Ben Brinkburn

The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall by Paul Torday: Nice prose, shame it doesn't say very much

2012-01-26T19:33:00.001Z

Two posts in one day: perhaps armeggedon really is nigh...

And so Paul Torday's new tome has glided serenely in literary radar. Old Paul's on a bit of a roll at the moment with his novel Salmon Fishing in Yemen being released as a movie in a few weeks time, starring one Ewan McGregor no less. So perhaps now is his time, as 'Hartlepool Hall' hits the shops with very convenient scheduling.

Now then there’s no getting away from the fact that this is an elegantly written book. I’ve never read any Torday before and his prose is a delight; easy but not banal, gently evocative and succinct. As such this book is pleasurable to digest- rather like a like a toasted marshmallow- and I am sure once anybody starts reading this book, they will effortlessly make it to the end.

But here’s the rub: at the end of it, I felt strangely empty. Although it had hardly been an un-enjoyable experience, I still couldn’t shake off a nagging feeling of, well okay so that was it, but… so what? In fact to be honest, I began to realise early in the book the only real kick I was getting out of it was its location [and trying to work out exactly where Hartlepool Hall was]; now as more attentive readers will know, I was born and bred in Darlington which is the area this book is set in, and lived in Shildon for a while, and so was amused to find in this book, it has been bequeathed an Earl no less!

Ed [Simmonds] Hartlepool is the last in a line of a North-Eastern aristocratic family, whose earlier generations had made a fortune from the industrial revolution. In fact they’d made so much from coal, iron and steel, that the next few generations effectively didn’t have to let a single thought of a day’s work trouble their pampered brows.

Times have however changed and Ed, exiled in France for five years for tax reasons after his father’s death, returns to find the estate effectively bankrupt. His father had basically spent all the money over the years, and Ed- although continually warned during his time in France by the estate manager of its perilous situation- had remained resolutely ignorant of it all by a lifelong commitment to never opening letters and, if he did, generally losing interest in their contents after the first few lines. Admirable as this louche attitude to correspondence may be, it had left him in a bit of a fix so far as his inheritance was concerned.

What follows on his return however is an encounter with a banally, stereotypical cast of characters.   There’s Annabel, a contemporaneous, batty thirty-something woman friend with the equally stereotypical, crazed retired Army colonel father she has to look after, and who has of course romantic designs on Ed which he has no inclination to return. Then there is the brusque estate manager who is in cahoots with the brash, ‘new money’ property developer who is also Annabel’s boyfriend and, who- in true post-Thatcher neoliberal fashion- turns over his business on a knife edge by juggling huge levels of debt and, as such, actually hasn’t any real assets at all, and who sees the now bankrupt Hartlepool Hall as a veritable conversion cash cow full of potential executive apartments. Bringing up the rear there is also the predictable cast of support actors- the doddery, eighty-something butler, the honest-to-goodness cook, the salt-of-the-earth estate tenants- they fill the book so completely and with such predictable shape and actions that you soon feel as if you are firmly amongst old familiar literary friends.

It has to be said that it is to Torday’s credit that these characters are well written enough for you not to throw the book away in boredom at the predictability of it all, but it does add inexorably to the overall feeling that it is a story that we’ve all read [and seen on the screen] many times before.

Anyway the ‘wildcard’ in the cast is Alice; an enigmatic older woman who Ed, on his return from France, finds shacked up in the Hall.   As he gets to know her better, she does add an interesting dimension to the tale that if again not exactly original in its nature, remains central to it all and provides some much needed substance to the proceedings.

Strangely enough though to my mind it is Ed, the dreamy old fashioned aristocrat now well and truly out of time and place at the beginning of the 21^st century, who is the most likable and interesting personality of the lot, and I for one would have liked to find out more about his inner workings. But this is not a book to go into such depths of character study; that’s not a direct criticism, because not all successful books have to have a searching, literary depth of enquiry, it’s just that Torday airbrushes over some interesting ideas just a bit too much, a bit too often. Which leads one to ask too many times, what is the novel trying to be?   Is it trying to be easy-read, ‘disposable’ contemporary fiction, or a more middle brow attempt to say something about the socio-economic state of the nation in 2012? If it is trying to be the latter- and at various points in the book the clear indications are that it is- then it doesn’t do so with any real depth or flair. And so as such, it falls between too many stools, and instead of ticking too many boxes, ends up ticking none.

Which is all a bit of a shame really, considering how fine a writer Torday is- technically at least. The book though just failed to give an extra-dimension to the story it was telling and the ending- wrapped up in who Alice really is- can be seen a mile off.

I really, honestly wanted to get more out of this novel than at the end of the day it was, to be honest, capable of giving. In fact it is only in the last page and a half that an indication of how good this book could really have been is offered to us; a truly affecting sequence of passages that sounds like Torday actually writing from his heart, rather than satisfying the criteria of a wordcraft module in a writer’s course. It merely in the end though, shows how lacklustre the vast bulk of the preceding work really is.

