: 97% OF UK WILD FLOWER MEADOW GONE, she added tragically, “That’s wrong, it’s 98% now.”

Demonstration as choral elegy, Great George Street, 21st April 2023


At several points on a short route, Friday’s Global Justice procession paused . . . and
its silent gentleness, the lines of its song, were compellingly moving. It was hard to prevent tears flowing from my eyes – as if we were all present at our own mass funeral. Or as if we could escape the inevitable one-way tunnel we’ve been in since the industrial revolution. And throughout the stillness and the song – as momento mori to nature and the best of the human spirit – came the tolling of a bell.

By the Treasury, Horse Guards Road, 21st April 2023


Only at the terminal point adjoining the Treasury did the mood become more aggrieved, with nervous security guards and police very obviously feigning confidence. From the nearby steps however I watched as the crowd gradually seemed to relax, some perhaps finding hope beyond the elegy? “We have to keep trying,” I overheard someone encouraging. “But how can we possibly make up for all those who can’t be f**king bothered?” a listener replied.

Houses of Parliament, 22nd April 2023

March for Biodiversity, Saturday 22nd April 2023


On Saturday, the March for Biodiversity was enormous[xviii], and taking a route out to the west it turned south onto Great Smith Street and Marsham Street, then east back towards the River Thames along Horseferry Road.

At the conclusion of its angry, friendly, sad but determined slow-moving loop, the march approached Abingdon Gardens and Parliament Square. All the way, our demands and protests were accompanied by a haunting symphony of bird calls – skylarks, swallows, a nightjar, owls hooting mournfully – whistles, a chorus of frogs[xix], sounds from the oceans and jungles . . .  Here, before the gradual dispersal, the leading phalanx was called upon to die and willingly did so all around me. “There’s no space for me to die,” I complained, before obligingly, the corpses around my feet, shifted about to clear a space.

            “At least it takes the weight off your feet.”

            “Die quietly for heaven’s sake!”

For how much longer will such blackly humorous stoicism be viable?

“There’s no space for me to die!”  The death of the Biodiversity March, Millbank/Abingdon Street,  22nd April 2023 – Earth Day

Although we eventually observed a long silence in death, the traffic went on beyond the houses of parliament, while the chain of aircraft on the flightpath never ceased, and the river smelt of bad drains.

22nd April 2023 – Earth Day

Parliament Square, 21st April 2023

22nd April 2023 – Earth Day

The call to “Rise again” was only transiently morale-boosting – a buzz in the neck, relief from the hardness of the tarmac – but was helped by a loud warbling siren, which at first, I took to be a big version of one of those water whistles our children used to frenetically maul in the bath or sometimes try to be poetic with . . .  But it became more insistent and resolved itself into a police motorcycle trying to clear a path for some miserable-looking VIP chauffeured by latter-day, gas-guzzling, Range Rover and aiming for a back entrance to the Palace of Westminster. Tolerantly we stood aside and the vehicle and its dying vampire were given the thumbs down as if this was ancient Rome and ironic slaves had taken over the forum . . . temporarily . . .

The March for Biodiversity dispersing, 22nd April 2023

Hope regained . . . 22nd April 2023

Climbing from Woolwich, SE18, near the end of the second day, Saturday 22nd April 2023

 

                        sun shield

                        rich heraldic defence

                        to hush the red double-decker’s as they pass

                        and usher the cheerful clatter of drinks

                        sun shades unfolded

                        in the walled garden of The Windmill –

                        the tower has no sails but still . . . 

                        before all speech is lost

                        end here[xx]

 

 

 

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,

London and Morecambe, April-May 2023

 

                       
NOTES – accessed up to May the 10th 2023

[i] extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/programme

[ii]  How do you define rich? You could try this: ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in  though I didn’t, as I knew I’d be pretty much near the bottom . . .

[iii] Sign the Good Law Project’s petition against the HMRC’s £600 million pound loophole for the very wealthy: actions.goodlawproject.org/private_equity?utm_source=NB&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=privateequitypetitionemail03%2F05%2F23

[iv] A pressing point and one which seems undeniable in the long run. In the meantime – a point I raised with two vegan campaigners – what do you do about the lamentable rise in popularity of carnivorous pets? There are vegan alternatives but they don’t look very affordable at present. See: www.animalaid.org.uk/ 

[v] See flightfree.co.uk/ 

[vi] internationaltimes.it/eric-morecambe-extinction-rebellion-supports-the-strikers/

[vii] globalcitizen.org/en/content/how-war-impacts-the-environment-and-climate-change/#

sgr.org.uk/resources/war-ukraine-assessing-human-and-environmental-costs

[viii] extinctionrebellion.uk/the%20big-one/what-next/

[ix] extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/supporters/

[x] Who is paying them for offering flights as prizes? businessgreen.com/news/4113311/prize-flights-bbc-urged-stop-offering-flights-competition-winners

[xi]   Yet it is hard to continue to believe in some ideal of freedom and (eccentric) individualism once you realise how much of it comes at the expense of others. Like the fantasy of “quality always rising to the top” (9 times out of 10 it doesn’t) a great deal of the aspiration for freedom and liberty is a con-trick of capitalism or neo-liberalism. Similarly, the so-called “free market” itself, is an excuse for waste, overproduction and futile competition. Stuff economics! Such systems are a hoax – a swindle which penetrates our world so thoroughly that it’s become impossible to doubt or kill off. Like our supposed democracy, our bland freedom or individualism – cheered, encouraged, threatened – is merely token. In reality, the 95% bound to “fail” will always subsidise the 5% who “succeed”. In most cases this 5% is also a foregone conclusion – people destined to succeed through advantages of class and money. Occasionally a few others might make it into this 5%, through beauty, natural intelligence or talent in some form, but not often. Yet still the con-trick continues to stimulate consumer desire and dreams of ‘success’ – persuading us all too often to ditch community, conscience, and social and environmental concerns, in favour of self-fulfilment and a purely personal happiness.

[xii] extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/peoples-pickets/

[xiii] cnduk.org/nurses-not-nukes/

[xiv] www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/03/our-demands-are-now-political-an-interview-with-lourdes-huanca-atencio/ Also:  upsidedownworld.org/archives/peru-archives/peru-in-defense-of-land-culture-and-the-female-body-interview-with-lourdes-huanca/

[xv]   www.newsflare.com/video/558169/ukrainian-counter-not-our-war-rally-allege-is-a-russian-propagandists-in-london

[xvi] Unlike the CIA support for Abstract Expressionism – which whatever you think of the artists away from the poisonousness of the art market – makes Capitalistic ‘sense’. See: thecollector.com/abstract-expressionism-waging-a-cultural-cold-war-2/

[xvii] https://abolishwar.net/about-us/history-of-maw/

[xviii]  This eight minute clip covers a lot of ground, including a host of placards and masks I missed: vhttps://www.google.com/search?q=the+march+for+biodiversity+April+2023&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:129eef40,vid:e1AGD7kyDMI

[xix] I’ll resist a direct 1963 Avengers reference! www.imdb.com/title/tt0516801/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[xx] Closing lines of SE18 – The Woolwich Quest

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 GOOD MORNING!

 

I fell in love

With your soul first

Then I discovered

You have more

Your heart is made of gold.

I may not be

Your first love,

But promise me

I will be your last.

The best night is that

When my head rests on your chest

You caress my hair

And wishper into my ear

I’ll come tomorrow again.

When I text you

“Good Morning”

It means you are my

First and important

Thought of the day.

Because

I want to nourish your love

In my heart

And cherish your love

In my memory forever.

 

 

 

 

Monalisa Parida
Illustration 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 100 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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Emergency Benevolence

On the day of my daughter’s
third birthday we emerge
from a mid-tier inn, all tired.
I display on my cheeks a shade
of red deeper than I my usual.
My debit card has revealed
an unbalanced jaywalk across
this life we’ve been cast in,
and hence I can feel no pain
when a sedan leaving the parking
runs over my toes semi-sheathed
in faux leather footwears.
My daughter shrieks, cries, mumbles
something we can decode
even without hearing. Later after she
falls asleep, and the panic settles,
and the post-coitus boudoir holds
my wife, dozed off, and me crumbling
in a desire to fix everything everywhere.

 

 

 

Kushal Poddar
Illustration Nick Victor

Kushal Poddar lives in Kolkata, India

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

 

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Inkless Desire

The guitar played
For your evening star
Sings brighter than my noon.
I empty to fill, but
I do not give to lose.
The human sun
Wakes with
The sparkle in the eyes
And feet that circles the world.
My clay is blessed,
My yard guards
Your resting soul
With flowers that swing
In the breeze of love.
Death stops with me,
I make peace
And wave it goodbye,
My circle of life ends
With my days and nights of vigor.
This is my written remembrance
Not lost in inkless desire.

 

 

 

Copyright Sushant Thapa
Biratnagar-13, Nepal

Picture Nick victor
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‘Half a Sentry’

Wild Willy Barrett and John Otway

Some pics and words from Alan Dearling on their anniversary tour celebrating the lads’ Half-Century

Fabulous to witness these two cantankerous, curmudgeonly gentlemen back on stage and on tour together again.

Wow…and what a show…what a great performance from the legendary Wild Willy Barrett (actually, Roger John Barrett – absolutely a musician’s musician and innovative wood-worker) and the extreme madcap chaos of John Otway. Together, collectively celebrating 50 years of on-and-off ‘togetherness’. Plenty of crowd-pleasers from ‘Louisa on a horse’, through their ‘hit’, ‘Cor Baby, That’s Really Free’ to Cheryl’s going home, and ‘Geneve’, plus a rather wonderful, if wryly sad song: ‘Separated’: “It’s great to be alone”, and the lovely ‘Snowflake’. Absolutely superb entertainment and thanks to John and Willy and all involved at the Golden Lion in Todmorden.

What makes these two so special is the unique ‘spark’ – infectious mischief. It seems like a spontaneous affair that is exceedingly combustible! Wild Willy takes the mischief-making to new heights or depths, poking fun at his partner, ‘The Pratt’, the idiot joker. And with malevolent glee and a cunning glint in his eye, John retaliates with lines like:

“I’m a master musician now…my violin solo (with theremin) just got more applause than yours did!!!”

The pair deliver the musical goods in bucket-loads of fun, frolics and naughtiness. It feels and looks wonderfully spontaneous. But, it also reminds one that there have been more than a few well-publicised ‘fall-outs’ over the 50 years since they started together in Aylesbury on their legendary (long and winding roads) to become ‘pop stars’. It’s all a long time ago, just before punk was beginning. Their on stage and on tour ‘instabilities’ were just a tad acrimonious. After their major split (it wasn’t their first), Otway entitling his solo album, ‘All Balls and No Willy’, didn’t help! But now in 2023, it all adds to the hilarity, the unexpected exchanges of words, actions and exuberance of a Barrett and Otway show par excellence. Otway has written some pretty good lyrics and Barrett can certainly play them…and some…including on his wah-wah wheelie bin!

Live recently – ‘Louisa on a horse’: https://www.facebook.com/wildwilly.barrett/videos/152103077810016

Here’s a link to an early-ish Old Grey Whistle Test Otway and Barrett performance of ‘Cheryl’s going home’, always one of the stand-out moments in their show: https://youtu.be/G8C-BwAbAdc

‘I’m Separated’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DfsOXCcELw

Deadly, the Otway Roadie, has just constructed a new website:

http://www.otwayandbarrett.com/?fbclid=IwAR2BEOgRCaK4_3uI_TurWn0J1CY_4HXXe_-XfIJenWLE6LEqtdBSWh5ytNY

Meanwhile, Barrett’s woodworking craft skills have moved from making and inventing stringed-instruments to beautiful pieces of bespoke furniture.

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Charlie’s Weekend

A very brief interlude mostly in pictures…Alan Dearling

The photo above was taken on Coronation Day about 3pm. Nothing is moving. Roads without people. Maybe everyone is glued to their TVs and radios, maybe they are celebrating at home or with friends. Or maybe they’ve gone to the local Spoons in Todmorden for sustenance, or to forget about Charlie entirely. The following day I’d spotted that the Trades Club was putting on a ‘No buntings’ reggae afternoon. The poster seemed fitting for Socialist Club with probably Republican inclinations among many of its members.

At Trades Club it is something of an institution to invite families and lots of toddlers along to afternoon sessions. And so it was too for this alternative coronation event. Six DJ outfits blasted the Trades Club with plentiful loud and bass-heavy selections of reggae, ska and soul and even a little hip-hop at the Trades Club! As the organisers suggested: “Family Friendly Event – NB We strongly recommend ear protectors for little skankers”

The Trades Club lies near the Rochdale Canal in picturesque, tourist-magnet Hebden Bridge. It is relatively small, but punches way above its weight. It frequently plays host to major international star performers as you can see in the pics. Charlie’s afternoon reggae event was fun for the wildly cavorting little ‘uns and plenty of DJs and punters were in attendance in the Club bar enjoying the vibes and also the lush food from Ros’s Indonesian kitchen. 

