tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68740138624343976262024-03-05T07:05:56.246+00:00Slide23Better a colourful story than a dull explanation.Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.comBlogger570125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-18570816143616390512013-12-05T18:30:00.001+00:002013-12-15T13:16:40.970+00:00Wight Christmas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw5vmnfisK1qbrdf3o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw5vmnfisK1qbrdf3o1_500.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">No
amount of lipstick makes the bomb look any better, “I’m not convinced summer
blush is her colour,” says Mme Roux. There are three types of people in the
world; the miserable, the awful, and the dead. Mme Roux has never been happier.
“Do you think perhaps tinsel would be over egging the cake?” she wants to know.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Pudding.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I prefer trifle, less stodgy after
the full goose and garter belt starter. But tinsel perhaps? Or a small spray of
holly?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mme Roux loves Christmas. And if no
one is around to celebrate it with her then she’ll just go and celebrate it
alone. Only she’s not alone. She’s got me. I say dully, “Perhaps mistletoe?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mme Roux has no sense of humour. She
would claim otherwise having read up on it from a book. Sarcasm isn’t the
lowest form of wit as we discovered with the crackers but it’s low enough to
limbo under her notice. She says, “There is no mistletoe,” and she is right of
course. There’s not much of anything. Every year I visit her and this year we’re
about as far from anything as we can be unless you like rubble and flies. We’ve
got lots of both. “Which is a shame,” she winks, and it’s just awful, because
she is just awful. Mme Roux is what happens when someone is immortal. The
person for whom the party never ends, still jumping around when the sun is up,
and you just want your bed. I want my bed now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Look it’s lovely that you think of
me like this,” I say, not meaning a word of it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Every year, darling.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Every year, Mme Roux.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And you always cook a magnificent
goose.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I do. I can’t eat it, but I can cook
it. Mme Roux can’t cook but she does like a goose. It’s still there on the
table with the skin golden-dead and without any trimmings. Mme Roux loves a Christmas
goose, a tradition not for spoiling by being eaten. Being immortal she can
experience anything, and well before one lifetime had tired of everything. I’ve
not had even the one lifetime yet. Well strictly speaking I’ve had several,
just short ones. I’m not even fifty and so my immortality has only extended
to not staying down from the accidental. Two weeks ago I fell down a hole. It
didn’t kill me, nothing does, but I was still stuck there. I would have been there
still had it not been for Christmas, and Mme Roux hunting me up to see to her
goose. A world without people but she still finds a goose; and we have to have
goose. Which as I say she won't and I can’t eat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She holds up the gravy boat, “Still
feeling saucy?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m really not. Mme Roux has through
the last two centuries enjoyed an army of lovers. Now there is just me. She’d
like there to be more people because this year has been thin on cards. None to
be precise, no people so no post. No postie either. Everyone died, a disease
or some monkeys. Or computers rose up, which is more than most people did.
There were no zombies and even the middle class escapees from the city that set
up their idyll in a smashing country house died since much to their chagrin
there were no farmers markets. But there are tins, and you can make trifle from
tins, which I have. So we eat trifle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Of course we eat. I can’t die from
hunger but I can get really very hungry. I don’t eat goose though because I get
gout. How shit is that? Immortal and I suffer from gout. As the films might have said
<em>I don’t dvink vine</em> – because a glass of red would see me in agony for a week
unless I find some naproxin. Digging through the rubble of Boots is no fun at all
and the labels are all rotten so it’s chuff down the menstrual pain relief and
hope for the right one. So fuck goose. And fuck Mme Roux, although by
preference rather not. But give it a year of nothing otherwise and even those
monkeys there never were would start to look good. Mme Roux has enjoyed an army
of lovers, but she believes in conscription.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And then there’s the atom bomb.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lipstick and now tinsel and wrapped
up in a tartan bow. There’s nothing elegant about it. No shiny faced missile of
death this. It’s old and fat but it’s what there is and so at a ball for one
her dance card is full. I say, “Where exactly does one find an atom bomb?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">“Santa sent it to me.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Couldn’t you have just asked for
socks?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“If I want socks,” says Mme Roux, “then
I should knit them.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Can you knit?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She can’t, but she can wire bombs. I’m
not convinced you can wire up an an atom bomb with a Danger Mouse alarm clock but
then what do I know?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Come along, darling,” she says and
I do though I keep hold of the trifle. She has acquired a tandem which means
she can cycle without having to pedal. And she doesn’t, but I do, and for such
a long way until by nightfall we’re high on the hill and quite far away. She
has port from a flask with a cigar from her hat and together we watch as the
night becomes day to the mushroom blooming light over what was once Bath.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then we wait until it snows, because
Mme Roux wants a white Christmas. Which is sweet and it’s thoughtful she
shared, but you can’t make a snowman from fall out.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-65320914764447653622013-04-24T17:21:00.002+01:002013-04-24T17:25:20.479+01:00LOL!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://blog.shaleshockmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/beverly-fracking-hillbillies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://blog.shaleshockmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/beverly-fracking-hillbillies.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>They'll rob you, ravish you, and kill you. In no particular order.</em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Of
all the trials that attend to living in Tolly Maw one of the most onerous is
having to participate in the hunting. Now I don’t object to hunting per se. I
eat meat after all, and if I have eaten what I’ve killed then a few rabbits as
a youth probably doesn’t balance out the fact the mostly I get it from the
butcher. In Shrewton many years back Billy the Butcher even provided it from
under the counter. Even though he was as the name suggests - a butcher. He
would wink when he did it. I tried hard not to watch certain bits of <em>League of
Gentlemen</em> at the time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>No, what is so tiresome is that in
Tolly Maw then inevitably what they hunt are people. You know the score. You
break down on a lonely road, there is a mist, there are hillbillies and what
people in cities know about hillbillies is that they eat people. Or get the
stuff from Billy from under the counter. As an aside, if you find a signet ring
in a sausage apparently you get to keep it. But I digress. If only a little. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At least in Tolly Maw they don’t
hunt down screaming teenage girls. Partly because that would be viewed as just
plain wrong. Mostly because teenage girls just tut and roll their eyes to cover
their own embarrassment, whilst texting. More on that in a moment. But no, here
in Tolly Maw they chase down middle aged men, and Michael Praed from the post
office is even learning the banjo. It’s usually after watching too much
Southern Comfort, or drinking it, or one of the two but involving it by the
pint in any case. And frankly I can’t be asked. So just to fit in I have to sit
there, on a stump, until I hear one coming and then amble across their path in
order to point them in the wrong direction. Mostly I show them which way is out
– which is nowhere, but I try. It’s the blubbing I can’t stand, but no amount
of manly punches on the shoulder and demands to cowboy up ever seem to help. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Of course this was all a lot easier
before smartphones. Or indeed any phone that didn’t have at the very least a
car attached to the other end. Now there are a hundred apps that could possibly
help, Usually though a surprisingly effective (for such a badly made) arrow
spears them at the point they’ve called up whatever app is likely to help. I
don’t get involved. Well you don’t, do you?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What I tend to do then during the
evenings of this current hunting season is text. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You can pick yourselves up now if
you know me. Alan, text? He’ll be hanging around bus shelters next. Which I do.
In order to catch the bus. I’m a late comer to texting I admit. And my phone is
so old you still have to pound the keys three or four times to get the right
letter. But what I like about it is that you can do it whilst doing everything
else. Fantastic. Not like the phone at all, which whilst I clearly have one I
never, not ever, use to phone anybody. So I can talk to people whilst doing
whatever else I’m doing. So I can read, have the radio on, even watch
television have I the mind to (which I don’t) and can have perfectly normal,
usually, conversations. It’s a bit like email but without the neediness of
email. And by the by, ‘lol’ is perfectly acceptable phrase to use. In context.
To indicate a light heart, or that you appreciate what is said. It is still not
punctuation however, nor is it used by default. My problem with texting is that
I have to steel myself so much to be efficient, to say r u ok rather than spell
the damn words out that it takes me longer than actually doing it long hand. Or
properly, as you prefer. What I’m not good at is multiple texting. It seems
rude. So if I’m talking to one person for a few hours, then I’ll just say ‘busy’
to anyone else. I know, I know, I’m just not awful enough any more. Oh, and I can
do it whilst the sproutling is in the same room and she won’t know. So
nice as I am, I also get to be sneaky. So still a bit awful. Which is nice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Best of all (and I’m no great hand
at technology so I couldn’t say why) texting works wherever I am. Which is
jolly handy since as you might know I have a wretched habit of slipping about
the years like a drunk confusing anecdotes, on ice skates, with a bag on my
head. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But I have to go now someone is
approaching in a panicky fashion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lol.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-50798635055316691502013-04-16T18:27:00.000+01:002013-04-16T18:27:01.900+01:00There And Back Again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.vacationhomes.net/blog/pub/1331557058_Castle-Combe-Wiltshire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://www.vacationhomes.net/blog/pub/1331557058_Castle-Combe-Wiltshire.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I’ve
been wandering of late, difficult as it is, with such internet as can be
managed handily made possible by my internet provider – Paul. You notice the
difference in my old and reliable portable typewriter and it’s more modern
equivalent when you’ve got to cram it in the bottom of a backpack. But the places
I’ve been aren’t reliable when it comes to paper-thin laptops and pads, and whilst
the world conspires against it I do have to work. Distance conversely is not
such a problem since if Tolly Maw is good for anything it is just great at
being down the road from any number of places somewhat stranger than it. The
‘Maw (as the locals call it with something like affection, but that something
being more commonly resigned horror) lies on the road to anywhere – even if
most certainly not everywhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Grasper for example I can get to in
an hour when the wind is in the right direction. I rarely wish to but the road
chooses and up with the lark and the sproutling in school then if I hurry I can
be there – when it’s there – fairly quickly and work with speed and a
particular obsession with getting everything absolutely right. I don’t need to
re-write so much but it’s rather the point of what I do that I want it to be
just that. And it was sunny in Grasper, and to be fair no one was going to tell
me off for working there. Albeit to the minds of none of them is what I do to
be considered work. Grasper as you might very well know is a place very much
dedicated to fun. Admittedly to the identification of it and summary
disapproval once pinned to the butterfly board after the judicious application
of net and killing jar. The people of Grasper having for various reasons missed
being young entirely see no reason why the same should not be the case for
everyone. Since they were rather shy, nervous even of a good time, as the years
go by they increasingly loath those who see things otherwise. Young people
mostly, obviously.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mencken said that Puritanism was the
haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy. There is of course likewise
the myth amongst certain of our cousins that their own founding fathers came to
their shores to escape religious persecution (in fact it was because to their
minds there wasn’t enough of it back home). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And golly, the people of Grasper are puritans.