So, sadly, I put the book down after finishing it feeling neither intellectually stimulated, nor alternatively excited by a good old fashioned pulpy romp. In fact, I felt very little at all; it had all just seemed so hollow and well…pointless. What a shame.

Rather Excited at the Moment...so much so I have put some squirty cream on my hot chocolate...

2012-01-26T19:14:00.001Z

The New Year turns and here we are, wobbling our way up the virgin slopes of 2012. May the Great Oral Disseminator watch over and guide us. Whatever, to temper the excitement my very own hyper-drived website will soon be going live...links soon...yes it true, just when you thought we were at The End of History and it really couldn't get any more exciting, I know, I know...

A link soon [ish].

The December EU Summit: or Britain in the Dumpster….how the UK made itself irrelevant over dinner one night in December 2011

2011-12-10T12:36:00.001Z

I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about the EU to be honest; the idea of a single market and the relaxing of border controls always seemed sensible to me [and f course rather convenient] and it’s better to sit around a table to discuss national differences than kicking the shit out of each other with swords, guns and tanks, which has of course been default mode for Europe pretty much consistently up until 1945. So that way, the EU has been a resounding success.

It’s an inescapable fact though, that the European Project has moved inexorably on from those initial aims and developed much more radical- some might say odious- ambitions over the decades. This is shaping the EU into an image unrecognisable from that first established in the fifties and sixties. People in some countries- particularly the UK- may lament that, but it an undeniable fact and over the past couple of weeks, fundamental changes to the structure of the EU have been ratcheted up a number of gears to levels unthinkable even a few months ago.

Whether we in the UK like it or not, a new European super-state is in the making here, right before our eyes, and out of the turmoil of the Euro crisis and the deepening recession, a new global super power is going to emerge centred on France and Germany.

I don’t think in socio-political terms, that is going to a particularly pretty sight. It is going to be autocratic and barely democratic- although so far as the latter condition goes, we in the West generally are only hanging onto that concept with the lightest, ever loosening of grips.

However, here is the dilemma for a Britain that has always traditionally regarded European affairs with suspicion, and generally preferred to look in on them from one step removed. The best way of ensuring a pan-European dictatorship DOES NOT happening, is by us being fully involved in the European process working to stop exactly that. It's all well and good walking away after only been half-heartedly involved in the first place and leaving them to it, then when the EU has become an autocratic super power dominating us on it's periphery, start bleating on about 'I told you so, ' and 'something must be done.'

These are very dynamic times, and as with all crucial junctures in history, it is moving very quickly and passes in a haze. We are not a major power in the world any more- and this is not being un-patriotic, it is being REALISTIC- but we still are powerful enough to have some say in the workings and developing structure of the EU. If we were fully involved in the EU, instead of day-dreaming wistfully of Empire Days, we would have equal voice with Germany and France. Our PM would be going to these summits with some clout and garnering respect.
Instead, he now looks like a little boy lost. Did you see the footage of the recent summit dinner? Did you see the body language of not just Sarkozy and Merkel, but many of the other lesser leaders there, towards Cameron, our PM and national representative? It wasn't just dismissive, it was calculated to make him look small and irrelevant. And of course, so he was in the end, job done for Sarkozy and Merkel.

Yet our Eurosceptic MPs and Europhobes on internet forums and news comment pages are jumping up and down triumphantly, as if he has achieved some great achievement for Britain!! Really?!!! Is being totally marginalised as a politician [and a country] really such a huge triumph?

Of course it's not, and it shows just how little how country has become and how much it has lost its way as a serious world political force, when pathetic, embarrassing put-downs and self-inflicted acts of irrelevance are celebrated as great victories. God help us.

junkspace

2011-12-07T19:55:00.001Z

Stolen cars and vans

even trucks scarred and disempowered

joyridden driven by drink and drugs and hormones dumped

in the urban margins like discarded pornography

urban zones chaotic tatty craving obscurity seekingconcealment

like some limping pirate sensing he may well now be past hisbest

sod it all ‘tis downhillall the way now f’me m’lad but there’s still life in the ol’ dog yet

but still ingrained ineveryone’s metropolitan

consciousness a blip on their radar that never fades

the edge city callous with

Asda trolley filled ponds litter strewn embankments whereonce trains rolled

battered death trap old freezers sat amidst sickly brackenand solitary engine blocks

[The Myth of Geordie who disappeared, he’dclimbed into one large electrical appliance too many and it became his tomb]