A long, long way removed from the pomp and antique reverberations of the Westminster and central London coronation ceremonies, the State carriage, religious rites, processions, parades and military marching. Really quite refreshing in its own way. One wonders if Charlie would be amused?

Trades Club Socialist Co-operative: https://thetradesclub.com/

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Behind the Yellow Line by The Red Propellers.

What are these guys on? The lead singer trips over his own rhymes all the time, spewing stories, asides and opinions in demented non-stop incantation, whilst guitars and keyboards riff and groove in sequences and patterns behind him. One moment we’re in Alphabet City, the next we’re having an flashback about a love affair as flashing blue lights surround the burger bar. If you don’t listen hard or read the lyrics it all goes horribly wrong: the nightmare chorus of Sea Slugs turns out to be the tamer, regretful She Shrugs, and the singer isn’t back in the shithouse but the stirrup (I never did like horses). Oh Zoe indeed, whoever she is. Some New York waif lost in Bristol I suspect, or an imaginary lover from an imaginary past. Meanwhile we get Black Box Warnings where conspiracy is rife and everyone and their friends gets a namecheck as the apocalypse arrives, the four horsemen following close behind the lies of Guiliana and a host of others to take a body count. No-one takes any responsibility, no-one admits to why there is blood on their hands or egg on their face. Guiliana’s New York is also the place for drug deals in the Lower East Side where Johnny toughs it out in the stairwells and dark corridors in a kind of demented Springsteen story without the romantic bullshit. If the cd opens with love supreme love supreme it turns out to be a reference to John Coltrane’s classic jazz trance album and not a declaration. Here Cupid’s bow keeps missing its target and the city’s occupants are mostly on a downer in the November rain. In fact only the dogwalkers and junkies are out, illuminated by pop garish billboards and the flashing lights of the dustbin lorry. Somewhere in the mix there is not only Coltrane but a minimalist prepared piano played with a full on rage so that it somehow sounds like The Ramones. There may be punk in the mix here but mostly it’s the drone and chimes and sonic addiction of the Velvet Underground, the sputtering dynamic rhythms of a city on red alert with its citizens only surviving because they are full of drugs and attitude. For much of the album the mood is visceral sweaty leather black, contrasted with the yellow line of the title, hazard or crime scene tape to stop us being involved, but by the album’s close the mood is blue, remembering hippy camp scruff and the daughter away in London, Joni Mitchell and Ravi Shankar on the record player, whilst the narrator deals with the ins and outs of immigration. There’s no let up, apart from Joni’s downer songs and Leonard Cohen’s laments, just an unused second ticket and a fading into loss and grief. So either Lou Reed and his merry men are alive and well in Bristol or there is the musical reincarnation of the spirit of rock and punk and attitude alive and well in the city. Or the Red Propellers are as haunted by their musical past as this album is haunting. Risk the sea slugs and side streets for the joy of electronic guitar oblivion and pulverising punk poetry held together with… well I’ve no idea. Liquid drums and gaff tape, moody keyboards, bits of string and narcotics, I assume. Cross the yellow line and feel the apocalyptic pain narcotic stain. It’ll do you good. At least, it hasn’t done me any harm. In fact I rather like it. You were there and then you were gone.

 

 

Johnny Sea Slug Brainstorm

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GENTLE IHOR’S DEVOTION: BEYOND NAKED

 

We are sipping cappuccino’s sitting in the sunshine outside the ‘Capri’ coffee house, which is located between the Pizza Take-Away and the Estate Agents on High Street, Horbury, West Yorkshire.

Ivor Tymchak is a stylish dresser, with a penchant for sharp hats. He talks enthusiastically, ranging in a literate way from subject to subject, with a wealth of intriguing opinions on everything from the Dada artists in 1917 Zurich to the heavyweight literature of Herman Hesse and Philip K Dick, from the evils of capitalism to the cool sounds of the Chemical Brothers. There are plenty of ineffectuals in today’s music world, and not a lot of intellectuals. Ivor helps fills the cleverness quota.

‘What kind of thing is your editor after?’ he genially enquires, ‘Weird? Outrageous? Existential?’

Just be yourself, Ivor…

‘Ah, so weird, outrageous and existential it is then…’

Back in 1991 when the Gentle Ihor’s Devotion 45rpm twelve-inch single ‘Naked’ was ‘Melody Maker’ single of the week – kinda Rock, kinda Goth, they were the Wakefield power trio who elevated the Clarence Park free festival into the stratosphere. Now lead singer and writer Ivor operates largely solo, but with inputs from Nigel Goodwin and Chris Olley in a renewed phase. He played a support gig at the Leeds Brudenell Club supporting Spear Of Destiny, a charismatic frontman with a talent for drama, he wields a brolly to lethal effect on what he terms the ‘seething Punk energy’ of ‘Battle Song’ – ‘sirens are calling,  & storm troops are forming, & watch-towers are burning, for our war is coming.’

As part of the same set, he updates the talk-rap ‘Naked’ with new reference-points, ‘imagine a world where clothes didn’t exist, there’s no hiding behind power dressing.’ ‘The lyrics of ‘Naked’ are timeless and the riff is so hypnotic and uncompromising that it still has power thirty years later’ he offers. ‘I’ve tweaked a couple of references to make the lyrics topical but that’s all, the rest of it is still the original, raw, tell-it-like-it-is, honesty.’

The band’s recent resurgence has yielded two impressive digital albums, ‘We Entered The Vortex Of Desire’, a compilation of new and remixed tracks, then ‘Quatrain Terminus’ recorded at Rockfield Studios in a stripped-back moog-&-drums setting, with the reworked version of ‘Naked’. What was it like recording at the legendary Rockfield Studio, where Dave Edmunds, Queen and Wakefield’s own BeBop Deluxe had worked? ‘It was a bit like hanging around in the same airport that many other famous people had hung around.’ There wasn’t a sense of sacred awe? ‘Not for me, I’m too much of a realist. Sacred awe doesn’t improve your own recordings!’

On the former album, ‘Acid Daze (Olley Mix)’ is a kind of electro flashback to the psychedelia of ‘Eight Miles High’, ‘Dark Star’ and Timothy Leary. It starts off with pinging cymbal, driven on steady machine-rhythms and splintering guitars, ‘fields of fire bloom with strawberry haze, from along the watchtower, a hurdy gurdy plays.’ The shivery guitar is more upfront on the Chris (Six By Seven) Olley mix, with crashing walls of trippy consciousness-raising reverberation. ‘‘Acid Daze’ is a good example of my approach to lyric writing. I have a fondness for psychedelia, so when I came up with a slow, lazy riff I decided to make the song about that era. I tried to pull in as many references to psychedelia as I could, especially references from other songs about it. I like to be clever with my wordplay. ‘Seeing for miles and miles through the holes in my shoes’ was a satisfying composition. Personally, I think ‘Acid Daze’ is one of my best songs, it transports me to another world.’

He has other gears. ‘Callin’ On You’ was ignited by the discovery of a raw Blues guitar riff, built on sampled harmonica into a rumbling choogling boogie, with a video atmospherically steeped in images of rural Delta poverty, ‘there’s blackness in my story, tattooed with the Blues.’ ‘It’s a Blues song with a reference to a midnight train… what’s not to like?’ he travelogues.

It creates a very effective juxtaposition, with the raw Blues feeling… delivered in Ivor’s very white articulate voice. ‘And thanks for pointing out the juxtaposition. You always forget what’s right under your nose. Although I did try to allude to the appropriation in the lyrics, ‘once I stole a fashion and a blueprint for some shoes’ – these were blue suede shoes in my mind.’ Elvis stole ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ from Carl Perkins anyway, so that makes perfect sense.

The harmonica player is good. But can Ivor afford him…? ‘Not really. A few favours had to be called in.’

So, is it a sample? ‘Ah, the person who supplied the sounds made me promise not to tell anyone where they came from. The sounds were so good – and as far as I’m aware, he can tailor the sounds specifically for a track, so I agreed to his terms. I hope you understand?’

He sounds like an interesting contact to make. But also sounds suspiciously like Artificial Intelligence to me! ‘It does sound like AI, doesn’t it. The reason he’s so cagey with it is that he’s a songwriter and it currently gives him an edge over other songwriters. A bit like the early adopters of satnavs, they could find the short cuts when traffic jams occurred. Now everyone is in the same jam… Hmm, that sounds like a song lyric…’

Early adaptors are the bleeding edge of evolution. ‘Haha, I’m guessing ‘adaptors’ wasn’t a typo.’ No, adaptors. Those who adapt.

Can I quote you on all this? ‘Yes. AI plays the Blues is a good headline…!’

— 0 —

Meanwhile, back in days past, ‘‘Melody Maker journalists Simon Price and Dave Simpson both loved the ‘Naked’ single so it was gratifying to read about it in the national music press’ he recalls. This is around the time they were being favourably mentioned in the same paragraph as Sisters Of Mercy. ‘When Beaumont Street studios in Huddersfield got wind of the interest in it, they offered to record a dance version of the track and Nige played some of the best guitar I’d ever heard him produce in the studio. Stupidly, I didn’t ask for a tape demo of the recording after the session so when the studio went up in flames taking the master tape with it, the entire project was lost.’

‘As a band we were always difficult to classify’ he admits. ‘As we used a drum machine some people assumed we were Goth, and as I liked Goth music I didn’t particularly mind but my own influences were heavy rock. I loved Wishbone Ash, Deep Purple, The Doors, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin etc. When ‘Naked’ broke into the music industry’s consciousness, they didn’t know what to make of it. Today, it would fit perfectly alongside Sleaford Mods, Yard Act and Dry Cleaning. Being decades ahead of the times is a tragedy, as often the work slips by unnoticed.’

‘Eddie Tempest was the keyboard player and he’s in Cornwall now’ he continues. ‘Nigel Goodwin was the musical genius behind the band, a brilliant lead guitarist but he also played bass and programmed the drum machine. Alcohol was his demon and he’s now in a nursing home slowly losing his memory and identity. I really miss him. We made a great team. He once told me the ideas I came up with were deliciously eccentric, ideas he’d never have thought of. A lot of my ideas derive from literature as well as personal experience. I spend a lot of time on my lyrics. I think they’re important. I write stories too. I used to read a lot of mystical stuff in my youth – Herman Hesse, Timothy Leary, Ram Das. I now prefer sci-fi, thrillers and detective stories.’

‘Ask me a couple of questions to get me started’ he suggests, leaning back in the chair. So, talk about the band’s ubiquitous logo that features the kind of Spartan hoplite featured in ‘The 300’ movie. ‘As a teenager I read ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’ and I was taken by the way people and things were described, ‘the wine-dark sea, man-killing Hector’ etc’ muses Ivor. ‘I imagined if I were a character in those stories I’d be called Gentle Ihor, so Gentle Ihor’s Devotion had an Ancient Greek influence. I did an ink drawing of the Hoplite when I was in my twenties. I think I used it this time round to disabuse anyone thinking my music was in any way gentle, especially as I’ve grown older.’

His ‘Psalm 151: Unplugged’ – check it out on YouTube, takes on an autobiographical tone of corrupted innocence, ‘a simple story of a young country boy who makes his way to the city after being told that only there can he find artistic and personal fulfilment – THAT’S A LIE!, but he believed it anyway,’ delivered with vehement old testament vitriol. It’s a new-age old-time vision of apocalyptic hellfire and damnation to chill and excite the soul with a frisson of retribution. It builds with teasing innovation, cheeky in its deliberate game-play subterfuge and crammed with energies more natural than artificial. This is a song that serves notice to the Pop world in general that Gentle Ihor’s Devotion are moving up a gear, and that this is a band to listen to with sharpened scrutiny.

For the ‘Quatrain Terminus’ album, sidestepping Goth, there’s a stripped-back Minimoog to provide techno-mechanical DAF-style bass-lines for Charlie to throw thunderous Ludwig drums at, while Ivor delivers menacingly honest intonations, it’s almost a return to simpler times… a Moog synth, a virtuoso live drummer and an angry man commenting on the state of the world. ‘Kill Them All’ starts out by taking a subterfuge of relentless electro to list the ‘thylacine, the great Auk, the Pyrenean Ibex, the Cape Verde Great skink, the quagga’ as species on the extinction list, before moving on to the ‘arms dealer, terrorist, trainspotter, paedophile, pornographer, pedestrian.’ Again, irony is lethally employed with theatrical precision to devastating effect. Ivor has a useful adage that runs, ‘Art is a specimen jar containing the emotions that subconsciously frighten us.’