Not religious you understand, but they hate it when people do anything other
than town-sanctioned fun. It’s sadder still to see not the giddy baby-louts
being chased away from flat surfaces for having skateboards as much as their
peers who do the chasing. They wait until they too turn middle aged – somewhere
about twenty six if the hair things nice and early – whereupon they can with the
benefit of a few grey years under their belts roundly curse the kids in bus
shelters. The kids would almost certainly be elsewhere but where do you go when
you’re in your teens? The pub not only serves little more than a range of
brackish ales, but serves that by the half pint and never more than one an
hour. And it only opens for three hours on a Wednesday for quiz night (and
event whereupon people can social without talking to each other) and Sundays
for lunchtime for the sort of colossal roasts that nonetheless conspire to be
deconstructed to such an extent that the only thing that comes near to any
association with roasting is the name. Children obviously aren’t allowed in at
either time. Children are hidden away until old enough to be noticed, whereupon
they are left in the bus shelter for the night. You are allowed out of hours if
willing to sit on the bench outside as a local character. Which was me for the
now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I learn all this from the
most-boring-man-in-Grasper (which is saying something).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘I blame television,’ he tells me over
the half-pint of Cromwell he would nurse if not for the possible allusion to
breasts that might entail. And he does, he really does, at length. ‘Reality television
and those talent shows.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘Like we had with Opportunity Knocks?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">He blinks, but hearing only his own
opinions presses on, ‘Everyone just wants to be famous nowadays. Famous for
being famous, no talent at all.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I would have thought that a talent show
would have been ideal in that case, but again he doesn’t hear me. He also doesn’t
like the arts, sports personalities, popular science or celebrity chefs.
Presumably because anyone involved might be famous for having some talent. He tells
me that everyone is overpaid, almost certainly more than him, which is of
course the rub of it. He doesn’t mind if people don’t do proper work as long as
they don’t enjoy anything like the sort of car he can afford. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">He must love writers then.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Grasper has a cricketing green but no
team, and after some visitor played darts in the pub they had to get a new
board. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most-boring-man-in-Grasper
also dislikes cyclists who, I learn, ride about taking up the roads that were
paid for by his tax disc. Since the road here was laid in the 1920s over the
dusty track that preceded it this seems somewhat doubtful. I suspect that what
he really dislikes is the fact that middle-age people on bicycles throw
aspersions upon his own perfect-heterosexual figure. They’ll probably live
longer too; they almost certainly enjoy it. At heart he doubtless thinks anybody
on a bike should either be a dotty woman suitable for solving quaint murders,
the postman, or the sort of policeman mostly seen in old episodes of The Avengers
(useful for moving people along in case they poke their noses into a little
rural Satanisn, and being surprisingly strong when they do).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">When I rise to leave he withers when he
sees my backpack.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘Aren’t you the local tramp?’ he demands
to know.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘Not local, no,’ with which I establish
an awful local music festival and prevent a new motorway being built. Or I
would but I have to pick up the sprouting up from school. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-84896676955433375962013-04-09T15:11:00.002+01:002013-04-09T15:13:27.420+01:00Fun Size Mars Bar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2013/3/16/1363443416753/Margaret-Thatcher-and-Nei-010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2013/3/16/1363443416753/Margaret-Thatcher-and-Nei-010.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It
comes as something that on a blog you can’t say what you’ve been doing. Which I
shan’t, so there. You’ll have to speculate. Yeah, there you go*. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But I’ve been nudged and today
outright told that if current events now don’t see me commenting then nothing
will. Previously I had to take down a selection of articles. The first the
latest in the ever popular history-in-800 words concerning the rise and fall of
Goths across the centuries. One regarding Robert Smith. And the other about the
Clash which whilst entirely flattering is still now a hate crime. Frankly I’m
stuffed since not being able to take the piss out of Goths leaves me with a
big, gaping hole in my conversation. Ugly bastard buildings. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The matter at hand of course is that
descendant of straw-roofing artisans, the now late Baroness Thatcher. And who
doesn’t miss Danger Mouse? Now I’m sure that many would suspect that I’d be
here to rant and rail and throw stale buns at her memory. I’m not because as
I’ve witnessed across the net her legacy lives on, indeed benefits us all
today. Because Thatcher has reminded us once again of proper politics. Once
more people are on one side or the other. They get heated, they loath those who
say or think otherwise. The lines are drawn. Everyone is <em>us</em>, and all of <em>them</em>
are crypto-wankers or reactionary-gobshites. And that’s swearing that is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For too long we’ve all sort of
muddied our way through a series of Tony Blairs. First there was Tony Blair.
Now there’s Tony Cameron, put in power by a lot of people who voted for Tony
Clegg. The last is hilarious. It really is. A lot of people who would never,
ever vote Tory did do. And they always will have. Ha, ha, ha. No skin off my
custard you understand. I just want you to vote. Always. Just don’t bang on
about it afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So we’ve been swimming in the
non-Newtonian fluid of many Tonys all chasing the same sort of votes and all
looking quite alike and really with very few exceptions sort of muddling along
somewhere in the middle like Goths at a black lace theme night at the roller
disco. Shit, did it again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here we were
until yesterday with the Tonys only told apart by Tony Cameron looking a bit
pissed off, Tony Clegg looking resigned and weary, and Tony Milliband being the
restaurant at the end of the universe. But not now. Now once again there are
lines. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes, for the next few days at least
everyone is either a boil-in-the-bag fascist barely a short hop from bovver
boots and a hairdo to strike matches off, or an unshaven commie who never did a
day’s work in their life with a silly beard, that has trouble filling up their
petrol tank for all the milk bottles they’re topping up first. The one demands
we remember the 70s, the other the 80s. I remember both. The first had Action
Man in it and the second Kajagoogoo. If you don’t remember them or Flock of
Seagulls then you don’t really have an opinion on the matter anyway. They were
both rubbish bands. Unlike those in the 70s which hindsight has pruned of all
the crap in the charts then too to leave only Led Zeppelin at number one every
week even though they never released singles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So delight in it. Revel in your
awakening. The lines are drawn, politics is back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And the word ‘Falklands’, ‘Miners’,
and 80s chart music are the new Godwyn for the laws on internet debate. The
last one I added. Really it was bloody awful. Unlike in the 70s when Jethro
Tull were on Top Of The Pops every week and Punk and Disco were never around at
the same time at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Especially roller disco. With Goths in
the middle like a pack of Tonys.</span><br />
<br />
*Also, gout.</div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-26432939434230375722013-03-28T18:26:00.002+00:002013-03-28T18:26:31.526+00:00Sleep Scroungers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSiyIO4UrBCe1pveRPEGDHLnjegjKxensVMef63h9Ip9zJYddr-ZNgocZiNnR1RYUbvUdR9eJ2LTlNE2AYcJXGcYxJpM2JxDJHIrnx5QvJ_U-FZ7m7klJ3gPGNlC_DglAuBmIZ2ffuwBvq/s1600/nightmare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSiyIO4UrBCe1pveRPEGDHLnjegjKxensVMef63h9Ip9zJYddr-ZNgocZiNnR1RYUbvUdR9eJ2LTlNE2AYcJXGcYxJpM2JxDJHIrnx5QvJ_U-FZ7m7klJ3gPGNlC_DglAuBmIZ2ffuwBvq/s400/nightmare.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I
thought I’d escaped the bedroom tax what with not being in receipt of any
housing benefit but it appears not – since I discovered today that the tax is
to be applied to bedrooms, full stop.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I rang and discovered through a
young chap, clearly much harried, that sleep has been pinned down as being one
of the singularly largest drains on the country, being unproductive and indeed
the preserve of people simply lying around. Already plans are being made to
demonise sleepers who could be out there working. This all seems a little
unfair, at least to me personally, as I would happily not sleep at all if I
could seeing as how there is just so much stuff to do. I will get a decent sort
of rebate on the tax since one third of the bedrooms in my house are actually
being used for work, but that all rebounds as one of the remainder is occupied
by my daughter. Children are likewise seen as a drain on the country’s
resources and are (I was quietly told) to be phased out entirely over the next
ten years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s not like this week hasn’t been
the busiest since... ever. What with the end of term today needing three days
of cake making and decorating (fortunately the sprout won first prize), her
birthday, her party to organise, the upcoming Brownie camp, Easter – oh, and
work, with today yet more forms arriving needing to be urgently filled in. But
whilst I explained all this it was pointed out that if I hadn’t insisted on
spending five or six hours just <em>lying around</em> of a night then the whole thing
could have been made to go away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I had to concede the point.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-15474326649257640962013-03-27T14:53:00.000+00:002013-03-27T14:53:03.653+00:00Bus Wankers!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.skylineaviation.co.uk/buses/Cheltenham2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="http://www.skylineaviation.co.uk/buses/Cheltenham2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">So
it transpires I’m a poof. It seems an odd way to come out of the closet I
admit. It surprised me too let me tell you as I’d never before thought that
such involved me reading on a bus. But there it is. Despite two children and
the majority of my life quietly dedicated to going to bed with women the fact
that I read a book on the bus means that I’m gay. I was told so. So it must be
true.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s been said across the net that
homophobia is the fear by certain people that gay men will treat them exactly
the same way as they treat women. Equally I’d add that like a lot of middle age
men (who typically glance at the odd book or two as well) that I’m homophile.