Does his ghost walk these edgelands you bet

‘The Curse of White Goods’

whispered into a ratty Dictaphone a creaking lump ofretro-tech more than at home

amongst this sprawl of the discarded and indistinct

and

there are

temporary dens buried deep within huge bonfires

the autumnal call of the ephemeral city sending kids intothe faux-rural wild

to scavenge wood and plastic sheeting and empty vodkabottles

the pinnacle of primordial domesticity the temporary labyrinthinehome

deep within a structure that will be torched with gleefulritual

Guy Fawkes as the hero to these lands

not the villain

the warpings of establishment propaganda holding very littletraction

in this reality thisjunkspace

click whirr of the scratched silver machine in a glovelessmitted hand

a memory ofanother life when someone said ‘I’m sobusy I’m going to have to use my Dictaphone’ and a colleague flickingthrough copy of The Mirror said ‘reallywhy don’t you use your fingers like everybody else’

and the clouds are thickening but the cloud cover is alwaysof a

relative nature

it is always cloudy out here always threatening rain alwayslate in the day always

a half-forgotten day just before tea time

always a Wednesday suffering nameless weather

a place to lose your footing on a scrubby desire path

and sink a foot ankle deep in a dirty puddle cursing

and there is a slightly melted

bath time yellow plastic duck in it

its face still intact its beak still proud

and it’s smiling up at you

because it sees all and it knows

that you’ve come home.

All Fur Hat and no Knickers::::or: Reality Check #101- Conservative economic policies are rubbish

2011-11-30T11:35:00.001Z

ORIENTATION [Whilst wearing a battered fourth-hand dead man’s overcoat bought on Camden Market c. 1981]

Well, these days I find myself increasingly lapsing back into recession chic when it comes to dress and ‘street moves.’ It’s funny really, but I'm coming to the conclusion that recessions are the normal state of affairs when it comes to late, neoliberal capitalism. The short boom periods are clearly selective; only a few really benefit from them long term, the bulk of the masses are merely titillated with an allusion of wealth for a few years, before being pushed firmly back into their place. In fact a period of not just stagnation, but even gradual degradation of personal wealth and standing is actually the societal norm for the majority of us.

This probably in some ways suits us as we clunk around in our plastic armour of showy capitalism- all shine and no substance- or as an older paraphrase puts it more succinctly, enjoying being firmly in a state of all fur hat and no knickers.

For the culturally pretentious, there are of course upsides to recessions. Artistically, there is often a flourishing of ideas and output- the stark urban electronica and new Romantic movement of the early 80s, the true pure embodiment of recession sensibility and make do street chic- the moderne pinnacle of hobo glad ragging and partying as the bomb drops no less- springs immediately to mind; although I’m not too sure that is the exactly the case this time, with our much vaunted Great Recession-cum-Grand Depression. I mean just look at the music scene in the UK alone: Adele, Coldplay and a coterie of X-Factor finalists marching us humming pretty tunes into the 21st century, clutching a Guess handbag, sheathed inCalvin Klein jeans, clogged in Timberland boots and fiddling with a new generation iphone [that actually doesn’t really work that well]…hmmm…. hardly inspiring is it.

Whatever. I was a student during the 80s recession and it was truly a Golden Age of Austerity. The kids these days don’t know they’re born. We did penury and smutty, low-life erotica, penny scrimping and partying on a budget with knobs on in those days. Arguably all the kids are better at these days is drinking and sourcing better, more interesting drugs, so fair play to them on that count, but I still can't help feeling as if they're missing out culturally, although of course when it comes to their future, it is probably a lot more bleaker than when I was a fey, sallow young thing who often found it difficult to maintain a footing in a mild head wind.

So it is with such thoughts that I wander the increasingly colder streets of Skale remembering the glory days, feeling guilty wearing a Trespass outdoor survival jacket rather than a ratty old overcoat [well at my age I’m finding I feel the cold a bit more] and occasional glimpses of myself in Asda’s large windows remind me that my hair style is not as neat and natty and cutting edge as it once once.

Well to be honest it’s nothing like it used to be at all. It’s become a grey mop. Such is the travails of ageing, although I comfort myself with the thought that even The Who, who promised to die before they grew old, are now well into their sixties. Sailor Vee, as they say in France.

DEGRADATION, DISINFORMATION AND THE ART OF WAKING UP

It never ceases to amaze me how the Great British Public until recently allowed themselves to be continually hoodwinked by the propaganda that a Conservative government is always better at managing the economy that a leftist one. I mean how bad do things have to get before they wake up and see the Tory Party for what it is- an economically incompetent shower with foolish ideas of how to run a country and which is only really concerned with protecting its narrow core establishment interests- which is the primary reason the Conservative Party exists- whilst the rest of country is left to become financially and morally bankrupt.

Lest not forget Conservative laissez-faire policies in the 20s gave us the Great Depression; The Tories gave us the recessions of the early 80s and 90s; Labour inherited a deficit running out of control from Tory party spending in 1997; and of course lets not also forget this Great Recession, set to run now for at least a decade, the roots of which can be traced right back to the Thatcherite policies of dismantling our industrial base, over relying on the financial sector to take its place which generated a debt driven society and an unsustainable property bubble.