‘Many people have told me my voice is highly distinctive and a classically trained actor once told me I had natural timing in my intonation’ he muses. ‘Rap is probably where I should have concentrated my efforts. ‘Kill Them All’ signals the direction I’m probably going to take, spoken word mixed with musical phrases delivering a message. I’ve recently become fascinated by Bob Dylan’s lyrics. He’s a bit like Nostradamus, clever at saying things that allow limitless interpretations. I like that. And the thing about being creative without any expectation of a career is that it makes you unpredictable and dangerous. I can do anything. I needn’t worry too much if people don’t like it. Maybe in decades to come, the world will finally appreciate what I’m doing today.’

Cappuccino’s are cooling as we sit outside the ‘Capri’ coffee house in Horbury, West Yorkshire. ‘I got the sense we had too much to talk about’ he concludes after some forty-five minutes of wide-ranging discussion. ‘I tend to go for a walk every day so we could make a peripatetic interview if you like. Although it might be hard to write. Perhaps you have a little recorder? But no, it’s no surprise we didn’t cover the simple things.’

 

 

BY ANDREW DARLINGTON

 

GENTLE IHOR’S DEVOTION: WHILE AI PLAYS THE BLUES

 

‘Naked’ c/w ‘Seekers Of Oblivion’ (1991 Org Records ORG001, vinyl 45rpm twelve-inch single, and Life! Records, single-sided cassette)

‘The Dream Ended’ (Life! Records, single-sided Cassette)

Played the Clarence Park Free Festival, August 1992. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlaC17HKdqE

Damn! Damn! Damn!’ (Tug Records TUGO18, German label) with ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’, ‘Big Machine’, ‘Man Of God’, ‘Profit & Loss’, ‘Baby Cry’, ‘Move On’, ‘Good Time To Die’, ‘Naked’, ‘Accept’ plus live tracks ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’, ‘Man Of God’, ‘Naked’, ‘Sex Junkie’, ‘Twentieth Century’

Gentle Ihor’s Devotion’ (Own label black-shell cassette edition) with ‘Sex Junkie’, ‘The Game’, ‘I’ve Fallen In Love With A Picture Again’ and ‘Songs And Dances’

We Entered The Vortex Of Desire’ (2023, digital) compilation of new and remixed tracks, ‘Battle Song’ 3:49, ‘My Ship Is On Fire (The Charlie Olley Mix) 4:12, ‘Going Back To Brownhills’ 4:29, ‘On The Move’ 5:35, ‘We’re Just Waiting’ 3:29, ‘As You Slept’ 3:17, ‘Acid Daze (Olley Mix) 4:40, ‘Acid Daze’ 4:20, ‘My Ship Is On Fire’ 4:05, ‘Seekers Of Oblivion’ (remix) 3:55, ‘Go With Him’ 4:51, ‘Forbidden Verses’ 4:06, ‘Mayday (Feel Like An Alien)’ 4:28, ‘The Fall’ 3:34, ‘Whole Lotta Voodoo’ 3:04, ‘Hard Left Collective – Hard Left (Molotov Mix)’ 2:42, ‘The Hard Left Collective – Hard Left’ 2:46, ‘Snow’ 4:05

‘Kill Them All’ (February 2023, digital single)

Quatrain Terminus’ (2023, digital) recorded at Rockfield Studios in a stripped-back moog-&-drums setting, with ‘Naked’ 6:24, ‘Go With Him’ 5:24, ‘Walking To The Gallows’ 5:24, ‘Put Your Phones Away’ 5:06, ‘Profit & Loss’ 6:14, ‘Kill Them All’ 6:00, ‘Monoculture Future’ 5:50, ‘Repetition’ 3:54

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiKcBS1WsagTpZiShjmuWOQ

 

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OUR DARKEST SECRET

Ding! She was zesty – gorgeous – original
One of the must-haves of the season
Bo-ho chic smart-dolly crochet hat
Foot-stomping go-go power razor laugh
Free range legs in-yer-face gags and gaiety
What’s the mood there?
Powerful conflicting emotions
Far out and way up: talk us through that
Really that performance was the edge of freedom
Hit the dance floor, take stock test the limits
Intercept our suspect – kiss and run
An out-of-this-world experience.

Tell us a little more
Ding! I don’t think so
How much more do we know?
Well… let’s be clear
The indicators at this time show
It’s still a challenge no doubt about it
We’ll be giving it our best shot
Look! See! Nice! (canned laughter)

So profoundly moving, our darkest secret
Well, let’s face it; what happens next?
Ziiip! Twang! Whoosh!
Searing scenes and candid comments
Continuous flashing images.
Pow! Yes! What a moment!
Exciting! Exciting!
This is really hard to watch.

You get my drift?
Ding! So perverse and bewildering
A very difficult balancing act
But still the hot favourite
Posing with a retro arcade machine
They’re watching and they’re waiting
And it’s not over yet
Make it magical an absolute gem!
A life-changing encounter for all.
So we couldn’t be more excited than that.
We’re on it! Let’s do it! Yeah how?
Have a great evening, bye bye.

 

 

 

A.C. Evans

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A Swiss Revolution

  

 

A Junkie Army on the march, all scabs and skank and corroded teeth,
slopped along from Letten Station, from Needle Park, pausing to dance and piss across the Rathaus marble, then on, caving in windows so the dejected masterpieces of asset art could be taken out and set on fire.

In the Malatesta Bar, a blissful intellectual life passed as usual, the barricade of languages so lightly amused and adrift in the disarming nicotine weather.
The bartender flipped a glass ashtray into the middle of the floor and made a joke.

Brief, unexpected, incomprehensible
Zurich rising,
Zurich falling asleep.

N.B. – The Malatesta Bar is now long gone but was a pleasant place to drink and eat in the mid-1990s, popular with people working in film and theatre. On the day of the riot, it might have escaped damage due to being named after Errico Malatesta, the Italian anarchist who had been expelled from many countries, including Switzerland. Heathcote Williams wrote a film script about him, which was also the first film he acted in. In the film, Malatesta is organising an anarchist group in London and opposes the use of violence in their actions.

The poem is  from Silenian Odes a chapbook collection published by Cold Turkey Press, April 2023.

 

Jay Jones

 

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I Love the Smell of Napalm in the Morning

 

Just like those rumours of rogue commandos who never got word of the end of the war, and who’d sometimes be glimpsed, snake-eyed and foam-lipped, glaring from the edge of the wild; so there are those who missed the memo about the Renaissance and still cling on to the eleventh century, with its feudal imperatives and impractical robes. There they are, processing between pillars in the heart of the sinking city, swaggering on a balcony to wave at the homeless and the foodbank queues, sweating with the weight of archaic regalia and honours they’ve graciously bestowed on themselves. And then they’re gone, half-way round the world, to some sun-scorched island they still believe is theirs; and we wonder if we really saw them, and if they were even here at all, and if the Renaissance was just fake news and we have never really understood perspective.

 

 

 

Oz Hardwick
Picture nick Victor

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SAUSAGE Life 270

 

Bird Guano’s
SAUSAGE LIFE
The column which uses a periscope even when it isn’t underwater 

READER: Why the long face?
MYSELF:  I’m getting into character.
READER: Gosh, that sounds interesting, what for?
MYSELF:  I’m rehearsing for a part in the High Dudgeon Repertory Company’s production of Warhorse actually.
READER: Really? Are you playing one of the horses? I thought they were all done with puppets.
MYSELF:  No, I’m playing Nelson, the Giant Anteater who saves the life of Staff Sergeant Billy Wagstaff after he is captured by Germans. The “horses” will all perform behind huge screens, as the High Dudgeon Repertory Company’s budget will not stretch to puppets, or scenery.
READER: As an experienced actor of note, isn’t it a little demeaning playing an Anteater?
MYSELF: Not at all. I once portrayed a tortoise in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Compared to that, playing the part of an Anteater is like playing Othello. You should come to the opening night of Warhorse, it’s right up your street.
READER: I’d love to! But High Dudgeon? Where exactly is that?
MYSELF:  It’s just before you get to Beyondenden.

SPACE RACE LATEST
Discoverator II, the £40million Upper Dicker space probe is “doing very well” according to Captain Rob Dulle, chief spokesman for the East Sussex Community Space Exploration Forum (ESCSEF). The probe, which launched in February, is constructed entirely from stolen bicycle parts and is currently travelling at 500,000 miles per hour on a trajectory which, once it has achieved escape velocity , will result in a voyage of discovery unprecedented in modern-day community-based space exploration.
“We hope to establish an orbit around Seepsterboo,” said Dulle, “an earth-like planet on the outskirts of constellation K99-7H, a small parallel universe three light years from here”.
“We suspect that on this planet, Boris Johnson is a mild-mannered reporter with no discernible superpowers working for a great metropolitan newspaper. Wearing thick horn-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses and a blonde wig, he is constantly in amorous pursuit of Priti Patel, the glamourous newshound with a secret super-identity: Wombat Woman.”  
When pressed, Dulle admitted: “Obviously this theory is based on a great deal of speculation which, if proved to be true, could set the baffling world of non-existent particle physics on fire. Not literally of course.”
The probe is expected to reach K99-7H by 2252, by which time, according to Dulle, the global economy will be controlled by a Korean drug syndicate based in Sunderland. “Its influence will stretch far beyond the region” he continued, “and be powerful enough to have the cities of London and Paris relocated to China”.
“New York will be under a sheet of solid ice over three kilometres thick, and will eventually become the permanent venue for the Winter Olympics.”
Halting abruptly, Captain Dulle smiled, reached into his pocket and retrieved a pack of playing cards, from which we were invited to “Pick a card. Any card. Now put it back. Don’t show me.” At this point we were quietly approached by two white-coated men who very politely asked us to leave, so that trained ESCSEF nurses could administer the captain’s medication.

BOOM BANGA BANG
With the stupidest title in pop history, Dummy Dummy Dummy Dummy by the reformed Imaginary Chairleg, will be this year’s British entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. Thought to be a potential outright winner, the throbbing, massively loud anthem was described by Mojo as “Deafeningly pointless” and “A triumph of no style over no substance”.  After declaring that the band’s royalties would be donated to charity, it defied all odds by beating Uber-Pop gender neutral band Massive Haddock’s I Can’t Stand Up For Sitting Down during the qualifying rounds, Minus deductions for lunch, travel, fireworks, spangled pyjamas, corporate entertaining and class A drugs, all proceeds from Eurovision and subsequent sales of the Dummy Dummy Dummy Dummy single will go to Guard Dogs For The Rich.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S CREAM
Dedicated science boffins working through the night with sometimes only mice or spiders to eat, have suggested that there may be a link between dressing up and excessive alcohol consumption. In response to this, Hastings’ inventor extraordinaire, Professor Gordon Thinktank, has patented Scurvy, an anti-pirate cream, which he claims will curb the obsessive urge to clap a patch over one eye, daub some eyeliner on the other, get drunk and shout at people. The unique formula, made from unpasteurised feta cheese, yams and a secret ingredient he calls Arr, will, when rubbed into the temples, produce a profound feeling of soporific tranquillity, allowing the user to experience an idyllic nirvana, far from the hedonistic temptations of antisocial dressing up.

ONE ARMED BANDIT
A new study by Cockmarlin-based radical right wing thinktank The New Institute for Going Forwarder proposes that Admiral of the Fleet Lord Horatio Nelson, having lost one eye in Corsica during the Napoleonic Wars, would have been unable to properly enjoy today’s 3D films even when wearing the provided glasses. It is also thought that due to his renowned parsimony – (he would often claim “Alas, regrettably I have left my duckets in my other breeches”) – the premium 3D admission price would have stuck in the great sailor’s craw as he watched what was, to him, just a regular 2D film. Following this, the study claims, his unpredictable temperament could very easily have led him to bombard the cinema with heavy cannon fire from a flotilla of warships anchored just offshore.
According to the institute however, his numerical arm deficiency might well have worked to his advantage today. Playing tennis would still be difficult of course, particularly when serving, but modern AI prophylactics could have provided Horatio with a distinct benefit when it came to playing games like billiards, where a steady cueing technique is crucial. Or darts, which only requires one arm.

 

Sausage Life!

 

 

Click image to connect. Alice’s Crazy Moon is an offbeat monthly podcast hosted by Alice Platt (BBC, Soho Radio) with the help of roaming reporter Bird Guano a.k.a Colin Gibson (Comic Strip Presents, Sausage Life). Each episode will centre around a different topic chosen by YOU the listener! The show is eclectic mix of music, facts about the artists and songs and a number of surrealistic and bizarre phone-ins and commercials from Bird Guano. Not forgetting everyones favourite poet, Big Pillow!

NB: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A PAID SUBSCRIPTION TO SPOTIFY, THE SONGS WILL BE OF RESTRICTED LENGTH

JACK POUND: JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUN READER aka PASS THE INSTANT YOGA

 

 



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Celebrating Slavery at the Recombinant Royal Crowning

The Coronation of King Charles 111 will be remembered, if indeed it is remembered, for the pronouncement by the Archbishop of Canterbury a few days before the event, that people watching on television and on the streets should pay homage to the new King by shouting their pledge of support at the moment the King makes his Coronation Oath.

