Source: The Telegraph
The Fire Brigade's Union intends to strike in London on Bonfire Night in a dispute over a change in shifts, according to The Times.
Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the FBU said his members had no choice but to strike.
'The alternative is to allow London's firemen to become doormats for their employers to walk on'.
The FBU says its members strike have been threatened with the sack if they don't comply with shift changes.
Shift changes charge may
result in the FBU's
Charge of Light Brigade.
'Matched strikes' men may mean
The Smoke's burning. Expect the
Great Fire Of London.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Carla Connor from Corry 20.12.2011.
Carla Connor from Corry.
The twin-exhaust purr of her voice,
sleek, mature, Mancunian.
The sight of that big bunch of
car keys, that curtain of
dark hair swished in her wake,
after the black belted mac,
after the fact.
The double-locked flat door,
the intercom, the glugged
half-pint glass of red.
Everything smouldering.
'Not in the foreseeable'
she announces.
'Not this side of next week'
or 'I'll take that as a yes, then.'
The twin-exhaust purr of her voice,
sleek, mature, Mancunian.
The sight of that big bunch of
car keys, that curtain of
dark hair swished in her wake,
after the black belted mac,
after the fact.
The double-locked flat door,
the intercom, the glugged
half-pint glass of red.
Everything smouldering.
'Not in the foreseeable'
she announces.
'Not this side of next week'
or 'I'll take that as a yes, then.'
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Notes on 'Growing up in Heswall'
Growing up in Heswall.
What is often remembered of childhood are the smells and sounds, the sights originally viewed through the great lens of newness that accompanies that passage of time.
We might remember the warmth and faint musk of a privet hedge that we brushed against in the beige Barathea coats with chocolate-brown velvet buttons we wore, helped on by our mother, over arms and shoulders. Or else the sound of wrought-iron gate latches at shoulder height and the white curl of the gates themselves, for example as we were ushered into the drive of a neighbour's home.
We might recall the idea of being resigned to quiet play, half listening to the 'visit talk' unravel for what could end up being two hours or more. There would be the arrival of Iced Sports biscuits or Battenburg on a tea tray with an aluminium pot of narrow spout and cups and saucers that shook as they were brought through from the kitchen for our sakes. There would be fidgetting at the seemingly large, shiny-stockinged and dependable knees of our Mum. We would notice our own shoes, or Maud's shoes, or else the particular swirls of Maud's carpet. Other things at foot level would be noticed too.
Then there was the crazy paving or the gatepost stones pebbledashed like great sugar loaves.
There were the evenings too, when, leaning out of the top bedroom window, the acrobatic arching of swifts with their magical screams would entertain us; dear birds we dared, hoped would come closer, closer to our window ledges that they might alight, that we might brush them, touch their trembling, electric wings as they went swooping and swooning past the H-shaped TV aerial. Dear birds that we envied as they carried on screaming and arching in the balmy air whilst we must be closed down for the night behind curtains because it 'was bedtime.'
These were birds whose antics were yet mixed up with our having watched Dad play for Heswall C.C. on Whitfield Common that same evening and with the heat trapped from a day's-worth of sun, musty behind those blue velvet curtains, warmth that made the wool carpet smell ropey.
There were a thousand things recalled about school too. The hot-cold oozing of grazes to gravel-pitted knees following a fall in the playground. (these to be worn as a badge of honour as indicated by the crimson blood and attendant scabbing that must be preserved at all costs). The refusal of the boys to let you into their makeshift game of cricket because 'girl's can't play.'The gritty taste of the milk in its half-pint glass bottles , brought out into the school corridors in aluminium crates, along with orange juice as an alternative. The glazed brown bricks of the corridors, the pastel green and the coat pegs. Rows of plimsoll bags, some with stitched monogrammed names.The doors with their frosted glass quarter-lights. The assembly hall, parqueted in beechwood flooring upon which we squatted, cross-legged or with our knees tucked up, examining the grazes and the landscape of our legs, fiddling with socks, tucking frocks into knickers or mouthing the words to hymns whenever the eyes of teachers sidelining the assembly hall would seem to rest upon us onerously.
At dinner hour, the trestle tables that lined both sides of the hall were put out, along with the forms that we slid along, ready for pale pink roast beef slices,cabbage, soapy roast potatoes and diced carrots, stewed apple and custard or spotted dick .The dinners were dispensed from aluminium troughs with aluminium ladles. The roast potatoes were always a huge favourite and those who pleaded with the dinner ladies would be offered more if they were lucky. Rhubarb crumble, with its undercooked toppings, generously sugared, was also a big hit with us kids.The mash usually contained grit of some kind.
The incidence of kids being sick on the parquet floor at morning assembly, before or after 'Music and Movement' was one of the mysteries of school life that is not forgotten. Such incidences were always followed by a parting of the paticular line of schoolchildren at the site of the occurence. Then there came our school janitor, Mr. Leadbetter, an old man (or so we thought)with slicked , back faded ginger hair, a wrinkled and reddish face and a pair of dark blue denim overalls. Mr. Leadbetter wore a resigned, mute expression. He would bring a yardbrush and a pail of sand into the hall and sprinkle the sand over the patch of vomit before sweeping it up with a shovel. The children who were wise avoided sitting there for asssembly the following morning although sometimes it could not be avoided.
The hymn sheets that lined the hall were larger than they needed to have been so that all could read from them. 'Let us sing Hymn number 202, 'When I survey the wondrous cross', announced from the stage was accompanied by tiny groans and whispering as the huge sheets, made of something resembling chip paper were turned over by a teacher stationed there for the purpose. Windows that opened outwards on hinges or else tall sash windows would be opened with long window poles with their brass hooks when it was 'stuffy' and the world outside might as well not have been there when teaching was in progress.
There are the endless sublime memories of home life, too, such as the smell of fag-end tobacco in soapy water and a mysterious swoosh as our Dad relished the freedom of the bathtub.
Or the application by Mum of the gas poker with its blue flame and metallic smell to the dankness of the waiting coal hearth at 36,Grange Mount, the semi-detached house that was our first home, pebbledashed over redbrickwork. How Mum would lean down to the hearth with her dark hair in a French Roll, her lovely brown eyes intent, intelligent, guarding the fire, pushing in the newspaper whorls, chucking the coals forward in their scuttle with a measured dexterity, clenching her teeth lightly as an unconscious aid to concentration.
Our Grange Mount, our house was in Heswall. The town you fancied would some day be 'on the map' (if you had anything to do with it, that was). Our child's landscape was mapped out in Heswall according to the Sunday chore of collecting the papers, which necessitated running down May Road to the paper shop. Playing out and Primary School were other landscapes, hallowed places.
There were outer limits. Poll Hill, for example with its wildness and the mystery of gorse bushes that popped in the evening's summer heat, the unchartered sandy pathways threading through them to the far side, to forbidden territory, to the edge of something adult.
Or Telegraph Road as far as the library and the magnificent Castle Park whose manicured borders and flower beds with their scarlet Begonias, Snow-in-Summer and Aubretia gave off that Municipal smell. In the park, all was sandstone edged, all was close-cropped, springy lawn. Around the edges of the manicured borders, separating the park from Telegraph Road and Sandy Lane were the sighing beeches, some of which were Copper. Their masts crunched under the feet and the dust arose from swept paths as we children ran around the place. Here, in the centre of those springy lawns were shallow ornamental ponds lined with dead leaves and often dried-up. These had their own mystery and had to be run around in their figure-of-eightness. In the ponds, which seemed large at the time in a kind of continental way, you hoped to find tadpoles during the late Spring. In the caked mud of the summer months, when there had been no rain for the past ten days or so, these ornamental ponds and their caked mud revealed themselves in a new way but lost none of their strange charm.There was the feeling that one might find some halfpennies in the foreignness of the mud, might find something.
The council offices overshadowing the park were grand and had a stillness about them, though doubtless something went on in their cloistered offices. The deep summer shadows of their sandstone and pebble-dashed walls were thrown over Castle Park. We would run around that empire of park in our glazed cotton summer frocks, the ones that Mum had made for us, cut out of shapes pinned to tissue paper with its instructions, the selvedge cut with her special pinking shears grinding against the kitchen table, the frayings left in the wake of those cuts.
The Kitchen table.
This beautiful table, oval, of dark wood with its four straight-backed chairs, they having upholstered seats full of horsehair that used occasionally to poke out in periods of examination during deep thought served us all throughout our lives, the entire lives of our family and much of the lives of our Mum and Dad. It is with us still, homed at my sister's flat where it continues to creak when sat at, continues to shine and throw its sanity and sobriety, its longevity, its ingenuity at us for our enjoyment. We can still feel and rejoice in the exquisite craftsmanship by which the drop leaves and hinges swing back and forth and the gates dovetail into their housings.
This was the table that was used to rub pencilled in homework out whilst it creaked underneath our Physics notebooks or General Note Books.This was the table whose barleytwist legs and carpented struts were rubbed and itched by the feet of our selves in the act of concentration on homework, frustration at the thorny questions. This was the table under which the two Siamese cats owned in succession used to hide when in high dudgeon or to escape a drubbing for not having eaten their Whiskas, or else for dropping a dead shrew on the kitchen doorstep.The cats knew it was not easy for us to prise them out from between those struts and legs, although we always tried.
This was the table around which all meals were had, around which all of our Christmases and Boxing Days swirled. On which, later, our father sat us for the sake of the 'production line.' A table which, when not in use for taking primary school lunch breaks might have been polished afresh by Mum and a vase with flowers stood upon one of its raffia mats (mats we had made at school). The flowers would be studied and painted by Mum's loose, water-filled brushes, brought to fine tips with her agility over the paper and by her sucking them lightly.
The Production Line.
We never tired of taking the small notices from a freshly printed batch, folding them in half- while she held the pins between her teeth, still talking to us, still answering our questions.
May Road (unadopted) was a kind of dried-up, sandy riverbed with, at the far end as a destination, the paper shop.
The early evening with those swifts screaming and wobbling past the eaves were about the poll of Grange Mount itself, the summit at the top of our world where boys dropped the almost forbidden plastic bombs, bought from the tuck shop, whose greeny caps exploded, leaving tiny puffs of cordite and a small, faint black mark where the bomb had detonated itself with a kind of miniature explosion. All was gravel and grey, sock-high view.
Wooden plank and rope used to burn your palms when the home-made cart your brother had made ran away with you, you steering it wildly into the kerb to stop it going all the way down, stop it picking up momentum on the way to another outer boundary, Pensby Road.
Pensby Road was busy, was where the adult world came and went on its way to work (or wherever.)
The names of shops and businesses there were resolutely themselves to our childish perception, so that 'Rose Brae Nurseries' were just that, the name having a sing-song quality and being as dependable as the potatoes that were sold inside the dark, musty interior of the store.
The produce arrived, it was presumed, from the nurseries behind the store in a never-ending supply. The savoy cabbages were lined along their wooden shelves and pulpits and the yawning potato bins were always semi-filled with their earthy delights. The steel potato scuttle was never idle for long. Cloth bags, shopping trolleys and leather sac-style bags were filled from the rumbling hoppers with a good weight of spuds. Eagerly, the potato scuttles poured the things amidst clouds of dust. Us twins were sent to Rose Brae Nurseries for things, rhubarb, cabbage, potatoes mainly.
There was a particular excitement about being asked to go to Rose Brae Nurseries, as there was something untoward, perhaps criminal going on in the upstairs landing of the shop.
There was Mrs.Kingdom, next door but one who smelled of Kit-E-Kat and had an unknown number of cats( scores were suspected) and always a flowered apron for some purpose, though surely not for cleaning as the doorway of her house was dark, rank and smelled of Kit-E-Kat too. Mrs.Kingdom had whiskers, practically a beard. You knew that you were not supposed to laugh at her rankness or whiskers, but you did anyway.
Then there was Hilda next door, who was either in or out near her back door, one that was mainly in the shade unless she came up to the all-important sandstone wall that divided 36, Grange Mount from her house, 34.
Hilda had empty stone planters that lived in the shade cast by the back of her house over her tiny yard. Most importantly, she had one well-fed tabby with clear, dramatic markings and a pristine-white chest. Hilda's tom cat was enormously heavy. We would take turns trying to pick him up when we dared. He, with his clear-glass eyes that would show the whites and his prolapsed gut. Picking him up would cause his claws to emerge from paws protruding from the ends of ramrod straight legs in a protesting manner. Once picked up, the claws would retract into his down-soft paws. Invariably, he would wriggle out of our child's expectancies. Kitty had a low moaning voice and had learned to sit on Hilda's window-ledge and rap the brass door-knocker with one paw. This meant that he touched the knocker with one gingerly extended paw and that Hilda probably knew he was outside waiting to be let in. She, with her whispy, ginger hair and square-framed glasses and fine hairs protruding from a well-formed chin used to wipe her hands on her pinny and laugh breathlessly, asthmatically, nodding towards Kitty and his genius for knocking on the door. She saw how it amused us.
What is often remembered of childhood are the smells and sounds, the sights originally viewed through the great lens of newness that accompanies that passage of time.
We might remember the warmth and faint musk of a privet hedge that we brushed against in the beige Barathea coats with chocolate-brown velvet buttons we wore, helped on by our mother, over arms and shoulders. Or else the sound of wrought-iron gate latches at shoulder height and the white curl of the gates themselves, for example as we were ushered into the drive of a neighbour's home.
We might recall the idea of being resigned to quiet play, half listening to the 'visit talk' unravel for what could end up being two hours or more. There would be the arrival of Iced Sports biscuits or Battenburg on a tea tray with an aluminium pot of narrow spout and cups and saucers that shook as they were brought through from the kitchen for our sakes. There would be fidgetting at the seemingly large, shiny-stockinged and dependable knees of our Mum. We would notice our own shoes, or Maud's shoes, or else the particular swirls of Maud's carpet. Other things at foot level would be noticed too.
Then there was the crazy paving or the gatepost stones pebbledashed like great sugar loaves.
There were the evenings too, when, leaning out of the top bedroom window, the acrobatic arching of swifts with their magical screams would entertain us; dear birds we dared, hoped would come closer, closer to our window ledges that they might alight, that we might brush them, touch their trembling, electric wings as they went swooping and swooning past the H-shaped TV aerial. Dear birds that we envied as they carried on screaming and arching in the balmy air whilst we must be closed down for the night behind curtains because it 'was bedtime.'
These were birds whose antics were yet mixed up with our having watched Dad play for Heswall C.C. on Whitfield Common that same evening and with the heat trapped from a day's-worth of sun, musty behind those blue velvet curtains, warmth that made the wool carpet smell ropey.
There were a thousand things recalled about school too. The hot-cold oozing of grazes to gravel-pitted knees following a fall in the playground. (these to be worn as a badge of honour as indicated by the crimson blood and attendant scabbing that must be preserved at all costs). The refusal of the boys to let you into their makeshift game of cricket because 'girl's can't play.'The gritty taste of the milk in its half-pint glass bottles , brought out into the school corridors in aluminium crates, along with orange juice as an alternative. The glazed brown bricks of the corridors, the pastel green and the coat pegs. Rows of plimsoll bags, some with stitched monogrammed names.The doors with their frosted glass quarter-lights. The assembly hall, parqueted in beechwood flooring upon which we squatted, cross-legged or with our knees tucked up, examining the grazes and the landscape of our legs, fiddling with socks, tucking frocks into knickers or mouthing the words to hymns whenever the eyes of teachers sidelining the assembly hall would seem to rest upon us onerously.
At dinner hour, the trestle tables that lined both sides of the hall were put out, along with the forms that we slid along, ready for pale pink roast beef slices,cabbage, soapy roast potatoes and diced carrots, stewed apple and custard or spotted dick .The dinners were dispensed from aluminium troughs with aluminium ladles. The roast potatoes were always a huge favourite and those who pleaded with the dinner ladies would be offered more if they were lucky. Rhubarb crumble, with its undercooked toppings, generously sugared, was also a big hit with us kids.The mash usually contained grit of some kind.
The incidence of kids being sick on the parquet floor at morning assembly, before or after 'Music and Movement' was one of the mysteries of school life that is not forgotten. Such incidences were always followed by a parting of the paticular line of schoolchildren at the site of the occurence. Then there came our school janitor, Mr. Leadbetter, an old man (or so we thought)with slicked , back faded ginger hair, a wrinkled and reddish face and a pair of dark blue denim overalls. Mr. Leadbetter wore a resigned, mute expression. He would bring a yardbrush and a pail of sand into the hall and sprinkle the sand over the patch of vomit before sweeping it up with a shovel. The children who were wise avoided sitting there for asssembly the following morning although sometimes it could not be avoided.
The hymn sheets that lined the hall were larger than they needed to have been so that all could read from them. 'Let us sing Hymn number 202, 'When I survey the wondrous cross', announced from the stage was accompanied by tiny groans and whispering as the huge sheets, made of something resembling chip paper were turned over by a teacher stationed there for the purpose. Windows that opened outwards on hinges or else tall sash windows would be opened with long window poles with their brass hooks when it was 'stuffy' and the world outside might as well not have been there when teaching was in progress.
There are the endless sublime memories of home life, too, such as the smell of fag-end tobacco in soapy water and a mysterious swoosh as our Dad relished the freedom of the bathtub.
Or the application by Mum of the gas poker with its blue flame and metallic smell to the dankness of the waiting coal hearth at 36,Grange Mount, the semi-detached house that was our first home, pebbledashed over redbrickwork. How Mum would lean down to the hearth with her dark hair in a French Roll, her lovely brown eyes intent, intelligent, guarding the fire, pushing in the newspaper whorls, chucking the coals forward in their scuttle with a measured dexterity, clenching her teeth lightly as an unconscious aid to concentration.
Our Grange Mount, our house was in Heswall. The town you fancied would some day be 'on the map' (if you had anything to do with it, that was). Our child's landscape was mapped out in Heswall according to the Sunday chore of collecting the papers, which necessitated running down May Road to the paper shop. Playing out and Primary School were other landscapes, hallowed places.
There were outer limits. Poll Hill, for example with its wildness and the mystery of gorse bushes that popped in the evening's summer heat, the unchartered sandy pathways threading through them to the far side, to forbidden territory, to the edge of something adult.
Or Telegraph Road as far as the library and the magnificent Castle Park whose manicured borders and flower beds with their scarlet Begonias, Snow-in-Summer and Aubretia gave off that Municipal smell. In the park, all was sandstone edged, all was close-cropped, springy lawn. Around the edges of the manicured borders, separating the park from Telegraph Road and Sandy Lane were the sighing beeches, some of which were Copper. Their masts crunched under the feet and the dust arose from swept paths as we children ran around the place. Here, in the centre of those springy lawns were shallow ornamental ponds lined with dead leaves and often dried-up. These had their own mystery and had to be run around in their figure-of-eightness. In the ponds, which seemed large at the time in a kind of continental way, you hoped to find tadpoles during the late Spring. In the caked mud of the summer months, when there had been no rain for the past ten days or so, these ornamental ponds and their caked mud revealed themselves in a new way but lost none of their strange charm.There was the feeling that one might find some halfpennies in the foreignness of the mud, might find something.