Forget bleating on about what Labour did in 1997-2010- they were after all just continuing with conservative economic policies, I mean did any one hear the Tory opposition benches complaining about what New Labour were doing at the time? I certainly didn't- our current economic mess IS DIRECTLY LINKED TO THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC POLICIES OF THE THREE THATCHER GOVERNMENTS.

Yes, Conservative Party economic policy has proven to be a complete crock of of the proverbial poo. Baring the traumas of the 70s, Labour governments have always presided over growing, healthy, EQUAL economies and of course, a truly socialist society has been proven, in action, to work by far the most effectively and we have directly experienced that, during ironically, the war of 1939-45.
Just think what we could achieve as a nation if we could galvanise our society into working together with that focus in peacetime.

The current, moribund government can no longer keep blaming the previous government for its travails, nor will it be successful in shifting the focus next on to the European problems. It just won't wash with the electorate anymore; not only are the masses waking up, they are wising up. It's downhill all the way now for Cameron, Osborne and Clegg, and the only question now is how many of us are they going to take down with them, before some political sense is restored to the nation. Hopefully during the process, a New Flowering of avant-garde art will take hold and flourish, but that’s just the pathetic aesthete in me wanting to fiddle whilst Rome burns….which it may do quite literally of course rather sooner than we may wish to think.

Greek Referendum: A brilliant move from a country whose ancient culture invented modern politics

2011-11-01T19:43:00.001Z

So the Greek Prime minister has out-witted the top leaders of Europe in one sleek, swift move. He’s going to call a referendum to decide whether his government is going to accept the EU bailout scheme and the deep austerity package that is tied to it as part of the deal. It has thrown the markets and EU technocracy into a tailspin and it’s consequences are going to run very deeply in deep.

Whatever the fallout, I think this a brilliantly accomplished bit of politicking by the Greek government. They've out-manoeuvred the EU technocrats in one killer move- some would say not a difficult thing to do of course- and I can't help thinking good on 'em.

The result of a referendum may well be closer than you would first think but I still have a strong hunch the Greek people will eventually reject the EU deal decisively. At the end of the day, going bankrupt makes a lot of sense. Not only is it the natural, free-market capitalist course of action, but also for the ordinary Greek person, it makes a lot of sense. They are going to endure years, perhaps decades, of austerity measures either way, so they might as well do it with a clean sheet and a currency they can control themselves. I think this argument alone will in the end win the day.

What the Greek PM has done brilliantly, is engineer a way of defaulting/going bankrupt with the full visible support of his people. I reckon the Greek government has planned this move all along, and it's timing is not an accident. They have managed over the past year to get billions of aid from the EU to shore them up for a while, and now the inept EU technocrats have come to finally [sort of] agree a crunch deal, the Greeks have decided it's time to press the red button. And I don't blame them. Merkel and Sarkozy will have their head in their hands and rightly so; they've been made to look fools.

The EU in it's present form is finished. The Euro will break up and contract to what it should of been in the first place; a club for the richer countries in the Union. These are momentous but very unstable times though and we're in for a rough ride this next decade, all of us. This is the final kick in the teeth for laissez-faire capitalism and it will not just keep it down on its knees, but now completely flattened on it's back, I reckon, for good. The fallout though is going to very frightening and it's all up for grabs. Personally I am stocking up my garage with more provisions and have freshly laundered my red flag. Mao said something along the lines of: 'the view from here is one of chaos; and the prospects are excellent.' How true.

Communism 2.0 [re-designed for the 21st Century]

2011-10-26T20:38:00.001+01:00

I heard someone say recently ‘the return of communism? Are you mad? that is such a trashed brand…’

Ah I thought, now there's a giveaway that sums up our times....communism is a trashed brand...even ideology has been consumerised for the all pervading, corporate society we are now staggering around in, wondering what the hell to do next.

There is though of course some truth in the observation; we are so commercialised now, words like communism and socialism have been so cleverly, heavily tainted with bad imagery [some deserved because no one's completely perfect, but most not and just hype] that many on the Left have to be realistic- at this particular moment in time - and realise they have to play the main game in town [pretty much the only game now in fact] in order to get anywhere, and that will probably mean a process of re-branding concepts such as communism- for a while, anyway

Purists will howl at such a thought, but sometimes realism for the greater good must be pursued over idealism. I am increasingly convinced though, that a rejuvenated, re-focussed and updated version of communism is the only way forward for us in the 21st century. With climate change kicking in and the realisation that we CANNOT continue to grow our economies year after year after year- we're already at the point where we will need something like five planets the size of Earth to sustain us by the end of the century if global GDP continues at the rate it is currently doing- the writing’s on the wall for us. Couple this with Peak Oil, estimated by the oil corporations themselves to happen in 2020, but widely accepted by impartial analysts to have actually already happened, and with the current broken economic system- based on laissez faire capitalism- not even trying to provide any answers- means our economy and society in the West is irredeemably crippled. Business is not, this time, going to go back to ‘as usual.’