The Archbishop’s recommendation, as published in the mainstream press, states:
‘All who so desire, in the Abbey, and elsewhere, say together: ‘I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.’

The extraordinary irony of this call is based on the fact that the Coronation Oath is the moment when the King is supposed to pledge his unstinting commitment to protecting the liberties and traditions of his people and nation. Particularly relevant under the current vicious attacks on civil liberties.

The Archbishop thus deftly reversed the roles. By placing the emphasis on the people pledging their support to the monarch, rather than the monarch pledging his support to the people, he gave Charles’s highly controversial leadership role with the World Economic Forum a significant boost.

The WEF’s ‘Great Reset’, as we well know by now, is not about supporting human liberties and national values, but about totally destroying them and dismantling the Nation State in favour of a technocratic and robotic New World Order.

The head of the Church of England thus publicly introduced a treasonous and satanic element into the royal ceremony which seemed to perfectly fit the actuality of the sinister power game in which royalty, the church, corporations and government are so deeply engrossed.

The ritualistic Coronation ceremony, which took place on May 6th, exhibited all the usual well rehearsed promotional paraphernalia that one expects from this show piece of British military discipline.

As the entourage of royal celebrities and foreign dignitaries made its way down The Mall, the crowds lining the route celebrated their slavery to the globalist agenda via mindless, almost hysterical adoration of many of its chief proponents. Coupled with an unhealthy and perhaps subconscious homage to the British class system.

Royalty’s wealth is built on the exploitation of ‘the working people’. Yet, Charles is held to be a ‘people’s king’ because, in carefully choreographed publicity exercises, he can go to the pub and enjoy a pint with the locals.

‘The firm’ that manages royalty knows a great show is a welcome diversion from the ever increasing strictures of the surveillance state; the sliding economy; the crumbling National Health Service; the political sleaze and endless rhetoric of lies that come from Westminster – all of which are anaesthetized by a grand spectacle.

Not to mention the tragic increase in ‘sudden deaths’ amongst the 80% of the British population who decided to take the weaponised ‘vaccine’ and the overall sense that Britain is sinking into oblivion – and more literally – into the Atlantic Ocean.

A great ‘outer show’ nearly always disguises an equally great inner lack. A loss of direction and meaning and a beguiling deception perpetrated on those who actually see royal figureheads as ‘great people’ serving the nation and upholding its honourable traditions.

Oh dear, how much further from reality can things go?

British royalty has a way of richly endorsing crimes against humanity, provided they serve ‘the cause’. Charles’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, bestowed a knighthood on Klaus Schwab at Davos in 2006, via attendee Jack Straw, a British parliamentarian.

‘Arise Sir Klaus, and do thy deadly deeds with the blessings of Her Majesty.’

Just as was done earlier for George Bush, General Norman Schwarzkopf and most recently (by King Charles,) Pascal Soriot, director of AstraZeneca. All individuals at the very forefront of large scale adventures in mass murder.

There is a low vibrational, primitive and insidious darkness that underlies the fake regal demeanour of modern royals. They are all in service to the court of Mammon, while outwardly displaying the facade of ‘good Christians’.

It is this dark hypocrisy that was being celebrated at the Coronation ceremony on May 6th. Exactly the same ‘shape shifting’ artfulness which is being practised by all members of the ‘elite club’ which presently controls this planet.

If only the the adoring crowds waving their plastic red, white and blue flags along the ceremonial route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Cathedral could see the deception, rather than the superficial splendour.

How long will it be before the greater part of humanity learns to recognise the difference between the seductive play of the Satanic, and the true expression of responsible statesmanship?

 

Julian Rose

 

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer and international activist.
He is President of the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and author of ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’ See www.julianrose.info

 

 

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Zephyr Sounds Sunday Sermon No. 121

Steam Stock

Tracklist:
Blue Mitchell – Good Humour Man
Emma-Jean Thackeray – Say Something
Minnie Riperton – Everytime He Comes Around
Outkast – Prototype
Childish Gambino – Me and Your Mama?
Gil-Scott Heron – Angel Dust (The Reflex Revision)
Erykah Badu – Tyrone
Steely Dan – Black Cow
Ella Fitzgerald – Gloomy Sunday
Freddie Hubbard – Backlash
James Brown – Doing the Best I Can
Lee Dorsey and Betty Harris – Love Lots of Lovin

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SAUSAGE Life 269

Bird Guano’s
SAUSAGE LIFE
If anyone wants me I’ll be in The Horse, as the dog said to the little old lady who’d swallowed a fly

READER: So what are you doing during the Coronation and Royal Anointment?

MYSELF: I gather this is the first time they’ve anointed in public. I don’t know how I’m going to cope with the excitement. I thought I might pretend that HRH Charles III is the new Doctor Who, and hide behind the sofa.

READER: Really? With your connections I assumed you’d have a ringside seat.

MYSELF: If I never see another jar of sacred royal ointment again it will be too soon.

READER: You may scoff, but did you know that the royal and ancient coronation ointment is made by Freemasons from a secret blend of sperm whale essence, concentrated sasquatch, extract of spinach and holy water from the well of the crying statue in Killarney?

MYSELF: You surprise me.

READER(Shouting): THE ANOINTING IS NORMALLY DONE BY BLINDFOLDED TIBETAN MONKS BEHIND A PURPLE CURTAIN!

MYSELF: I take your point, but why are you shouting?

READER: SORRY! THERE’S A MAN OUTSIDE WITH A DRILL!… ah ok… it’s stopped now.

MYSELF: I expect you’ll be out camping on the Mall tonight. Not for the first time I hear.

READER (shouting): PARDON?….WHAT?…. SORRY? THE DRILL’S STARTED UP AGAIN!

MYSELF (shouting): I said God Save The King

READER (shouting): AND ALL WHO SAIL IN HER!

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PATENT NONSENSE
Prolific local inventor professor Gordon Thinktank has applied for patents on the following inventions:

  1. A perforated umbrella for people who like walking in the rain.
  2. A blunt knife for stabbing friends
  3. An electric kettle with no element, for making iced tea.

WHAT THE LOCAL PAPERS SAY
A new series featuring random excerpts from regional publications in the South East 

UMBRELLA BLAMED FOR GAS TRAGEDY
A Cockmarlin man, who cannot be identified because of his mother’s connection with Pressbutton4, a religious sect which worships 1950s red telephone boxes, has been charged with masterminding a complex pyramid scheme designed to embezzle thousands of pounds from a charity sponsoring a spelling competition for overprivileged children from all over the UK.

Harry “Bongo” Tuttenhurst (43), the stilt-walking clown who regularly busks outside Sidcup railway station, claimed in his defence that he was using the money to fund WAKO, an Australian right wing think-tank in Gecko Falls, New South Wales, which promotes the idea that arm wrestling is the true path to spiritual enlightenment.
The Sidcup Bugle

BADGER BAITS MAN
A minor crisis was averted when villagers rallied round after being alerted to a major blockage in the catering-sized teapot employed by the Upper Dicker Women’s Institute Bowling and Crochet Club during their annual meeting at Lower Dicker Masonic Lodge. “It was lovely seeing everyone pull together,” commented retired fitness coach Wendy Carthorse (93), “it reminded me of the atmosphere during the London Blitz, except without the incendiary bombs and the rationing”.
To everyone’s relief, the guilty teabag was soon fished out and disposed of by the Upper Dicker Fire Brigade who arrive within minutes. Detectives from Upper Dicker constabulary’s forensic team later established that on the basis of available evidence it was likely that the teabag had become wedged in the entry to the teapot spout during pouring, causing the flow of tea to diminish to a trickle.
The Upper Dicker Examiner 

RELIGION “BUNK” ADMITS POPE (See page4)
First an apology from the editor:
Regrettably, the recent front-page story in this newspaper warning of a catastrophic invasion of flesh-eating zombies here in Beyondenden, left our high journalistic standards wanting. This invasion, we warned our readers, could result in 50,000 angry, hungry corpses descending on the town. We understand that on our advice, many of you built elaborate, secure shelters and stockpiled food, weapons and ammunition in order to protect your families from mobs of vicious marauding undead cannibals. We offer readers our humble and unconditional apologies, in the sincere hope that your cherished loyalty will remain undiminished, and that in the future you will continue to believe every word this great newspaper publishes, regardless of the tragic unintended consequences of this inadvertent misinformation.
Zac Rhumba, editor-in-chief
The Beyondenden Chronicle 

CARP SHORTAGE HITS HOUSE PRICES
Torville Wellington, a French poodle clipper of no fixed abode, was remanded in custody, accused of being in possession of illegally acquired items; namely three billiard balls (one red, two white) which, it is alleged, he removed from the Temperance Billiard Hall, Chiddingly. He was arrested after police spotted him outside wearing a coldstream guardsman’s helmet under which he was attempting to conceal the balls.
The Chiddingly Tricycle

LOCAL ELECTION SHOCK
British Gravy Train candidate Ron Gravy has blamed last Thurday’s disastrous showing for Upper Dicker (East), on his radical plans to have all Upper Dicker public entrance and exit signs rewritten in Welsh. “There simply weren’t enough Welsh people,” he told a disappointed meeting of Upper Dicker & Cockmarlin Signwriter’s Guild, “which, with the benefit of hindsight, was a considerable flaw. I can only apologise, as my honest and pure intention was to stand up for you, the austerity-hit signwriters of Upper Dicker (East) for whom I was, until yesterday, a proud representative. My plan was deceptively simple. The Welsh word for entrance is Pwellygohgollygoh, and the word for exit is Eisteddicarephyllycmwr”.
“Unfortunately this plan – which would not only have ensured 50-75% more annual income for the signwriter and his poor starving children, but would also have provided a much-needed boost for the struggling paint industry – failed to take into account the significant absence of Welsh-speakers in the ward.”
Dyfrd Cllrwdr, the one Welsh-speaking Welshman in Upper Dicker (East) was disqualified from voting because his photo ID did not contain enough vowels.

 

 

Sausage Life!

Click image to connect. Alice’s Crazy Moon is an offbeat monthly podcast hosted by Alice Platt (BBC, Soho Radio) with the help of roaming reporter Bird Guano a.k.a Colin Gibson (Comic Strip Presents, Sausage Life). Each episode will centre around a different topic chosen by YOU the listener! The show is eclectic mix of music, facts about the artists and songs and a number of surrealistic and bizarre phone-ins and commercials from Bird Guano. Not forgetting everyones favourite poet, Big Pillow!

NB: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A PAID SUBSCRIPTION TO SPOTIFY, THE SONGS WILL BE OF RESTRICTED LENGTH

JACK POUND: JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUN READER aka PASS THE INSTANT YOGA

 

 



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Te Deum Traffic Cones

Another day seized, my body transported, my world transformed
Choking in the headlamps, I drive and follow my dream of freedom
We are the clowns with cones for the pot-holed nation
I’m living in a world of eight billion people & 1.4 billion cars
And in England, 35 million cars and 60 billion traffic cones

On every road I drive these innocent creatures nudge and stare
They are our nations’ skeletons and bones
So many signs, diversions, roads closed;
I cannot find the road less travelled
With cars, trucks and buses before, beside and behind

Hemmed in on every side in my mobile Cathedral
I listen to the archbishop and priests conducting the parade
The King, blessed with holy water, is given a crown
Glittering jewels on his head for his Coronation Anthems

Our procession trickles down the road and I watch
Red and white cones guiding, from beginning to the very end

 

Christopher
 
 
 
 
 
 
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God Will Not Save The King


 

GOD WILL NOT SAVE THE KING

                                                                              Here’s some new stuff I’ve been working on

 

Today I went for a little trip around London’s transport network and everywhere I went I found loads of these tube ads. Really weird! Hope TFL manage to remove them all in time for the coronation tomorrow.

But for some reason it reminded me how this morning I put the finishing touches to the below print editions. I really like how these have come out, an improvement on my beheaded Queen stamps I think. Proper stamp-sized ones of these are in the pipeline, but if you’d like a decent sized print for the wall you can get one here.


I also still have the God Will Not Save the King coins, as well some of the misprinted coins that have a dead king and queen on each side.

 

JUST STOP OIL AT THE SNOOKER

A quick one I painted the other week inspired by Just Stop Oil demonstration at the snooker.

Something worth considering for the armchair strategists who disapprove of these tactics: look up the tactics of the Suffragettes. Not just when they chained themselves to railings and jumped in front of a racehorse, I mean all the tactics. Look at how they burned down churches, poured ink into post boxes, fought police in the streets, set fire to moving trains and interfered with rail signals to try and cause crashes, threw an axe at the prime minister. Ask yourself if you would have supported the Suffragettes *at the time*, rather than from the comfort of the present where we can rest assured the campaign was just & effective. I would have even struggled with it, as I have with some climate actions. But on balance, the scale of the injustice at hand requires interventions that disrupt normal life. How can you have a normal society when half the population are denied human rights? How can you have a normal society that runs on fuels that will end organised human life on earth?