The council offices overshadowing the park were grand and had a stillness about them, though doubtless something went on in their cloistered offices. The deep summer shadows of their sandstone and pebble-dashed walls were thrown over Castle Park. We would run around that empire of park in our glazed cotton summer frocks, the ones that Mum had made for us, cut out of shapes pinned to tissue paper with its instructions, the selvedge cut with her special pinking shears grinding against the kitchen table, the frayings left in the wake of those cuts.
The Kitchen table.
This beautiful table, oval, of dark wood with its four straight-backed chairs, they having upholstered seats full of horsehair that used occasionally to poke out in periods of examination during deep thought served us all throughout our lives, the entire lives of our family and much of the lives of our Mum and Dad. It is with us still, homed at my sister's flat where it continues to creak when sat at, continues to shine and throw its sanity and sobriety, its longevity, its ingenuity at us for our enjoyment. We can still feel and rejoice in the exquisite craftsmanship by which the drop leaves and hinges swing back and forth and the gates dovetail into their housings.
This was the table that was used to rub pencilled in homework out whilst it creaked underneath our Physics notebooks or General Note Books.This was the table whose barleytwist legs and carpented struts were rubbed and itched by the feet of our selves in the act of concentration on homework, frustration at the thorny questions. This was the table under which the two Siamese cats owned in succession used to hide when in high dudgeon or to escape a drubbing for not having eaten their Whiskas, or else for dropping a dead shrew on the kitchen doorstep.The cats knew it was not easy for us to prise them out from between those struts and legs, although we always tried.
This was the table around which all meals were had, around which all of our Christmases and Boxing Days swirled. On which, later, our father sat us for the sake of the 'production line.' A table which, when not in use for taking primary school lunch breaks might have been polished afresh by Mum and a vase with flowers stood upon one of its raffia mats (mats we had made at school). The flowers would be studied and painted by Mum's loose, water-filled brushes, brought to fine tips with her agility over the paper and by her sucking them lightly.
The Production Line.
We never tired of taking the small notices from a freshly printed batch, folding them in half- while she held the pins between her teeth, still talking to us, still answering our questions.
May Road (unadopted) was a kind of dried-up, sandy riverbed with, at the far end as a destination, the paper shop.
The early evening with those swifts screaming and wobbling past the eaves were about the poll of Grange Mount itself, the summit at the top of our world where boys dropped the almost forbidden plastic bombs, bought from the tuck shop, whose greeny caps exploded, leaving tiny puffs of cordite and a small, faint black mark where the bomb had detonated itself with a kind of miniature explosion. All was gravel and grey, sock-high view.
Wooden plank and rope used to burn your palms when the home-made cart your brother had made ran away with you, you steering it wildly into the kerb to stop it going all the way down, stop it picking up momentum on the way to another outer boundary, Pensby Road.
Pensby Road was busy, was where the adult world came and went on its way to work (or wherever.)
The names of shops and businesses there were resolutely themselves to our childish perception, so that 'Rose Brae Nurseries' were just that, the name having a sing-song quality and being as dependable as the potatoes that were sold inside the dark, musty interior of the store.
The produce arrived, it was presumed, from the nurseries behind the store in a never-ending supply. The savoy cabbages were lined along their wooden shelves and pulpits and the yawning potato bins were always semi-filled with their earthy delights. The steel potato scuttle was never idle for long. Cloth bags, shopping trolleys and leather sac-style bags were filled from the rumbling hoppers with a good weight of spuds. Eagerly, the potato scuttles poured the things amidst clouds of dust. Us twins were sent to Rose Brae Nurseries for things, rhubarb, cabbage, potatoes mainly.
There was a particular excitement about being asked to go to Rose Brae Nurseries, as there was something untoward, perhaps criminal going on in the upstairs landing of the shop.
There was Mrs.Kingdom, next door but one who smelled of Kit-E-Kat and had an unknown number of cats( scores were suspected) and always a flowered apron for some purpose, though surely not for cleaning as the doorway of her house was dark, rank and smelled of Kit-E-Kat too. Mrs.Kingdom had whiskers, practically a beard. You knew that you were not supposed to laugh at her rankness or whiskers, but you did anyway.
Then there was Hilda next door, who was either in or out near her back door, one that was mainly in the shade unless she came up to the all-important sandstone wall that divided 36, Grange Mount from her house, 34.
Hilda had empty stone planters that lived in the shade cast by the back of her house over her tiny yard. Most importantly, she had one well-fed tabby with clear, dramatic markings and a pristine-white chest. Hilda's tom cat was enormously heavy. We would take turns trying to pick him up when we dared. He, with his clear-glass eyes that would show the whites and his prolapsed gut. Picking him up would cause his claws to emerge from paws protruding from the ends of ramrod straight legs in a protesting manner. Once picked up, the claws would retract into his down-soft paws. Invariably, he would wriggle out of our child's expectancies. Kitty had a low moaning voice and had learned to sit on Hilda's window-ledge and rap the brass door-knocker with one paw. This meant that he touched the knocker with one gingerly extended paw and that Hilda probably knew he was outside waiting to be let in. She, with her whispy, ginger hair and square-framed glasses and fine hairs protruding from a well-formed chin used to wipe her hands on her pinny and laugh breathlessly, asthmatically, nodding towards Kitty and his genius for knocking on the door. She saw how it amused us.
It Figures...03,02,2010.
Source: Wirral Globe
Local councils will be able to cut grants to charities and Third Sector organisations , according to the Comprehensive Spending Review C.S.R.. My own,Wirral Borough Council, has sent out thousands of questionnaire's called 'Have Your Say' We can say what we like, cuts will fall where theWBC wants them to. The trick is to appear to be publicly consulting while cutting as a fait accompli.The highest earners at WBC will continue to earn huge slalries.
Big Society
will shrink spending except on
all the Big Cheeses.
Local councils will be able to cut grants to charities and Third Sector organisations , according to the Comprehensive Spending Review C.S.R.. My own,Wirral Borough Council, has sent out thousands of questionnaire's called 'Have Your Say' We can say what we like, cuts will fall where theWBC wants them to. The trick is to appear to be publicly consulting while cutting as a fait accompli.The highest earners at WBC will continue to earn huge slalries.
Big Society
will shrink spending except on
all the Big Cheeses.
Birkenhead Park Station, November.
Low sun through huffs of breath
gilds the standing herd,
they who are stomping a little
as the Westminster clock hand
clicks down the quarter;
they who have started
to dress down darkly,
announcing the month.
Brushing each other
towards the opening doors
they are sucked inside.
Falling out onto seats,
they are docile now.
It is too early for Iphones
so they rest on their morning
thoughts, assemble themselves
over copies of the Metro.
The orange LED figures
snake their way across
each carriage screen,
mesmerizing,
snitching the stops
no matter what.
gilds the standing herd,
they who are stomping a little
as the Westminster clock hand
clicks down the quarter;
they who have started
to dress down darkly,
announcing the month.
Brushing each other
towards the opening doors
they are sucked inside.
Falling out onto seats,
they are docile now.
It is too early for Iphones
so they rest on their morning
thoughts, assemble themselves
over copies of the Metro.
The orange LED figures
snake their way across
each carriage screen,
mesmerizing,
snitching the stops
no matter what.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Clubbing.
Tarmac spangles and the world
rushes before our eager feet.
We are stepping out,
spilling into the night.
Already our boots are ringing
rhythms on the wet pavements.
The lights with their auras,
that warmth under the ribcage,
the rain slanting, all-friendly-like,
the gay snug shouts,
the milling beforehand,
the tender beats inside the tent
are all one and that is all, is all, is all.
Already, I am remembering
what is present.
There is, there will be
no trouble. Instead we'll defend the
defenceless. The talk is earnest.
Here there is gravity, levity.
Here, we're connecting up joy,
joining the dots.
We have our little tasks too.
In the toilets, handbags drop,
things cascade,
sweet stories peal out,
beauty rushes past and
swimming bath laughter is
everywhere.
It's hilarious, you see.
Here we keep pace with everything
because we just can't help it.
After the build-up,
there will be others in the quest
that will last all night, and beyond.
For now we are pioneering,
bathed in special colours and the
returning harbour waves of
sound in a place completed
by itself.
In here,white lights suffuse
the already suffused.
With others we dance
and are perpetually greeting
new faces as long lost
sisters, brothers.
I am sure that the girl
with the shy hair and subdued
presence fancies me. This is why
her dancing, her body has turned
its periscope towards me.
That is why her loaded look
has picked me out from her corner
of the dancefloor, meaningfully.
Of this there can be no denying.
That is why she knows everything
about me, recognizes me
as the long-lost lover,
moves with me,
passes me the coded message
carefully, repeats it
then disappears into her friends.
rushes before our eager feet.
We are stepping out,
spilling into the night.
Already our boots are ringing
rhythms on the wet pavements.
The lights with their auras,
that warmth under the ribcage,
the rain slanting, all-friendly-like,
the gay snug shouts,
the milling beforehand,
the tender beats inside the tent
are all one and that is all, is all, is all.
Already, I am remembering
what is present.
There is, there will be
no trouble. Instead we'll defend the
defenceless. The talk is earnest.
Here there is gravity, levity.
Here, we're connecting up joy,
joining the dots.
We have our little tasks too.
In the toilets, handbags drop,
things cascade,
sweet stories peal out,
beauty rushes past and
swimming bath laughter is
everywhere.
It's hilarious, you see.
Here we keep pace with everything
because we just can't help it.
After the build-up,
there will be others in the quest
that will last all night, and beyond.
For now we are pioneering,
bathed in special colours and the
returning harbour waves of
sound in a place completed
by itself.
In here,white lights suffuse
the already suffused.
With others we dance
and are perpetually greeting
new faces as long lost
sisters, brothers.
I am sure that the girl
with the shy hair and subdued
presence fancies me. This is why
her dancing, her body has turned
its periscope towards me.
That is why her loaded look
has picked me out from her corner
of the dancefloor, meaningfully.
Of this there can be no denying.
That is why she knows everything
about me, recognizes me
as the long-lost lover,
moves with me,
passes me the coded message
carefully, repeats it
then disappears into her friends.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Platonic ideas recycled by Gove. 29.11.2010.
Source: The Times. 29. 11. 2010.
Michael Gove, the Minister for Education has praised phonetics as a way of teaching children to read rather than the 'look and say' way favoured by the Labour Government. This has been compared by some to a return to the method described by Plato.
Plato also believed that children should be taught poetry, and history as a way of inculcating moral responsibility.
Plato's prescription
(poetry, phonetics) praised,
given out by Gove.
Michael Gove, the Minister for Education has praised phonetics as a way of teaching children to read rather than the 'look and say' way favoured by the Labour Government. This has been compared by some to a return to the method described by Plato.
Plato also believed that children should be taught poetry, and history as a way of inculcating moral responsibility.
Plato's prescription
(poetry, phonetics) praised,
given out by Gove.
Bees decimated but honey yield increases. 29.11.2010.
Source: The Times.
The British Beekeepers Association has produced 3.5 million jars of honey this year, due to the increasing popularity of beekeeping as an interest. Sadly, we have lost some 2 billion bees in the last few years.
Latest buzz meant that
busy bees brought Britain out
in hives and honey.
The British Beekeepers Association has produced 3.5 million jars of honey this year, due to the increasing popularity of beekeeping as an interest. Sadly, we have lost some 2 billion bees in the last few years.
Latest buzz meant that
busy bees brought Britain out
in hives and honey.
Hospital deaths increase 29 11.2010.
Source: The Times
Patients are dying in higher numbers than expected at 19 NHS hospital trusts, according to the Dr. Foster Hospital Guide.
Medical thinking
may be that killing off is
cheaper than curing.
Patients are dying in higher numbers than expected at 19 NHS hospital trusts, according to the Dr. Foster Hospital Guide.
Medical thinking
may be that killing off is
cheaper than curing.
On trying to write Haiku 05.11.2010.
Wrestling with words is
so hard; maybe I should just
take up Ju Jitso
so hard; maybe I should just
take up Ju Jitso
Friday, November 26, 2010
Manchester Poem.03.11.2010.
The sun and I are glancing off
your High-walls to heaven:
your dear glazed bricks, your
fast iron, cast-iron studs,
your gushing locks.
Monumentally
you soared in 1895
with a mind for Arts and Crafts,
Ars Laboris. Kept on soaring.
Rose from the Irwell
who still murmers black below.
We see her over the plated,
rivetted bridges,
a creature disturbed and disturbing,
glimpse the private lady
at her toilet.
Speaking of toilets
Manchester's oldest Pissotiere,
where gentlemen
publicly emptied their bladders
into Lady Irwell
is next to Joshua Brookes
and just before
The Lass O'Blairgowrie.
But it's glass and chrome,
reclaimed brick,
factories
of the mental kind
that are soaring these days.
It's monumental MMU
with its hard-faced,
glass-faced
commerce.
your High-walls to heaven:
your dear glazed bricks, your
fast iron, cast-iron studs,
your gushing locks.
Monumentally
you soared in 1895
with a mind for Arts and Crafts,
Ars Laboris. Kept on soaring.
Rose from the Irwell
who still murmers black below.
We see her over the plated,
rivetted bridges,
a creature disturbed and disturbing,
glimpse the private lady
at her toilet.
Speaking of toilets
Manchester's oldest Pissotiere,
where gentlemen
publicly emptied their bladders
into Lady Irwell
is next to Joshua Brookes
and just before
The Lass O'Blairgowrie.
But it's glass and chrome,
reclaimed brick,
factories
of the mental kind
that are soaring these days.
It's monumental MMU
with its hard-faced,
glass-faced
commerce.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Latest Barbie doll haiku 01.11.2010
The latest Barbie Doll (£59.99)contains a small video camera, concealed in her necklace. She also has a viewfinder in her back.
Other christmas 'stocking fillers' include the 'Fur Real My Go Go Walking Pup'(£59.99) , 'Zhu Zhu Hamsters with grooming salon', JLS dolls etc.
If Ken's been playing
away, Barbie's surveillance
camera will know.
Other christmas 'stocking fillers' include the 'Fur Real My Go Go Walking Pup'(£59.99) , 'Zhu Zhu Hamsters with grooming salon', JLS dolls etc.
If Ken's been playing
away, Barbie's surveillance
camera will know.
Review of Edward Thomas's 'As the Team's Head Brass.'
'As The Team's Head Brass' by Edward Thomas. Review for 27-Oct -2nd Nov 2010. Poetry workshop Weeks 5- 6.
I originally reviewed 'The Lift' by Seamus Heaney and decided to select another one.
The mise-en scene is exquisite. The poet narrator, Thomas, is painting himself in.
The first six lines have sketched in all the actors, the stage and the unfolding action; so we have the head-brass(or lead-horse), its brasses glinting as it turns at the end of a ploughed furrow. We have the team and plough, the fallen elm tree on whose trunk the narrator is able to sit and watch the scene and the glimpse he catches of the lovers disappearing into a wood (taking their pleasure, grasping the moment or being part of the unfolding of happenstance, of fate). We have the ploughman himself intent on narrowing the square of charlock, of harrowing or ploughing the field ready for sowing. The backdrop as well as the blank verse allows the conversation that unfolds between the ploughman and the narrator to serve, it seems to me, as a kind of discussion on determinism and free will, on the necessity or otherwise of war, of serving wars, of the First World War in which Thomas himself served as an officer.
The poem as a whole is an exploration in a kind of philosophy. Existentialism comes to mind in the sense of a philosophy which emphasizes freedom of choice and personal and moral responsibility but which regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainable, without its own raison d'etre.
In this light we have the discussion of fate, of what will be, set against what is chosen, how we plough our own furrow, plough the furrows of others, narrow down the field, choose one path against another, how we are expected to abandon our own moral imperatives, how serving a war is an imperative. It's possible to see many questions in a reading of the poem. In any case, the narrator serves as a kind of devil's advocate in the dialogue.
Ploughman "Have you been out?"
Narrator" No".
"And don't want to, perhaps?"
"If I could only come back again, I should.
I could spare an arm. I shouldn't want to lose
A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so
I should want nothing more...Have many gone
From here?" "Yes" "Many lost?" "Yes, a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead...now if he had stayed here
we should have moved that tree."
"And I should not have sat here.. Everything would have been different
For it would have been another world.""Ay,
and a better, though if we could see all, all might seem good."
Were we able to predict the future we should live our lives accordingly, prevent war or each other from fighting someone else's wars. This is counterpointed by the sobering thought that fate is dealt, that it comes hurtling or creeping towards us or perhaps is turned over by the farrow or plough. All roads taken,as Frost would have it, mean other roads not taken, elms not sat on or sat on, conversations and the observable delights of a team ploughing taking place. Thomas seems to evoke by contrast the 'what is to be' by acts, actors and the things acted upon,. The plough, the team, the man narrowing the field of charlock, the lovers going into and out of the wood all remind us that the world is turning, people are getting up to all sorts because of and despite the capriciousness of fate.
I particularly like the concluding lines'for the last time I watch the clods crumble and topple over after the ploughshare and the stumbling team.
I'm not so sure that the fallen elm and stumbling team are a metaphor for fallen soldiers as is often supposed.
Thomas has a delicious eye for the world around him and there are murmurings of the idea that we are not quite equal to the beauty we observe in this poem, picked up later in The Glory'. and othe poems in the vein of 'Adlestrop.' It is this reluctance and pessimism tinged with beauty that Thomas finds, like a pulse.
I originally reviewed 'The Lift' by Seamus Heaney and decided to select another one.
The mise-en scene is exquisite. The poet narrator, Thomas, is painting himself in.
The first six lines have sketched in all the actors, the stage and the unfolding action; so we have the head-brass(or lead-horse), its brasses glinting as it turns at the end of a ploughed furrow. We have the team and plough, the fallen elm tree on whose trunk the narrator is able to sit and watch the scene and the glimpse he catches of the lovers disappearing into a wood (taking their pleasure, grasping the moment or being part of the unfolding of happenstance, of fate). We have the ploughman himself intent on narrowing the square of charlock, of harrowing or ploughing the field ready for sowing. The backdrop as well as the blank verse allows the conversation that unfolds between the ploughman and the narrator to serve, it seems to me, as a kind of discussion on determinism and free will, on the necessity or otherwise of war, of serving wars, of the First World War in which Thomas himself served as an officer.
The poem as a whole is an exploration in a kind of philosophy. Existentialism comes to mind in the sense of a philosophy which emphasizes freedom of choice and personal and moral responsibility but which regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainable, without its own raison d'etre.
In this light we have the discussion of fate, of what will be, set against what is chosen, how we plough our own furrow, plough the furrows of others, narrow down the field, choose one path against another, how we are expected to abandon our own moral imperatives, how serving a war is an imperative. It's possible to see many questions in a reading of the poem. In any case, the narrator serves as a kind of devil's advocate in the dialogue.