Or to be more exact, are of the sure and certain belief that being straight and
with kids every gay man I know, have met, or will ever meet is having a much,
much better time of it than I am. All that fun just out there, and not for us.
Yes, it’s jealousy. And jealousy isn’t nice. But then middle age men aren’t
always very nice especially when it’s just a veneer learned through self
examination. Which mine is, oh yes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I swore to myself I would not moan
on this blog, nor express hate of anything from the way weetabix dries in the
bowl to meercats. I’ve done that. I used to have a web column back in the last
century and it was called Hate! I stopped that but the internet has picked up
that baton and run with it to the extent that bile drips from my very monitor
in some places. Not I, the web is too important for that, but elsewhere. I mean
to say, I don’t much care for My Little Pony so I won’t often be found on a
fansite dedicated to them. And if I were I would not then find time so heavy on
my hands that I would then attack those on that self same site for whom Rainbow
Blossom<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is a subject of considerably,
even abiding interest. Likewise whenever faced with a customer down the years
that cared to slate me I can smile back, or when reading nonsense likewise
chuckle and live content in the happy realisation that life is too short to
listen to idiots. Though if you said it, I know you said it, and I’ll remember.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So on this bus I’m reading. A book,
not a newspaper. And two fat men of about my age stare at me. And one says to
the other, ‘What’s he doing?’ To which his witty friend replied, ‘Reading, what
a poof.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now naturally what should happen is
that I would ignore them, seethe a little, and then come up with some witty
rejoinder later. That I should like the bullied 1<sup>st</sup> year know my
place. Sadly, that is not I. People forget that under this charming and jolly
nice exterior I am still Alan. Alan who indeed won the cun t-of-the-year
competition in the 80s against some very stiff competition. Indeed, Alan that
knew the sort of people amongst whom we would actually go through and judge
such an award. So for all those of you who would turn the other fearful cheek,
I was there for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although to be fair all I came up
with on the spur was, ‘If you’re looking for a three-way I don’t fuck fat twats’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I should add here that their weight
was not an issue. Cope knows I was there myself for quite some time. But such
were the weapons offered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘You what?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘You fucking heard.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Fuck off.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Off the bus? Or just generally fuck
off?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To which I was told to watch it. To
which I laughed. Then they got off the bus and when in motion again made
motions with their fists. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All of which made me feel jolly
young again. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It was just like the 80s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Presumably I’d better look out at
closing time in case they and their half dozen mates fancy teaching me a good
lesson when they decide on a little idle gay-bashing. Which would be terribly unfair
as I’d get the hiding without all the benefits. You know, all that fun I’m
absolutely certain 100% I’m completely missing out on.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-91636596662562060602013-03-24T18:24:00.001+00:002013-03-24T18:24:17.806+00:00We Miss You James Herbert<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://torbooks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/James-Herbert-c-Julie-Dennison1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://torbooks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/James-Herbert-c-Julie-Dennison1.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Just
the other day I saw James Herbert’s new novel in the supermarket at a cut down,
end of aisle price. So I walked round the corner to the proper bookshop and
bought it there. For the sake of a couple of quid I’d rather have the bookshop.
Quite aside from anything else they host the book group I try and get to, and
they have nice cake. Not that I can eat cake but I appreciate the gesture. I
could eat cake, but having hit eleven stone now cake and I are undergoing a
trial separation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So I read it and like nearly everything
Herbert it was very readable. And then just hours later I find out James
Herbert had died. And I felt sad, and I still do. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ve muttered before about how I
dislike the terms young-adult and teen-fiction. Teenagers that genuinely do
read, read books. I did. And when I was a middling teen I read James Herbert. I
also read Zelazny, Moorcock, Dick and any number of others but as a teenager I
definitely read Herbert – and so too did many of us. His heroes were pretty
much alike and the attractive foil for the hero likewise so that the inevitable
sex scenes were identical between them. Ever thrown into sharp relief from the
purity of the identical perfect first-fuck by the host of grubby perverts also
in the book that would get eaten, or beaten, or just always killed. We know
this because Herbert always showed, rarely told. He had the knack for spending
a chapter going through the topsy-turvy, usually perverse, lives of someone
only for them to get eaten by rats, ghosts, or killed by someone that has three
chapters of their lives before suffering the same. He showed us what was so
terrible by showing what happened. No nameless body on a beach with a bit of
exposition to paint the eyes and mouth on a cardboard face here. And he was
brilliant at it. I’ve read some snidey stuff about Herbert’s work recently.
This is exactly what you’d expect since he sold millions. \But the thing is,
absolutely everyone that met him describes what a great bloke he was. So I say
good for him - and thanks for all the scary nights.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He was in many ways the English
Stephen King, by time and success. But I don’t know what Maine looks like and
Herbert had less characters that were writers. But I do or afterwards did know
what Aldgate was like (Rats), what Wiltshire, Bournemouth and the Elephant were
(Fog) – and so on . Domain got me fascinated with London under London and my
Granda Bill then told me more. The last struck a chord too since nuclear war
was not for we teens of the 80s unlikely, it was almost inevitable. It was. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And as I say James Herbert was
readable. He told his tales with a fast pace, with chapters that made you read
the next. With wonderful and realised passing supporting characters (that as I’ve
said would then die). He was a British horror writer and he wrote for us. We
read them when we were teenagers. And when we were teenagers the darkness never
sparkled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>RIP James Herbert. You were great.
Your work was important. We’ll miss you.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-15853111909374750322013-03-19T18:27:00.004+00:002013-03-19T18:27:48.932+00:00By Air to Shangri-La<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/images/rail/af-amanullah-croydon-airport-1928.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/images/rail/af-amanullah-croydon-airport-1928.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It
may well be a place now of giant shops selling giant amounts of things (though
not necessarily for giant people) but Purley Way in Croydon once ran alongside
the world’s first international airport. You can still see the entrance there,
or used to at least – it’s been a while since I lived out that way – a nifty
piece of art-deco architecture from when there was a romance to air
travel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than flying in 747s or
Air Busses airplanes had proper names like the De Havilliand Dragon (followed
closely by the Dragon Rapide, now more commonly found in the French editions of
the Monster Manual) and the Armstrong-Whitworth Atlanta. Planes with proper,
gutsy names. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Names you could hang a hat
off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Before the likes of Blackbush and Northolt
decided they could more than accommodate international travel in the 50s then
in the decades before it was Croydon or Croy-nothing. The aerodrome became an
airport in the 20s, an air<em>port </em>by the way the way being an airfield where one
is required to go through customs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now obviously the likes of you
wouldn’t have had the distinction of being anywhere near flights to Templehof
or Rotterdam, enjoying the vagaries of luxurious travel in cramped armchairs
and a fair chance of crashing in the Himalayas and discovering Shangri-La. Back
then of course planes were regularly equipped with yeti-guns, and pith helmets
were required just for a trip to the loo – of which there was probably
none.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Air piracy was not only common but
expected as independent zeppelins cruised the skies and science was only
allowed in the hands of responsible chaps with pipes, in sheds (or mad
scientists, but they weren’t allowed on Imperial Airways).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Personally I avoid such places. I’m
of an age to settle down and enjoy life a bit. Air travel for me inevitably
leads to dinosaurs and cave people placated only by stout bars of chocolate.
And since I’m on a diet I just don’t have the chocolate to deal with ‘em.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ve got a pith helmet of course. </span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-60585438831118720442013-03-17T08:27:00.003+00:002013-03-17T08:27:57.487+00:00Hangovers, Museums, and Clive Mantle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFylKy4N1C3FbQIumYnkd1MSc1cITy0i8r8Fyq5eZCbd8Fgm473DXDVPTdgahsGUqKFHR7tRHjA9YryYpos5Rimzm5V49EDzl9AzYGqUE_OCF6xAS7mBjOebgJEY4HQi2GyF-jjMEgvhcD/s1600/mantle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFylKy4N1C3FbQIumYnkd1MSc1cITy0i8r8Fyq5eZCbd8Fgm473DXDVPTdgahsGUqKFHR7tRHjA9YryYpos5Rimzm5V49EDzl9AzYGqUE_OCF6xAS7mBjOebgJEY4HQi2GyF-jjMEgvhcD/s320/mantle.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Tolly
Maw has a museum I discovered yesterday.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Deserving of a hangover I had not
been given I had the day mostly to myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When you’ve had kids all the time, forever, it’s difficult to know what
to do when for the day you do not. Similarly having for the first time in a
long time been able to go out the night before I opened one eye very carefully
on the morning so as to sneakily look around in case there was horror and
headache awaiting me. I’d only been asleep for four hours, but the first recce
showed nothing resembling a quiet, middle-aged course of hiding under the
pillow and soft weeping at the loss of my youthful ability to regenerate from
the excesses of the night before. I crept to the bathroom for a wee like a
burglar. It took a careful appraisement of body, self and soul before I could accept
that yes, I’d gotten away with it. So able to go for a walk I did (albeit after
a lot of tea and ever ready for the hangover to ambush me). If I left the house
after all the horror might not know where I was having expected me to rise
later. I left it a note.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The trouble with museums is that if
you’ve ever lived in a city then museums elsewhere are always going to be a bit
crap. When you take even the obvious big boys, the Natural History, and the
Science Museum you can become exhibit blind. Of course there are bloody great
dinosaurs and moon landers; that’s what museums have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only exception to the urban versus rural
in museums is Bovington. So many tanks. So, so many. When you’re used to this
sort of thing then coming to the likes of Cumbria was a bit of a shock. There
then there are but a handful. In Maryport the Roman museum is the oldest
collection in Britain, it being a small room with some carved stone and old
coins. Or in Keswick there are two. The first has some stuffed animals and a mummified
cat. The second is entirely to do with pencils. No joke, a pencil museum. If
anything it rather over eggs the amount that can be said about pencils; which
is not a great deal. But Tolly Maw is to Cumbria what Cumbria is to London.