Direct actions like this and throwing soup at paintings are the desperate attempts of passengers trying to shake the driver awake as their foot weighs down on the accelerator.

I’m obviously not saying everything has to be about climate all the time, by any means. But the coming catastrophe will affect and maybe destroy every pleasurable or diverting thing we enjoy. So rather than getting mad at the people trying to warn us (and pressure our government to take action that will, in turn, save things like paintings and snooker from destruction) why not thank them, or even better, join them.

Because it’s not like environmental campaigners haven’t tried non-disruptive tactics, petitions and letter-writing and standing outside buildings with banners. We tried that, and the people who came before us tried that, for decades, and fossil fuel investment only expanded.

 

HELL BIKE @ THE BIG ONE

The Hell Bike I designed for Fossil Free London got plenty of action last weekend at The Big One demos outside Parliament. It had a great reaction at the protest and I was really happy to see it in its stationary and marching modes. The banners are retractable depending on what the bike is being used for (and how windy it is). I wanted to make something that is as versatile as possible for all the different types of actions and protests it will be needed on, as it’s not just a straight-up art thing, it actually needs to be useful!

                              As for the Hell Bus I hope to have some news about that in the coming weeks…


Was also really happy to see Jeremy Corbyn posted a photo of the bike on his Instagram yesterday 🙂

 

BREAK GLASS IN CLIMATE EMERGENCY



Please don’t stick these stickers on digital ad spaces (which use the same amount of electricity every day as three UK households)! Available at cost price here.

 

DEATH STAR

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ACAB JUMBO SIZE EMBROIDERRED PATCHES

 

A few people had asked about me making other things with the ACAB/SEGA logo on but I figured the easiest and least wasteful way to do it was by making some extra large embroiderred patches that could be added to existing stuff.

 

So if you want to revive an old jacket, backpack or top hat, you can order one of these here.

 

 

 


“THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE”

Posted the below text on my Instagram before the English local elections yesterday

Don’t forget to vote for your favourite flavour of Tory tomorrow!

I’ll be voting Green in a solid Tory Red council so I’m not exactly expecting to budge the needle. But at the very least I’ll sleep soundly knowing my vote won’t be going to the Labour Right’s neoliberal, racist, war-hungry political project for the promotion of revolving-door briefcase dickheads who dream of nothing more than getting second jobs at privatised utilities firms or as advisors to gambling companies.

These are people who have nothing but contempt for everything I believe in, people who have spent the last 8 years actively sabotaging the best chance we had in a lifetime of ending neoliberalism, reducing inequality and actually improving society, and all just so they could get back to business-as-usual, crackdowns, austerity and privatisation and back-slaps with the Tory press, nodding along with all their hysterical “genuine concerns” hate campaigns about refugees or Muslims or trans people or the “woke-left” or whoever the next Enemy Within is.

And now if you don’t like any of this and are considering maybe not rewarding these pricks with your vote, according to Lib-Dem voting centrists in my Twitter replies I’m a ‘Tory enabler’? No, fuck them.

If you have good Labour councillors, then vote for them. But don’t vote Tory, no matter which party they’re in.

Just today Starmer announced he was scrapping his pledge to end tuition fees. He has nothing but contempt for us and we should show him the same in return.
“Get the Tories Out” also applies to Starmer.

Prints of this image are available from my website shop.

 

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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Response to ‘Little Red Cap’ by Carol Ann Duffy


The day you left, you went out to the woods,
past the white picket fence, and over the dormant tracks in a trance.
I cried that day,
‘cause I missed my little girl –
was afraid you’d become dead meat; prey
to a Romeo, proclaiming his verse to seemingly you
only you, and yet
he goes howling up at a different moon
every Thursday night.


On this particular Thursday he’d spot you,
newly flown from the nest,
wearing your heart out on your chest – he’s looking
for a little fox;
all too willing to say she’s done this before.
But I know you;
I bade you never touch a drop of that demon drink
because it’s more trouble than you’ll ever begin to think.


Look at you, infatuated by poetry,
it’s a perilous path, a slippery slope,
that will lead to blood red weals on your chest.
He’ll say he’s teaching you an art, a skill at best,
but he’s wrong.
I say he’ll eat you up, breakfast in bed,
like a fledgeling pup –
you’re a bite to him –
your tight-fitting red blazer a mere side dish,
concealing the main course within.


My dear, you must fight back –
ransack his shack, hack at his hair;
learn what needs to be learnt.
Darling, pray you only see white.
Because then you’ll know why this happens,
when girls like you go out in the night.

 



~ Wren James

 

 

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Forming Non-Monetary Civic State

 

Wikipedia lists the number of public protests this century as:

84 public revolts and uprisings.  
86 national anti-war / austerity and human rights marches.
38 national and international student protests.
461 national and international demonstrations for specific issues: racism, sexism, anti-corruption, women’s rights, anti-occupation, pro-democracy, independence and climate action.
This totals 669 movements of public outrage occurring in most of the 195 countries that make up the global population. Some of those listed repeated annually over a number of consecutive years and some recurred spasmodically over two decades; a few conflicts overlap and many are unaccounted for in these reports. This does not include military conflict. Wikipedia also lists 535 riots.

There has never been such a thirst and desperation in human history for people to understand how to take back control of our environment, future prospects and survival. In the face of such stark efforts, costing countless people the ultimate price for apparent failure, it is no wonder most are nonplussed as to what their immediate options are. With every intrusion of privacy by dictators, military and police-states, drug gangs, and western democracies – by stealth policies and privatisation of the commons; gearing up for control of people’s individual finances and renewed sovereign rule – people everywhere are disempowered. Add to this the new Cold War and national protectionism endorsing international hostility and political gamesmanship; dividing nations and citizens of those nations against each other, by gentrification and inflation policies on a grand scale; ghettoising communities; systematically dissolving public, social and health care services; reducing workers rights. These incessant crises are manufactured to groom the populace into dependency upon the most unscrupulous economic dictators as our only hope for survival. Attack is once again the only form of defence.

The ever increasingly resourceful disenfranchised population, forced into this seige-mentality and more exhaustive workloads, just to function, are politically goaded to blame each other to deflect resentment from the source of this disengagement. As a result, many have risked and lost lives, family and home to find a way through the chaos. Despite trends towards increased bigotry, complete strangers continue to welcome one another into their countries and homes. Wherever travellers roam they invariably encounter people who care and are willing to share their last provisions with them, despite differences in race, nationality, beliefs and culture. It is obvious to everyone, we have the wrong people controlling our world; that everyday people everywhere need to form a mutually cooperative global society to address global issues that nationalism and money will never solve in time. And with global temperature increases being ignored, this is THE ONLY watershed opportunity for humankind. So, how rapidly can we change it? Is it necessary for us all to agree, to drop our differences and conform to some single ideological stance?

Time for Civic State 

Some propose a better distribution of wealth, or changing government to more socialist-oriented policies, would go a long way. Older failed systems now seem preferable again, since politics has done a u-turn in its historical narative and values. But such proponents have no practical solution to accommodate nations with differing regimes. This said, it is worth looking at the number of ‘Left’ movements that succeeded in altering former centre-right and right wing governments, this century. Some headway was made, but most either failed or compromised their standards to maintain power in the face of egged-on right-wing bigotry, sanctioned by western democracies. Syriza in Greece, The Five Star Movement in Italy and Pots n Pans Revolution in Iceland are examples of former regimes overturned, but ultimately collapsed. Podemos in Spain is a current example of sustained and compromised socialist-oriented policy. The much maligned Zapatista movement, running Autonomous Municipalities in the Chiapas region of Mexico, are the longest running and on-going form of local independent governance, within the national custodial territory of an overtly corrupt and hierarchal ‘democratic’ government. They operate impartial non-sexist rights and ‘horizontal’ direct democracy. Their black balaclavas – once worn under Subcommander Marcos to protect identity from warring government forces – are now more symbolic, to represent and maintain anonymity in their councils public decision-making.

Ultimately, all systems fall foul of having to accommodate the cut-throat effects of the global economy – money the prime obstacle. Even successful public-led authorities in peaceful communities face this issue. For a description of how to bypass the monetary system to form a Parallel Non-Monetary Economy (PNME) and how it would immediately alter personal, commercial and political choices – see the illustrated supplemental posts, discussions and documents featured here.

In this article we will concern ourselves with how the application of the Parallel Non-Monetary Economy can establish and influence the functions of a civic state, crucially REDRESSING CORRUPTION, CENTRALISED CONTROL OF PERSONAL REVENUE or INCOME & PUBLIC SPENDING.

The extent of work people continue to perform without support surpasses the amount of formal paid employment in the world, especially since neoliberal ‘austerity’ tactics and global monopolisation turned the whole labour force into a gig economy. It is said openly that charitable and voluntary work are the backbone of the British economy, without which it would collapse and the country would cease to function. It is almost there. With over thirty years experience in voluntary movements, advocacy and training, I have seen the rise and fall of many noble initiatives fuelled by the motivations and ingenuity of everyday people. Yet, even when these people benefit society and official state – in public services, health, social care and the environment – I’ve seen them undermined and demoralised through the lack of the most basic personal understanding and support. Sometimes through needless personal dynamics, but also through systematic and underhanded sabotage by public authorities. I had the displeasure of resigning as a homelessness advocate, after hearing at their AGM that the local council employing me had sat on £2M (ringfenced for the homeless) gathering interest in an off-shore bank account over five years, while they watched elderly, sick, parents and children desperately perplexed at where their next shelter, meal or safe environment was going to come from. Every one of them suffering physical and mental illness, freezing temperatures, abuse and animosity, humiliation of begging and often untimely death. The extent of waste and embezzlement of UK taxes and politicians’ expense claims in comparison is obscene, yet many of these official organisations recently moved to deprive thousands of passionate volunteers (supporting at their own expense) even the refreshment of a drink and biscuit. Hyperbole? The same governance meetings held socials and buffets, while they discussed how to tactically misreport and undermine voluntary and service-user input, whilst pressuring trusting conformists to present a glowing picture of support at their annual services-forums, for their glossy full-colour brochures.

It is blatantly obvious that everyday people can run things much better than any hierarchal State. State rarely represents public interests and effectively acts as an embezzling and personal-enterprise process, especially during times of extreme crisis. What kind of people do that? Criminals. Criminals who now work towards cancelling the Human Rights Act, outlawing protest and removing voting rights by imposing an ‘approved’ photo-identification process.  When western democracies take lessons from Trump how voting processes can be tampered with, as effectively as dictators and military junta control and dismiss voting processes by force, people should be alarmed at the level of desperation and intent. Some will argue, without State in western democracies people would have suffered far worse during the recent economic crises and the Covid-19 pandemic, but the actions of State are rarely questioned beyond the immediate. No studies seem to emerge from other sources evaluating how another party, house or policy may have handled things differently. No law seems to hold representatives to account for misrepresentation and embezzlement, profiteering, or subjecting the public to unnecessary suffering, fatalities and demise of industry. While people indulge their selfish uninformed whims in the deceptive game of personality politics, countless thousands, even entire populations, pay the highest price for ignorance and indolence. And ultimately, we all pay. The only redress for crimes against the public and humanity seems to come in the form of mocking, after a proven ‘criminal’ has secured their newsworthy name, personal career options and pension. So, what holds us to this abusive system? Chiefly those controlling money, but with it the systematic dismantling of opposition to State. In every institution, State has become the enemy of the people.

Horizontal Direct Democracy

Direct democratic processes exist in various State-led democracies. Switzerland’s democratic government have a process where any citizen has the power to alter laws and processes of State. India has various communities where the mayor has to hold public assemblies to decide on local policies and use of State funds. But none of these situations ever replace the hierarchical system of government, since money and the global economy are the controlling factors. Can money and the restrictions of national economy be bypassed?

Switzerland is also home to the Swiss WIR, an alternative circular economy set up for SMEs to act parallel with but independently from the monetary economy. What eventually became WIR Bank was originally set up by a business collective to counter the financial effects of the 1930s depression. It is now a purely electronic form of virtual credit exchange between participating businesses and its successes have made it stand out as a serious contender in comparison with money. Its only setback is that it is limited to businesses within the circular economy and that the WIR Bank set its virtual value equal to the Swiss Franc so it can act in dual-currency transactions. But many feel this is its hindrance. It restricts the business the WIR is able to do within and without the circular economy, which some prefer as a safeguard, but its effects on the Swiss monetary economy are noteworthy.