Ploughman "Have you been out?"
Narrator" No".
"And don't want to, perhaps?"
"If I could only come back again, I should.
I could spare an arm. I shouldn't want to lose
A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so
I should want nothing more...Have many gone
From here?" "Yes" "Many lost?" "Yes, a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead...now if he had stayed here
we should have moved that tree."
"And I should not have sat here.. Everything would have been different
For it would have been another world.""Ay,
and a better, though if we could see all, all might seem good."
Were we able to predict the future we should live our lives accordingly, prevent war or each other from fighting someone else's wars. This is counterpointed by the sobering thought that fate is dealt, that it comes hurtling or creeping towards us or perhaps is turned over by the farrow or plough. All roads taken,as Frost would have it, mean other roads not taken, elms not sat on or sat on, conversations and the observable delights of a team ploughing taking place. Thomas seems to evoke by contrast the 'what is to be' by acts, actors and the things acted upon,. The plough, the team, the man narrowing the field of charlock, the lovers going into and out of the wood all remind us that the world is turning, people are getting up to all sorts because of and despite the capriciousness of fate.
I particularly like the concluding lines'for the last time I watch the clods crumble and topple over after the ploughshare and the stumbling team.
I'm not so sure that the fallen elm and stumbling team are a metaphor for fallen soldiers as is often supposed.
Thomas has a delicious eye for the world around him and there are murmurings of the idea that we are not quite equal to the beauty we observe in this poem, picked up later in The Glory'. and othe poems in the vein of 'Adlestrop.' It is this reluctance and pessimism tinged with beauty that Thomas finds, like a pulse.
Slumber 01.11.2010.
His head bows
then lifts,
then bows again.
Lifts, bows,
then lifts again.
His folded arms
hold him at bay.
Whisked, whole,
to Salford,
his dream fizzes away.
then lifts,
then bows again.
Lifts, bows,
then lifts again.
His folded arms
hold him at bay.
Whisked, whole,
to Salford,
his dream fizzes away.
Friday, November 5, 2010
On a National Express coach 30.10.2010.
On being unable to sleep aboard a National Express coach.
'The lucky bastards'
I think
when I see them
slumping and nodding
despite the spangling of a mobile
or an Iphone inside which
some twigs
seem to be having sex
or else there's a fire in a pet-shop.
Despite the terse 'hullo',
the non-consequential
fired into the back
of a headrest.
Despite the shoved seat
and fizzed coke.
I long to no longer long
to be drawn along
the mysterious
undertow
as they are,
pushed (or is it pulled)
along that nameless grey corridor,
part of a vehicle
that is going somewhere
magically by standing still,
along that strange trajectory
which is not a straight line
or an arc
but charms
all the way
like some kind
of white lie.
'The lucky bastards'
I think
when I see them
slumping and nodding
despite the spangling of a mobile
or an Iphone inside which
some twigs
seem to be having sex
or else there's a fire in a pet-shop.
Despite the terse 'hullo',
the non-consequential
fired into the back
of a headrest.
Despite the shoved seat
and fizzed coke.
I long to no longer long
to be drawn along
the mysterious
undertow
as they are,
pushed (or is it pulled)
along that nameless grey corridor,
part of a vehicle
that is going somewhere
magically by standing still,
along that strange trajectory
which is not a straight line
or an arc
but charms
all the way
like some kind
of white lie.
Climate change deniers raise temperature 30.09.2010
Source: The Times
The Royal Society has seen fit to rewrite its guide to climate change and states that ther is
'uncertainty about future temperature increases' after 40 of its fellows rebelled and questioned its earlier findings.
R.S. rebels rumour
revision re. regional
re-readings, rally.
The Royal Society has seen fit to rewrite its guide to climate change and states that ther is
'uncertainty about future temperature increases' after 40 of its fellows rebelled and questioned its earlier findings.
R.S. rebels rumour
revision re. regional
re-readings, rally.
Miners haiku 30.09.2011.
Source The Guardian.
Thirty three Chilean miners have all been rescued after over a month of living far underground.This is a testimony to the human spirit and to human compassion, of faith on the part of the miners whose courage never wavered and who took up Bible reading classes using tiny bibles underground, of their compatriots and relatives as well as a tribute to the hard work and dedication of those who brought them up safely from the San Jose gold and copper mine in Copiago. The world's media descended on them and their story and had hoped to make them into celebrities.
The capsule designed to rescue the miners was sent down a hole the diameter of a man-hole cover, or, if you prefer, a hole the diameter of an American pizza. Other items were sent to keep them alive. Pills, boots, collapsible beds in bits, crucifixes, food, water were all sent down a bore-hole.
All 33 trapped men were brought up via the capsule.
Crosses, pills, beds and
hope kept chilled miners alive
(story was mined though.)
Thirty three Chilean miners have all been rescued after over a month of living far underground.This is a testimony to the human spirit and to human compassion, of faith on the part of the miners whose courage never wavered and who took up Bible reading classes using tiny bibles underground, of their compatriots and relatives as well as a tribute to the hard work and dedication of those who brought them up safely from the San Jose gold and copper mine in Copiago. The world's media descended on them and their story and had hoped to make them into celebrities.
The capsule designed to rescue the miners was sent down a hole the diameter of a man-hole cover, or, if you prefer, a hole the diameter of an American pizza. Other items were sent to keep them alive. Pills, boots, collapsible beds in bits, crucifixes, food, water were all sent down a bore-hole.
All 33 trapped men were brought up via the capsule.
Crosses, pills, beds and
hope kept chilled miners alive
(story was mined though.)
Castro's prophecy's ignored09.09.2010
The Times reports, in a tiny 3"x 2" piece buried somewhere in its World News pages that Fidel Castro has warned, in an address to the Cuban Parliament that Israel and the U.S. are preparing to attack Iran with nuclear weapons.
Coming WW3
scenario reported
as 'News In Brief'.
Castro's World War Three
prophecy castrated by
edit catastrophe.
Coming WW3
scenario reported
as 'News In Brief'.
Castro's World War Three
prophecy castrated by
edit catastrophe.
Saab car crash probe 12.09.2010.
Source: Metro.
Greater Manchester Police were yesterday hunting two men who drove an old Saab along a pavement in Rochdale just after 2a.m., when crowds were moving to the next late night haunt because they'd been refused admission to the Dali Bar. Seventy five people were taken to hospital.
Det. Insp. Darren Meeks said 'to deliberately drive a car along a crowded pavement is incomprehensively dangerous and reckless.'
A GMP spokesperson said 'The person we are looking for knows we want to speak to him so if anyone knows where he is they should call us.'
Reckless rowdies in
wreck run riotous, rout
Rochdale revellers.
"If you know where the
man who knows we know about
him is, let us know"
Greater Manchester Police were yesterday hunting two men who drove an old Saab along a pavement in Rochdale just after 2a.m., when crowds were moving to the next late night haunt because they'd been refused admission to the Dali Bar. Seventy five people were taken to hospital.
Det. Insp. Darren Meeks said 'to deliberately drive a car along a crowded pavement is incomprehensively dangerous and reckless.'
A GMP spokesperson said 'The person we are looking for knows we want to speak to him so if anyone knows where he is they should call us.'
Reckless rowdies in
wreck run riotous, rout
Rochdale revellers.
"If you know where the
man who knows we know about
him is, let us know"
Caesarean section. 29.06.2010.
Source The Metro.
A target to reduce the ridiculous number of births by Caesarean section in Britain on the NHS (a surgical procedure which involves several nights stay in hospital and often leads to medical complications later) sometimes by mothers in their thirties and forties who want a baby but not the pain involved has been quietly dropped. The risks associated with this procedure have been dismissed as 'a myth' by 'experts'.
NHS cuts dropped
on Caesarean births, more
babies dropped through cuts.
A target to reduce the ridiculous number of births by Caesarean section in Britain on the NHS (a surgical procedure which involves several nights stay in hospital and often leads to medical complications later) sometimes by mothers in their thirties and forties who want a baby but not the pain involved has been quietly dropped. The risks associated with this procedure have been dismissed as 'a myth' by 'experts'.
NHS cuts dropped
on Caesarean births, more
babies dropped through cuts.
Another Bloody Sunday 29.01.10.
Source: The Independent.
Lord Saville's report on the Bloody Sunday (Northrn Ireland) killings of 1972, after being trawled through court, has finally concluded the verdict of unlawful killing (after twelve years and tens of millions) that we knew it was all along. Twelve innocent citizens, peacefully protesting, were gunned down by the British Army.
Exactly two weeks ago to this day, there was another Bloody Sunday, when peaceful protestors, amongst them Mairead Maguire, veteran of the Irish Struggle for independence, some children and old people, one or two European M.P.s, and a famous Swedish crime writer in a flotilla carrying paper, pencils, jam, concrete, sweets, hope and most importantly solidarity to Palestine were gunned down in international waters at 5a.m. by the Israeli Defence Forces, who first surrounded the main Turkish boat with gunboats then sent down soldiers from helicopters to blitz those on board the vessel. At least nine were killed, many were seriously injured and still many are still missing. Some were forced to watch as dogs were brought in to maul the dead. Others were cuffed and forced to lie face down in the blood and glass. One woman was sadistically shown a photo of her dead partner 36 hours after he was killed and asked to 'identify' him. His face was by now blown up. She recognised his mouth. Hundreds were imprisoned without charge and stripped of their possessions. Just another day, another dollar for Israel then...
That Bloody Sunday's
a paler pink version
of this Dirty Sunday.
Business as usual
for the IDF who gunned
down brave protestors.
Lord Saville's report on the Bloody Sunday (Northrn Ireland) killings of 1972, after being trawled through court, has finally concluded the verdict of unlawful killing (after twelve years and tens of millions) that we knew it was all along. Twelve innocent citizens, peacefully protesting, were gunned down by the British Army.
Exactly two weeks ago to this day, there was another Bloody Sunday, when peaceful protestors, amongst them Mairead Maguire, veteran of the Irish Struggle for independence, some children and old people, one or two European M.P.s, and a famous Swedish crime writer in a flotilla carrying paper, pencils, jam, concrete, sweets, hope and most importantly solidarity to Palestine were gunned down in international waters at 5a.m. by the Israeli Defence Forces, who first surrounded the main Turkish boat with gunboats then sent down soldiers from helicopters to blitz those on board the vessel. At least nine were killed, many were seriously injured and still many are still missing. Some were forced to watch as dogs were brought in to maul the dead. Others were cuffed and forced to lie face down in the blood and glass. One woman was sadistically shown a photo of her dead partner 36 hours after he was killed and asked to 'identify' him. His face was by now blown up. She recognised his mouth. Hundreds were imprisoned without charge and stripped of their possessions. Just another day, another dollar for Israel then...
That Bloody Sunday's
a paler pink version
of this Dirty Sunday.
Business as usual
for the IDF who gunned
down brave protestors.
Bloody Sunday 21.06.2010.
Lord Saville's report on the Bloody Sunday (Northrn Ireland) killings of 1972, after being trawled through court, has finally concluded the verdict of unlawful killing (after twelve years and tens of millions) that we knew it was all along. Twelve innocent citizens, peacefully protesting, were gunned down by the British Army.
Exactly two weeks ago to this day, there was another Bloody Sunday, when peaceful protestors, amongst them Mairead Maguire, veteran of the Irish Struggle for independence, some children and old people, one or two European M.P.s, and a famous Swedish crime writer in a flotilla carrying paper, pencils, jam, concrete, sweets, hope and most importantly solidarity to Palestine were gunned down in international waters at 5a.m. by the Israeli Defence Forces, who first surrounded the main Turkish boat with gunboats then sent down soldiers from helicopters to blitz those on board the vessel. At least nine were killed, many were seriously injured and still many are still missing. Some were forced to watch as dogs were brought in to maul the dead. Others were cuffed and forced to lie face down in the blood and glass. One woman was sadistically shown a photo of her dead partner 36 hours after he was killed and asked to 'identify' him. His face was by now blown up. She recognised his mouth. Hundreds were imprisoned without charge and stripped of their possessions. Just another day, another dollar for Israel then...
That Bloody Sunday's
a paler pink version
of this Dirty Sunday.
Business as usual
for the IDF who gunned
down brave protestors.
Exactly two weeks ago to this day, there was another Bloody Sunday, when peaceful protestors, amongst them Mairead Maguire, veteran of the Irish Struggle for independence, some children and old people, one or two European M.P.s, and a famous Swedish crime writer in a flotilla carrying paper, pencils, jam, concrete, sweets, hope and most importantly solidarity to Palestine were gunned down in international waters at 5a.m. by the Israeli Defence Forces, who first surrounded the main Turkish boat with gunboats then sent down soldiers from helicopters to blitz those on board the vessel. At least nine were killed, many were seriously injured and still many are still missing. Some were forced to watch as dogs were brought in to maul the dead. Others were cuffed and forced to lie face down in the blood and glass. One woman was sadistically shown a photo of her dead partner 36 hours after he was killed and asked to 'identify' him. His face was by now blown up. She recognised his mouth. Hundreds were imprisoned without charge and stripped of their possessions. Just another day, another dollar for Israel then...
That Bloody Sunday's
a paler pink version
of this Dirty Sunday.
Business as usual
for the IDF who gunned
down brave protestors.
Blair's security costs us
Source The Guardian
Security for Tony Blair, the ex-Prime Minister and now 'Middle East Envoy' costs the taxpayer over £250, 000 per annum. Claims of more than £1,200 per night on accomodation were made by security officers, running up a bill of more than £20,000 during a two-week holiday taken by Blair in Borneo.
T.B. is protected by Metropolitan Police Officers wherever he goes.
He earns millions of pounds and dollars for his talks and appearances, not least from his book royalties, owns lots of property and is filthy rich.
His Blairing, his lies
his ill-gotten gains cost us,
the taxpayer, dear.
TB spreads throughout
the Middle East. Taxpayer
pays for wealth disease.
Security for Tony Blair, the ex-Prime Minister and now 'Middle East Envoy' costs the taxpayer over £250, 000 per annum. Claims of more than £1,200 per night on accomodation were made by security officers, running up a bill of more than £20,000 during a two-week holiday taken by Blair in Borneo.
T.B. is protected by Metropolitan Police Officers wherever he goes.
He earns millions of pounds and dollars for his talks and appearances, not least from his book royalties, owns lots of property and is filthy rich.
His Blairing, his lies
his ill-gotten gains cost us,
the taxpayer, dear.
TB spreads throughout
the Middle East. Taxpayer
pays for wealth disease.
Blair's Faith Foundation. 14.03.2010.
Source: The Times
The Times highlights the growing influence of Tony Blair on the religious 'community' in America and Canada. He's busy forging links with the most dubious, affluent and economically strategic 'religious' leaders/foundations/billionaires.
His Foundation, however, is on rather shaky ground as he has presided over FIVE wars and the murder, during those wars, of hundreds of thousands of people, plus a few hangings(no wonder he joined up for Confessional). Moreover, he did so with a perpetual grin. As Shakespeare would have it 'one can smile, and smile and still be a villain.'
He is preparing to launch a Faith offensive after the launch of his book 'The Journey', for which he netted a cool 4.5m advance.
Blairing about God,
his Faith Foundation's really
on dead shaky ground.
The Times highlights the growing influence of Tony Blair on the religious 'community' in America and Canada. He's busy forging links with the most dubious, affluent and economically strategic 'religious' leaders/foundations/billionaires.
His Foundation, however, is on rather shaky ground as he has presided over FIVE wars and the murder, during those wars, of hundreds of thousands of people, plus a few hangings(no wonder he joined up for Confessional). Moreover, he did so with a perpetual grin. As Shakespeare would have it 'one can smile, and smile and still be a villain.'
He is preparing to launch a Faith offensive after the launch of his book 'The Journey', for which he netted a cool 4.5m advance.
Blairing about God,
his Faith Foundation's really
on dead shaky ground.
Birmingham games 22.10.09
Source The Observer. Sports Review
The Times reports that after enduring tiresome jokes when it was bidding for the 2012 Olympic games, Birmingham is to host a training camp for two of the most sought-after teams in the month leading up to the event itself.
The U.S. and Jamaican teams will visit schools, athletic clubs etc and Usain Bolt's cricket-mad brother is hosting a bowling session at Edgbaston Cricket Club.
Spaghetti Junction
will host games (peas and rice
may be Bolted down).
The Times reports that after enduring tiresome jokes when it was bidding for the 2012 Olympic games, Birmingham is to host a training camp for two of the most sought-after teams in the month leading up to the event itself.
The U.S. and Jamaican teams will visit schools, athletic clubs etc and Usain Bolt's cricket-mad brother is hosting a bowling session at Edgbaston Cricket Club.
Spaghetti Junction
will host games (peas and rice
may be Bolted down).
Bilge Producers 06.06.2010.
Source: The Times
More than five weeks since the Deep Water Horizon rig collapsed and oil started spewing at a rate of 2.4 million gallons a day B.P, that's BRITISH Petroleum have been busy poisoning the whole of our waters, the waters of coral, of plankton, of porpoise and of dolphin.
BP are still unrepentant. In fact they're trying to buy off anyone with a mouth, a fishing permit and a Gulf of Mexico address. They've got money to burn you see, as well as to poison. May their consciences take them to a watery grave.The consciences of all who consume the stuff and demand it must be shamed also.
Water will never
be deep enough to drown those
Deep Bilge Poisoners.
More than five weeks since the Deep Water Horizon rig collapsed and oil started spewing at a rate of 2.4 million gallons a day B.P, that's BRITISH Petroleum have been busy poisoning the whole of our waters, the waters of coral, of plankton, of porpoise and of dolphin.
BP are still unrepentant. In fact they're trying to buy off anyone with a mouth, a fishing permit and a Gulf of Mexico address. They've got money to burn you see, as well as to poison. May their consciences take them to a watery grave.The consciences of all who consume the stuff and demand it must be shamed also.
Water will never
be deep enough to drown those
Deep Bilge Poisoners.
On discovering a failing bee-hive 06.06.210.
They were general bees
coming and going
to the trenches
dressed in livery,
marking out their time and duty,
sliding, charmed, down the crevasse;
burring out luxuriously.
I watched one,
smaller than the rest,
paler, labouring his way out,
saw his particulars,
his clambering doom.
They were all marked men
marching out
from that moment
onwards.
coming and going
to the trenches
dressed in livery,
marking out their time and duty,
sliding, charmed, down the crevasse;
burring out luxuriously.
I watched one,
smaller than the rest,
paler, labouring his way out,
saw his particulars,
his clambering doom.
They were all marked men
marching out
from that moment
onwards.
At the Nurse's Station 03.06.010.
Julie, the duty nurse
In green scrubs
Has burst out of the sick bay
In stitches. She has accidentally
filled in two triage reports
Of the same case.
“I’ve seen two of that gentleman”
she tells the registrar
in blue.