Because the Tolly Maw museum is kept in a box.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>No scale models here. And what is a
museum without scale models, even tatty ones? Indeed, especially tatty ones. I
said this and the curator plucked from the box a number of Action Man sten gun
magazines. They were indeed scaled down, and also rare – and I was happy at
least to find out where all the Action Man sten gun magazines went since they
never seemed to linger around their sten guns when I was a boy. Poor Action
Man, ever ill-equipped with unloaded sten guns and an SLR without a barrel. I didn’t
like to pass judgement on the sorry collection contained in the Tolly Maw
museum since the curator is Clive Mantle and Clive Mantle whilst big, and
friendly, is also a giant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You’re Little John,” I said to him
whilst he loaded his blowing-trumpet loaded with dreams.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He wasn’t. He was much more famous
for <em>Casualty</em> and <em>Holby City</em>. Neither of which I’d seen. RADA trained, more
recently something in <em>Games of Thrones</em>. Which I’ve also never seen. People are
often surprised how little fantasy tele and films I watch. They shouldn’t be.
He was in <em>Alien 3</em> too, which meant he was a proper British actor since Alien 3
is the film about where all the villains from every other American film are
sent to as punishment for defying people who, despite the title, don’t actually
die (hard or otherwise). I like Alien 3 better than the rest of the series. I
am alone in this. But still I didn’t remember him in it. It’s been a while. I
rarely own films I like since I like the delight of finding out when one of
them is on tele. <em>Went The Day Well</em> and <em>Ice Cold In Alex</em> were both on the other
day, one after the other. That was a good day. So I said, “So you’re Little
John then?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He sighed and admitted that he was,
just without the beard.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In case the sheriff should come by.
He was in disguise. Or at least so I had to suppose. I asked if I could dig
through the museum but upset Clive Mantle took back the box and returned it to
its shelf. It was a very high shelf, which is why Clive Mantle has to be the
curator.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When I got home there was a note
from my hangover. It pointed out that according to its records I was owed money
due to miss-sold PPI. I wondered what it had gone into since I had long since
ignored its services. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Now it just plain pisses off everyone. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-32677777869979550002013-03-15T16:43:00.000+00:002013-03-15T16:43:26.224+00:00Pencil - Aunt Minerva<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqcFKk1uUGCLFiD_cpRSumQWtFO0fC2kBLWmBSkfh-XWMtikNNiluax8NnOTuJ854DFt0zH_xzf0zraSM09lzdPwwumWoRMH4TR-ny3oNduGziP6GXCJ6TBHDJHV4G1ZEb0UB5GIRt5peQ/s1600/img339.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqcFKk1uUGCLFiD_cpRSumQWtFO0fC2kBLWmBSkfh-XWMtikNNiluax8NnOTuJ854DFt0zH_xzf0zraSM09lzdPwwumWoRMH4TR-ny3oNduGziP6GXCJ6TBHDJHV4G1ZEb0UB5GIRt5peQ/s640/img339.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>Asa Ewerlof, Henry Lord Rockingham, Mme Roux, Charlie Bittersweet, Alf Bittersweet</em></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-42802298595631526362013-03-13T07:25:00.003+00:002013-03-13T07:25:47.461+00:00Cowell To Decide Pope<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://img.u.tv/galleries/7/7/7/777/620x349/cowell_wedding_12032013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img.u.tv/galleries/7/7/7/777/620x349/cowell_wedding_12032013.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The
Catholic Church has revealed today that in order to clean up their image (after
recent events have spoiled an otherwise spotless history) that Simon Cowell is
to be in charge of finding the next Pope.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Current surveys suggest that since
1536 (nearly twenty to four in the afternoon)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>the church has undergone something of a lapse in popularity in Britain,
and Cowell is said to be delighted to be working in this with an organisation
actually richer than his own. Already across the country applications are being
taken by anybody that feels they have what it takes to rise to the double-cape,
a process whose heats and finals will be shown on ITV as the <em>PontifeX Factor</em>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Religious knowledge is not
necessarily seen as important, so much as character, charisma, and really,
really wanting it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The winner is guaranteed a one-book
deal, the world’s number one bestseller - although suggestions are already
doing the rounds that the ‘Bible’ has long been ghost-written. Or holy ghost
written (sorry...)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When asked about the strong possibility
of young, pretty, emotionally unbalanced people lining up to do anything it
takes to succeed one Cardinal is said to have set his hands on fire with all
the eager rubbing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The PonitfeX Factor is due to be
shown this autumn in a ratings battle with rival <em>Pope Idol</em>.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-61746273541455459372013-03-12T13:24:00.000+00:002013-03-12T14:07:08.482+00:00Mad March<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/7.3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="343" src="http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/7.3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">“Where
the fuck have you been?” Alf wants to know. He doesn’t say it harshly, but
dropping the ‘darling’ he adds to anyone from teaboy to toast rack I have to
adopt my most winning smile. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There’s snow about the shelter of
the hedge yet it’s bright enough to wear sunglasses. Mine are round, because
nothing else suits me. I say, “Here Alf, mostly.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He tells me they’ve been out
looking. No word for days and they feared the worse. Even Mme Roux is worried
it seems (and she knows for a fact that nothing bad has happened to me since she
knows the times we have yet to meet). I say I find that last hard to believe,
“We’re very different,” I point out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Politics and biscuits aren’t as
important as you two make out,” says Alf. He sits beside me. There’s a great
view today. A little cold the air is blue and clear. The clouds are high where
here they’re often neighbours. The mountains are beautiful. I am in a fine sort
of mood and have been for days. “She don’t know as much as she makes out,” he
says regarding Mme Roux. “she don’t know what happens between those scratches
where you overlap. There are times indeed when you make her nervous.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Me?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You can be right inscrutable,
darling.” Alf in his 60s camp clobber is a nasty bastard when he doesn’t care
to try to be otherwise, so I’m glad he’s being friendly again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’m not,” I say, “I’m very open,
me.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Honest and honourable? She ain’t, so don’t
believe no one else is neither,” his accent grows as he relaxes to the day. It
is a very fine day after all, and his voice all thick-friendly Lambeth. He’s
smarter than I am, is Alf; he takes great pains to not appear so. “Anyway,
where’ve you been?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Here. It snowed most pleasantly and
in between the sun was brilliant. It’s March, Alf.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And so it is, and so he nods. Just
as shit always happens in December right before Christmas so too do good things
happen in March. And it’s Rex Manning day on Friday, and the postie brought me
the newly updated extra-scenes-version of Empire Records this morning. I can
only think of one proper relationship that didn’t start in March, and instead
that year I changed my life when I ended up in the Elephant and Castle. My
eldest daughter was born in March. I’ve ever had good news in March. March as
mad as the proverbial hare. I love March. Spring with a winter woolie and
summer hat. It’s a cold beer, new bread, a good book unread. March and my
life is always right. And my life right now is very right. Apart from not seeing
enough of my youngest, which is the long shadow to such a fine sun. I had a
pinch to navigate and I came back for that – and I made, I think, the right
decisions. The day seems to prove it, the week indeed. And I’ve got these
fantastic sunglasses. Round, the only ones that suit me. I say, “Where did you
look?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Usual. Salisbury and the Ukraine in
the 30s. London and Berlin crossing the 90s. That train you like. Bournemouth,
not that I understand that one.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Never anything bad in Bournemouth,”
I explain. It’s my place of no-shit and total relaxation. It’s a shame it isn’t
that for one of my dearest friends right now, because the reason it is such a
special place for me is entirely because of him. “But I was here all along.
Just working, as ever.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Balls,” Alf doesn’t like Tolly Maw.
He knows it’s not as other places. He knows why that is too, and because of
whom. He won’t tell me though I suspect, and if he’s right then again as much
in his wish not to discuss it. There’s only one line you do not cross with me,
and it’s her 9<sup>th</sup> birthday in a little over a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There’s something you’re not telling me, darling,”
he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“There’s something I’m not telling
anyone, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alf.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So tell me something else...”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So I do. I tell him about Mary
Anning, died of breast cancer in 1847. Not born well, never very flush, she
discovered a great many fossils in Lyme Regis of startling importance. She
changed, was a pioneer indeed of palaeontology. Due to her gender and certain
religious difficulties she never entirely realised the recognition her worth
deserved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2010 the Royal Society
named her as one of the ten British women to have most influenced science.