By 2017, “WIR… now has over 60.000 users: [17% of total Swiss businesses. Trade in WIR has a share of 1-2% of Swiss GDP];” now with an annual turnover of two billion CHF. Stable increase and maintenance in contrast to the instability of the monetary economy and downturn in employment figures. During the Covid-19 outbreak companies could apply for zero-interest loans of up to 500,000 immediately, guaranteed by the WIR Bank. “WIR Bank also participates in the ‘COVID 19 credit’ aid program. After two and a half working days, 150 applications were approved by WIR Bank and loans of over CHF 21 million were made available. For loans that exceed the amount of CHF 500,000, 85 percent of this is secured by the Confederation, and WIR Bank participates in the remaining 15 percent. In addition to the ‘COVID-19 loan’, customers of WIR Bank also benefit from the free instant loan of 10,000 WIR, which is already included in the SME package.” Bruno Steigeler (WIR website blog March 2020). Where did it all come from? Nowhere. And when repaid it returns to nowhere.

So, WIR users significantly supplement the burden on the Swiss economy using a self-created virtual abstract currency. Yet its equivalence with the monetary economy means what they are able to achieve is limited and subject to volatile economic influences of the CHF and global economy. Imagine what it could achieve if the collective decided to de-couple it from the CHF and re-value it to out-perform the monetary economy by simple agreement. Not to give it a greater monetary value, but collective agreement on what a purely abstract numeric system could achieve. This takes some projected calculations and creative thinking, but in principle it would likely expand the circular currency beyond its current geographical location . It would not replace money, but it would survive no matter what happened to the monetary economy, its achievements limited only by the extent of the independent activity of its members. This freedom from the artificial valuation of money in the global market could make it spread globally, altering the balance of power in participating nations as each one adopted its own version of the virtual currency. How do you think businesses would respond to being able to boost sales for something that is inflation-proof and can be created from nowhere? But the WIR is not the answer. To replace money, it would have to be available to everyday people and pay for things currently available in the monetary economy. The Swiss WIR is a market-tester for this concept that shows favourable tangible process and results.

The real zenith would be to have an abstract system that would render everything FREE of material value. This sounds now like a giant leap of the imagination, but many astute authors have calculated it being closer than ever before, especially since neoliberal economics has effectively rendered the costs of material things as near to zero as it can, and pricing as an abstract process, to maintain economic control for the 1%. They simply make it up as they go along. SEPARATING FROM THIS CONTROL IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE BUT CENTRAL TO OUR SURVIVIAL.

It is no giant leap for the general public in any country like Lebanon, Haiti, Kuwait, Yemen, Darfur, or even giant refugee cities to unilaterally adopt the Parallel Non-Monetary Economy (PNME) overnight, remove poverty and start to prosper and build infrastructure without any monetary dependency, even as an independent self-contained circular economy. The best way to safeguard from central control and abuse is through a civic state.

All that is needed for the PNME to replace money everywhere, is for it to be a more attractive market to those dealing in the monetary economy and for everyone to see what it achieves. Seeing is believing. With new established global technologies virtually everyone uses, we are now in the position to say goodbye to ANY need for a material value system and even material form of exchange. REPLACING MATERIAL EXCHANGE VALUE AND CURRENCY FOR AN ABSTRACT VIRTUAL SYSTEM REMOVES THE MENTALITY OF MATERIAL VALUE. To illustrate: when someone uses a combination lock to gain access; or a person competes for points to win a prize; or plays Bingo; the numbers are entirely unrelated to the value of the reward, yet they employ easily understood abstract numerical systems. Coupling an abstract virtual system to activities or ‘work’ every living person does, by nature and choice (removing the distinctions between formal and informal labour) makes economic security a self-generated process – replacing monetary dependency and control.

Because the PNME needs no pre-existing source, it can be adopted unilaterally by any geographical community, industry, or global campaign collective: (a list of such organisations mentioned in and approached through the book ‘A Chance For Everyone: The Parallel Non-Monetary Economy’ can be found here). But broader benefits are achieved if the general populace assemble to examine and adopt it, to take back collective control of global industry, national and international agendas and establish non-partisan political decision-making and accountability. To do this, it needs to establish and maintain a de-centralised system.

 

Avoiding Hierarchy and Corruption

 

Firstly, the words ‘government’ and ‘authority’ will change from their hierarchal meaning to that of representational accountable management. They will be public servants.

Core elements of horizontal direct democracy:

LOCAL PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES
1 – Local Public Assemblies can be part of the everyday function of any size of community. They can be held in small groups or large auditoriums with rotating facilitators who show independent impartial thinking and a track record of empowering those less vociferous.
2 – Local assemblies can publish agendas in advance for any individual with an interest in such topics to attend and earn the agreed PNME rate for contributing this work; this can be random and people able to come and go freely with successive subjects.
3 – Assemblies must maintain a robust impartial process of voting, including anonymous suggestions, which will then be fed through the consulting process for public examination and votes; it must be mandatory to properly report, explore and clarify every individual suggestion, creating a pool of opinions to address.
4 – Local assemblies can arrange, publicise and collate any subsequent research and knowledge to be disseminated for further consideration before actions are voted upon.
5 – Public voting on various subjects can be random, this ensures that not only people with vested interests have influence over decisions. If people try to influence decisions by inviting attendees to vote, it should become apparent at a local level and the fact that individual opinion gives people equal power should somewhat counteract this. If such coercing becomes known, that person and participants can be banned from earning PNME units for their attendance, and/or from attending assemblies for a period, whichever society decides. This practice can be also be outlawed. The real power of direct democracy is in disparate people upholding their common right and process.

REGIONAL PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES
1 – Facilitators for Regional Assemblies, speakers and admin can be voted in by local assemblies, based on track record for integrity to the process.
2 – Such assemblies can update attendees with achievement reports on local decision-making, for all communities to learn from and consult with each other.
3 – Regional assemblies can report activities of the PNME in public accounts and prepare voting and consultation on regional actions.
4 – Agendas for regional needs can be collated, examined and disseminated for the LOCAL assemblies to vote on and feedback decisions; then enact the decisions of the majority. This makes the regional assemblies subject to the local voting system.

NATIONAL REPRESENTATION
Existing public buildings and processes can be used for this including parliaments, councils and congress, EXCEPT that representatives of the national public interest…
1 – are temporary assignments;
2 – have NO political allegiances as party-politics is outlawed, meaning all individuals are VOTED IN FOR TRACK RECORD OF INTEGRITY and effectiveness in representing others, in that role;
3 – are not allowed to have ANY third–party business interests (or relatives) that are connected at any given time to the actions of government. If they do, they would stand down for a given period or not be allowed to propose contracts for such activities; (It may be possible to make these temporary appointments so rewarding that they need no other income than their other abstract daily activities and are banned from any other formal employment or consultation while in office).
4 – remain individual representatives with no party to support or argue against them, but they gain the VOTED SUPPORT OF THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULACE by carrying out their decisions;
5 – will show track-record of forming a cooperating accountable body to fulfil the public will and retain transparency and integrity;
6 – will uphold publicly voted terms of industry and engagement of the PNME, monitored collectively and internationally;
7 – will be immediately culpable for prosecution for ANY partisanship with corrupt or imposing behaviour, both personal and of third-parties, as well as responsible for reporting such at any level.

Local, regional and national elections will alter from promotion of partisan allegiances to public balloting of individual facilitators and national representatives. None of this requires a change in national identity, beliefs, culture or political regime. One of the common features that sustains separatist groups and conflicts is that certain parties are either ignored or directly deprived of their choices and rights. This leads to indoctrination of people who previously may have had different individual values. Usually the most violent warring enemies eventually only resolve to compromise over mutual recognition of collective rights and advantages, rather than sustained bigotries, even if those bigotries do not naturally dissolve. We can think of any long-standing conflict from the Irish Good Friday Agreement, to the MAD (Mutual Armed Destruction) agreement that ended the previous cold war. Once the population are empowered to think for themselves, much support of these factions will cease and the embedded bigotries and ignorance towards disparate choices somewhat dissolved, by pursuit of personal aims unimpeded by external financial control. This will be only within the agreed qualifying tenets of the new collective PNME that preserves human rights and standards. Notwithstanding the potential threat of partisanships forming around individuals with common aims, what the PNME empowers is for the mass of general public to overwhelm such abuses of process and even remove the support of the PNME during those instances, if necessary.

The advantage of removing personality and individual power from the decision-making process is that it translates to all cultures indiscriminately, can cross national borders and allow for truly global cooperation between general populations. These systems already exist in some places as we stated earlier, (but also in specific sectors like the scientific and health communities). At only their ‘Second International Gathering of Women That Struggle,’ the Zapatista women’s council extended this welcome – “We want to report that as of yesterday, December 26, 2019, registration for this second gathering came to 3,259 women, 95 little girls and 26 men from Germany, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Basque Country, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Cataluña, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kurdistan, Macedonia, Mexico, Norway, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Siberia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela. Quite a feat for a small collective of unknown independently minded women with little if any economic power to speak of.

As the economy of the 1% now effectively hinders global recovery of our climate and ecosystem, the Parallel Non-Monetary Economy immediately reverses the dynamic for the 99% to call the political, industrial and economic shots and frees every individual from monetary dependency and material valuation, once and for all time. We no longer need to petition, protest, riot, or form a violent revolution, or wait around for money, capitalists and governments. What we need now is for general public collectives to examine, form and adopt the PNME. It does not require specialist education. Once one community employs the Parallel Non-Monetary Economy, everybody will. This is the watershed moment and proposal to take back public and individual control of our future, through Civic States everywhere.

Journalist Laura Gottesdiener, visiting the Chiapas region of Mexico in January 2014, shared this: “…Careening through the Lacandon jungle… men and women raised peace signs in salute. Spray-painted road signs read (in translation): ‘You are now entering Zapatista territory. Here the people order and the government obeys.’”

 

Kendal Eaton

For more detailed ideas of how the PNME and use of public funds can be monitored, managed and reported see chapter 17 of ‘A Chance For Everyone: The Parallel Non-Monetary Economy,’ or this partial serialisation, here. A summary of the projected immediate effects of the PNME upon current social, political and business practices can be found in this FREE illustrated supplement download RESOLVING THE MONEY OBSCENITY: Parallel Non-Monetary Economy: Past, Present & Future.’

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Vilnius – a lesser-known Baltic gem

Alan Dearling concludes his tales from Lithuania in Part Three of his stand-alone articles

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania. It’s a lively, bustling city. A mix of the medieval and modern. A city of many histories filled with churches, cathedrals, castles, forts, a diversity of religious faiths, and the secularity of clubs, music venues, concerts, exhibitions, museums, galleries and open spaces. Sadly, it has suffered at the heart of at least two genocides by the Germans and Russians in the Twentieth century. There were about 200,000 Jews who died in Lithuania, most from Vilnius, during World War 2 under German occupation (1941-45). There are a number of museums and cemeteries where the deaths and deportations of Lithuanians are remembered in the pre- and post-War years, 1940-41, then from 1945 up to 1990, under the oppressive, occupation regime as a ‘constituent republic’ within the Soviet Union. Overlooking the city is Gediminas Tower, a small castle perched on a hill, which also houses a museum. Likewise, the impressive, recently renovated, circular Bastion is home to a museum of weapons and pipes for tobacco smoking! The Cathedral Square and bell tower are major visitor attractions but were mega-quiet in bad weather.

Here’s a link to the Museum of Occupations (aka the KGB Museum): http://genocid.lt/muziejus/en/

And the Green House – a sombre reminder of the fate of the city’s Jewish population: https://www.jmuseum.lt/en/expositions-2/i/196/holocaust-exhibition/

There’s also a relatively new Museum of Modern Art, the MO Museum: https://mo.lt/en/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoauEhcy6_gIVg-7tCh2MqgANEAAYAiAAEgJqsfD_BwE

 There are plenty of other galleries and museums across the city, plus many opportunities to visit the myriad places of worship, most are Catholic, but there also many of which are Orthodox.

However, the Covid pandemic, inflation and the spectre of the war in Ukraine are all still impacting the lives of locals, and to some extent the visitor numbers to the city and the country of Lithuania as a whole. There’s plenty of signs of optimism, but it is tinged with a few reality checks. Here’s a statement from Ministry of Economy towards the end of 2022: “Signs of recovery in tourism are already visible. In the first half of 2022, 456,000 foreign tourists stayed in Lithuanian accommodation establishments, which is 4 times more than in the same period in 2021.  More than half the level of 2019.”

The UK is struggling with inflation and so too is Lithuania.

“Lithuania’s annual inflation rate eased to 16.6% in March 2023, from a 10-month low of 18.7% rise in the previous month. This was the lowest reading since March 2022, as prices increased softer for food & non-alcoholic beverages (27.6% vs 30.2% in February), housing & utilities (34.9% vs 37.8%), and transport (2.7% vs 10.6%).”  Source: Statistics Lithuania.