”Funny, that.”
“Errr, time to go home, love”
shouts the triage nurse from Bay Three.
“You’ve had one more than the patient.”
Close at hand,
Mr Malik’s safe, brown Specialist
arms are bent over the file, the screen.
They are sturdy,
standing him at ease.
As Julie’s laughter
Reaches him.
A smile starts to slip up his face
like the sun trying to slip out
from abiding clouds.
A slight shade of blue
and dismay
has tinged the whites of
his downcast eyes as
he reels off the figures
internally.
His glinting stethoscope is still neatly
Curled around his neck,
a hard-won badge.
A yawn blooms in his mouth.
He half suppresses it, half allows it.
It’s still only three in the afternoon;
(time and space in the triage bays
has stiffened, too)
Elsewhere, nurses fly about.
The man in Bay Five
notices their agility,
their freedom of movement
because he has none.
On the only monitor not currently in use,
the acronym P.R.O.U.D unfurls itself,
shimmers on the light-filled screen.
The following lines form slowly
out of nothingness, then slide away
over and over again,
as shoals of fish from a tank.
P…patients are at the heart of all we do.
R..respect for others at all times.
O…our hospital is for you.
U…united in all our services.
D…dedicated to public healthcare.
The registrar writes up
Mr.Malik’s report with
a white pen.
There may be four hours
to kill before x-ray, so
I puzzle over the pen.
It is a replica of the bones
of a human leg.
The tibia and fibula are the part
gripped by the living carpals
of the registrar’s hand,
the nurse’s hand,
the specialist’s hand
Julie and Mr. Malik alight and depart
as deftly as swallows on a wire
at either end of the nurse’s station,
stoke up the ‘to be seen’ crate.
The triage curtains swish closed
and the fallen man is divided from
his care by blue fabric and the afternoon.
In green scrubs
Has burst out of the sick bay
In stitches. She has accidentally
filled in two triage reports
Of the same case.
“I’ve seen two of that gentleman”
she tells the registrar
in blue.
”Funny, that.”
“Errr, time to go home, love”
shouts the triage nurse from Bay Three.
“You’ve had one more than the patient.”
Close at hand,
Mr Malik’s safe, brown Specialist
arms are bent over the file, the screen.
They are sturdy,
standing him at ease.
As Julie’s laughter
Reaches him.
A smile starts to slip up his face
like the sun trying to slip out
from abiding clouds.
A slight shade of blue
and dismay
has tinged the whites of
his downcast eyes as
he reels off the figures
internally.
His glinting stethoscope is still neatly
Curled around his neck,
a hard-won badge.
A yawn blooms in his mouth.
He half suppresses it, half allows it.
It’s still only three in the afternoon;
(time and space in the triage bays
has stiffened, too)
Elsewhere, nurses fly about.
The man in Bay Five
notices their agility,
their freedom of movement
because he has none.
On the only monitor not currently in use,
the acronym P.R.O.U.D unfurls itself,
shimmers on the light-filled screen.
The following lines form slowly
out of nothingness, then slide away
over and over again,
as shoals of fish from a tank.
P…patients are at the heart of all we do.
R..respect for others at all times.
O…our hospital is for you.
U…united in all our services.
D…dedicated to public healthcare.
The registrar writes up
Mr.Malik’s report with
a white pen.
There may be four hours
to kill before x-ray, so
I puzzle over the pen.
It is a replica of the bones
of a human leg.
The tibia and fibula are the part
gripped by the living carpals
of the registrar’s hand,
the nurse’s hand,
the specialist’s hand
Julie and Mr. Malik alight and depart
as deftly as swallows on a wire
at either end of the nurse’s station,
stoke up the ‘to be seen’ crate.
The triage curtains swish closed
and the fallen man is divided from
his care by blue fabric and the afternoon.
Aspirin for bowel cancer 16.09.2010.
Source The Metro
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have discovered that a daily dose of the painkiller aspirin or other non-steroid ant-inflammatory drug can significantly lower the risk of bowel cancer.
Inflammatory
findings prove that scientists
gut feelings were right.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have discovered that a daily dose of the painkiller aspirin or other non-steroid ant-inflammatory drug can significantly lower the risk of bowel cancer.
Inflammatory
findings prove that scientists
gut feelings were right.
Ashes for cash 01.05.2010.
Source: The Independent
Lots of claims are being made by disappointed would-be flyers against the natural disaster in which an Icelandic volcano thankfully stopped the perpetual orgy of flying that goes on across British skies. Well, for a few precious days.
Ashes to money,
cash to gold. Payouts may reach
volcanic levels.
Lots of claims are being made by disappointed would-be flyers against the natural disaster in which an Icelandic volcano thankfully stopped the perpetual orgy of flying that goes on across British skies. Well, for a few precious days.
Ashes to money,
cash to gold. Payouts may reach
volcanic levels.
Let's hole trump in one
29.06.2010.
Campaigners of the pressure group 38 Degrees have bought a piece of land slap bang in the middle of the Balmeanie Estate, an SSSI, which the self-aggrandising popinjay billionaire Donald Trump is buying, grace of Aberedeenshire Council. Under a CPO, those living there are to be evicted from their own houses and land. I have signed up to the ownership of the patch of land, known as 'The Bunker' (for obvious reasons) and ANYONE READING THIS CAN DO IT TOO.
The idea of buying a piece of land technically owned by a very large number of people is that it makes the business of selling the land technically (legally) very expensive. This was the reasoning behind the initial purchase by a few buyers, followed by additional purchase by hundreds of other people of a piece of land inside the proposed siting of the Third Runway. Greenpeace and Plane Stupid were the architects of this idea. Et Voila BAA have cancelled. But watch out, they could just be lying low in an aircraft hangar!
Tee-ed off by Meanie
Council's Trumpery? Let's hole them
in one big bunker.
Campaigners of the pressure group 38 Degrees have bought a piece of land slap bang in the middle of the Balmeanie Estate, an SSSI, which the self-aggrandising popinjay billionaire Donald Trump is buying, grace of Aberedeenshire Council. Under a CPO, those living there are to be evicted from their own houses and land. I have signed up to the ownership of the patch of land, known as 'The Bunker' (for obvious reasons) and ANYONE READING THIS CAN DO IT TOO.
The idea of buying a piece of land technically owned by a very large number of people is that it makes the business of selling the land technically (legally) very expensive. This was the reasoning behind the initial purchase by a few buyers, followed by additional purchase by hundreds of other people of a piece of land inside the proposed siting of the Third Runway. Greenpeace and Plane Stupid were the architects of this idea. Et Voila BAA have cancelled. But watch out, they could just be lying low in an aircraft hangar!
Tee-ed off by Meanie
Council's Trumpery? Let's hole them
in one big bunker.
An Anorexic's morning
Louise Stothard.
'The icing on the cake'.
An anorexic describes her morning (a monologue).
Stage directions:
A bare wooden chair, the sort that could be described as rather uncomfortable, sits centre-stage. It is lit from above by a central stage spotlight.
An anorexic girl walks from the wings onto the stage and as she sits down carefully on the chair, the central spotlight is joined by other side stage lights in flooding the area where she sits, now bathed in bright, white, revealing light. There are no shadows, as the convergence of lights does not permit this.
She's wearing a calico brown smock over dark denim jeans but it's obvious that she's anorexic, though not quite at first glance, since her choice of clothing creates a semblance of normalcy. The smock billows, and the jeans are turned up at the ankles, cuff-style. These are the tricks of the trade, the anorexic's trade. She's wearing a pair of desert boots which she plants squarely on the floor in a masculine sitting posture.
She rocks from one side to the other on the hard chair she usually sits on to read, or write, or watch television, or eat, or refrain from eating. One of the reasons she is rocking from side to side is that her 'seat bones' can feel the hardness of the chair, for she has so little 'padding'.
This feeling is one she finds reassuring.
She billows out the smock as she sits down, as she always does. It's another 'trick of the weight' as she likes to call it.
She tucks her hands, with their coarse, brittle fingernails under her thighs, by turns subconsciously then consciously feeling the gauge of her limbs.
She pauses, collecting her thoughts, then speaks in a clear voice, a voice which has become
a little husky on account of the flood of male hormone triggered by her anorexia.
She begins to talk, uncomfortably at first.
' So what's a typical morning like then, for me?
W-e-e-ll, the careful calibration begins more or less when I wake up. It's something I endure as well as relishing, bittersweet, like dark chocolate, dark thoughts. One of the first things I think about when I wake up is that there are three hours to kill (give or take an extra period of abstinence) before the first allowance, before I can eat. It's marking time in bite-size chunks, to coin a phrase! It's, kind of, an unfortunate game. Really! I tend to visualise the allowance as I'm lying there. To make things easier, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for an easier life, it's nearly always the same menu'.
She extends her arms in front of her as though in an act of supplication, cupping her hands to describe a small bowl shape.
' I take a dessert spoonful of cottage cheese and fluff it out on a bed of lettuce leaves, arranged in concentric circles that give the illusion of a full plate. It's a question of fooling the mind, this diet business.' (She refers here, and elsewhere to her anorexia as 'dieting').
' I normally scatter some flaked almonds or a few cherry tomatoes generously onto the lettuce bed. That way, I get the vitamins and a bit of protein thrown in. And a bit of colour. And shape. That's important. It's not as daft as it looks or sounds, and there's iron too, in the lettuce. Oh, and Laudanum, apparently! Woooh. There are drugs in all these natural things, aren't there! So maybe it's something I should be having at night instead of first thing in the morning ! Really!'
She laughs, then strokes her chin with the bony fingers of her right hand. Her cheeks are downy but here and there a hirsuteness has produced one or two bristly chin hairs. Her face is sculpted, waxy. She has once possesssed a rare beauty. Her head seems too big for the rest of her frame (something of a giveaway, she often thinks).
She shifts on her chair uncomfortably.
'There must be, I feel, some order to life, to the way of doing things. No, really. Some sort of regularity. Like cottage cheese and lettuce. The pleasure of small things is definitely not lost on me, though, even though you must think I lead a miserable existence!'
(She laughs, and the laughter turns into a slight clearing of the throat, as if in embarassment).
'Then there is the dressing game, a thing which is also part of the daily calculus, that is part of the fabric of those three hours, the preparation for going out, for the walk.
The walk is one of the most important parts of the morning. Well, it's all important, really.
Really is one of her favourite words.
I have to check the mirror first, admire the clean lines, the svelte body (I'm being sarcastic, obviously!) see how athletic it looks, how athletic it IS. I know, you've got to laugh, though! Really! To keep myself in the manner to which I am accustomed' ( she laughs) 'I always have to do press-ups, star-jumps and various aerobic movements. These are to top up the output, the exercise.To discharge the batteies. They're... like, the icing on the cake, so to speak.
I pull on my heavy, floaty, linen black dress. It's a bit shapeless, really, but that's the whole point. I have thick, non-stretch jeans as well. They help your legs not to look too obvious, not to look like the licorice sticks they actually are! I like to make an impression when I go out so I have these suede desert-boots, the kind with the tab so I can pull them on. (I need a tab... they're so damn heavy!) They've got castellated soles, they make a mark, I can tell you. Boots like that carry authority. And, for all my complexities, I DO actually have authority.
You probably think I'm expending a lot of effort for what is, after all a bit of vanity. Yet somehow I've learned to expend the minimum effort for the maxinum result.Yeah, I thought that was kind of a cool thing to say, too.
I have a kind of curtain coat, you know. They used to call them swagger coats, didn't they? Or was it duster? One of the two. Anyway, this coat adds another layer of... I suppose you could call it deception. Really. Then I'm ready to float out into town. I say float because that's what it feels like. The term 'airhead' should really be applied to me, as most of the time I'm as light-headed a someone on top of Everest. And that's without the oxygen! Really.' (She laughs loudly, recklessly).
There's a good joke about Everest...I can tell you the gist. I'll probably mess it up, I usually do. A guy labours all the way up Everest, passing all the usual debris you see on the streets. Crisp packets, juice bottles, Kendal Mint Cake, dead climbers, bla-di-blah. Actually, did you know there are about three hundred of them...and that's just the ones they've found. Dead climbers, I mean. No, really! Not actually funny, though, is it? Anyway, he's nearly at the summit when a Scouser pops out from behind a rock and says 'Big Issue, mate?'
The warm gust of laughter from the audience sweeps through her too. She is clearly elated.
'Yeah, I know.' she adds.
She is sitting more comfortably now, getting into her stride.
'I always take a packet of these diet crackers with me. Don't worry, I DO put the wrappers in the bin! Anyway, I feel kind of voluptuous as I slowly take one out of the packet while I'm walking along.They're kind of like an emergency store. Each of these crackers is wrapped in its own envelope, and there are always eight to a packet, four in each compartment. So that's
one for every quarter mile completed. I did have a pedometer but the trouble with them is that they clock up the distance with every movement of your hips, giving false readings, so they're not a true measurement, are they? Anyway,so I'm very aware of the boniness of my hand as I unwrap the crackers, and also the set of my pale, angular face. Actually, I rather admire it. I allow myself an extra cracker sometimes, just for the hell of it. I know I'll have to pay somewhere else.
Sometimes, I drift round M&S, to have a look at the tiny bras I'm hoping to fit. As if.They're for teenaged girls, actually. It seems wrong that children are being sexualised with these bloody things, and those awful chat magazines... there's no childhood, really, is there?
I deliberately go through the food department. I suppose I'm a bit of a masochist really.'
(She laughs).
' I stay out as long as possible. The highlight of all this dieting, this regime is going to Waterstone's to read the paper and have a huge Latte. Really!'
She clears her throat.
'Yes, whooooh. You must be thinking 'what's the point? All that effort and she goes and has a Latte. Not even a skinny Latte!' Well, you've got to live dangerously sometimes!
I supose that's what this whole dieting thing is about...the danger of things.
'Anyway, that's once a week. I have a blackberry muffin too. Yeah, I know, but in actual fact I only have about a third of it. I wrap the rest in those lovely napkins you get in there with the crenellated edges, then I take it home to nibble at surreptitiously in weak moments. I ration the one-third muffin out into three pieces while I'm reading. Funny how I do things in threes and quarters. It seems to make sense. But I make it look random.
Anyway of course the grease of the muffin, those bloody transfats leave me feeling rather heavy and dull. The dullness is more to do with the failure, though, than the calorific value of the muffin and Latte even though, as everyone knows, it's huge.
Finally, I'll go into Home and Bargain, buy bleach for my scrubbing sessions, for the bathroom.
Scrubbing takes a bit of effort and you're cleansing things at the same time, so that kind of makes sense. It's useful exercise rather than just exercise for the sake of it!
A semblance of normality, I suppose you could call it.
So there you go, that's me, in a nutshell!.'
She looks wistfully at her audience.
Stage directions:
The overhead stage lights dim and narrow, revealing a stark figure, then close down gradually, leaving both her and the stage in complete darkness.
'The icing on the cake'.
An anorexic describes her morning (a monologue).
Stage directions:
A bare wooden chair, the sort that could be described as rather uncomfortable, sits centre-stage. It is lit from above by a central stage spotlight.
An anorexic girl walks from the wings onto the stage and as she sits down carefully on the chair, the central spotlight is joined by other side stage lights in flooding the area where she sits, now bathed in bright, white, revealing light. There are no shadows, as the convergence of lights does not permit this.
She's wearing a calico brown smock over dark denim jeans but it's obvious that she's anorexic, though not quite at first glance, since her choice of clothing creates a semblance of normalcy. The smock billows, and the jeans are turned up at the ankles, cuff-style. These are the tricks of the trade, the anorexic's trade. She's wearing a pair of desert boots which she plants squarely on the floor in a masculine sitting posture.
She rocks from one side to the other on the hard chair she usually sits on to read, or write, or watch television, or eat, or refrain from eating. One of the reasons she is rocking from side to side is that her 'seat bones' can feel the hardness of the chair, for she has so little 'padding'.
This feeling is one she finds reassuring.
She billows out the smock as she sits down, as she always does. It's another 'trick of the weight' as she likes to call it.
She tucks her hands, with their coarse, brittle fingernails under her thighs, by turns subconsciously then consciously feeling the gauge of her limbs.
She pauses, collecting her thoughts, then speaks in a clear voice, a voice which has become
a little husky on account of the flood of male hormone triggered by her anorexia.
She begins to talk, uncomfortably at first.
' So what's a typical morning like then, for me?
W-e-e-ll, the careful calibration begins more or less when I wake up. It's something I endure as well as relishing, bittersweet, like dark chocolate, dark thoughts. One of the first things I think about when I wake up is that there are three hours to kill (give or take an extra period of abstinence) before the first allowance, before I can eat. It's marking time in bite-size chunks, to coin a phrase! It's, kind of, an unfortunate game. Really! I tend to visualise the allowance as I'm lying there. To make things easier, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for an easier life, it's nearly always the same menu'.
She extends her arms in front of her as though in an act of supplication, cupping her hands to describe a small bowl shape.
' I take a dessert spoonful of cottage cheese and fluff it out on a bed of lettuce leaves, arranged in concentric circles that give the illusion of a full plate. It's a question of fooling the mind, this diet business.' (She refers here, and elsewhere to her anorexia as 'dieting').
' I normally scatter some flaked almonds or a few cherry tomatoes generously onto the lettuce bed. That way, I get the vitamins and a bit of protein thrown in. And a bit of colour. And shape. That's important. It's not as daft as it looks or sounds, and there's iron too, in the lettuce. Oh, and Laudanum, apparently! Woooh. There are drugs in all these natural things, aren't there! So maybe it's something I should be having at night instead of first thing in the morning ! Really!'
She laughs, then strokes her chin with the bony fingers of her right hand. Her cheeks are downy but here and there a hirsuteness has produced one or two bristly chin hairs. Her face is sculpted, waxy. She has once possesssed a rare beauty. Her head seems too big for the rest of her frame (something of a giveaway, she often thinks).
She shifts on her chair uncomfortably.
'There must be, I feel, some order to life, to the way of doing things. No, really. Some sort of regularity. Like cottage cheese and lettuce. The pleasure of small things is definitely not lost on me, though, even though you must think I lead a miserable existence!'
(She laughs, and the laughter turns into a slight clearing of the throat, as if in embarassment).
'Then there is the dressing game, a thing which is also part of the daily calculus, that is part of the fabric of those three hours, the preparation for going out, for the walk.
The walk is one of the most important parts of the morning. Well, it's all important, really.
Really is one of her favourite words.
I have to check the mirror first, admire the clean lines, the svelte body (I'm being sarcastic, obviously!) see how athletic it looks, how athletic it IS. I know, you've got to laugh, though! Really! To keep myself in the manner to which I am accustomed' ( she laughs) 'I always have to do press-ups, star-jumps and various aerobic movements. These are to top up the output, the exercise.To discharge the batteies. They're... like, the icing on the cake, so to speak.