Dickens wrote of her in 1865.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Never heard of her,” says Alf.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“There you are then, now go and do
something about that. Or how about Nelson? Atop his column in Trafalgar Square
he faces the mall through Admiralty Arch – and the streetlamps of the Mall all
have a ship atop them representing one of the ships from the fleet of that
battle for which the square is named.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You all right?” he says. He gives
me the funny look.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It’s mad March, Alf. Everything’s
all right,” so I stand and stretch my arms right out just as Julian Cope would
want me to. Because it’s March, and on Friday it’s Rex Manning day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-67932854365999261922013-03-04T14:09:00.002+00:002013-03-04T14:09:46.808+00:00Picaroon (Ink)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRhYby6a2wxeoikBDe06o44qyYlgGLNVFb_ui5Ivhb7ENEXiP6MGqW1wgyYA5pIK1rkaMfYU5qMmNFEwIrLJoENe7lSuI-_ex-HzGd3S1bi4cuF_I6WPEvzQqY1dHSFjpwEDJVt4IXEIC/s1600/img338.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRhYby6a2wxeoikBDe06o44qyYlgGLNVFb_ui5Ivhb7ENEXiP6MGqW1wgyYA5pIK1rkaMfYU5qMmNFEwIrLJoENe7lSuI-_ex-HzGd3S1bi4cuF_I6WPEvzQqY1dHSFjpwEDJVt4IXEIC/s1600/img338.jpg" height="640" width="310" /></a></div>
<br />Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-4588441279862237432013-03-03T07:58:00.000+00:002013-03-03T07:58:27.499+00:00Hurray for Bond!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.starstills.com/product_images/h/ss2235012_-_photograph_of_sid_james_as_captain_wellington_crowther_from_carry_on_cruising_available_in_4_sizes_framed_or_unframed_buy_now_at_starstills__87263.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://www.starstills.com/product_images/h/ss2235012_-_photograph_of_sid_james_as_captain_wellington_crowther_from_carry_on_cruising_available_in_4_sizes_framed_or_unframed_buy_now_at_starstills__87263.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<em>Commander Bond (Daniel Craig)</em></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">My
dad and I had two things in common, two things we both liked. He wasn’t much of
a reader (unless it was Douglas Reeman) and my own forays into volunteer work
pale to his. Indeed, my dad lived for volunteer work which he would enter, take
over, organise and have marching about in stark efficiency within a year of his
interest. It started with the local garden club, then the RNLI, and then life
saving at swimming pools. He would raise huge sums or train endless new
volunteers, he would commit his whole life to such endeavours and jolly good
for him. He liked committees. The progress was inevitable in whichever next
caught his fancy. He would attend, he would be treasurer, he would be chairman,
he would install a monorail and make sure that every door would swish smoothly
open and that people would be well supplied by guards in shiny helmets and
orange jumpsuits. Probably because one of the two things we had in common was
James Bond. The other was aircraft. Helicopters mostly, and he did a lot of
work with helicopters. But for today, Bond.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is because I managed to watch
<em>Skyfall</em> yesterday, and jolly good fun it was too. I’m not going to point out
that that wasn’t the right sort of tube train for Temple, in a film where the
immensely complicated series of coincidence and plot is solely so the villain
can kill M the shape of an underground train is easily overlooked. I grew up finally
being allowed to stay up to watch <em>Goldfinger</em>, seeing Timothy Dalton not long
after leaving the parental abode, at first enjoying and then hanging on loyally
as Brosnan ventured into invisible cars, but missing entirely the latest reboot
when first it came out. Indeed, I saw <em>Quantum</em> before <em>Casino</em> – and the first on
the way to my dad’s funeral as I had a four hour wait for a coach. It didn’t
make much sense until I managed to catch up with <em>Casino</em>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I read the Bond books as a teenager,
and even the oddities and strange opinions are a vital part of them. I read the
John Gardner versions as they came out (a strange choice my friends and I
thought, as Gardner’s Boysie Oakes books took the piss out of the genre – fine
though they undoubtedly were). I played the rpg – albeit at the time all our agents
were scruffy louts somewhere between Robert Plant and Bodie. Bond even produced
one of the finest console games ever in <em>Goldeneye</em>. The current reboot was
needed, and has been done well, and if you didn’t like <em>Skyfall</em> you probably don’t
like Bond movies. This is perfectly acceptable. Your opinion is valid; just
that in this case you are wrong.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
that Bond is the most successful of the 00 Branch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>001 and 005 are never mentioned.
They probably have very dull stories. The 00 branch being assassins (not spies)
they doubtless get a briefing, shoot someone, and then go home to the family in
Esther, Surrey. Or more likely push the odd person under a tube, probably at
Temple station. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Even if the tube train itself is
entirely of the wrong sort.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-42310646709072179812013-03-01T07:36:00.001+00:002013-03-01T10:54:39.911+00:00A Memorable Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Guys_hospital_tower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Guys_hospital_tower.jpg" width="278" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I’ve
been asked again when it was I first met Mme Roux?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">`<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I was thinking about this only the
other day. I was thinking about it because twice over that day I saw Angel. Not <em>an</em>
angel, but a girl I used to know. Her name might well have actually been that,
or been something entirely different – there’s no reason to suppose it derived
or was shortened from anything. This was somewhere circa 1990. I was living on
the Elephant back then, Castle that is. On the Rockingham, one of those estates from
the 50s where the urban slums and bomb sites were bulldozed and remade into
entirely new slums. In the right light they look somewhat Art Deco, but that
has to be a very strong light - and the only time bright lights ever shone in
such estates is when someone from The Bill would be filmed arresting a
blister-mouthed single-mum prostitute-illiterate cliché. Her name then was
Angel, and that was nothing odd as you have to understand that later that summer
I had a good mate called Helle and my girlfriend as-then-unmet was called Grit
(and both of those were their real names). I knew a couple more called Tizer
and Xerox (and those were not). I met Angel on the tube coming back from a cave
where I’d worked, and we got talking because back then if you had the leather
jacket, and the para boots, and the squat-sink washed clothes you knew each
other, even if you had only just met. I knew Angel for eight days, we were
friends pretty quickly, and then she was gone. No one knew her, no one remembered
her, no one had ever heard of her (and in that scene someone always knew someone,
who knew someone). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I saw Angel twice the other day, once
on a forum on line, once in the local high street as I crossed the road. Not
Angel as was then, but both times someone that looked so like Angel as she
would have been had she hit middle age too. The same long face, the same mass
of tangled, curly hair, tall, rangy. It wasn’t her in the first, and in the
second the woman was jogging and, well, you don’t call out to strangers after
dark do you? That would be creepy. So it wasn’t Angel, but I hadn’t thought on
her for twenty odd years. And that’s why I thought too on Mme Roux. Not
stealing my biscuits as now but when I first met her. Or the second time; I don’t
remember the first (though she assures me it is true).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was a memorable day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I remember it because as a young man
and pretty I woke up in one bed, went asleep in another and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>made close acquaintance with a third girl on
the train (the one before the tube where I met Angel). I want to be clear here
that this was unusual. I am by nature a serial monogamist. My life, but for
that one summer, has been one of long relationships, years each. I am not and
have never been a player. I didn’t cut marks in my bedpost then, I certainly
don’t now. I can’t abide leches. Just so we’re clear on that. It was
nonetheless a memorable day; you’ll give me that one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And on that day I first met Mme
Roux. I was late and hurrying for the train, to get to a cave. I’m never late
and in truth I wasn’t then either, but I wasn’t early which for me is much the
same. It was a warm morning. London no longer sees the pea-soupers but it can
possess a fug, a half seen fog of heat and exhaust fumes, the ghosts of Friday
night and most importantly a thick presence made by the brief absence of almost
anyone. That slither of a moment between the return of some and the rise of
others. It’s a weekend thing. Warm, and I was hurrying and Mme Roux fell in
step with me and chatted away as if we were old friends, which might have been
true, or she thought I was someone else – or it was that London thing of the
time in the culture that was counter where everyone just assumed you were a
friend of a friend anyway. Only Mme Roux did not fit this mould. Her leather
was cracked and brown. She wore neither ratty jumper nor punky t-shirt. Her skirts
were long, not short, and they did not cover hoop tights even if she did wear
practical boots. In her case though they were practical for walking (not practical
for jumping out of Dutch airplanes). Her hair was short, plain, and she wasn’t
wearing make-up. She was, I remember thinking, therefore a Christian out to save
a few souls. They tried that at the time, they might do still. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She walked with me, in step, and
quickly then. She gave me a cup of tea. It was in a mug, I recall that
because it was a mug and a <em>mug</em> is something from the home although it was big,
chipped, off white and ceramic. The tea was luke-warm, wet and sweet. Not like
Mme Roux at all. We walked and she chatted about people I did not know, though
she disagreed with me on that. I remember thinking how old she was, well into
her thirties – I was just into my twenties at the time. I was walking quickly I
say again and when we came close to Guy’s Hospital just before the station she
grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and yanked me back from the road. At that
moment a motorbike took the corner too quick, barely righted itself and roared
away. Right where I would have been. She gives me a cigarette and a twenty
pound note. She patted me on the cheek and left me stood there confused and
aghast. And that was the first time I remember meeting Mme Roux. I had serious
thoughts about that on the train; it was all very guardian angel. But Mme Roux was
and is no angel. Though on the same day I met a girl called Angel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You remember days like that. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-25424254829708745752013-02-27T14:50:00.002+00:002013-02-27T14:50:34.096+00:00Die Badgers, Die!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.grovel.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/grandville-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.grovel.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/grandville-02.jpg" height="192" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>Bryan Talbot's graphic representation of the problem we face</em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">For
too long it seems the terror of the badger has infected the countryside. New legislation
is set to see badger culls put in place across the country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Living in the country as I do I feel
it’s best to inform my mostly-urban readers of the threat that the badger poses
us. It’s all very well bleating on about ‘evidence’ regarding bovine-TB (or the
lack thereof, or whether the cull will do anything given that the carriers are
merciless bio-commandos that have Hawkwind’s Urban Guerrilla on the IP3 players<em>
and nothing else</em>) but the simple fact of the matter is that badgers are a real
threat out here. Hardly a day goes by without badger youths, already equipped
by nature with bandit masks, make the lives of pensioners a misery whilst
hanging out in bus stops without any intention to use the bus. These ‘stripies’
(as the Daily Mail has christened them) creep into our houses, piss in the
milk, and force our children to fight hungry dogs in viscous baby-baiting ball
pits. Also according to the same source they killed Princess Diana and bring our
house prices down, so there’s that too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After the whole myxomatosis thing
with the rabbits backfired the last time something like this was attempted,
sources have suggested that the government is not going to become embroiled in
the same drawn out mess again. Indeed, whilst farmers with guns will initially
do the work it is intended that weasels will eventually take on increasing
responsibility for the undertaking. Apart from the actual undertaking, which
will be done by crows – when the crows aren’t being nailed to fenceposts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Giant steely traps have already been
erected outside of Britain’s Lidl supermarkets where it is thought badgers
mostly shop. For worms, grubs and vermin it has to be supposed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A trial scheme is already being
rolled out in Nutwood. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-59976600461473979932013-02-24T10:26:00.000+00:002013-02-24T10:26:10.176+00:00Fiesta Parquet (Ink)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcL9iO9FPnX-O367bZH1DfVDvJhrKg70bGBJsMBKS0d37HbgiEsqFj0BLxfgOM2FO8DbXR6epkhWFdJjNlMne_Xtd4YN4R1G-r8xUSdL4XfZJEzfHdEZkI1ABYKE6934Nureut4kKQy4Wo/s1600/img337.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcL9iO9FPnX-O367bZH1DfVDvJhrKg70bGBJsMBKS0d37HbgiEsqFj0BLxfgOM2FO8DbXR6epkhWFdJjNlMne_Xtd4YN4R1G-r8xUSdL4XfZJEzfHdEZkI1ABYKE6934Nureut4kKQy4Wo/s640/img337.jpg" width="411" /></a></div>
<br />Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-31454213217157812362013-02-22T06:30:00.001+00:002013-02-22T06:30:28.571+00:00Lola Austistanata (Pt. 1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVD47M_JCZlPImLEv1UQ5Z_0MW_JN-f8JJwIy_dE93HNTw4f53cdvv0fcexmCL3HMyJdM0dQmPoeBjCZyJ1rzSmXoAQl6or2kbju-BKOyB8iySAd6Z774oR0aZ5wsKVUSE1RQSOY-WUtFT/s1600/torch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVD47M_JCZlPImLEv1UQ5Z_0MW_JN-f8JJwIy_dE93HNTw4f53cdvv0fcexmCL3HMyJdM0dQmPoeBjCZyJ1rzSmXoAQl6or2kbju-BKOyB8iySAd6Z774oR0aZ5wsKVUSE1RQSOY-WUtFT/s1600/torch.jpg" height="400" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Lola
likes the dark; or rather the torch lit dark. She likes it that the world is so
small and moves about her in such a clearly defined boundary. She doesn’t feel
the same way about the night which is unfortunate as the battery is going flat,
and with it her mood. She’s a sensible girl and she’s better at this than I am.