I’ve been visiting Lithuania and Vilnius as an ‘artist in residence’ and one of the ambassadors in the Free Republik of Uzupis on many occasions from 2016 onwards. Making sense of, understanding the current state of play, is still something of a hard call, since this has been my first trip back to the Baltic State after the Covid pandemic. I’ve been a participant in the Uzupis 1st April Independence celebrations a number of times and I have to say, Uzupis and Vilnius seem quieter – many fewer people on the streets. Some of my favourite bars and venues have closed, such as the two Snekutis pubs in Uzupis and by the Egg statue. There seems to be continuing tensions between the populist government and night-time venues (especially the smaller ones) over the curfew time (which has often been 10pm). The city hasn’t really bounced back into its previously vibrant party mode, post-Covid.

Music on my visit

Very unusually the only music I saw live was during the Uzupis 25 year birthday celebrations was from my friend and fellow Uzupis ambassador, Brayden Drevlow playing piano and some jazz music in the Uzupis Kavine.

https://www.braydendrevlow.com

I also ran some of my own impromptu musical ‘noise’ sessions with folk in bars like at Devinke, encouraging punters to play a mini-hang drum. But, Vilnius is home to some lively and sometimes edgy performance spaces. Loftus, Tamsta (linked to a major music equipment store) and Kablys, ‘The Great Hook’ (where there is a hostel too, but the outside area seemed closed on my visit) are three of the most popular. And once the weather improves

– I experienced a lot of rain, sleet and snow – Downtown Forest Hostel: https://downtownforest.lt/  where I stayed, provides a great outdoor venue for bands and performers. In past visits I’ve had a great time imbibing the vibes, food and beverages witnessing the fine Lithuanian folk-pop sounds of Kamaniu silelis and Baltic reggae with Ministry of Echology. On each visit to Vilnius I always call into the Baltik Shop, Ragaine, where the knowledgeable staff get me listening to the latest Baltic music – particularly, new, slightly psychedelic folk music, mostly sung in Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian. Lots of jaw’s harp and other indigenous instrumentation and vocalisations and harmonies to die for. All worth checking out.

Official music video by Kamaniu silelis performing ‘As Bijau’ (2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YpAZxZNkCU

Kamaniu silelis: https://kamaniusilelis.bandcamp.com/

Ministry of Echology voyaging into electronica and EDM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqEFaza6jP8

Tribal sounds from the powerful, Virginia Pievos, ‘Oi toli toli’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hnBsloVCsA

Ragaine, Baltik Shop: https://www.discogs.com/record-stores/store/ragaine/

I met up with Tomas Jonusas from Grybai for lunch in the remaining, and pretty funky Snekutis bar, where some of the most authentic Lithuanian food is available all day long. Great bar with a night-club sort of atmosphere. Tomas owns Grybai (the Mushroom Manor Farm) some 80kms from Vilnius, and I worked with him to establish his own festival site where, with other friends, we put on the Magick Gathering. Now, a few years on, a number of Lithuanian music events have been hosted there including Menuo Juodaragis and Braille Satellite (a DiY indie festi which will be taking place again in 2023). My own health post-Covid, is likely to preclude, sadly, my own personal major involvement. A real shame, but I wish them well. It’s a special place set in a quite wild woodland/forest, small lakes for swimming and a natural authenticity often missing in many more commercial event sites.

Doc Wör Mirram ‘Trip to Litauen’ July 2017 (Braille Satellite festi) at Grybai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l44bhu0Ui0w

Braille Satellite: https://www.braille-satellite.pro/

Mėnuo Juodaragis: https://www.facebook.com/MJRfest?locale=lt_LT

Meeting the police!

I was pulled over by two police near the market in Vilnius. The male member of the duo then interrogated me for about twenty minutes. He was pretty intimidating. And they have guns, of course. Our ‘conversation’ with him inside the police car and me having to lean in the window went something like this:

Policeman: So, why did you cross the road?

Me: There was no traffic and I wanted to get to the other side.

Policeman: But you come from England…you have same laws as us…you know you have to use the crossings.

Me: We don’t have this law.

Policeman: Oh yes, you do, I have visited your country…

Me: I’m sorry we don’t, but thank you for telling me about your law…

Policeman: We need for you…you must pay a fine…

Me: I’m sorry…we just don’t know this law…

(I then skedaddled, as fast as possible away from the major crime scene).

Later I checked up on-line about traffic laws for pedestrians. There are indeed a few. None of which the UK has. They also had enforcement fines – some pretty hefty ones during Covid. This is what I found out:

“Fines for breaking the quarantine rules will range from 500 to 1,500 euros for individuals and from 1,500 to 6,000 euros for businesses. Police will be given the right to impose fines.”

And Rule No. 1950 for Vilnius:

“87. Pedestrians must go to the other side of the carriageway only through pedestrian crossings (also underground and above the road), and where there are none, at intersections along the line of sidewalks or curbs. Pedestrians must not cross the crosswalk. When there is no crossing or intersection in the visibility zone, it is allowed to cross the road at a right angle in both directions in places with a good view, but only after making sure that it is safe to go and will not interfere with vehicles.”

I think I must have crossed the completely empty road about 100 metres away from a pedestrian crossing!

Lithuanians also face fines of up to 40 euros if caught crossing the street while using mobile devices. And I was told that you can be fined up to 40 euros for smoking a cigarette within 5 metres of a bus stop!

Finally, gentrification…

My temporary home in the Downtown Forest Hostel (seen with its eco-pods in the distance at top of the first photo) is located about five minutes from Uzupis in the Old Town area of Vilnius. My memory of it was it being in the middle of an area of old houses, many a bit run down. A few are still there, but now since my last visit in 2019, the whole area has undergone a major regeneration. It felt odd, rather unsettling, not just because the architectural styles seem to be lifted more from Scandinavia than the Baltic states, but also because there has been no attempt to upcycle – this is wholesale gentrification.

It’s now trendy, filled with up-market shopping malls of almost Bauhaus design containing coffee bars, cocktail lounges, expensive, high-end shops and boutiques. Definitely it is now the ‘in-destination’, the place to visit, and even more – the place to live and work.

 

Vilnius is indeed evolving! But, I end this final article from my Lithuanian visit with a pic of a selection of playing cards from The Hague Tribunal pack which I purchased in Vilnius. Putin’s Russia is never entirely forgotten…

 

 

 

 

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BRIEF APPRAISAL


There’s no shortage of war artists

I’d prefer to have a shirt

That isn’t frayed or discoloured

 

Where I sweat. I sweat a lot

Drugs (amphetamines)

 

The problem

With using bleach on stains

 

It does away with the stitching

 

And there’s the dilemma. You
Need to plan for a replacement

Sooner rather than later. I like

 

The futurists, surrealists. Kirchner
And the expressionists. But none

Of them are combat specialists

 

In my childhood I’ll play with soldiers

Endlessly. But I won’t be born for ages

 

The shirts belonged to my Grandad

Not the one who fought. The other

 

I’ll inherit them

Gran had kept them

 

God love her

 

Sometimes I sound foolish. Poisoned

 

In the trenches, Paul Nash
Is cold but most spectacular. Grosz
And Dix, the Germans. Goya takes

Some beating. Those atrocities

 

Did he see them or imagine?

 

If I had to own one

I’d want Uccello’s

 

The Battle of  San Romano
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Steven Taylor
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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THE DOHYŌ OF TIME

Those days now seem as archaic as the antediluvians

As passé as Picts

As anachronistic as Amenhotep

So, I wish the entropy of time would wither my recollections

But mementoes of conflicts ignore the second law

The memories remain fresh …

Too fresh

 

Those days I was always outside

Hoping someone would invite me in

Which would, at least, mark a certain progress

But I was invisible; a denizen of London Below

 

Those days I wore a mask

Hid behind a nom de guerre

Spoke sotto voce to obfuscate

But anonymity fails when everyone knows who you are

 

Those days I told myself I’d move on, that time was on my side

Now scars mean my psyche barely twitches

Emotional fibrosis transfigures smiles into grimaces

Longevity stagnates into physiological sclerosis

I can barely crawl across time’s mat

As day-by-day my life’s dohyō shrinks

 

 

 

 

 

 Mark Greener

 

 

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God Save the King!

 

Nostalgia is the monarchy, commanding with all its shortcomings, as workers work levers with fingertip flinches: static, inaccurate trainers of recalcitrant gramophones. The courthouse steps talk to me – in second languages, of course – but their accounts of snakes fleeing the domus patris shrinks me to back to my four-year-old fears. What am I even nostalgic for? I watch the sweet street of the royal hairdresser flood with tourists and towering ravens, fluttering apologetic eyelashes as they wheel empty trolleys in search of loot. I’ve a bag full of near-misses and ricochets; a bag full of riddles, tight to my chest. Workhouses rise on every corner, tottering stacks of ridicule and heart attacks, each boasting an apostrophe chipped from pediments, a monument to the apostate mass. The mob moves on without motive or monitor, filter-feeding on nothing but the mechanism of sighs. Some might say it’s a sign, but my resignation is uncooked, my sense of perspective milky with dust. Nostalgia is a day divorced from all untoward appurtenances and a sad crown. These Royal beads will swarm me.

 

 

 

Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor

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A Lapse of Attention

The beach is coarse sand, almost grit. Brown duck feathers here and there. Grey pebbles, chips of worn glass. Farther on, low cliffs. Pulling down the clouds is rough work, muscles straining, skin taut. Once in the water they dissolve, a golden grey sheen where least expected. I’ve found something strange at the foot of the cliffs. Minuscule red flowers growing in the shale. They seem to be talking; it could be the wind, or your insistence on commentary as we work. We could listen awhile, take a break, let the clouds swim around, but don’t put down your blanket, the wind will pick it up, and we’ll be in England before dark. Or are we moving already, twisting the strands of light tighter and tighter, ancient sails that no one could reproduce? The water is cobalt now and furry. I think your blanket is flipping over our heads, bending down to catch our hair, our words, our frail and forgetful, as we fly off to England, watching the light intensify and our bodies spin along the rain.

 

 

Andrea Moorhead

 

 

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Net Zero and the Transhuman Agenda: War against Nature and Humanity

I have covered the great deception of ‘Net Zero’ in more than one article already. But I’m sticking with it because this massive con trick lies right at the heart of the current attempt, by a small group of psychotic control freaks, to gain absolute control over planetary life and to eviscerate the fundamental laws of nature in the process.

We must spell it out as it is. The intention behind the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, Green Deal ‘Net Zero’ agenda is to completely block off the arteries of sentient life on earth and replace them with an insentient artificial construct.

A construct which, going under the heading ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ demands that thinking man/woman is made redundant, to be replaced by computer power directly accessed to the human brain. The Transhuman agenda.

Rapidly developing algorithmic and digital technologies are the dark techno gods of this planned take-over of life on earth. A life that must be stripped bare of access to the higher dimensions of universal awareness, and kept strictly to a material, five sense prison camp, to include passive obeisance to the perpetrators.

We must not be afraid to state that the motivation for bringing about this dystopian holocaust is quite obviously very dark.

There has existed for millennia, a perverted anti-life element within the human race, which is only out for its own narcissistic ends. It’s a ‘me, me, me’ obsessed element which has no truck with the existence of God, or indeed any universal benign source of life. It only knows the essentially demonic cravings for ‘full spectrum dominance’.

The weaker mirrored version of this despotic malfeasance is to be found in those largely unconscious human beings who become hypnotically entangled with this grandiose narcissism. Here the current obsession is the ‘selfie’ and the seeming need to show others ‘how one is looking’ in 101 different poses and locations on an almost daily – if not hourly – basis.

“Oh well” some may say “at last they are having fun”. But, I observe, the love affair with the seductive agility of the EMF powered mobile phone, is actually an obsession. It follows a very similar pattern as the smoking addict.

Young people in their tens of millions have developed a kind of nervous need to repeatedly pull their cell phones out of their back pockets and check if anyone has called them. It is an addiction which has produced a weird kind of spectacle to those who remember a time when people looked where they were going and took in the atmosphere and specialness of place without needing to ‘snap’ it and without the snapper making sure that he/she is the main feature of each image!

Humanity, until a critical number become conscious, automatically follows the messages and psychological persuasions of those who control the status quo. Who set the agenda.

So when Klaus Schwab and Yuval Noah Harari announce that it’s ‘advanced technology’ that is going to lead humanity to the promised land, and that a reinvented cyborgian world will be ‘an improvement on God’s version’, many EMF addicts fail to register any resistance to this soulless proclamation. They are already half way there.

Nevertheless, some seem to be aroused by the story that the ending of the world will come about via something called ‘global warming’. This suggests that there must be some form of self preservation instinct still working here. Some emotional sense of the undesirability of this outcome.

But we should question whether this emotion is the result of being told, repeatedly “you should be frightened”, or whether it is an actual sense of shock? Followers of Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, for example, seem prepared to make quite a show out of their ‘save the world’ ambitions.

It looks real enough until one realises these are government and WEF/Soros/Gates sponsored shows and that the participants are brainwashed believers in whatever they see or hear on the BBC, CNN or their favourite social media portal. Their brain cells seem to lack the ability to make an independent critical judgement. There has been a deadening of the basic will power ‘to question’.