I pull on my heavy, floaty, linen black dress. It's a bit shapeless, really, but that's the whole point. I have thick, non-stretch jeans as well. They help your legs not to look too obvious, not to look like the licorice sticks they actually are! I like to make an impression when I go out so I have these suede desert-boots, the kind with the tab so I can pull them on. (I need a tab... they're so damn heavy!) They've got castellated soles, they make a mark, I can tell you. Boots like that carry authority. And, for all my complexities, I DO actually have authority.
You probably think I'm expending a lot of effort for what is, after all a bit of vanity. Yet somehow I've learned to expend the minimum effort for the maxinum result.Yeah, I thought that was kind of a cool thing to say, too.
I have a kind of curtain coat, you know. They used to call them swagger coats, didn't they? Or was it duster? One of the two. Anyway, this coat adds another layer of... I suppose you could call it deception. Really. Then I'm ready to float out into town. I say float because that's what it feels like. The term 'airhead' should really be applied to me, as most of the time I'm as light-headed a someone on top of Everest. And that's without the oxygen! Really.' (She laughs loudly, recklessly).
There's a good joke about Everest...I can tell you the gist. I'll probably mess it up, I usually do. A guy labours all the way up Everest, passing all the usual debris you see on the streets. Crisp packets, juice bottles, Kendal Mint Cake, dead climbers, bla-di-blah. Actually, did you know there are about three hundred of them...and that's just the ones they've found. Dead climbers, I mean. No, really! Not actually funny, though, is it? Anyway, he's nearly at the summit when a Scouser pops out from behind a rock and says 'Big Issue, mate?'
The warm gust of laughter from the audience sweeps through her too. She is clearly elated.
'Yeah, I know.' she adds.
She is sitting more comfortably now, getting into her stride.
'I always take a packet of these diet crackers with me. Don't worry, I DO put the wrappers in the bin! Anyway, I feel kind of voluptuous as I slowly take one out of the packet while I'm walking along.They're kind of like an emergency store. Each of these crackers is wrapped in its own envelope, and there are always eight to a packet, four in each compartment. So that's
one for every quarter mile completed. I did have a pedometer but the trouble with them is that they clock up the distance with every movement of your hips, giving false readings, so they're not a true measurement, are they? Anyway,so I'm very aware of the boniness of my hand as I unwrap the crackers, and also the set of my pale, angular face. Actually, I rather admire it. I allow myself an extra cracker sometimes, just for the hell of it. I know I'll have to pay somewhere else.
Sometimes, I drift round M&S, to have a look at the tiny bras I'm hoping to fit. As if.They're for teenaged girls, actually. It seems wrong that children are being sexualised with these bloody things, and those awful chat magazines... there's no childhood, really, is there?
I deliberately go through the food department. I suppose I'm a bit of a masochist really.'
(She laughs).
' I stay out as long as possible. The highlight of all this dieting, this regime is going to Waterstone's to read the paper and have a huge Latte. Really!'
She clears her throat.
'Yes, whooooh. You must be thinking 'what's the point? All that effort and she goes and has a Latte. Not even a skinny Latte!' Well, you've got to live dangerously sometimes!
I supose that's what this whole dieting thing is about...the danger of things.
'Anyway, that's once a week. I have a blackberry muffin too. Yeah, I know, but in actual fact I only have about a third of it. I wrap the rest in those lovely napkins you get in there with the crenellated edges, then I take it home to nibble at surreptitiously in weak moments. I ration the one-third muffin out into three pieces while I'm reading. Funny how I do things in threes and quarters. It seems to make sense. But I make it look random.
Anyway of course the grease of the muffin, those bloody transfats leave me feeling rather heavy and dull. The dullness is more to do with the failure, though, than the calorific value of the muffin and Latte even though, as everyone knows, it's huge.
Finally, I'll go into Home and Bargain, buy bleach for my scrubbing sessions, for the bathroom.
Scrubbing takes a bit of effort and you're cleansing things at the same time, so that kind of makes sense. It's useful exercise rather than just exercise for the sake of it!
A semblance of normality, I suppose you could call it.
So there you go, that's me, in a nutshell!.'
She looks wistfully at her audience.
Stage directions:
The overhead stage lights dim and narrow, revealing a stark figure, then close down gradually, leaving both her and the stage in complete darkness.
Abortion fury! 20.06.2010.
source: The Observer
Marie Stopes International, an abortion charity, is putting an ad. on Channel 4 soon with the strap line'Are You Late?' The Pro-life Alliance is furious.
Pro-Life lobby wants
advert terminated, to
be 'The Late' ad.
Alliance fosters
hate for 'Are You Late' advert,
abortion 'Pro-mo.'
Marie Stopes International, an abortion charity, is putting an ad. on Channel 4 soon with the strap line'Are You Late?' The Pro-life Alliance is furious.
Pro-Life lobby wants
advert terminated, to
be 'The Late' ad.
Alliance fosters
hate for 'Are You Late' advert,
abortion 'Pro-mo.'
On Antony Gormless..iron men in the Alps
On Antony Gormley's piece in The Grauniad Review. 07 08 2010.
'Why I put 100 iron men in the Alps' by A.Gormless.
Not content with spreading replicas of himself all over Britain (the real one is bad enough!) the postmodernist A. Gormless, has decided to despoliate bits of Austria, the more unspoilt the better!
'In the summer of 2005' he writes, 'my wife and I went to wander in the mountains of Vorarlberg to see if it was possible to install a multiple-body work there.'
Describing the charm, the solitude, the pastoral beauty of the region, Gormley goes on
'There was something euphoric about the silence and clear air of those days spent walking.'
A shame, then that he had to come along and spoil it all!
'Horizon Field' he gargoyles 'comprises 100 iron body forms spread over seven valleys, creating a field that makes its own horizon, the latest of my attempts to ask a simple question in material terms: " Where does the human being fit in the scheme of things?"
In his scheme of things, the human being known as Antony Gormless fits in anywhere he plants it and a good few other places besides. Crosby, Cuxhaven, London, New York have been overrun with lifesize and irremoveable Antony Gormlesses and the Austrian Alps, he is determined, will be no exception. At this very moment, the gritty Gormless is believed to be preparing a single asbestos 20,000 ft.'Gormless of the Desert' to dwarf the Sahara it will stand upon.
And that's not all! He will soon be unveiling 100 stainless steel Gormlesses, currently housed in an Asda superwarehouse which will withstand the lowest temperatures known to 'iron man' Gormless. They will be hauled by a team of 20,000 huskies backed up by snowskis and planted at the North and South Poles, sunk deep into the ice-cap. Gormless himself will be there to open the ceremony.
And there's more... several hundred titanium models are to be launched to the Moon and then Mars from Cape Canaveral in December. They are due to touch down in the next few months. The sculptures will be known as 'Yet Another Place.'
He's also planning a Satgorm made up of a cluster of Gormlesses welded together to orbit planet Earth in perpetuity.
'People may well ask' he rumbles, surveying the Gormlesses peppering the Austrian Alps, "What the hell is this thing doing here?" and the work returns that question and it responds reflexively "What the hell are you doing here?"'
He has a little reflection himself: 'Michi Manhart, the local hunter, farmer, landowner and ski-lift owner' he writes' decided that 100 iron men was just what the mountains...needed. So long as the helicopters installing them did not disturb the deer he intended to shoot.'
Operation cast
iron only shows Gormley's
self love and brass neck.
'Why I put 100 iron men in the Alps' by A.Gormless.
Not content with spreading replicas of himself all over Britain (the real one is bad enough!) the postmodernist A. Gormless, has decided to despoliate bits of Austria, the more unspoilt the better!
'In the summer of 2005' he writes, 'my wife and I went to wander in the mountains of Vorarlberg to see if it was possible to install a multiple-body work there.'
Describing the charm, the solitude, the pastoral beauty of the region, Gormley goes on
'There was something euphoric about the silence and clear air of those days spent walking.'
A shame, then that he had to come along and spoil it all!
'Horizon Field' he gargoyles 'comprises 100 iron body forms spread over seven valleys, creating a field that makes its own horizon, the latest of my attempts to ask a simple question in material terms: " Where does the human being fit in the scheme of things?"
In his scheme of things, the human being known as Antony Gormless fits in anywhere he plants it and a good few other places besides. Crosby, Cuxhaven, London, New York have been overrun with lifesize and irremoveable Antony Gormlesses and the Austrian Alps, he is determined, will be no exception. At this very moment, the gritty Gormless is believed to be preparing a single asbestos 20,000 ft.'Gormless of the Desert' to dwarf the Sahara it will stand upon.
And that's not all! He will soon be unveiling 100 stainless steel Gormlesses, currently housed in an Asda superwarehouse which will withstand the lowest temperatures known to 'iron man' Gormless. They will be hauled by a team of 20,000 huskies backed up by snowskis and planted at the North and South Poles, sunk deep into the ice-cap. Gormless himself will be there to open the ceremony.
And there's more... several hundred titanium models are to be launched to the Moon and then Mars from Cape Canaveral in December. They are due to touch down in the next few months. The sculptures will be known as 'Yet Another Place.'
He's also planning a Satgorm made up of a cluster of Gormlesses welded together to orbit planet Earth in perpetuity.
'People may well ask' he rumbles, surveying the Gormlesses peppering the Austrian Alps, "What the hell is this thing doing here?" and the work returns that question and it responds reflexively "What the hell are you doing here?"'
He has a little reflection himself: 'Michi Manhart, the local hunter, farmer, landowner and ski-lift owner' he writes' decided that 100 iron men was just what the mountains...needed. So long as the helicopters installing them did not disturb the deer he intended to shoot.'
Operation cast
iron only shows Gormley's
self love and brass neck.
Bono's slipped disk x 2 haikus 29.05.2010.
Source The Daily Mirror
U2's lead singer, Bono, who was admitted to hospital with a slipped disk, will, according to doctors, require eight weeks of recovery from surgery, thereby missing an appearance at the Glastonbury Festival's Pyramid Stage. Fans, and Bono himself, are said to be heartbroken.
Broken Bonio
leaves Bono's heart broken. Ur's
will be broken 2.
Bono and disk have
slipped off-stage; show must go on
With or Without them.
U2's lead singer, Bono, who was admitted to hospital with a slipped disk, will, according to doctors, require eight weeks of recovery from surgery, thereby missing an appearance at the Glastonbury Festival's Pyramid Stage. Fans, and Bono himself, are said to be heartbroken.
Broken Bonio
leaves Bono's heart broken. Ur's
will be broken 2.
Bono and disk have
slipped off-stage; show must go on
With or Without them.
30.06.2010.
Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) and a former Police Chief was commented on the Home Sectretary's address to the annual ACPO conference in Manchester yesterday.
Theresa May revealed that cuts across the crime-fighting spectrum meant that public satisfaction targetting would be scrapped. Police needed to just fight crime rather than be seen to be fighting crime, she inferred. Sir Hugh suggested mainstreaming and sharing police resources and scrapping specialist units. 'We just don't have the numbers' he said.
We can't say 'we've got
your number' any more. We
don't have the numbers.
Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) and a former Police Chief was commented on the Home Sectretary's address to the annual ACPO conference in Manchester yesterday.
Theresa May revealed that cuts across the crime-fighting spectrum meant that public satisfaction targetting would be scrapped. Police needed to just fight crime rather than be seen to be fighting crime, she inferred. Sir Hugh suggested mainstreaming and sharing police resources and scrapping specialist units. 'We just don't have the numbers' he said.
We can't say 'we've got
your number' any more. We
don't have the numbers.
BP Hayward's $10m 'sorry'
07.06.2010.
Doug Inkley, a senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation is rightly infuriated and heartbroken by the B.P. continuing planetary damage and what B.P. has proclaimed as transparency in their press releases and their oleaginous statements.
They've just spent a cool $10m on a 'sorry' advert in which Tony Hayward, the British C.E,. who only yesterday, after three months of continuous massive oil gushing told the world that he was British and that he was therefore made of sterner stuff, (unlike the spineless crustaceans who have succumbed to the oil) wouldn't have his bones broken by sticks and stones (we can think of more fitting ways but would these be just like water off his back rather than oil off a duck's) and is now appearing to gush, to spill about how sorry he is.
You'll B.e P.aying for
my gush too. Oil on duck's backs
is water off mine.
Transparency by
B.P.'s even more glutinous
than their obscene oil.
Doug Inkley, a senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation is rightly infuriated and heartbroken by the B.P. continuing planetary damage and what B.P. has proclaimed as transparency in their press releases and their oleaginous statements.
They've just spent a cool $10m on a 'sorry' advert in which Tony Hayward, the British C.E,. who only yesterday, after three months of continuous massive oil gushing told the world that he was British and that he was therefore made of sterner stuff, (unlike the spineless crustaceans who have succumbed to the oil) wouldn't have his bones broken by sticks and stones (we can think of more fitting ways but would these be just like water off his back rather than oil off a duck's) and is now appearing to gush, to spill about how sorry he is.
You'll B.e P.aying for
my gush too. Oil on duck's backs
is water off mine.
Transparency by
B.P.'s even more glutinous
than their obscene oil.
A cricket match in BirkenheadPark
A cricket match at Birkenhead Park.
North of the dark boards,
the big hand slips down the dial,
contented.
The hours, the minutes,
the overs are happily
segmented;
the men in white are pegged out,
sundial hands with strip shadows
at square or forty-five.
Skating swallows,
day-bats,
flit to the oaks.
Under the pavilion tents,
calm and creosote seep
from the dark boards.
Out there, Matty cries
'C'mon boys, one more push.'
Sparse handclaps
from the parchment palms
of old men echo their lives thinly now,
rising faintly, sweetly from the field.
Reedy encouragements are
scattered to the boundary.
The ball squirts away from the line.
The tide of men advances, recedes.
The constellation is reset
to shimmer, unwavering
on the field.
North of the dark boards,
the big hand slips down the dial,
contented.
The hours, the minutes,
the overs are happily
segmented;
the men in white are pegged out,
sundial hands with strip shadows
at square or forty-five.
Skating swallows,
day-bats,
flit to the oaks.
Under the pavilion tents,
calm and creosote seep
from the dark boards.
Out there, Matty cries
'C'mon boys, one more push.'
Sparse handclaps
from the parchment palms
of old men echo their lives thinly now,
rising faintly, sweetly from the field.
Reedy encouragements are
scattered to the boundary.
The ball squirts away from the line.
The tide of men advances, recedes.
The constellation is reset
to shimmer, unwavering
on the field.
A Carmarthenshire holiday April 2010.
A Carmarthenshire Holiday, April, 2010.
We swept through Mid-Wales, Jane and I, sucked down through three-lane and four-lane carriageways with stern, sculpted roundabouts as pauses for breath. This side, then that of Oswestry, Welshpool, Newtown. Which Newtown was this? The saddened Newtown of the Valleys fame, all grey-faced and holed up, holding itself up. Or the Newtown of market Mid-Wales where once all drovers paths met, the cattle clusters of Herefords and Welsh Blacks shifted, wayward? This was the Newtown now corralling the industrial cattle on Fridays; cattle pumped up with ballooning udders, delivering eight gallons a shot, twice a day to be routinely siphoned off by Tesco. Down the Wye Valley, Red Kites turn across the top left of the windscreen. Jane is implacable as the temperature guage swoops and soars. She calms me. 'We'll get there ' she tells me, telepathically.
At 'The Old Granary', there is no 'welcome pack' as promised, no tea or coffee, biscuits, milk as the website had gayly advertised. The converted slate barn is shaded by the big house where the hosts live. LLangrannog is the village it belongs to, whose grim Welsh greystones are always just a bit further down the stifling drop to the coast. The coast, you feel is about to reveal itself around the next bend, or perhaps the next bend but one.
The hosts, Judy and Erhardt Jungmayer were hard-nosed, well-off, fussing but producing no warmth. Mr Jungmayer stumblingly asked us for a shopping list, dutifully motored out to the mini-market petrol station we had passed three miles ago, had decided to ignore as we pictured the hot meal that we would be regaled with. He returned an hour later with the list, presenting us with a bill to the letter.
Hostess Judy, meanwhile had picked up that it was someone's birthday, had left a cheerless card on the small, wooden dining table in the galley kitchen. The card was meant to be meaningful but the meaning is poor. It's our birthday not my birthday.
In a small earthenware jar there were a few floor-swept tea bags. The TV control malfunctioned. The shower, with its miserable curtain blew hot and cold (lukewarm mostly).
The Cardiganshire coast is grey-strangled with dramatic and oppressive drops where the river flow has been cut off by something akin to glacial action. There's not much action around here, only that of brighly coloured humans screaming, plashing, dog-doodling, idling, licking the ice-cream upwards, pushing out the mini-boards on dying wavelets. I see the crumpled sedimentary rocks, see the herring gull settle herself, breast-first and brave on a chimney cowl, settle to her eggs, her task. She calls, gulling and this simple call humbles me.
We swept through Mid-Wales, Jane and I, sucked down through three-lane and four-lane carriageways with stern, sculpted roundabouts as pauses for breath. This side, then that of Oswestry, Welshpool, Newtown. Which Newtown was this? The saddened Newtown of the Valleys fame, all grey-faced and holed up, holding itself up. Or the Newtown of market Mid-Wales where once all drovers paths met, the cattle clusters of Herefords and Welsh Blacks shifted, wayward? This was the Newtown now corralling the industrial cattle on Fridays; cattle pumped up with ballooning udders, delivering eight gallons a shot, twice a day to be routinely siphoned off by Tesco. Down the Wye Valley, Red Kites turn across the top left of the windscreen. Jane is implacable as the temperature guage swoops and soars. She calms me. 'We'll get there ' she tells me, telepathically.
At 'The Old Granary', there is no 'welcome pack' as promised, no tea or coffee, biscuits, milk as the website had gayly advertised. The converted slate barn is shaded by the big house where the hosts live. LLangrannog is the village it belongs to, whose grim Welsh greystones are always just a bit further down the stifling drop to the coast. The coast, you feel is about to reveal itself around the next bend, or perhaps the next bend but one.
The hosts, Judy and Erhardt Jungmayer were hard-nosed, well-off, fussing but producing no warmth. Mr Jungmayer stumblingly asked us for a shopping list, dutifully motored out to the mini-market petrol station we had passed three miles ago, had decided to ignore as we pictured the hot meal that we would be regaled with. He returned an hour later with the list, presenting us with a bill to the letter.
Hostess Judy, meanwhile had picked up that it was someone's birthday, had left a cheerless card on the small, wooden dining table in the galley kitchen. The card was meant to be meaningful but the meaning is poor. It's our birthday not my birthday.
In a small earthenware jar there were a few floor-swept tea bags. The TV control malfunctioned. The shower, with its miserable curtain blew hot and cold (lukewarm mostly).