In fact I wouldn't say in the West, we have a capitalist system anymore anyway- it's corporatism that runs us now. Nor are we traditional democracies either anymore- that model has gone out of the window, probably for good. Unfortunately for the Right and free market capitalists, the bankers and other corporatists have thoroughly destroyed both the operational power and 'moral' authority of capitalism across the board over the past couple of decades.

We were in a period of late capitalism anyway, but those lovely bankers and corporations have now, I firmly believe, destroyed the very future of free market capitalism for good- in the advanced industrial countries of the West, anyway.

So a huge vacuum is opening up, and the only viable political system to fill it and move us forward in a more sustainable, equitable and ultimately physical and economically healthy way, is I increasingly believe, first firm socialist governance, leading eventually to a 'communist' state [or whatever new brand name is given to it].

This century is going to be very different from the last, and we are now seeing the end of the last great capitalist grab on power and resources. During this decade, capitalism will collapse as a viable economic model, and cease to shape our society in any positive way. The collapse of the Euro and the EU as a whole probably, in the next few months, will be the first of many, big nails in laissez-faire capitalism's coffin. Ironically in the Right in the UK cheering on this European collapse, the medium to long term result is not going to be one they envisage and crave. The reality is in fact going to be the exact opposite.

And I think this process is going to happen on both sides of the Atlantic; it's funny, when Obama was elected I sensed it was going to be America's 'socialist' or at the very least social democratic century. He may have been a false start, but I still think that holds true. Here's a bit of futurescape crystal ball gazing for you: by the mid 21st century, the world will be split between a solidly socialist/green 'communist' West thriving in a sustainable way with industries based in high level technologies and 'academic' provision to the wider world, and an autocratic, corporation-ran 'capitalistic' East, centred on China. Russia, as usual, will be somewhere in the middle. It won’t be a world without difficulties, and it may also be a dangerous one with new global tensions, but the alternative- a global system in meltdown- is a lot worse.

Now I know the thought of this communistic revival will make some people reading apoplectic with rage and worry, but I not only honestly believe there is no other way, there is also nothing at all to worry about. Because the futures bright... the futures red....

Beyond the Beltway: an alternative State of the Nation address

2011-09-15T11:56:00.001+01:00

Arianna Huffington is a bit of of a political chameleon; she's done very well out of the pre-crash capitalist system over the past couple of decades, and flittered about various Right wing organisations and causes over that time too, so you would not be forgiven for imagining seeing her now on the hustings standing for a Republican congressional seat, backed to the hilt by the Tea Party.

But amazingly, no. She has swung enthusiastically into the US Left/liberal camp and impressively set up her stall there. No shame in such a change of heart- it would be a God send if more people on the Right had the wherewithal to see the light of reality so clearly- but her rhetoric does at times jar a little when you put it into a perspective of where she's come from- but of course having said that, a late conversion is better than none at all.

The result is a no punches pulled, hard hitting alternative state of the Nation address from outside of the Beltway i.e. one from out there in the Real World. Huffington concentrates on the collapse of the US middle class, which at first seems a little, predictably cosy centre-right in it's concerns but it has clearly become the elephant in the room with regard to American society in the second decade of the 21st century. For the first time in the country's history, the American Dream that reinforced the backbone of the American economic machine- a hard working, aspirational middle class- really is being not just kicked in the teeth, but having it's face pushed into the dirt by a rampant, ever powerful corporate elite that now pretty much owns Washington. This is a fascinating development, and one that will have socio-politcal implications not just for the US but the wider Western world, probably for decades to come.

With regard to this new phenomenon, Huffington hits the nail on the head when she describes how the American Dream has morphed from one whereby the over-riding ethos of ordinary Americans was that if you stayed optimistic, worked hard and kept your nose clean you would not just rise up the societal ladder yourself, but ensure your children would do even better than you in years to come, to one where you feel as if are doing well if you can manage to stand still or, at the very least in a vast number of cases, are able to slow the rate of your decline.

This constitutes an immense sea change in the American cultural outlook and it's impact cannot be under-estimated, and in fact, is only just being realised. In that way Huffington is well ahead of the curve with this book and it's a timely, wake up call type of a read for everyone I think, even outside of America and particularly in the UK, who has for the past 30 years or so followed on the coat tails of the US.
I also think as a social service and an exercise in much needed reality checking, everyone professing to be an anti-statist/welfare provision/low-taxation-at-any-cost Tea Partier should be given this book for free. Then perhaps at last, the US will have the properly focussed, better informed grassroots organisation it so sorely needs.

A Hurricane called Irene and American Tea Partiers hold the US Constitution to their breast…and scowl

2011-09-05T12:11:00.001+01:00

1. HURRICANES

The lashing the US eastern seaboard took with Hurricane Irene took me back to my old sub-Mafioso days, when I was a precocious limey skittling up and down the east coast from Miami to Brooklyn selling knock-off designer swimwear. Ah, happy days. Not great were the hurricanes though, although despite being truly frightening experiences I have to admit they had a strange, awe-inspiring beauty to their focussed trails of material destruction. A sort of Gaian nihilism if you like, or so I liked to muse hunkered down wondering whether the Four Feathers Motel was going to be blown away, which wasn’t a fanciful thought seeing as it was appeared to be made entirely from glass, plywood, cardboard with the occasional plastic and ceramic bathroom fitting thrown in.