The relentless process of psychological attrition is something that the proponents of a New World Order do particularly well. Dumbing down is proving an effective weapon in the war against a humanity collectively addicted to the technological take-over of their lives, and to the fake green story about ‘the ending of the world’.

That fake green story centres around the stated WEF, UN, EU imperative for achieving a ‘Net Zero’ world by 2050. An imperative, one way or the other, signed up to by just about every country of the world.

But, as I have explained in previous writings, ‘Net Zero’ is a quasi scientific fiction, completely devoid of reason or rational thought. It utilises two abstracted meaningless words ‘net’ and ‘zero’ to convey something that everybody is supposed to understand as a saviour remedy for an overheating planet, but which is actually a scurrilous plot for the decimation of life on earth.

Please be aware: ‘Net Zero’ exactly fits the description of what we are told run-away global warming would do to our living planet.

The demonic element of mankind likes to perform this sort of black magic on unsuspecting mortals.
It likes to reverse the reality and make the complete suppression of the ‘plant CO2 to oxygen’ photosynthesis cycle – into a global redemption agenda. And the survival of a living breathing green planet, the number one enemy.

If one chooses to interpret ‘Net Zero’ as a jargonistic way of saying ‘zero carbon’, one is led to believe that those standing behind this planned global ecocide have pinned all their alarm-clamouring around a recent verifiable trend of just 0.13 centigrade increase in warming per decade, with no increase observed since 2016 and a slight cooling factor detected since then (NOAH/NASA).

This is the ‘science’ which stands behind the story of the coming ‘catastrophic over heating’ of the planet. Which can can only see ‘excess CO2’ as the key causative agent of our planetary demise.

Such a position fails to take cognisance of the fact that our global survival system is being brutally subjected to a litany of deeply wounding attacks via out of control levels of pesticides, plastics, chemtrails, EMF pollution, gas fracking, nuclear radiation, deforestation, concreting over of fertile land, water poisoning, insect annihilation, GMO mono-cropping, animal factory farming and its toxic wastes, war (greatest finite fossil fuel user), ubiquitous oil spillages, wild life habitat destruction and continuous pharmaceutical disruption of the world’s natural healing systems – and much, much more.

As if this litany of attacks on the integrity of planetary eco-systems and human health was not enough, we must now add:

The ‘Net Zero’ ecocide saviour remedy.
The digitalisation and robotisation of a large segment of the work place.
5G powered ‘Smart City’ concentration camps for disenfranchised farmers and country dwellers. Those still committed to working ‘with’ nature and growing real food. Not the synthetic stuff promised by ‘Green’ Great Reset.
A weaponised ‘vaccination’ programme to coincide with the hitting of the 5G ‘on’ switch.
The confiscation of all private property, so that we ‘will have nothing and will be happy’.
An extended ‘war theatre’ to include space and almost every populated and unpopulated region of the world.

And last but not least, the greatest prize – the complete dehumanisation and de-spiritualisation of homo sapiens via an ‘upgrading’ of the species into computer powered Transhuman cyborgs.

Yes, a state that Yuval Harari claims will produce results better than those achieved by God.

However, the rhetoric and the reality are not in sync. Cracks in the grand plan are appearing with increasing frequency. It’s leading figureheads appear increasingly off balance, almost comically in some cases.

The Covid agenda has given us a much clearer view into the snake pit. We see there, amongst other things, the further weaponisation of health and the almost unfathomable deception perpetrated by Big Pharma and the US Department of Defence. *

We are learning fast. We now see that Covid, 5G, Net Zero and the Great Reset/Green New Deal are all part of one plan: a declaration of war against nature and humanity.

We are finding a commonality of resistance to this brutal intervention across an ever widening field of human expression.

The pace of another sort of change is quickening. Antonio Guterres (WHO) announces the desperate need for further ‘Stop Global Warming’ measures, leading to the need to bring forward the ‘Net Zero’ deadline to 2040. He and his henchmen are clearly rattled by the rising tide of awareness and push-back.

‘We the people’ are rising inexorably. Spring is breaking through the waning grip of Winter.
Push-on we will, for the challenge we are confronting has a liberating effect on our souls and on our passion for the manifestation of a life based on Truth.

* The recently uncovered evidence that the US Department of Defense financed the production of the mRNA GM ‘vaccine’ subsequently rolled out by the corporate pharmaceutical industry.

 

Julian Rose

 

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer and international activist.
He is President of the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and author of ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’ See www.julianrose.info

 

 

 

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Bippety and Boppety Talk About Their Worries

– I worry about the widows and orphans.
– We all do, sometimes.
– I lay awake at night.
– We all do. About once a week.
– I think of them in their separation.
– That’s a very lyrical worrying.
– It’s my style.
– I worry also.
– What do you worry about?
– This.

 

Martin Stannard

 

 

 

 

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The Dissociative Identity Of My City

At night my city shapeshifts.
Now a light sabre, its edges art deco,
the city lacerates the umbrage and
the nimbostratus we have prayed for
all summer.

You remind me, the other night
leaning against the balcony
I drew a simile with an age old tree;
it inhales all that we be; it exhales gas, pollinates our sleep until we are
obliterated to be nothing
but a haze of dreams.

I grin. My city is bipolar. I say.
We make love after awhile. In our afterglow
the city becomes a drunkard unzipping
its mellowness in the first shower of the season.

 

 

 

 

 

Kushal Poddar
Illustration Nick Victor

Kushal Poddar lives in Kolkata, India

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

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Hold

we’re sorry                   but all our poets
are busy at the moment           variously involved in
direct action to prevent
the extinction of the human race                     walking
in the woods                waiting
on tables                      you name it
they’re doing it
most of the time

we’re sorry                   but all our poets
are busy at the moment                       trying to see
through the surface of things              but failing
most of the time                      except when
an urn,
            a nightingale
                        an ancient mariner
                                    a particular tree
                                                or a tyger
comes along                to get them going

please keep reading

your love of poetry                  is important to us

we’re sorry                   but all our poets
are busy at the moment                       a poem
will be provided                      for you
as soon as one becomes available

your reaction to it                    may be recorded
for training purposes

did you know              you can also
take a piece of paper               and a pencil
and write a poem                     yourself?

 

 

 

 

Dominic Rivron
Illustration Nick Victor

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Maple


 
Already numb
to the media rush of floods
homes washed clean
like the hands of a priest
before sacramental wine
until all that is left
is god
standing like an echo
of our choices
 
There is no judgement—
we’ve slipped
like river ice too thin
to support the sparrow  
we are heaved
          old newspaper
in a whirl of wind
that sweeps empty streets
before the storm
 
catastrophe
the new normal
but it isn’t us this time
Not these hills
devoured by fire
here          tree swallows dip
above the pond
sunset thrusts daggers of gold
through autumn leaves
 
even now
the taste of sugar flows
through the trees

 

 

 
Alfred Fournier

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Royal Babylon: The Criminal Record of the British Monarchy

An investigative poem by Heathcote Williams.
Narration and video by Alan Cox.


Top of Form

A A.
A scurrilous narrative poem detailing the history and doings of the House of Windsor, by one of Britain’s leading poets.

Heathcote Williams’ book-length poems have covered a number of important topics, most notably Whale Nation, a powerful argument for a worldwide ban on whaling. Royal Babylon lays out in verse form what Williams calls ‘the criminal record of the British Monarchy.’ It is a short but powerful book, detailing the ways in which the Queen and her family have made headlines over the years by activities and connections which, time and again, have shown poor judgment, demeaning behavior, or a lack of compassion. From animal killing to sexual scandal, profligacy to remoteness from her subjects, the accusations pile up in a 500-verse tirade which has all Williams’ hallmarks of passion, satire and irony.

‘A phenomenal piece of work’
     –Jeremy Hardy

The poetic radical do-cu, is a really interesting genre and it deserves its own domain so that it is not marginalized
     – Mike Figgis

‘Morning heafcoat…very apt presentation…may the last king be strangled with the intestines of the last pope’
     –  Keith Allen

 

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Grandes Routes


For Charlie Baylis

Crickets sing & the sun sets out of sight &
vacant months years end calendar shifts
according to need amongst sunken old tramlines
videos of journeys take us there through glens &
plains wherever we lay change in humidity
the sparkle has left the Perrier rattle of
containers delivering goats’ milk crinkle of
the Pharmacy bag that has seen better
days from Woodborough Rd to St. Pancras
to Paris Montparnasse stowed
condensation takes on a life of its own an
art to managing expectation Jack on the
Peak time as a construct to enlightenment
ink releasing slowly through metal
Charlie’s been to the West Coast taking
his holiday in the south fingerprints on the
glass lime battles with ice the owner of
the photograph needs to be traced winter is
the starting point a guitarist kills time in
Copenhagen Manchester Vienna Brussels
& Berlin open borders may we live in that
world again no I didn’t author ‘Spatial
Patterns of Nitrogen Uptake […]’ she adds
an extra washing line to accommodate
the extra washing shadow of the olive tree on
the blue shutter against the noise of
improvised solo piano recorded in
Brooklyn oil the hinges select from
the shelf an attempt to replicate information
travels freely these days from gritty
deserts to table talk collect the bountiful
crop of tomatoes back from the plot await
instructions the summer has lowered
the rivers the water that remains is soft

 

 

Andrew Taylor
Art by Rupert Loydell

 

 

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The Right to Protest

Yet again, new laws have been passed, without consultation or due process, to stop us oiks and troublemakers from protesting about what concerns us. Cynically brought forward to before the horrornation of Not-My-King Charles, and given royal assent by said numpty, from last Wednesday:

Protesters who block roads, airports and railways could face 12 months behind bars.

Anyone locking on to others, objects or buildings could go to prison for six months and face an unlimited fine.

Police will be able to head off disruption by stopping and searching protesters if they suspect they are setting out to cause chaos.

These laws can basically be used to criminalise anyone who takes to the streets for a cause they believe in, and suggest we’ve clearly got those in power rattled. A statement from the home secretary, Suella Braverman, said (with a straight face too) ‘The range of new offences and penalties match the seriousness of the threat guerrilla tactics pose to our infrastructure, taxpayers’ money and police time.’ Boo hoo.

Jun Pang, who works for Liberty, noted that ‘the government are using a statutory instrument to bring draconian measures that the House of Lords threw out of the bill back from the dead, once again evading scrutiny and accountability’ and declared that ‘it’s worrying to see the police handed so many new powers to restrict protest’.

Earlier in April, the Government passed the Policing Act which gave police more powers to shut down ‘seriously disruptive’ protests – a term that can (and no doubt will) be defined and re-defined by the Home Secretary to stop demonstrations the powerful don’t like.

Thanks to an enormous national movement against it, the House of Lords stripped some of the worst anti-protest proposals out of the Policing Act before it became law. But the Government resurrected its rejected plans with the Public Order Bill and have rushed it through.


Justice suggests we should be concerned because:

Protest empowers communities to stand up to injustice, influence decision makers and play an active part in democracy between elections.

Throughout history civil disobedience has been vital to safeguarding our democracy and securing our rights – from women’s right to vote, to the right to be protected from discrimination.

Heavy-handed crackdowns on protest grind democracy to a halt and violate our fundamental human rights.

Find out more at https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/


Amnesty state that

 

Protest is an invaluable way to speak truth to power. Throughout history, protests have been the driving force behind some of the most powerful social movements, exposing injustice and abuse, demanding accountability and inspiring people to keep hoping for a better future. 

Unfortunately, these precious rights are under attack and must be protected from those who are afraid of change and want to keep us divided. Governments and others with power are constantly finding new ways to suppress protest and silence critical voices. Global trends towards the militarization of police, the increase in the misuse of force by police at protests and shrinking civic space mean that it is becoming more difficult to stay safe while making your voice heard. 

More at https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/freedom-of-expression/protest/

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Time Outside Clock

I am buried in deadlines.
It seems that
The sun will shine late
Tomorrow.
But there will be tomorrow,
There will be my path
In the rush hour.
Early morning sweaty bus,
Water not dripping
From my bathroom faucet.
My thoughts sleep
While I stand.
I am an exhausted old lamp post
Without current passing in its veins.
The keys in my laptop were busy.
They rest now,
I cannot rest without them.
An escapist wind
Blows and my poetry pages
Remain inkless.
Words can blow away your mind,
I only write poetry
And push my article deadline
For many dawning and dusking
For many shining and setting
For many raining and drying
Like many start and shutdown
Of my laptop.

 

 

 

Copyright Sushant Thapa
Biratnagar-13, Nepal
Picture Nick Victor

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Eyes without eyes

 

Bogdan Puslenghea
Illustration Nick Victor
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Pantomime Politics

Matt Kennard on the pretend adversarial two-party political game which the Tory and Labour Parties work together to maintain, along with the UK/US imperial project; and why we need a new party or a radical assessment of what goes on inside Westminster.

“The Labour Party works as the liberal wing of the British establishment.”

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