The Cardiganshire coast is grey-strangled with dramatic and oppressive drops where the river flow has been cut off by something akin to glacial action. There's not much action around here, only that of brighly coloured humans screaming, plashing, dog-doodling, idling, licking the ice-cream upwards, pushing out the mini-boards on dying wavelets. I see the crumpled sedimentary rocks, see the herring gull settle herself, breast-first and brave on a chimney cowl, settle to her eggs, her task. She calls, gulling and this simple call humbles me.
Friday, August 20, 2010
15th august. Milk plan spilled.
Anne Milton, who proposed to remove the provision of free milk (half a pint for each child) in state-run nurseries, had her proposition quashed. The plan,remniscent of Margaret Thatcher's 'milk-snatching' which would have saved 50 million, was spared from spending cuts by David Cameron.
Milton's plan confined
to strerilizing unit
(cutting free tot's milk)
Pint-sized tot's ration
plan is whipped away and milk
is spilled, cried over.
Milton's plan confined
to strerilizing unit
(cutting free tot's milk)
Pint-sized tot's ration
plan is whipped away and milk
is spilled, cried over.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Spilled secrets embarass White House
27.07.2010.
Leaks of thousands of documents from the White House show that the U.S. and Allied Command, under a 'newspeak' of euphemism often knowingly hit civilian targets in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing thousands of innocent people.
The Times ran a headline about the release by Wikileaks of the 92,000 documents (containing evidence of war crimes by U.S. death squads).
White House embarrassed
by its spills, not by B.P.'s
filthy oil torrents.
Leaks of thousands of documents from the White House show that the U.S. and Allied Command, under a 'newspeak' of euphemism often knowingly hit civilian targets in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing thousands of innocent people.
The Times ran a headline about the release by Wikileaks of the 92,000 documents (containing evidence of war crimes by U.S. death squads).
White House embarrassed
by its spills, not by B.P.'s
filthy oil torrents.
Olympic balls. 26.07.2010.
26.07.2010.
On the 27th July, 2010, the first Olympic souvenir shop will open, selling all kinds of tat in an effort to start paying for the truly Olympian London Games building project which has risen from 2.4 bn to 9.3 bn and includes things like a special plant to generate power, security staffing, housing with internet access and all mod cons. for the athletes, Paralympic facailities and decontamination of the site. It's all VATeable, too.
Bridging The Gap, a massive recruitment drive, has been launched by LOCOG for 100,000 private security guards.
Souvenir shop may
sell record amounts of crap
like Olympic keyrings.
On the 27th July, 2010, the first Olympic souvenir shop will open, selling all kinds of tat in an effort to start paying for the truly Olympian London Games building project which has risen from 2.4 bn to 9.3 bn and includes things like a special plant to generate power, security staffing, housing with internet access and all mod cons. for the athletes, Paralympic facailities and decontamination of the site. It's all VATeable, too.
Bridging The Gap, a massive recruitment drive, has been launched by LOCOG for 100,000 private security guards.
Souvenir shop may
sell record amounts of crap
like Olympic keyrings.
Colossal star 22.07.2010.
Chile's Very Large Telescope has found a colossal star, 265 times the mass of the sun and 165,000 light years away.
There are other large stars within the Milky Way, 22,000 light years from the sun.
The Europen Extremely Large Telescope, to be completed in 2018 will be almost half the length of a football field and will gather 15 times as much light as those operating today.
Celebrities are as
dust compared to the biggest
star of the whole show.
Huge telescope and
stars put our nothingness in
perspective and light.
There are other large stars within the Milky Way, 22,000 light years from the sun.
The Europen Extremely Large Telescope, to be completed in 2018 will be almost half the length of a football field and will gather 15 times as much light as those operating today.
Celebrities are as
dust compared to the biggest
star of the whole show.
Huge telescope and
stars put our nothingness in
perspective and light.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Get tough on the fighters of crime. 30.06.2010.
30.06.2010.
Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) and a former Police Chief was displeased by the Home Secretary's annual address to the ACPO conference in Manchester yesterday.
Theresa May revealed that cuts across the crime-fighting spectrum meant that public satisfaction targetting would be scrapped. Police needed to just fight crime rather than be seen to be fighting crime, she inferred. Sir Hugh suggested mainstreaming and sharing police resources and scrapping specialist units. 'We just don't have the numbers' he said.
We can't say 'we've got
your number' any more. We
don't have the numbers.
Tough on the Old Bill,
tough on the causes of the
Old Bill, Home Sec. warns.
Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) and a former Police Chief was displeased by the Home Secretary's annual address to the ACPO conference in Manchester yesterday.
Theresa May revealed that cuts across the crime-fighting spectrum meant that public satisfaction targetting would be scrapped. Police needed to just fight crime rather than be seen to be fighting crime, she inferred. Sir Hugh suggested mainstreaming and sharing police resources and scrapping specialist units. 'We just don't have the numbers' he said.
We can't say 'we've got
your number' any more. We
don't have the numbers.
Tough on the Old Bill,
tough on the causes of the
Old Bill, Home Sec. warns.
Gove gives up-we hope! 19.07.2010.
19th July. 2010.
Fifty State schools, rather than the hundreds anticipated by Michael Gove, the Conservative Education Secretary, are on track to becoming 'Academies'. Gove has been rushing through legislation to 'allow' schools to become academies, which would be funded by a blend of public money (yours and mine) religious and charitable funding, parent's organisations and business organisations. These 'new' schools would parasitise the perfectly good 'old ' ones, taking their buildings, their teaching staff and their pupils.
Gove wrote begging letters to Heads of schools in May. Today, teaching unions will lobby Parliament in protest at his plans, which would involve halting the Building For Schools prgramme started by New Labour to rebuild 715 schools.
Gove's Cuckoo pupil
plans may not yet be hatched as
Heads spot intrusion.
Mickey Mouse schools
may flop as Gove is
given Educated miss.
Fifty State schools, rather than the hundreds anticipated by Michael Gove, the Conservative Education Secretary, are on track to becoming 'Academies'. Gove has been rushing through legislation to 'allow' schools to become academies, which would be funded by a blend of public money (yours and mine) religious and charitable funding, parent's organisations and business organisations. These 'new' schools would parasitise the perfectly good 'old ' ones, taking their buildings, their teaching staff and their pupils.
Gove wrote begging letters to Heads of schools in May. Today, teaching unions will lobby Parliament in protest at his plans, which would involve halting the Building For Schools prgramme started by New Labour to rebuild 715 schools.
Gove's Cuckoo pupil
plans may not yet be hatched as
Heads spot intrusion.
Mickey Mouse schools
may flop as Gove is
given Educated miss.
Barracked in Obama and BP 07.07 2010.
07.06.2010.
Barrack Obama, the US president has bunkered himself down into the White House as people's anger turns from BP to him for his hands-off approach and inactivity, for failing to do anything compelling, for fiddling while Rome burns.
Barrack's white-glove White
House bunker posture's a black
day for the whole world.
Obama barracks
self in, has no Plan A, sits
while future darkens.
Barrack Obama, the US president has bunkered himself down into the White House as people's anger turns from BP to him for his hands-off approach and inactivity, for failing to do anything compelling, for fiddling while Rome burns.
Barrack's white-glove White
House bunker posture's a black
day for the whole world.
Obama barracks
self in, has no Plan A, sits
while future darkens.
MGM lion loses roar. 21.07.2010.
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer's 'troubles' continue with the studio that once controlled the lives of stars like Clark Gable having to postpone its huge debt of 3.7 billion and interest payments as the 15th July deadline on a $250m principal paymnent and $200m -plus in owed interest fast approaches.
The Lion's starting
to crumble as MGM
chews on debt gristle.
Mayer may be 'Gone
With The Wind' when its lion
roars for the last time.
The Lion's starting
to crumble as MGM
chews on debt gristle.
Mayer may be 'Gone
With The Wind' when its lion
roars for the last time.
Veil ban; the ugly face of Islamophobia 04.07.2010.
European Islamophobia 04. 07.2010.
Belgium has squeezed through a ban on the face veil even though the number of women wearing them in that country is so small as to be insinificant, reflecting the rise of anti-Islamic prejudice which is sweeping the Western world. France's Sarkozy intends to follow suit, under the guise of liberating women;- by threatening those caught wearing it with a term of imprisonment!
Belgian blanket ban
on burqa belies base and
barbaric beliefs.
France threatens prison
to 'free' women from so-called
prison of the Burqa.
Dark day for the world
as Belgium draws a legal veil
over those with Niqab.
Belgium has squeezed through a ban on the face veil even though the number of women wearing them in that country is so small as to be insinificant, reflecting the rise of anti-Islamic prejudice which is sweeping the Western world. France's Sarkozy intends to follow suit, under the guise of liberating women;- by threatening those caught wearing it with a term of imprisonment!
Belgian blanket ban
on burqa belies base and
barbaric beliefs.
France threatens prison
to 'free' women from so-called
prison of the Burqa.
Dark day for the world
as Belgium draws a legal veil
over those with Niqab.
Duke of Devonshire's attic sale. 15.07.2010.
The Duke of Devonshire is selling off a George 11 marble chimney piece worth £300,00, a bookcase with a hidden door and a leather-upholstered Russian sleigh this Autumn at Sotheby's 'to make some room' at Chatsworth House.
As such, Chatsworth is joining other stately homes which have recently been selling off their heirlooms.
Family silver,
a few sticks of furniture
in Duke's attic sale.
As such, Chatsworth is joining other stately homes which have recently been selling off their heirlooms.
Family silver,
a few sticks of furniture
in Duke's attic sale.
A Fair Cop Guv. 30.06.2010.
30.06.2010.
Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) and a former Police Chief was commented on the Home Sectretary's address to the annual ACPO conference in Manchester yesterday.
Theresa May revealed that cuts across the crime-fighting spectrum meant that public satisfaction targetting would be scrapped. Police needed to just fight crime rather than be seen to be fighting crime, she inferred. Sir Hugh suggested mainstreaming and sharing police resources and scrapping specialist units. 'We just don't have the numbers' he said.
We can't say 'we've got
your number' any more. We
don't have the numbers.
Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) and a former Police Chief was commented on the Home Sectretary's address to the annual ACPO conference in Manchester yesterday.
Theresa May revealed that cuts across the crime-fighting spectrum meant that public satisfaction targetting would be scrapped. Police needed to just fight crime rather than be seen to be fighting crime, she inferred. Sir Hugh suggested mainstreaming and sharing police resources and scrapping specialist units. 'We just don't have the numbers' he said.
We can't say 'we've got
your number' any more. We
don't have the numbers.
White gold 'World Cup'. 05.07.2010.
05 07 2010.
Source: Metro.
Airport officials in the Colombian capital of Bogota opted to inspect a scale replica of the World Cup that was bound for Spain. When analysts tested the gold model this weekend, they discovered that it was moulded from 11kg (24lb) of cocaine!
Airport Narcotics
team score, fulfil goal, seize World
Cup made of white gold!
Source: Metro.
Airport officials in the Colombian capital of Bogota opted to inspect a scale replica of the World Cup that was bound for Spain. When analysts tested the gold model this weekend, they discovered that it was moulded from 11kg (24lb) of cocaine!
Airport Narcotics
team score, fulfil goal, seize World
Cup made of white gold!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Bliar burns hole in our pocket. 18.07.2010.
Security for Tony Blair, the ex-Prime Minister and now 'Middle East Envoy' costs the taxpayer over £250,000 per annum. Claims of more than £1,200 per night on accomodation were made by security officers, running up a bill of more than £20,000 during a two-week holiday taken by Blair in Borneo.
T.B. is protected by Metropolitan Police Officers wherever he goes.
He earns millions of pounds and dollars for his talks and appearances, not least from his book royalties, owns lots of property and is filthy rich.
His Blairing, his lies
his ill-gotten gains cost us,
the taxpayer, dear.
TB spreads throughout
the Middle East. Taxpayer
pays for wealth disease.
T.B. is protected by Metropolitan Police Officers wherever he goes.
He earns millions of pounds and dollars for his talks and appearances, not least from his book royalties, owns lots of property and is filthy rich.
His Blairing, his lies
his ill-gotten gains cost us,
the taxpayer, dear.
TB spreads throughout
the Middle East. Taxpayer
pays for wealth disease.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Foster's piles.15.07.2010.
'Lord' Foster of Thames Bank, regularly heard berating Prince Charles for not wanting him to despoliate London with various, often high-rise monstrosities (with a view to earning millions more on top of his already monumental wealth) says he has given up his peerage because of his tax status.
He refuses to tell anybody how much tax he avoids paying by living in Switzerland, which is altogether greener and more pleasant.
His 'works' include a 'new' Wembley Stadium, which mainly involved demolishing the beautiful landmark original one, and The Gherkin, home to the money-spinning industry.
He is non-resident for tax purposes because he 'spends' more than a third of a year abroad.
Living in Swiss pile
makes him monumentally
rich with piles of cash.
Other Swiss cottage
is home for 'Lord' Foster of
Thames Bank plc.
High-rising earner
Foster has a nicer view
far from taxation.
He refuses to tell anybody how much tax he avoids paying by living in Switzerland, which is altogether greener and more pleasant.
His 'works' include a 'new' Wembley Stadium, which mainly involved demolishing the beautiful landmark original one, and The Gherkin, home to the money-spinning industry.
He is non-resident for tax purposes because he 'spends' more than a third of a year abroad.
Living in Swiss pile
makes him monumentally
rich with piles of cash.
Other Swiss cottage
is home for 'Lord' Foster of
Thames Bank plc.
High-rising earner
Foster has a nicer view
far from taxation.
Duke of Devonshire's attic sale. 15.07.2010.
The Duke of Devonshire is selling off a George 11 marble chimney piece worth £300,000, a bookcase with a hidden door and a leather-upholstered Russian sleigh this Autumn at Sotheby's 'to make some room' at Chatsworth House.
As such, Chatsworth is joining other stately homes which have recently been selling off their heirlooms.
Family silver,
a few sticks of furniture
in Duke's attic sale.
As such, Chatsworth is joining other stately homes which have recently been selling off their heirlooms.
Family silver,
a few sticks of furniture
in Duke's attic sale.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Criminal classes 01.07.2010.
1st July,2010.
Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke yesterday set out a new approach to penal reform in a speech which would halt the record number of criminals being sent to jails in England and Wales, currently standing at 85,000. It costs £38,000 a year to send someone to jail, more than sending a boy to Eton.
'Send 'one of the lads'
to Eton instead of jail.
it's cheaper-honest!
Public schools cheaper
for criminal classes than
Colleges of Crime.
.
Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke yesterday set out a new approach to penal reform in a speech which would halt the record number of criminals being sent to jails in England and Wales, currently standing at 85,000. It costs £38,000 a year to send someone to jail, more than sending a boy to Eton.
'Send 'one of the lads'
to Eton instead of jail.
it's cheaper-honest!
Public schools cheaper
for criminal classes than
Colleges of Crime.
.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
World Cup balls. 2010.
World cup balls. June 2010.
'It'd be sad if Nam Chot had to come off the field because there's already a Nam Chot on the field.'
Clive Tyldesly on the occasion of North Korea's match against somebody else.15th June, 2010.
'England need to be let off the leash a little bit...they don't look like they're enjoying it.. they look like they're in straightjackets.'
'The wall, in the shape of Wayne Rooney, stays solid.'
Jim Begley, on the occasion of England V Algeria 18th June, 2010.
'Terry does have previous with this ref'.( Wolfgang Stark) 'from the Champions League... let's just hope he doesn't remember him!'
'Defoe came alive then'.
'So far, so very good .'
' How long to go?'
'Oh, don't say that.'
'Three-quarters of an hour?'
'and he looks hungry' (of Rooney)
Mark Lawrenson and Guy Mowbray on the occasion of the first half of the England v. Slovenia match 23.06.2010.
(of Defoe) 'fit now and firing.' Second half of the England v. Slovenia match.
'They're a tall team' (Slovenia).
'Capello has just leaped from his seat and is racing towards the technical area.'
'Rooney comes alive when Gerrard gets the ball.'
Guy Mowbray and Mark Lawrenson.
'It's a game of two halves in this half.'
Jim Begley, commenting on the first half of Ghana v Uruguay at the World Cup quarter-finals 02.07.2010.
'The game seems to be being played down the two halves with nothing going on in the middle!'
Same game, second half, same commentator.
Final, World cup. Spain v. Holland, commentators Guy Mowbray and Mark Lawrenson.
Second half. 'We're at that stage where one goal means you're world champion.'
Guy Mowbray.
'Xavi got it up, got it over and never got it down again.' G.M.
'That must be more than half the players booked': Mark Lawrenson.
'That must be the longest warm-up in footballing history.' (Of Fernando Torres warming up on the benches during the second half).G.M.
'Fernando Torres... haven't seen the best of him in the Championship..shades of Wayne Rooney.' M.L.
'Goal kick's been given!' G.M.
'They should have gone to Specsavers!' (of that ref.'s and linesmen's decision).M.L.
'It'd be sad if Nam Chot had to come off the field because there's already a Nam Chot on the field.'
Clive Tyldesly on the occasion of North Korea's match against somebody else.15th June, 2010.
'England need to be let off the leash a little bit...they don't look like they're enjoying it.. they look like they're in straightjackets.'
'The wall, in the shape of Wayne Rooney, stays solid.'
Jim Begley, on the occasion of England V Algeria 18th June, 2010.
'Terry does have previous with this ref'.( Wolfgang Stark) 'from the Champions League... let's just hope he doesn't remember him!'
'Defoe came alive then'.
'So far, so very good .'
' How long to go?'
'Oh, don't say that.'
'Three-quarters of an hour?'
'and he looks hungry' (of Rooney)
Mark Lawrenson and Guy Mowbray on the occasion of the first half of the England v. Slovenia match 23.06.2010.
(of Defoe) 'fit now and firing.' Second half of the England v. Slovenia match.
'They're a tall team' (Slovenia).
'Capello has just leaped from his seat and is racing towards the technical area.'
'Rooney comes alive when Gerrard gets the ball.'
Guy Mowbray and Mark Lawrenson.
'It's a game of two halves in this half.'
Jim Begley, commenting on the first half of Ghana v Uruguay at the World Cup quarter-finals 02.07.2010.
'The game seems to be being played down the two halves with nothing going on in the middle!'
Same game, second half, same commentator.
Final, World cup. Spain v. Holland, commentators Guy Mowbray and Mark Lawrenson.
Second half. 'We're at that stage where one goal means you're world champion.'
Guy Mowbray.
'Xavi got it up, got it over and never got it down again.' G.M.
'That must be more than half the players booked': Mark Lawrenson.
'That must be the longest warm-up in footballing history.' (Of Fernando Torres warming up on the benches during the second half).G.M.
'Fernando Torres... haven't seen the best of him in the Championship..shades of Wayne Rooney.' M.L.
'Goal kick's been given!' G.M.
'They should have gone to Specsavers!' (of that ref.'s and linesmen's decision).M.L.
Friday, July 9, 2010
It's a small world.
It’s a small world.
The dental practice was situated on a busy road that housed not only Tranmere Rovers football club and the Ducklings nursery but also numerous medical practices of uncertain status.