If she ever sees her tenth birthday she’ll be better still. There’s no
certainty of that. I hope she will, and I’d pray if I thought it would do any
good. But if we have a lot of hope then that currency has been debased in the
last three years. There’s been a run on hope and a lot of hope might just about
see the chickens lay come morning. A lot more might see there being a morning.
I’d hoped there would be chocolate at the petrol station but hope hadn’t stretched
that far.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Creepers, daddy,” says Lola. She’s
got good ears, better than that she can tell if something shouldn’t be where it
ought to be (dark, torch lit or otherwise). Lola is autistic. That’s a super
power. It’s certainly saved my life enough times. Every night we’re safe, or
safer than now. The doors are never left open. We live because we have rituals,
traditions, and all of them keep us alive. And we never, ever, forget them.
Because if we forget even a single one Lola will scream and kick, she will
round on me and curse me until things are as they should be. Back before
everything went wrong I had a smoke alarm that went off if you so much as
opened the oven, on or off. I had to either pull the wire from the thing or
never use the oven. There’s a wire in Lola that you can’t pull out, but if goes
off when the oven door is left open then still I’ll never miss a fire in the
house. That was a different house. That house was in the city. No one lives in
the cities now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The lanes are overgrown. The hedges
are remembering that they’re trees now there’s no one to tell them otherwise.
There’s a lot of low cloud and it’s dark when I turn off the last of the torch.
Lola is behind me. She holds on to my coattails. If I say run she will run.
From my pocket I take out a pistol and straighten my arm. Lola turns me gently
and moves me forward. I don’t see anything for a good ten yards before the
shadow of an overhanging bough moves with us. Creepers are ambushers. If we
walked calmly out of reach it would follow us and others by scent or some sound
even Lola can’t hear would join it, if there are others. If we climb a tree the
same thing so we walk slowly and stay out of reach until level with it I keep
the awful pistol toward its head. Lola buries hers in my coat. I should have pulled
back the hammer before now and doing so the creeper starts. It drops and the
crack of the pistol echoes flat over the heath. I’m a crap shot and fire again
just in case. I’m shaking. Lola takes my hand and before the sound has rolled
away she’s forgotten there was a creeper at all. A meal eaten, a bedtime gone
by morning, a sneeze, it’s less than a stubbed toe. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lola is better at this than me. I
wish she never had to be. But wishes are just hope in a prettier dress. Lola’s
dress is colourful under her coat but there’s mud about the hem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">At
first I wouldn’t hear a word of it. Lola never avoided eye contact with me. We
always went everywhere together. We told stories and made up games. Social
inadequacy? Not my Lola. At best I was blinkered. Her first word was ‘da’. She
would always wear that fat, dribbling grin. I didn’t know that she grinned
through the dribble because I had come into the room. So bedtimes grew harder.
I had to sit in a certain place and hold her hand for a certain amount of time
and the more she spoke the more complex things became. And by the time she was
four even leaving the house was a six step process that would not, could not,
be differed else it was back to the beginning. I admit I became frustrated,
angry even. I never struck Lola but I did once take it out on a chair. Poor
broken chair. I sound awful, and I was, just not very awful since if I rub at
these few occasions it’s because scratching the scar of them never lets them
heal. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She had friends, briefly. There hadn’t
been much school before the world went wrong and I was shocked when going by
one lunchtime to see her standing still, talking to no one, and vocally. The
other children avoided her. The psychologists were useless and frustrated with
it all I ended the last meeting asking if, after this the third, we could talk
about Lola at last since everything had been about how it affected her mother so
far. The doctors were better. Months of meetings and she was diagnosed,
autistic, and for me everything was better. The beast had a name, only it
wasn’t a beast. It was what made Lola, Lola. When her mother walked out Lola
was staying with me, Lola’s choice; no hesitation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But as Lola went right, the world
went wrong.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lola noticed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I listened to Lola. I listened when
she got caught up in a circle of her own logic that was flawed from one end to
the next. I looked back without blinking when her gaze was a cracked plate so
that the lines mended. We hugged, we always hugged. And it would all go away.
Only it didn’t always go away. Calm, aware of everything, Lola would point
things out and increasingly without frustration, without the insistence in what
was right, or wrong. She noticed, and she told me, and long able to tell the
difference between when she was right and when she was in one of her <em>moments</em>. I
started to be able to tell back that then when she told me things that could
not be she was not in that moment. And she was right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There had been someone living next
door, when now there was not. There had been roses in the garden. People had
phoned, not just machines time and again (and always with the same message).
When she told me a programme had been on the day before, and the day before
that I watched, and she was right. The busses grew infrequent but specific in
that infrequency. The nation’s most celebrated charity fund raiser was revealed
to have been the country’s evilest man. The Pope resigned. There was a
meteorite that struck Russia, three impossible things before breakfast with
three more to go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">We
live distant from everyone else, now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is a community twelve miles from us. Twelve miles used to be
nothing. Twelve miles on foot in one direction, on bad roads, is a lot further.
They know about us, we know about them, and at times we have to go there for
things we need since they’ve long since cleared out all the towns from the sea
to the mountains. They’re good people. There were bad people, cruel people, but
they didn’t last. Even the smallest injury can go bad like the aftershock of
the whole world. It might be different elsewhere but over in Keswick people
work together because before things went bad no one hereabouts had grown up in
a feudal society, they had lived by the big laws. In the new classless world
they remained resolutely middle. If they’d had farmer’s markets and lovely
celebrity chefs many there might well have preferred their world to that
before. But the world had gone wrong, and wrong was bad, so they didn’t.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because...</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-12022238278744530662013-02-21T07:37:00.002+00:002013-02-21T07:37:13.678+00:00Old PC<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.cs.cuw.edu/museum/images/vectra286.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.cs.cuw.edu/museum/images/vectra286.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The
old pc wouldn’t sort her fault<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She
begged. She blubbed. She hit the malt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She
screamed until her cheeks were salt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The
old pc as moveable as basalt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">As
if King Mark to her Iseult<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Ignored
her pleas, her angry tumult <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She
struck the old pc for little result<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">So
the pc nicked her for assault<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">He
wasn’t a computer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-49556344172605660952013-02-20T07:24:00.003+00:002013-02-20T07:24:52.061+00:00Pope Rupert and the Lidless Eye<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i608.photobucket.com/albums/tt165/orsonw/more%20default%20stuff/eyeshard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i608.photobucket.com/albums/tt165/orsonw/more%20default%20stuff/eyeshard.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Not
long returned and you’ll understand that the newspapers of the future had
little to say of what has occurred in my absence. Actually that’s not true.
There were no newspapers, and those that there were (of which there were none)
were saying much the same things on much the same topics. The grey custard of
the news to be had then did not so much inform as comfort, or outrage, as ever
by one’s preference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A lot of what I’ve since caught up
with is the usual background fluff. A giant meteorite has smashed into Russia
and bendy robots have singularly failed to be seen. North Korea has declared
that they now have a fully functioning death star. A stolen Poundland has been
found on auction in America, complete with tattoo. Several leading brands of
lager have been castigated after being found to be 70% horse piss. Tomb Raider
soon. The Mordor-fication of the Elephant and Castle has been completed with
the spotting of the lidless eye of Sauron. And a Pope has resigned shortly
before receiving his final written warning from his employer. The last I knew
about because I heard it from the Pope-after-the-next one where my sprouts me
him in the woods. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Which is not how it sounds, or rather it
is exactly as it sounds. People without children will often post about how
nowadays children don’t make dens and climb trees, that they are smothered by
their overly protective parents. I’ve not met a parent yet that when faced with
their children wanting to go out and play haven’t looked towards the kettle and
hurriedly helped them on with their wellies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pope Rupert (though no longer
strictly the pontiff) was in the midst of having a day of adventure. Rupert did
that. Does that still I have to presume since I read Rupert when I was a lad. Every
Christmas I’d get the latest annual and as the early years went slowly I moved
from looking at the pictures to reading the rhymes to finally reading the
stories. I got the annual on Christmas Eve so as to have something to do rather
than just fail to sleep. And they were great. And yes, Rupert and his chums are
rural middle class kids but that’s all right since it throws the loss of many
of them in the war that later follows into sharper relief. In the original
stories it’s always the 1920s and whilst adults tussle with Cthulhu their
children have no less daring to do, and probably a lot more fun. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the events of 1945 which saw Rupert
return to religion and his eventual rise to the Papacy cannot be foreseen in
the original stories is a good thing; life does not always foreshadow tomorrow.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know much about his term on the
throne of Peter, but elderly as he was the faithful bear only added to the
adventures the sprouts undertook in these days now gone by. Whilst I, I was
able to drink tea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And wine once the sprouts tired and
weary had gone to bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Though not communion wine. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-8539023641410643722013-02-15T08:42:00.002+00:002013-02-15T08:42:55.010+00:00Dogs Can't See Rainbows<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/11/23/flash_gordon_rocketship.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/11/23/flash_gordon_rocketship.png" height="217" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I’m
always wary of travelling to the future.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You’ll understand that I’m pretty
limited in this sort of thing. The past now, that’s relatively easy. Easy in
that I don’t often have the choice about it, but I’ve learned to live with it
and even enjoy it now. When you can’t help what happens it’s probably best to
just accept it, find something of worth in it. But there are certain
limitations and despite having seen the signs that later today there’s going to
be a bit of a shudder in
whatever-you-want-to-call-everything-just-not-whatever-they-call-it-in-Star-Trek
my kids are going too. It’ll be their first, they’re jolly excited, but their
presently short lives limit things so we’re going to have to go but a short way
into the future. I’m hoping for rocket ships and goldfish bowl helmets. Such
will have to be seen going overhead as the whole effect is limited to one
lordly manor house over Penrith way. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">We have porridge oats, stout boots, and
Roald Dahl. I like a bit of high adventure but I’m worried because I’ll spend
the whole time telling one or the other of the sprouts to not touch this, put
that down, or stop doing things that we then have to make sure on our return
happen at all. There’s only time anyway due to the progress of the universe. I
tried to explain that to my eldest yesterday evening. She got a bit flummoxed after
accepting that dogs can’t see rainbows as I went a bit far with the theme by
using colour as an example of what we see only being the manner by which we
perceive a fraction of everything else.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I should just stick to fascinating
facts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Which have to carefully selected.