Even hitting the tail end of a hurricane was bad enough; but it was heartening to see though- despite all the evacuation advice- that eccentricity isn’t a quality confined entirely to the British Isles, and there was always some nutter intent on seeing through the challenge of surviving a hurricane strapped to a tree or some such. Bravo to such people I say; these are the solid sort of characters we will need to see off an alien invasion if such a thing ever happens.

Anyway, talking about American nutters, what about this Tea Party movement then, as we approach the last quarter of the year of Our Lord 2011? Developments continue relentlessly…

2. TEA PARTIERS AND THE US CONSTITUTION

I’ve noticed the past year or so,how the Tea Party has ratcheted up it’s narrative about the US constitution. It is essentially placing itself as the only, true custodian of that documents aims and values. The tea Party IS America; everyone else are communists.

Now then with regard to the Tea Party developing now this [supposed] close affinity with the US constitution, here’s the view from across the pond, as generally disseminated from the bar of The Locomotion….

It is to my mind something akin to what the neo-cons did in the nineties, although their sacred text was called the Bible.

The Tea Party is now elevating the Constitution to some God-delivered, immutably correct and moral instrument that gets America back to it's core values. You can hear in all the leading Tea Party rhetoric... 'us' and 'them'......the Christian resurrection narrative ['we will reclaim what is rightfully [i.e. God-given] ours!]...the obsession with 'morals' and 'values' i.e. what’s right and wrong in black and white terms.

Once again they are at best going off beam or being entirely disingenuous in their dealings with reality. The constitution is a profoundly secular text, bound up in checks and balances to enable reasoned, value free judgments, within a strictly legal code. It is also not infallible- it originally did not outlaw slavery for example- it can of course be amended by mere mortals. So for all it's virtues, it is not a sacred text written in tablets of stone.

The reality is the Tea Party movement and its sages, use the Constitution in a very selective way, for unashamedly political purposes. They rely on it entirely as a vehicle to create cultural/social division and of course, as a way to self-affirm themselves as a distinct political grouping tapping into the 'spiritual' sense of America as a nation, and are therefore unimpeachable. This is NOT the purpose or the spirit of the US Constitution in the slightest.

The hard cold fact is that the Tea Party, rather than doing as it professes [i.e. representing the silent majority of 'ordinary' Americans], is in fact an entity separate from the Constitution is has recently become so attached to. It belongs more to a tradition of fundamentalism, above compromise and reasoned debate, as shown recently over the deficit fiasco in DC. Like all fundamentalists, Tea party politicians and adherents prefer to seek comfort from the dangers, confusions and downright complexities of contemporary life, in the arms of an authoritarian text [or rather as they like to interpret it], where they see what they want to see: a confirmation of their already existing belief system.

As with all other fundamentalists, they don't fuss over detail and conveniently ignore any ambiguities that may crop up. And of course like all fundamentalists, they cast those who disagree with them, as unpatriotic and evil destroyers of all that is 'American,' and even as puppets of fantastical- largely non-existent- enemies, such as communism.

The US constitution is a great political and legal document; it has proven resilient and adaptable for over two centuries. It is NOT however an overtly value driven, or even moralistic instrument. It is primarily geared towards reasoned outcomes on the level playing field of secular, legal debate and consideration, and EXPRESSLY strives to avoid power being concentrated in any one constituent. These simple characteristics, seem to be wilfully going over the heads of many Tea Partiers. No change there then.

England On the Skids

2011-08-18T11:49:00.002+01:00

England is in a mess. The events of the past couple of weeks have taken the lid off the national psyche and we have seen, inside it, some horrendous things that go beyond the initial rioting and looting.

The fall out from it is proving to be a lot more worrying and indicative of our national malaise. Apart from the cries of many people to actually cause severe bodily harm to kids who stole trainers, sticks of chewing gum and bags of groceries [torture 'em! Jails not good enough!!], the reaction of the political establishment has been even more worrying.

Cameron has said that the over-the-top harsh sentences handed out to kids involved in the riots- including one drunken Facebook page that no one took any notice off and was taken down after a few hours, result: four years in prison- are justified...and here's the worrying thing....BECAUSE THEY SATISFY THE PUBLIC'S DEMAND FOR HEAVY SENTENCES WITH REGARD TO THIS ISSUE.

But wait a minute, hold that thought....I understood that the English legal system was there as an independent arbitrator of English Law, outside of political control AND designed to be a reasonable administrator of law beyond the influence of the wider publics often irrational, mob mentality.