A huge plastic banner resembling one of those ‘all you can eat’ banners that buffet-style restaurants like to display was draped across the front of one of them.‘NEW PATIENTS WELCOME,’ it announced.
The Buckingham Dental Practice was in fact a large,Victorian house which had been converted, so that patients would frequently wander into rooms not meant for them. In vain might one try to imagine the original character of the house and of those who once lived there, so heavily impregnated was the whole place with its present purpose and its pink mouthwash smell. It was impossible not to run one’s hand along the smooth curved banisters without a frisson of dread at the horrors to come, nor use the Niagara bathroom toilet without the sense of a relief so temporary that it was no comfort at all, and with only the certainty that this was merly an ante-room. Neither could the waiting room, with its gaudy women’s magazines spread on the low coffee table reassure.
The morning of my appointment to analyse a flaring tooth pain was a bright, brisk, December morning. Sunlight faded in and out of the waiting-room (coinciding with the flares of pain, or so it seemed)and illuminating the low table in the centre of the waiting room. The lady sitting opposite me was about fifty-eight. She was seated on a black, studded, leather chair. Out of a sense of duty, she leaned forward on the creaking shell of leather, picked up one of the fluorescent chat magazines, held it at arm’s length for an instant before dropping it cautiously on the pile of similarly pink and yellow chat magazines that boasted ‘Britain’s first pregnant man’, and whose features, including ‘My doughnut shame’ and ‘In a Klass of her own’ were so garish that they seemed to be shouldering each other off the page.
The woman was dressed down slightly, in order to resemble someone much younger; her own daughter perhaps? Her feet were crammed into black, chisel-pointed boots and the chain-belt she was wearing cinched a waist that was barely distinguishable from her hips. At her throat, she wore a pashmina, tie-style scarf. Reactolite, square- framed glasses topped her head( she felt that glasses like these took years off her). She had lately been considering laser eye surgery after she’d had her veneers done.
A few minutes elapsed in the disturbed, private sphere of the waiting room, during which time she took a packet of Dove tissues from her handbag, blew her nose in a self-satisfied way and lifted the main body of the Daily Telegraph which someone else had cast aside. She appeared to read the main headline in a desultory fashion, her face retreating from the newspaper pages in affectation of distaste, then she let it flop back onto the low coffee table as though it was too heavy for her to hold.
As is so often the case in a doctor’s or dentist’s waiting room, it was hard to discern the exact reason for her visit. Nonetheless, she was to be seen swiftly.
The dental assistant, whose badge read ‘Kirsty’ was wearing a pastel green smock. She waved me down the landing to an empty practitioner’s room and swiftly backtracked along the corridor to usher another patient towards a door marked Dr.Lindsay. I stood for a minute in the empty room before realising that it was the wrong one.
I soon found the correct room with Kirsty now installed by the dental instruments cabinet. The tall Dr O’Brien hovered near the yawning black dental chair while I contemplated the statistic that dentists, followed by farmers were members of those professions most liable to commit suicide. I wondered what it was that induced such despair. I could understand farmers, lonely, communing with their Fresian herds at 4 a.m., then deriving less than a penny a litre for their milk from the ruthless supermarket chains in the face of soaring grain prices. I could feel their despair at having this year’s wheat crop flooded at the crucial harvesting time, but dentists?!
Dr. O’Brien took an x-ray then sent me back to the waiting room, where a conversation was now flowing between the fifty-eight year old woman and a new, middle-aged woman with thinning, magenta-coloured hair, a tailored denim jacket and Ugg boots. They seemed to have some sort of connection between them.
‘We were in Cuba too last year’ said the first woman. ‘Isn’t that strange. I think we stayed in …I can’t remember the name of the place... I think it began with an H?’
‘Havana, so were we, but we had the second week in Puerto de los Sablos. That’s on the coast.’
‘Did you? Oh yes, we found the hotel in Havana was alright but they’re like, very laid back there.’
‘Mmm, that’s right, we found that too, but the month before we were in Thailand. They couldn’t do enough for you there, and right away. Everyone is so friendly.’
‘Well, they do say that don’t they? A bit too much sometimes with the men!'
‘And I think it was in 2005 that we went to Jamaica.’
‘ Now that’s somewhere we’d love to try, but Brian’s not as keen as me.’
Both women laughed and there was a kind of gurgling satisfaction in their laughter.
‘So how are you fixed for Christmas?’ the first woman asked the second.
‘Oh we thought we’d go away again but I’m not so sure with all this, you know, the credit crunch. My daughter’s asked us over to Sligo, that’s where she met her husband.’
‘Oh that’ll make a change. We’re off to Florida. We DID do the shopping trip to New York a few years ago, it was amazing but…’
At this point a small, tinny shout seemed to leap out of her handbag. She stared at the bag, wilfully pulled it towards her, whipped out the offending mobile whose ringtone was a pre-recorded male voice which shouted angrily ‘message!Message! MESSAGE! M-E-S-S-A-G-E! She swiped at the thing, pointed it away from her, shot me a withering look in reply to my obvious scowl. Staring incredulously at the screen, then cupping the mobile against her cheek so she could fondle the bag, she told the mobile, the waiting room and its occupants that she had done the rest of the shopping but would be late, repeated the word ‘Prenton’ twice, then squirelled the mobile away into her bag. She picked up the dropped thread of the conversation almost immediately.
Yes, we DID the shopping trip to New York too’
'Did you stop off like WE did on the way back in London?’ the other woman interjected.
‘No, no. God, no. Anyway this year we just want to be somewhere warm, so we thought Florida.’
During the course of their conversation, I had been holding the pages of the Daily Telegraph open on page twenty-seven, retreading an article that bristled not with its content but with my annoyance reflected back at me from the page. I fulminated at the thought of the air-miles they had blithely clocked up over the past few years between the two of them. The tall Dr.O'Brien appeared in the doorway. ‘Mrs Jean Robbins.’ he called, appearing to examine the sheet of paper he was holding out in front of him.
The first woman stuffed her Dove handkerchieves into her handbag and waddled to the door. After she was installed in Dr O’Brien’s room, the woman with the thinning, magenta-coloured hair turned to me approvingly.
‘Isn’t it a small world?’ she remarked. ‘Would you believe that that lady and myself were both in Cuba over a year ago and then we both turn up at the same dental practice? Unbelievable!’
The dental practice was situated on a busy road that housed not only Tranmere Rovers football club and the Ducklings nursery but also numerous medical practices of uncertain status.
A huge plastic banner resembling one of those ‘all you can eat’ banners that buffet-style restaurants like to display was draped across the front of one of them.‘NEW PATIENTS WELCOME,’ it announced.
The Buckingham Dental Practice was in fact a large,Victorian house which had been converted, so that patients would frequently wander into rooms not meant for them. In vain might one try to imagine the original character of the house and of those who once lived there, so heavily impregnated was the whole place with its present purpose and its pink mouthwash smell. It was impossible not to run one’s hand along the smooth curved banisters without a frisson of dread at the horrors to come, nor use the Niagara bathroom toilet without the sense of a relief so temporary that it was no comfort at all, and with only the certainty that this was merly an ante-room. Neither could the waiting room, with its gaudy women’s magazines spread on the low coffee table reassure.
The morning of my appointment to analyse a flaring tooth pain was a bright, brisk, December morning. Sunlight faded in and out of the waiting-room (coinciding with the flares of pain, or so it seemed)and illuminating the low table in the centre of the waiting room. The lady sitting opposite me was about fifty-eight. She was seated on a black, studded, leather chair. Out of a sense of duty, she leaned forward on the creaking shell of leather, picked up one of the fluorescent chat magazines, held it at arm’s length for an instant before dropping it cautiously on the pile of similarly pink and yellow chat magazines that boasted ‘Britain’s first pregnant man’, and whose features, including ‘My doughnut shame’ and ‘In a Klass of her own’ were so garish that they seemed to be shouldering each other off the page.
The woman was dressed down slightly, in order to resemble someone much younger; her own daughter perhaps? Her feet were crammed into black, chisel-pointed boots and the chain-belt she was wearing cinched a waist that was barely distinguishable from her hips. At her throat, she wore a pashmina, tie-style scarf. Reactolite, square- framed glasses topped her head( she felt that glasses like these took years off her). She had lately been considering laser eye surgery after she’d had her veneers done.
A few minutes elapsed in the disturbed, private sphere of the waiting room, during which time she took a packet of Dove tissues from her handbag, blew her nose in a self-satisfied way and lifted the main body of the Daily Telegraph which someone else had cast aside. She appeared to read the main headline in a desultory fashion, her face retreating from the newspaper pages in affectation of distaste, then she let it flop back onto the low coffee table as though it was too heavy for her to hold.
As is so often the case in a doctor’s or dentist’s waiting room, it was hard to discern the exact reason for her visit. Nonetheless, she was to be seen swiftly.
The dental assistant, whose badge read ‘Kirsty’ was wearing a pastel green smock. She waved me down the landing to an empty practitioner’s room and swiftly backtracked along the corridor to usher another patient towards a door marked Dr.Lindsay. I stood for a minute in the empty room before realising that it was the wrong one.
I soon found the correct room with Kirsty now installed by the dental instruments cabinet. The tall Dr O’Brien hovered near the yawning black dental chair while I contemplated the statistic that dentists, followed by farmers were members of those professions most liable to commit suicide. I wondered what it was that induced such despair. I could understand farmers, lonely, communing with their Fresian herds at 4 a.m., then deriving less than a penny a litre for their milk from the ruthless supermarket chains in the face of soaring grain prices. I could feel their despair at having this year’s wheat crop flooded at the crucial harvesting time, but dentists?!
Dr. O’Brien took an x-ray then sent me back to the waiting room, where a conversation was now flowing between the fifty-eight year old woman and a new, middle-aged woman with thinning, magenta-coloured hair, a tailored denim jacket and Ugg boots. They seemed to have some sort of connection between them.
‘We were in Cuba too last year’ said the first woman. ‘Isn’t that strange. I think we stayed in …I can’t remember the name of the place... I think it began with an H?’
‘Havana, so were we, but we had the second week in Puerto de los Sablos. That’s on the coast.’
‘Did you? Oh yes, we found the hotel in Havana was alright but they’re like, very laid back there.’
‘Mmm, that’s right, we found that too, but the month before we were in Thailand. They couldn’t do enough for you there, and right away. Everyone is so friendly.’
‘Well, they do say that don’t they? A bit too much sometimes with the men!'
‘And I think it was in 2005 that we went to Jamaica.’
‘ Now that’s somewhere we’d love to try, but Brian’s not as keen as me.’
Both women laughed and there was a kind of gurgling satisfaction in their laughter.
‘So how are you fixed for Christmas?’ the first woman asked the second.
‘Oh we thought we’d go away again but I’m not so sure with all this, you know, the credit crunch. My daughter’s asked us over to Sligo, that’s where she met her husband.’
‘Oh that’ll make a change. We’re off to Florida. We DID do the shopping trip to New York a few years ago, it was amazing but…’
At this point a small, tinny shout seemed to leap out of her handbag. She stared at the bag, wilfully pulled it towards her, whipped out the offending mobile whose ringtone was a pre-recorded male voice which shouted angrily ‘message!Message! MESSAGE! M-E-S-S-A-G-E! She swiped at the thing, pointed it away from her, shot me a withering look in reply to my obvious scowl. Staring incredulously at the screen, then cupping the mobile against her cheek so she could fondle the bag, she told the mobile, the waiting room and its occupants that she had done the rest of the shopping but would be late, repeated the word ‘Prenton’ twice, then squirelled the mobile away into her bag. She picked up the dropped thread of the conversation almost immediately.
Yes, we DID the shopping trip to New York too’
'Did you stop off like WE did on the way back in London?’ the other woman interjected.
‘No, no. God, no. Anyway this year we just want to be somewhere warm, so we thought Florida.’
During the course of their conversation, I had been holding the pages of the Daily Telegraph open on page twenty-seven, retreading an article that bristled not with its content but with my annoyance reflected back at me from the page. I fulminated at the thought of the air-miles they had blithely clocked up over the past few years between the two of them. The tall Dr.O'Brien appeared in the doorway. ‘Mrs Jean Robbins.’ he called, appearing to examine the sheet of paper he was holding out in front of him.
The first woman stuffed her Dove handkerchieves into her handbag and waddled to the door. After she was installed in Dr O’Brien’s room, the woman with the thinning, magenta-coloured hair turned to me approvingly.
‘Isn’t it a small world?’ she remarked. ‘Would you believe that that lady and myself were both in Cuba over a year ago and then we both turn up at the same dental practice? Unbelievable!’
'World Cup' 5th July, 2010.
05 07 2010.
Source: Metro.
Airport officials in the Colombian capital of Bogota opted to inspect a scale replica of the World Cup that was bound for Spain. When analysts tested the gold model this weekend, they discovered that it was moulded from 11kg (24lb) of cocaine!
Airport Narcotics
team score, fulfil goal, seize World
Cup made of white gold!
Source: Metro.
Airport officials in the Colombian capital of Bogota opted to inspect a scale replica of the World Cup that was bound for Spain. When analysts tested the gold model this weekend, they discovered that it was moulded from 11kg (24lb) of cocaine!
Airport Narcotics
team score, fulfil goal, seize World
Cup made of white gold!
The cactus and the money plant.
The cactus and the money plant.
Cacti, like tortoises live to a ripe old age. Like tortoises, they lead unhurrried, peaceful (one might almost say still) lives. In general, they trouble no-one and no-one troubles them; they've seen to that! They maintain unruffled, deadpan lives although they must bear silent witness to all manner of upheavals; when their owners move, for example or when someone they share their home with falls down the stairs at their feet, becoming as still as the cacti themselves.
The strange affair between a cactus and a succulent growing in the same terracotta pot began on my window-ledge about a decade ago. It was I who bore testimony to the affair, to the twists and turns of this menage a deux. As I was an unattached woman, the affair had to stand in place of a human one.
The relationship between the cactus and the succulent took place in several majestic acts which unfolded first in my kitchen then, when the two plants had gained height and I had seen fit to move them, in the bathroom on the window-ledge overlooking my white, enamel bath.
At first, the cactus was a modest four inches tall. Its spines were arranged along its eight double-seamed ridges in pairs, sprouting from nodes spaced at regular intervals down those stitched seams like the legs of a caterpillar. Its near neighbour was a money plant with pinky- green, fleshy leaves. Over the course of time, the money plant began to gain height, reaching that of the cactus. There was nothing remarkable, you would have thought, in the coexistence of plants in the same pot. However, you would have been underestimating the ingenuity of these two creatures, of their shared lives, as I did.
Once, in the bath, I had glanced up at the terracotta pot, noticed the proximity of the two plants and found myself wondering how they planned to share the environment, for it seemed that they had started to lean towards each other. I dismissed the question to begin with, invoking one of my Mum's sayings that 'water always finds its own level.' The fluidity of this assertion ensures that one can apply it to almost any situation with pleasing conclusions.
After a few months the spines of the cactus had grown perilously close to the fleshy leaves of the money plant. Was this a case of 'opposites attract' or just waywardness, happenstance?
I waited for the two plants to pool their ideas about how they would maintain their distance or else become conjoined, or perish.
There can be no room for strife whether you are sharing an island, a street, a house or a pot, yet the bristling animosity that can arise over territorial claims, is never far away.
In fact I was to witness both accord and animosity, diplomacy and deception over the ensuing months, the years. The poor succulent, who had the misfortune to be a kind of cellmate to the cactus, and in order to protect herself from the assaults of his spines had to pretend that everything was alright, that she was not hurt by his piques, his slow stabbings, his putting the knife in and twisting it. She could not, would not allow him the satisfaction of his torments, the final satisfaction of murder, or whatever it was to be.
Thus, whenever a spine from the seam of the cactus managed to penetrate the fleshy cuticle of the money plant's leaves, whenever a fencing move was made, she would faint so slowly that the injury would go unnoticed by the marauding cactus. Punctured by his apparent failure to make an impression , the cactus would then make a temporary withdrawal. After a few weeks, a new approach would begin to unfold.
Thus began an almost imperceptible dance; a dance of retreats and rapprochements that was to continue for many years.
I went away one September for a week and was shocked when, upon my return, I discovered that there had been a particularly spiteful, spineful attack on the money plant, whose plate-like leaves were now dull, wrinkling, dessicated. The whole of its being was atrophied. The plant was slowly dying. There was nothing for it but to remove it from the shared pot and hope that it would make a recovery.
I rehomed the money plant in one of the larger pots I had been collecting in my back yard (with the idea of introducing other succulents or cacti to my flat to join the five-foot tall Weeping Fig, Dracaena and the Mother-in law's Tongue all housed in the bedroom). I had been considering buying a group of Living Stones from the local nursery.
I placed the money plant on a window-sill in the kitchen where it would benefit from the morning sun that often poured through the sash window. The remaindered cactus was left standing on the bathroom window-sill, behind frosted glass. It looked stark, odd, growing as it was rather at the margin of the pot the two plants had shared for so long, without a fall guy. I was obliged to stand the cactus in its pot close to the wall, fearing it might topple over.
Almost as soon as I had moved the shrivelled succulent to sunnier climes, it began to flesh out, to regain its full stature and its pinky-green hue.
One evening, shortly after the transplant, I was preparing a meal for my two sisters and I. The radio was meting out its 5p.m. news coverage. The news items on the kitchen radio were being delivered in well-modulated, suave tones with breathing-space intermissions to separate them. A Parliamentary recess had ended and a trial at the Crown Court had dismissed the case of a mother accused of smothering her baby to death on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
A tiny crashing noise, barely audible, was attached to this news item. It hadn't come from the radio or even from the kitchen but from somewhere else in the flat, The hall perhaps, or the downstairs landing. I descended the half-flight of stairs to the bathroom and was startled by the contrast between the smooth whiteness of the bath and the matt, shock of ink-black soil, broken terracotta and,worst of all, the prone cactus, a dark green exclamation mark, finally unable to stand alone, a fish out of water.
Cacti, like tortoises live to a ripe old age. Like tortoises, they lead unhurrried, peaceful (one might almost say still) lives. In general, they trouble no-one and no-one troubles them; they've seen to that! They maintain unruffled, deadpan lives although they must bear silent witness to all manner of upheavals; when their owners move, for example or when someone they share their home with falls down the stairs at their feet, becoming as still as the cacti themselves.
The strange affair between a cactus and a succulent growing in the same terracotta pot began on my window-ledge about a decade ago. It was I who bore testimony to the affair, to the twists and turns of this menage a deux. As I was an unattached woman, the affair had to stand in place of a human one.
The relationship between the cactus and the succulent took place in several majestic acts which unfolded first in my kitchen then, when the two plants had gained height and I had seen fit to move them, in the bathroom on the window-ledge overlooking my white, enamel bath.