After all, there’s not much point in me explaining about where the term
martinet comes from, since it’s not a phrase they tend to use. Martinet by the way
(whilst referring to arse water that sticks to the rules and his own fragile
authority above all else) was the name of a person; Jean Martinet. He
established a system of drill and discipline in the 17<sup>th</sup> century for
the French, which despite being enforced by the scourge that there still bears
the name has to be put rather in context. Bearing in mind that armies lived off
the land, that meant robbing, pillaging, and pretty much being released from
much in the way of consequences for anything a soldier did even to the people
he was supposedly defending. Things hadn’t improved much since, for example,
the Fourth Crusade when in 1209 Constantinople suffered the loutish crusaders
putting the Christian state (if they were lucky) to the sword. They melted down
anything that looked both bronze, and art, because bronze was incredibly
valuable and loot was as ever the upside of having someone just like you
sticking a sharp stick in your face. Oh, Martinet also introduced the bayonet
to the French army. In 1209 Constantinople was pretty much what happened if
people today learned that if you ate books you’d shit out rare edition <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>iPads.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So Martinet thought it a jolly good
idea to at least start stopping the army from ,just plain destroying anything
and everybody whilst nowhere near the battlefield, by beating them not to, but
also by, y’know, giving them food. Doubtless a rare bastard, but you have to
admit he made some sense. His own side killed him by accident at Nuisburg
inevitably. Several times it seems. Just to make sure.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And that’s why dogs can’t see
rainbows. </span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-46833166027141939392013-02-14T19:31:00.000+00:002013-02-14T19:31:15.038+00:00The Glue That Holds The World Together<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://bytorandthesnowdog.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/hawkwind_aug93.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://bytorandthesnowdog.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/hawkwind_aug93.jpg" width="293" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It’s
a hell of a valentine’s day. Normally I don’t care for the naysayers that decry
some measure of expense when really there no need for any at all (other than a
bottle or two of wine and the ingredients for a meal when after all you have to
eat anyway). But not only is it valentine’s day, but this is the first such day
in thirty years I’ve actually been single! Golly, I was fourteen when last that
was the case on this particular day and here I am with Gimme Shelter playing -
and as it happens twice the normal cards since each of my daughters made one
for me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Music don’t fail me now!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s a quote from Empire Records
that music is the glue that holds the world together, and I understand what is
meant there. What else is it that has such a history of showing that we are
more than mere beasts? Music is important, and I have so very little of it. I
just didn’t have the cash for records when records were what there was, not to
the extent that I’d would have liked to. I never really got on with CDs either,
crappy little boxes without the love of the LP. I’ve got mates that have big
record collections. I’ve got one that owns all the records, all of them, and
yet will always have all the others still to find. I miss gigs, and saying this
I’m not a proper music fan, not really. Not enough. I’m not sure I really
managed to look out the window much since we stopped having lots of tapes. I
liked tapes. They were killing music you know, so it’s probably my own fault.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet I was lucky in music, because I
was born at exactly the right time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Seriously.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You probably weren’t; sorry about
that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I did not know this when I was a
teenager, because when I was a teenager music was shit. That’s a technical
phrase, use it and you’ll look like you know of what you speak. My teens were
almost exactly, precisely, the 80s. And though I’ve met people of my generation
who look back on the music of the 80s with fond memories they are, and still
are, wrong. I spent my teens as far as music was concerned in the 70s, and some
of the 60s. Inevitably first with rock, some prog, and then into punk. It was
all over before I even got to listen to it. I’m still astonished that my
parents who were young enough to have been to go and see Led Zep without
looking too silly never did.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And why is this? How can I make such
a claim?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Because right in the early 90s I was
in my early twenties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right when I was
young, and slim, and roguishly good looking music got fucking good. That’s also
a technical phrase. Stop me if I’m getting a bit complex. Bands that came up
through the 80s such as Chumbas, NMA, and the Poppies eased into everything
else that happened. All at the same time there was the crusty boom with the
likes of the Levellers. RDF would play the local pubs. Poppies toured a lot,
there was Senser and Back To The Planet playing in any park that stood still
long enough. And I’m not just talking about the scruffy scene. There were the
Stone Roses. the Charlatans, the Happy Mondays. There was grunge, with Pearl
Jam and Faith No More. Even pop music was good, pop music was Republika,
Elastica, Blur and Oasis, the KLF. These and so many more, an embarrassment of
riches after years of it looking like the guitar had been replaced for ever by
the synth. There were festivals, all the time. There was acid house and the
rave culture and for a time everyone, but everyone had an in somewhere, and
that somewhere once you werethere , whichever way you looked, the music was
just fine thank you. And your early twenties is the best age to love it all.
Not just that bit too old to really think yourself a bit silly, nor too young
to worry and not be confident enough to get out there and drown in it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There was also Pulp, and there was
also Suede. And Suede I didn’t like. Everyone else was bouncy and energised
whilst Suede dribbled on for those that surrounded by all the good things in
life wanted to wallow in their own remorseless belly buttons. Pulp were just
clever, and we all one day sort of confessed we liked Pulp daring others to say
otherwise, only to find that everyone sort of sneakily did too. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But what you probably don’t want to
do, if say you’re at a friend’s exhibition around that time and have made a
firm attack on all the free beer, is to wander up to Brett Anderson of Suede
and tell him exactly why he is just plain letting the side down compared to
everyone else. Or you can, but probably not like me then realise about an hour
later that the person you had buttonholed was actually Jarvis Cocker.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yeah, don’t do that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If you do that it all gets taken
away from you. You get boy bands instead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So sorry, that was probably my
fault... </span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-8393854962998918672013-02-13T07:51:00.000+00:002013-02-13T07:51:11.517+00:00Book Group<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e3/John_Le_Mesurier.jpg/220px-John_Le_Mesurier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e3/John_Le_Mesurier.jpg/220px-John_Le_Mesurier.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It
was my book group last night. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Whilst we discussed many things then
obviously we also discussed the book of the moment, and the book this time was
Antony Horowitz’s <em>House of Silk</em>, the new Sherlock Holmes novel. And jolly good
it is too. Moriarty didn’t need to make a cameo to my mind, but given the story
Mycroft rightly did. And that was the only disturbance since everyone else
enjoyed it too. This left little to pick apart in the end so for a couple of
hours and in the delightful local bookshop we discussed books more generally,
reading, and the happiness of words and it was just spiffing to be chatting to
bright, erudite adults. The previous time I went it was for Eowyn Ivey’s <em>Snow
Child</em> which most liked, but which I thought was dreadful. On that occasion the
book was discussed further – but that’s rather the point since we read what we
might not have otherwise. Reading The Snow Child though is a Sunday I’ll never
get back. Two book reviews, value for time today!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I left to walk the long miles home
in company with John le Mesurier who being god is said to be everywhere; though
last night for an hour he was on the road between Cockermouth and Tolly Maw.