And this is a mob mentality that cannot be trusted; a straw poll of many ordinary people in the street over the past week [particularly in leafy Middle England], would have found plenty of people wholeheartedly supporting the hanging of kids for taking part in the riots, even if they only had nicked a pair of shorts.

This is a very dangerous development in the social and legal life of England. The nation is clearly full of citizens filled with barely suppressed anger- whether it be an impoverished underclass, or a lost, isolationist, confused middle class- guided by a political establishment that is taking more and more control over other aspects of the country's governance- notably the judiciary and police- than ever before, and it's a potent mixture of problems we face.

Cameron has said some very foolish things these past couple of weeks, but this latest one is up there with the best. The legal system CANNOT be used to pander to the frenzied mob mentality of the wider public; it is there specifically to put the brakes on such a thing. That is the development we should be all worried about, not spending our time fantasising about yet more perverse ways to punish and torture a lost generation of kids who went looking for some ‘free stuff.’

Erudite, Balanced and Accessible

2011-08-16T12:06:00.002+01:00

This is a must-have book for those genuinely interested in a rounded assessment of the immigration issue gripping, in particular, the Western European nations in the 21st century.
It's a recent English translation from the Dutch professor of Urban Studies Paul Scheffer, and we really are all the richer for it. It's an expansive, varied and in-depth study of both the history and various social, economic and cultural phenomenon wrapped up in the process of immigration, yet remaining at all times eminently readable. He carefully outlines the issues involved for both sides- the immigrant and the receiving society- the latter of which gets scant regard in my opinion in the intellectual press. He tacks a balanced, thoughtful course through the often mind-boggling complexities of contemporary immigration and always maintains a clear-sighted analysis of it all, not afraid to point out where areas of our recent 'multicultural' policies have gone wrong and are being actively counter-productive, whilst outlining very robustly the inescapable fact that our immigrant communities are here to stay. Also what we are experiencing is nothing new as a process, although it is largely defined this time by the immigrant communities being Muslim, which is a relatively new phenomenon. This new Islamic presence is offering it's own unique challenges, but as he so rightly argues, these are challenges of attitude and willingness to adapt that need to be addressed by both the Muslim community and the host nation's society, there is no one-sided quick fix.
Scheffer as such argues strongly for a pluralist national society where communities don't live in self-determined semi-isolation, but are willing to accept the broader ideals of citizenship in a liberal democracy, where self-identity is not 'assimilated-away' but it's strengths focussed on creating a broader, more robust and healthily varied society.
There's much in this book that will prove to be awkward reading for many on both the Left and Right; that's why I hope it gets as wide a readership as possible. The process of 'state multiculturalism' promoted by the majority of Western European governments over the past 20 odd years is now creaking at the seams, and wherever one stands on the political spectrum, deep down we all know this. This book gives a detailed analysis of how we got here, and arms us with an understanding of that process. That can surely only help us to move forward and devise together a stronger, liberal democratic framework for us to deal with the immigration issue in the second decade of the 21st century.

Hood Rat by Gavin Knight

2011-06-09T11:41:00.001+01:00

In much the same way as Burial provided the urban soundscape for the first decade of the 21st Century, so this book provides the literary landscape.

It compellingly charts the way the underside of our urban environment works both socially and economically. In so far as the latter is concerned, one can't help but think the strident and over-whelming neoliberal ideology of the past thirty years has directly shaped the outlook, life chances and the inevitable actions of the people who populate this book. In many ways, the attitudes of all the agents in this slice of urban analysis- from the gangland, underclass dealers to the police- is strongly dictated by a broken society where wealth and individuality is hugely celebrated, but the means to actually achieve it is limited to the very few.

As such this fine book is more than just the collection of some grimy stories about the operations of the urban criminal underworld across the UK, and the coppers and establishment bodies that try to control [but rarely understand] them. That's not to say it can't be enjoyed purely for its vicarious thrills alone, of which there are many, but it is interesting to read a book like this that points to more complex things.

I read this book quickly in a couple of sittings and will probably read it again. I hope it reaches a wide readership, because it deserves to.

Neoliberal Failure: The True Origins of the Mess We’re In

2011-05-22T12:13:00.002+01:00

Are we as a culture still in a dream world and sleep walking through the crisis in our economic and ecological systems, listening and often believing the neoliberal disinformation being continual fed to us by the establishment through the combination of a numbed consumerist hangover and a battered will to just have an easy intellectual/political life, after three decades of dumbed down Right Wing propaganda?
Let's just look at where our current level of indebtedness comes from shall we, as there still seems to be a lot of people in denial about it.

Since the early 80s the financial industry spent billions lobbying Washington and Westminster to deregulate nationally and globally on a huge scale. They have had the added bonus of governments in power consistently during that period, who were easily persuaded by RW neoliberal ideology [incl both Clinton and New Labour]. This massive amount of deregulation led to:

1] the opening up of huge profit streams to the banks and the illusion of a risk free method of making money whilst still operating a casino banking system;

2] the opening up of tax havens [of which the City of London Corporation is one] so that the banks and global corporations can avoid paying any tax to the countries they are based and operate in [whilst still of course using all the benefits of the trained workers and infrastructure in those countries];

3] the illusion of wealth in the general population which was based on the bubble of over-inflated property prices, cheap and easily obtained credit, cheap Chinese imports and the restructuring of society so that two people at least in a household had to go out to work, each working longer hours as well than ever before.