At first, the cactus was a modest four inches tall. Its spines were arranged along its eight double-seamed ridges in pairs, sprouting from nodes spaced at regular intervals down those stitched seams like the legs of a caterpillar. Its near neighbour was a money plant with pinky- green, fleshy leaves. Over the course of time, the money plant began to gain height, reaching that of the cactus. There was nothing remarkable, you would have thought, in the coexistence of plants in the same pot. However, you would have been underestimating the ingenuity of these two creatures, of their shared lives, as I did.
Once, in the bath, I had glanced up at the terracotta pot, noticed the proximity of the two plants and found myself wondering how they planned to share the environment, for it seemed that they had started to lean towards each other. I dismissed the question to begin with, invoking one of my Mum's sayings that 'water always finds its own level.' The fluidity of this assertion ensures that one can apply it to almost any situation with pleasing conclusions.
After a few months the spines of the cactus had grown perilously close to the fleshy leaves of the money plant. Was this a case of 'opposites attract' or just waywardness, happenstance?
I waited for the two plants to pool their ideas about how they would maintain their distance or else become conjoined, or perish.
There can be no room for strife whether you are sharing an island, a street, a house or a pot, yet the bristling animosity that can arise over territorial claims, is never far away.
In fact I was to witness both accord and animosity, diplomacy and deception over the ensuing months, the years. The poor succulent, who had the misfortune to be a kind of cellmate to the cactus, and in order to protect herself from the assaults of his spines had to pretend that everything was alright, that she was not hurt by his piques, his slow stabbings, his putting the knife in and twisting it. She could not, would not allow him the satisfaction of his torments, the final satisfaction of murder, or whatever it was to be.
Thus, whenever a spine from the seam of the cactus managed to penetrate the fleshy cuticle of the money plant's leaves, whenever a fencing move was made, she would faint so slowly that the injury would go unnoticed by the marauding cactus. Punctured by his apparent failure to make an impression , the cactus would then make a temporary withdrawal. After a few weeks, a new approach would begin to unfold.
Thus began an almost imperceptible dance; a dance of retreats and rapprochements that was to continue for many years.
I went away one September for a week and was shocked when, upon my return, I discovered that there had been a particularly spiteful, spineful attack on the money plant, whose plate-like leaves were now dull, wrinkling, dessicated. The whole of its being was atrophied. The plant was slowly dying. There was nothing for it but to remove it from the shared pot and hope that it would make a recovery.
I rehomed the money plant in one of the larger pots I had been collecting in my back yard (with the idea of introducing other succulents or cacti to my flat to join the five-foot tall Weeping Fig, Dracaena and the Mother-in law's Tongue all housed in the bedroom). I had been considering buying a group of Living Stones from the local nursery.
I placed the money plant on a window-sill in the kitchen where it would benefit from the morning sun that often poured through the sash window. The remaindered cactus was left standing on the bathroom window-sill, behind frosted glass. It looked stark, odd, growing as it was rather at the margin of the pot the two plants had shared for so long, without a fall guy. I was obliged to stand the cactus in its pot close to the wall, fearing it might topple over.
Almost as soon as I had moved the shrivelled succulent to sunnier climes, it began to flesh out, to regain its full stature and its pinky-green hue.
One evening, shortly after the transplant, I was preparing a meal for my two sisters and I. The radio was meting out its 5p.m. news coverage. The news items on the kitchen radio were being delivered in well-modulated, suave tones with breathing-space intermissions to separate them. A Parliamentary recess had ended and a trial at the Crown Court had dismissed the case of a mother accused of smothering her baby to death on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
A tiny crashing noise, barely audible, was attached to this news item. It hadn't come from the radio or even from the kitchen but from somewhere else in the flat, The hall perhaps, or the downstairs landing. I descended the half-flight of stairs to the bathroom and was startled by the contrast between the smooth whiteness of the bath and the matt, shock of ink-black soil, broken terracotta and,worst of all, the prone cactus, a dark green exclamation mark, finally unable to stand alone, a fish out of water.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Tate's sticky sponsorship 01.07.2010.
01.07.2010.
In normal times, The Tate Gallery would no doubt be celebrating its sticky sponsorship of B.P. for the last twenty years. It's no accident either that it has just 'launched' (at Tate Britain) the exhibition 'Harrier and Jaguar' in which two fighter jets which have served in 38 Iraqi 'Missions' are displayed in the neo-Classical hall.
How sweet! Tate sponsors
two great British trades-war and
large-scale pollution.
Sticky sponsorships
demonstrate artfulness, the
art of destruction.
In normal times, The Tate Gallery would no doubt be celebrating its sticky sponsorship of B.P. for the last twenty years. It's no accident either that it has just 'launched' (at Tate Britain) the exhibition 'Harrier and Jaguar' in which two fighter jets which have served in 38 Iraqi 'Missions' are displayed in the neo-Classical hall.
How sweet! Tate sponsors
two great British trades-war and
large-scale pollution.
Sticky sponsorships
demonstrate artfulness, the
art of destruction.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Tough on Police Forces. 30.06.2010.
30.06.2010.
Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) and a former Police Chief was displeased by the Home Secretary's annual address to the ACPO conference in Manchester yesterday.
Theresa May revealed that cuts across the crime-fighting spectrum meant that public satisfaction targetting would be scrapped. Police 'needed to just fight crime' rather than be seen to be fighting crime, she inferred. Sir Hugh suggested mainstreaming and sharing police resources and scrapping specialist units. 'We just don't have the numbers' he said.
We can't say 'we've got
your number' any more. We
don't have the numbers.
'Tough on the Old Bill,
tough on the causes of the
Old Bill' Home Sec.'s speech.
Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) and a former Police Chief was displeased by the Home Secretary's annual address to the ACPO conference in Manchester yesterday.
Theresa May revealed that cuts across the crime-fighting spectrum meant that public satisfaction targetting would be scrapped. Police 'needed to just fight crime' rather than be seen to be fighting crime, she inferred. Sir Hugh suggested mainstreaming and sharing police resources and scrapping specialist units. 'We just don't have the numbers' he said.
We can't say 'we've got
your number' any more. We
don't have the numbers.
'Tough on the Old Bill,
tough on the causes of the
Old Bill' Home Sec.'s speech.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Caesarean section. 29.06.2010.
A target to reduce the ridiculous number of births by Caesarean section in Britain on the NHS (a surgical procedure which involves several nights stay in hospital and often leads to medical complications later) sometimes by mothers in their thirties and forties who want a baby but not the pain involved has been quietly dropped. The risks associated with this procedure have been dismissed as 'a myth' by 'experts'.
NHS cuts dropped
on Caesarean births, more
babies dropped through cuts.
NHS cuts dropped
on Caesarean births, more
babies dropped through cuts.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Osborne's World Cup Budget. 23.06.2010.
George Osborne seemed to have decided to announce his austerity budget(yesterday) on the same day that England played Slovenia in the World Cup, possibly with the idea that we'd all be too busy watching England win or lose to care about it.
Osborne pushes cuts
in welfare on Engerland
day. Hey, that's crafty!
Osborne pushes cuts
in welfare on Engerland
day. Hey, that's crafty!
World Cup continued...23.06.2010.
The Nation's electricity consumption shot up at half-time during the England v. Slovenia match as nervous fans had a cuppa. The National Grid recorded a huge power surge. Pizza Hut had a 35% increase in sales during the match. Three million fans poured into pubs, downing 18m pints, one for every three Britons.
England's powers surge;
But hang on, that's only for
pizzas, tea and pints.
Fans pour into pubs,
pour down eighteen million pints
as goal trickles in.
England drinking shoots
up, joy and sorrow are downed
in equal measure.
England's powers surge;
But hang on, that's only for
pizzas, tea and pints.
Fans pour into pubs,
pour down eighteen million pints
as goal trickles in.
England drinking shoots
up, joy and sorrow are downed
in equal measure.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Ancient skeleton found. 22.06.2010.
22.06.2010. Source: The Times.
A 3.6 m year-old skeleton, older than 'Lucy' has been found in Ethiopia and shows that one of humanity's earliest ancestors could walk on two feet 'surprisingly well'. It shows the elongation of the leg came about earlier than had been supposed, inferring earlier proficiency at walking.
We could probably
have kicked a football a lot
better in those days.
A 3.6 m year-old skeleton, older than 'Lucy' has been found in Ethiopia and shows that one of humanity's earliest ancestors could walk on two feet 'surprisingly well'. It shows the elongation of the leg came about earlier than had been supposed, inferring earlier proficiency at walking.
We could probably
have kicked a football a lot
better in those days.
World cup sickies. 22.06.2010.
Absencecare, a firm which 'helps firms monitor and manage' staff absences has predicted that 'sickies' (absence from work) will rise to 8.3% of the overall workforce, 56% more than on an average day tomorrow when England play Slovenia in the World Cup.
'Unheppy' team under
Capello pull rank and may
pull sickie on day.
'Unheppy' team under
Capello pull rank and may
pull sickie on day.
More vuvuzela...22.06.2010.
22.06.2010.
The presence of vuvuzelas continues to dominate the coverage of the World Cup. Ronaldo, the Brazil and former Man.United player said the noise made it difficult for anyone on the pitch to concentrate.
Bugling on pitch while
oceans are burning pitch is
fiddling while Rome burns.
The presence of vuvuzelas continues to dominate the coverage of the World Cup. Ronaldo, the Brazil and former Man.United player said the noise made it difficult for anyone on the pitch to concentrate.
Bugling on pitch while
oceans are burning pitch is
fiddling while Rome burns.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
I pad fad 05.06.2010.
The waiting list for the IPad is slowly growing in the UK. This year's 'must-have product' which will soon be superceded by the next gizmo will retail for £429. and will be available at Argos stores.
Incontinence pads
soak up bilge whereas IPads
merely produce it.
Hurry Hurry.While
stocks last. Must end soon.
Argos it right now!
Incontinence pads
soak up bilge whereas IPads
merely produce it.
Hurry Hurry.While
stocks last. Must end soon.
Argos it right now!
More I pad
29.05.2010.
Queues of people formed outside the Apple shop in Regent Street overnight as the Ipad was about to be launched in Britain. The tablet style computer is about £600.The launch has been worldwide. There was a 200 metre queue in Sydney, Aus. where Apple staff ran up and down the line exchanging high-fives with folk who stared straight ahead and had no eye-contact with each other.
That's my pad and by
the way it's not for sharing,
just for me, me, me.
With I-pad I can
look at more stuff and not have
to look at people.
Queues of people formed outside the Apple shop in Regent Street overnight as the Ipad was about to be launched in Britain. The tablet style computer is about £600.The launch has been worldwide. There was a 200 metre queue in Sydney, Aus. where Apple staff ran up and down the line exchanging high-fives with folk who stared straight ahead and had no eye-contact with each other.
That's my pad and by
the way it's not for sharing,
just for me, me, me.
With I-pad I can
look at more stuff and not have
to look at people.
Fishing laws.07.06.2010.
07.06.2010.
A law to reduce the taking of large fish as specimens and for any other reason comes into force at this, the beginning of the coarse fishing season, reports the Times Fishing correspondent.
Telling fishy tails
may land fly guys in the drink,
hook, line and sinker.
Anglers fishing for
compliments will be saying
'Cod, it was THIS small'.
A law to reduce the taking of large fish as specimens and for any other reason comes into force at this, the beginning of the coarse fishing season, reports the Times Fishing correspondent.
Telling fishy tails
may land fly guys in the drink,
hook, line and sinker.
Anglers fishing for
compliments will be saying
'Cod, it was THIS small'.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Bloody Sunday 21.06.2010.
Lord Saville's report on the Bloody Sunday (Northern Ireland) killings of 1972, after being trawled through court, has finally concluded the verdict of unlawful killing (after twelve years and tens of millions) that we knew it was all along. Twelve innocent citizens, peacefully protesting, were gunned down by the British Army.
Exactly three weeks ago to this day, there was another Bloody Sunday, when peaceful protestors, amongst them Mairead Maguire (veteran of the Irish Struggle for independence and Nobel Peace prize winner) some children and old people, one or two European M.P.s, and a famous Swedish crime writer in a flotilla trying to deliver paper, pencils, jam, concrete, sweets, hope and most importantly solidarity to the Gazan people were gunned down at close range in international waters at 5a.m. by the Israeli Defence Forces, who first surrounded the main Turkish boat with gunboats then sent down soldiers from helicopters to blitz those on board the vessel. At least nine were killed, many were seriously injured and many are still missing. Some were forced to watch as dogs were brought in to maul the dead. Others were cuffed and forced to lie face down in the blood and glass. One woman was sadistically shown a photo of her dead partner 36 hours after he was killed and asked to 'identify' him. His face was by now blown up. She recognised his mouth. Hundreds were imprisoned without charge and stripped of their possessions. Just another day, another dollar for Israel then...
That Bloody Sunday's
a paler pink version
of this Dirty Sunday.
Business as usual
for the IDF who gunned
down brave missionaries.
Exactly three weeks ago to this day, there was another Bloody Sunday, when peaceful protestors, amongst them Mairead Maguire (veteran of the Irish Struggle for independence and Nobel Peace prize winner) some children and old people, one or two European M.P.s, and a famous Swedish crime writer in a flotilla trying to deliver paper, pencils, jam, concrete, sweets, hope and most importantly solidarity to the Gazan people were gunned down at close range in international waters at 5a.m. by the Israeli Defence Forces, who first surrounded the main Turkish boat with gunboats then sent down soldiers from helicopters to blitz those on board the vessel. At least nine were killed, many were seriously injured and many are still missing. Some were forced to watch as dogs were brought in to maul the dead. Others were cuffed and forced to lie face down in the blood and glass. One woman was sadistically shown a photo of her dead partner 36 hours after he was killed and asked to 'identify' him. His face was by now blown up. She recognised his mouth. Hundreds were imprisoned without charge and stripped of their possessions. Just another day, another dollar for Israel then...
That Bloody Sunday's
a paler pink version
of this Dirty Sunday.
Business as usual
for the IDF who gunned
down brave missionaries.
Friday, June 18, 2010
The Exam (you may turn your papers over now).
Louise Stothard.
The Exam. (You may turn your papers over now).
Forlorn excitement follows us
all to the marked down rows.
It is May, 1967
and the desks are warmwood,
giving off varnish.
Faces give off 'I will fail'
exchanges.
In the heat of these moments
we will give off adrenalin
like love for two segmented hours,
Either;
Or.
It will be written in stone.
Stewarding the aisles,
passing grave as an ocean liner
down the Suez canal,
Miss Joynson's
Geographical credentials
have finally
come into their own.
She will sweep back and forth
at five knots per hour
for the duration.
The Quink engravings
of S.A. luvs Peter
are also scrawled across the
Corn and Pig Belt;
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta.
The Great Lakes are
mnemonically inked
onto someone's wrist;
(Some Men Have Even Jumped Over).
The roughwood patches
of desklids
are now soaked
in history,
in an ancient craft.
They'll mark our particular toil,
our studied slant
on the Corn Laws.
When we rise, doomladen, from desks,
they'll have been our talismans too,
reminding us of glorious possibilities.
The papers, downfaced,
hinting faintly in back-to-front
language are white as sheets,
bearing promises.
The A4 surprise packages
are at least of equal merit,
equal perplexity to one and all.
That's the whole thing.
We'll hover, for those first flightless seconds
as Kestrels over prey freshly
swooped upon. Dive.
We'll digest the contents later.
The second hand leads us on.
The clock winks its hour markers
at us, always beating us to it.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
The heads in front are all primed,
ready to go off in a slow-timed manner.
Something, some force will finish
off their work to the good.
You may be sure of that.
Miss Henthorne's dark beehive
is more lustrous than ever
on this occasion.
Her Angora and pearls
her folded arms,
her History,
her rebellious thoughts
her affections and yours
are one.
Her intent and love,
her passing fancy
are all passing you the nod.
She knows about you.
That's the main thing.
Across the Canal that's wide enough
for thoughts not to leap over,
your parallel pupil's
shirt cuffs are crisp,
buttoned down,
giving nothing away.
You see her ingenuity too,
peripherally,
because it's a well-known fact
that she shines at Maths.
That's the whole thing.
Two desks ahead of her
and hallowed there
where she is ensconced
is the golden girl you love.
You may stray away
to longing for her,
and the devil-may-care
flick of her tawny hair,
hair that's shining now
with the brilliance
of at least ten colours;
it won't help you.
You may squint at the upside-down Cyrillic
of the questions
Brenda Munford is hunched over
so lovingly
as much as you like.
It won't help you.
You may turn your papers over now.
The Exam. (You may turn your papers over now).
Forlorn excitement follows us
all to the marked down rows.
It is May, 1967
and the desks are warmwood,
giving off varnish.
Faces give off 'I will fail'
exchanges.
In the heat of these moments
we will give off adrenalin
like love for two segmented hours,
Either;
Or.
It will be written in stone.
Stewarding the aisles,
passing grave as an ocean liner
down the Suez canal,
Miss Joynson's
Geographical credentials
have finally
come into their own.
She will sweep back and forth
at five knots per hour
for the duration.
The Quink engravings
of S.A. luvs Peter
are also scrawled across the
Corn and Pig Belt;
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta.
The Great Lakes are
mnemonically inked
onto someone's wrist;
(Some Men Have Even Jumped Over).
The roughwood patches
of desklids
are now soaked
in history,
in an ancient craft.
They'll mark our particular toil,
our studied slant
on the Corn Laws.
When we rise, doomladen, from desks,
they'll have been our talismans too,
reminding us of glorious possibilities.
The papers, downfaced,
hinting faintly in back-to-front
language are white as sheets,
bearing promises.
The A4 surprise packages
are at least of equal merit,
equal perplexity to one and all.
That's the whole thing.
We'll hover, for those first flightless seconds
as Kestrels over prey freshly
swooped upon. Dive.
We'll digest the contents later.
The second hand leads us on.
The clock winks its hour markers
at us, always beating us to it.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
The heads in front are all primed,
ready to go off in a slow-timed manner.
Something, some force will finish
off their work to the good.
You may be sure of that.
Miss Henthorne's dark beehive
is more lustrous than ever
on this occasion.
Her Angora and pearls
her folded arms,
her History,
her rebellious thoughts
her affections and yours
are one.
Her intent and love,
her passing fancy
are all passing you the nod.
She knows about you.
That's the main thing.
Across the Canal that's wide enough
for thoughts not to leap over,
your parallel pupil's
shirt cuffs are crisp,
buttoned down,
giving nothing away.
You see her ingenuity too,
peripherally,
because it's a well-known fact
that she shines at Maths.
That's the whole thing.
Two desks ahead of her
and hallowed there
where she is ensconced
is the golden girl you love.
You may stray away
to longing for her,
and the devil-may-care
flick of her tawny hair,
hair that's shining now
with the brilliance
of at least ten colours;
it won't help you.
You may squint at the upside-down Cyrillic
of the questions
Brenda Munford is hunched over
so lovingly
as much as you like.
It won't help you.
You may turn your papers over now.
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