The talking inevitably turned to the matter of the Pope. Something of which
John was not so very able to enlighten me, ‘I’m CofE, my darling,’ he said. The
CofE being a very secular sort of religion in which for the most part a lot of
generally nice people think nice thoughts and take turns mowing the lawns of
really old buildings, with women vicars, and inevitably likewise women bishops
and arch-bishops in the not so very far future. Those that object are dying
off, ten years or so? I had to confess to John that I wasn’t a regular church
goer, but I was baptised and confirmed by his bishop in Winchester. John
thought that lovely (as he does), but was at delicate pains to point out that
it wasn’t necessary. For himself he rather loves Science – it’s all over his
Facebook page.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I also like science. I like all
manner of scientific things. I also love the arts. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘The two,’ John said as I turned off
for the hill, ‘are not enemies.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Some believe in absolutes...” I
said as we lingered at the corner like two fourteen year olds on a date.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Science and the arts are on the
same side,’ John assured me. ‘They both enlighten and enlarge us. They are both
the enemies of ignorance and ugliness of thought, and mind, and dare I say it,
spirit.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ve been thinking on that this
morning; and John is entirely right. Love science, love the arts, tut at
ignorance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is the word of the
lord, le Mesurier. Next month at the book group we’re doing <em>The Alchemist</em>, and
they want suggestions for June onwards. I’m thinking something delicious and incomprehensible
from the Jerry Cornelius quartet. That’ll lead to a lively discussion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Is that wise,’ I can hear John say
harking to Dad’s Army.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is, I’m not Mainwaring.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And nor should any of us be.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-74521085867067801732013-02-10T08:31:00.000+00:002013-02-10T10:37:15.205+00:00The Return Of The King (Of England)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121003053732/lotr/images/1/11/Aragorn_in_Two_Towers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121003053732/lotr/images/1/11/Aragorn_in_Two_Towers.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Across
the internet and a wealth of jokes regarding Richard III have been dug and
freely spread about the internet, many of which have even cited source. Famous
for being the ancestor of Peter Cook in Blackadder Richard the
not-actually-deformed was the last Plantagenet monarch of England. The
Plantagenets have a rough ride in popular history, typically being represented
by John as the foil for whichever Robin Hood is currently doing the rounds. Or
for Richard the brave and bold fellow who once popped into England during his
reign for a change of armoured trousers before later sending a note to mortgage
everyone in order to secure his release from that popular Middle Age method of
income and awkward guests that was the hostage taking.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But these were proper English
monarchs we might be told, unlike the current lot who are German.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So where did it all go foreign?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Somewhere before the fall of this
article. I’ve already gone into the jolly pot of nationality that was Hastings
elsewhere, and there’s a lot to be had from the Houses of Wessex and Knytlinga who
before that took their turns every other week based upon who had the best beard
or was shagging the prettiest Scandinavian (tricky, because everyone from
Norway and Sweden are by law pretty).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So we know then that William took
the throne, killing anyone that said otherwise, including absolutely everyone
in the north (he was having a hard enough time understanding the language
anyway without Cheryl Cole appearing in Auf Wiedersehen Pet). William so-not
French he would have killed anyone for calling him a Frank - unless it was to
stick another crown on his head - still saw Stephen of Blois marry into the line,
marking the way then for Matilda (A Norman-Scot) to fight a jolly civil war
over who it was got to be the most English. Which at length saw the galloping
Plantagenets, who were also not French in that they owned, lost, and fought
over much of what is now France being Aquitonian. Aquitonia being neither
English nor French, but a pre-historical land roamed by Conan and usually bag-full
of snake cults. So the snake-cultists had a decent stab at things, despite
being lions, or Sean Connery, though Louis VIII of actual-France did rule a lot
of England for two years. Mostly what the Plantagenets had was John of Gaunt
who - despite being a third son also made a lot children through whom for a long
time everyone claimed the throne. York and Lancaster were Plantagenet Houses,
the last also a bomber, but not Bomber from Auf Wiedersehen Pet. They ended up
fighting over the throne, since England was really big on civil war as it was
closer than France, when they weren’t fighting France; which was always.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At last at Bosworth then Peter Cook
was killed quietly and buried under a car park. The House of Lancaster won,
though they were now the Tudors; who were Welsh.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We’re probably on more familiar
ground here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Awful, terrible Henry VIII having
married his late brother’s Spanish wife then did so a few more times. Despite
this there was the Welsh-Spanish Mary, Edward who being pretty English was
sickly and died, and Elizabeth who looked nothing like Cate Blantchett despite
being a Boleyn (and therefore supposedly from a line of utter foxes). Though to
be fair Anne wished she were French, unlike her daughter Elizabeth who was an
orc and died without issue because at the time the regal English accent was
somewhere between Yosemite Sam and Bristol, like Bomber in Auf Widersehen Pet
(though he was a Brummie).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So the Stuarts took over, who were
Scots, until Cromwell decided otherwise after the English indulged once again
in a few of their favourite civil wars. Cromwell being English was also
of Welsh stock (who had had enough of the Scots ruling the English). When Cromwell
did everyone a favour by dying his son Tumbledown Dick managed a brief spurt
before the Stuarts came back after being French for a bit, and bringing some French
back with them in the shape of most of the inlaws. This lasted about as long as
it took for the Dutch to invade, overthrowing the Danish-Scots-French in
another civil war that lasted about as long as it took to take the bus from
Torbay.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Deciding that fighting the French
and having children was so very-last epoch that left Anne,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a returned Stuart of Scotland (which no longer
counted as the English decided that Scotland was England anyway). She lasted
long enough to die without a proper heir and so the throne passed to Hanover,
in Saxony, because the Germans hadn’t had a punt yet. Bismarck not having yet
decided that Germany would be a united, single nation called Prussia this was
all well and good and so lots of Georges came and went until we came to
Victoria, who married Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, another Saxon, which would
have doubtless pissed off William the Conqueror who had killed so many Saxons,
especially the ones that were Danish.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Of course this all went swimmingly
for the Germans until Germany pissed off England by going to more-war with
France. The Prussians had already done this previously, but now they were Germany they
were very definitely overstepping the mark since England had called dibs on
fighting France.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So the monarchy changed their name
to Windsor. Which is probably apt since Anne Hyde (wife of James II) came from
Windsor and was about the closest to being English as had been seen since...
ever.</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6874013862434397626.post-17136485364156364692013-02-07T11:53:00.002+00:002013-02-07T11:53:47.151+00:00The Devil's In The Ruins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/nejournal/jul2010/4/6/crash-666542823.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/nejournal/jul2010/4/6/crash-666542823.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘Ain’t
the war nearly over?’ said Alf Bittersweet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I don’t think they care,’ said
Peregrine. He chose for them from his hamper a paper packet of water biscuits,
tinned meat and a small round of cheese. These he laid out on the table between
them before fetching out a spirit burner and a small nest of pans. With lard
from a tobacco tin there was soon the smell of the jellied meat frying to which
Peregrine, still speaking as he cooked, added anchovies from a glass jar and a
dash of sauce from a bottle whose contents he would only describe as one of his
little secrets. Soon and the meat was served on a tin plate for which he
apologised to Alf, who accepted the offer gratefully. Peregrine repeated the
process once more and when both had eaten the hot he insisted that Alf should
start on the cold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Across the river and from a
warehouse flame blew out from the uppermost doors, the derrick set there
catching too. The chuck-chuck-chuck of a light machine gun could be heard
nearby. A gramophone played something French that Alf did not recognise. Below
them in the street a woman wailed. There came a faint bang and the
chuck-chuck-chuck stopped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">There came such a detonation then that
the wall nearest them shook. A fine silt of new dust drifted down. Peregrine
ignored it, his hair now the colour of brick. Only when he picked up a mug did
he frown. He looked surprised to see it dirty. He said, ‘Alfred has the wine
suffered?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It seemed not and on being asked Alf
opened it to pour a cup for them both. It was he was told a very inferior year,
and hardly worth leaving to breath. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘Those militias that liked the pretence
to being soldiers might have pulled back, and from what you say the dashing
young things with royalty in their eyes have sailed away in stout galleons. I
believe I should join them.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Well...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Please, lather me a little. It is
quite bad enough that a war poet is expected by fate and audience both to
venture into such bloody valleys, without where one brings a little colour
having it ruined by stark and crude reportage.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Do they pay you by the word?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I will be surprised if ever they
will pay me at all. On the besides of which, money is so vulgar. This is why I
insist on being paid in guineas, the principle you understand as I have earlier
already found for myself pearls and certain pieces of jewellery. Hidden of
course, and not here.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I don’t think I’ve met a poet
before,’ said Alf. Not liking the wine he set his mug close to the edge of the
table.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Poet is what I am, but rarely what
I do. What others would have me do. I shall miss,’ he said, gesturing, ‘all
this. Might I ask if you are a very bad man?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The sharp little jump in the
conversation did not take Alf by surprise. He had in any case only been half
listening. This was all very nice but Peregrine had the same veneer of
respectable oddity as had Lord Rockingham. There had probably been classes on
it at Harrow. Alf missed London, or at least the more homely parts of it where
a man might get badly beaten, occasionally killed but almost never served up
wittily in a peppercorn sauce - but in all events not engaged first in
conversation. He could not decide if this poet’s insanity (for clearly that was
the case) leant itself to murder but Newcastle was hardly the place anyone visited
purely to discuss what god wanted them to do next. Or maybe it was; Alf did not
know. So he nodded because either it would act to warn the poet, or if it meant
he was to be punished then at least it would be then sooner rather than later
and so therefore avoid the almost inevitable recital. Alf had not met many
poets but they seemed to be a breed not reluctant to give a reading. He said,
‘I’m bloody awful.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I also.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Right you are, sweetie.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I have overseen murder. I have betrayed
my fellow man. I stood by whilst horror was done in the name of a king that was
shortly thereafter punished, and rightly so. I am without the ability to change
what I have done, and without the will to enact penance for it. As one very bad
man to another do you think we can ever be forgiven for our sins?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘You don’t talk to god do you?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Not habitually and certainly he has
never, I would say, answered. Do you say then I should pray?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Couldn’t say, see, I don’t really
hold with sin. Was it round here then that you kept your library books out too
long?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘It was Poland.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Don’t be too hard on yourself.
That’s a long way to go just to return a book.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Peregrine half smiled and rested a
finger on his forehead feeling a headache. He said, ‘Whilst a subordinate
protested and even tried as I should to avert the crime I did nothing, allowing
politics and my orders to prevent me from doing as I should. Is it not better
that we try and fail to fight that which is wrong than to do nothing and allow
it? Did not Edmund Burke not famously say that all that is necessary for the
triumph of evil is that good men do nothing?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Bollocks,’ said Alf. Peregrine, who
perhaps moved in different circles to Alf, made to protest when he had been
expecting some maudlin sense of shared futility. Alf who had done what some
would call evil was pretty sure that still he would have done it whether
someone had told him not to or otherwise. Importantly, and who was anyone to
say they were good? How many bands of bastards did what they did and claimed to
be right? How many had the honesty to know they were bad, that they did what
they did and what some would say was evil? Alf said so adding, ‘I’m not saying
there ain’t bad people that do very bad things, because they’re people, and
people by nature are bastards. If you want to be forgiven why don’t you piss
off back to Poland and do something about what you think you did?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Ah, but what can one man do?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I couldn’t say. Me, I’m off. Lovely
grub, ta.’</span></div>
Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140345209343325701noreply@blogger.com0