All in reality, for most of us plebs to just stand still. Whilst the top 3-5%of the population saw their incomes increase a hundred fold, 85% of the population saw their real incomes stay at 1971 levels. Many indeed, became worse off.
We are saddled with a debt because of RW, neoliberal ideology and economic policies followed with wild abandon on a global scale. Unregulated capitalism has got us into this financial and ecological mess, nothing else. AND THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY SINCE 1979 HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST STRIDENT PROPONENTS OF THAT IDEOLOGY.

Where for example, were the Tory dissenting voices in Westminster or the Tonbridge Wells tea rooms between 1997-2007 when the economy was booming? who was criticizing Blair/Brown from the Tory Right then, when times were good? I didn't hear any of them jumping up and down with indignation at the folly of it all, did you?

And now the Cameron government is desperate to stop Gordon Brown becoming chair of the IMF, despite it going against the grain of all countries usually supporting their own national candidate regardless of political party [Sarkozy after all supported Strauss-Kahn even though he was a Socialist], and supporting a French minister who is embroiled in her own domestic scandals.
The fact is Brown fits the profile of an IMF chair perfectly; he is an economic neoliberal and is widely regarded in the global community as a competent financial/political manager whether you care or not. he is seen [rightly] as the architect of a salvage plan after the financial crash of 2007 [BROUGHT ON ENTIRELY BY THE MACHINATIONS OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY OVER THE PAST THIRTY YEARS] and carries a lot of kudos because of that. I find myself in an unusual position of sticking up for Brown here when I disagree with a lot of his past policies leading up to the crash, but that nonetheless is fact.
I understand one of your bug bears is the pension situation and I sympathise, but the cold reality is a Conservative government would have done nothing differently at all. In fact there weren't just NO dissenting voices from the Tories during the New Labour boom years about the running of the economy, there was strident CRITICISM that Blair/Brown weren't deregulating quickly enough and diverting too many resources in social projects, rather than handing even more back to the finance industry.

That unfortunately is the real shape of the world we live in, unpalatable as it may be to the Tory Right.

The Frankfurt School and Political Correctness

2011-04-16T19:54:00.003+01:00

The Romans used to find a funny things happened on the way to the forum in The Old Days but I find funny things happen to me on the way to The Locomotive, such as seeing a person dressed up as a large Jaffa orange walking nonchalantly down the street, and that was before I’d been on the Samson.

Whatever, I am digressing before I start, rogue citrus fruit in Shildon apart. I picked up one of those ‘i’ newspapers for 20p- a baby Independent no less at an attractive price for the intellectually starved but financially careful individual, so I bought it. And it’s not too bad either; I started flicking through it on my way to the pub [confession time here; I have shoplifted newspapers at times in the past on a regular basis,but ususally from Asda [as a Wal-Mart subsidiary a fair target] and always The Times, which as a Murdoch mouthpiece, I have judged as worthy of profit eroding socialist liberation].

Besides all that, there was an article in it about how Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, has launched this ‘awareness’ campaign about how the phenomenon we know and love as ‘Political Correctness’ [PC], is a Left Wing conspiracy to turn is all into communists. This, we are assured and not just by Griffin- as always the BNP doesn’t have a thought of it own, and this concept goes back to US neo-con ‘thinkers’ like Bob Lind 10-15 years ago]- can be traced back directly to the Frankfurt School, founded by a group of neo-Marxists in the 20s and which operated into the 60s.

This got me musing, yet again, on straws the Right will clutch at to a] look intellectual and b] to denigrate the left with, but i think it’s important to put some proper flesh on this rickety theory.
The Frankfurt School's philosophies are fascinating and largely misunderstood...wilfully in fact by much of the Right. The FS did not invent PC as the Right would wish us to believe- the practise of 'political correctness' can be found in the Puritan Movement [probably why it has taken root so easily in contemporary times in the US], the Cromwellian Commonwealth after the Civil War, and Republican France in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, amongst other historical events/cultures.

So the FS did not invent PC; nor can the current practise of it be traced directly to its ideologies either. The School did directly investigate the very foundations of western culture, but it was done through a process of critical analysis, in which a base point was taken that all the assumptions we have about the 'rightness' and 'normality' of what we think of as western culture, should be critically assessed and turned on it's head, so that The Truth [which in Marxist terms means the majority of us are repressed by an all powerful elite] can be deduced and then acted upon politically by 'the masses.'

I don't want to bang on and be overtly boring by going into this in too much depth here, but just indulge me for a paragraph or so. The FS was concerned primarily with the idea of 'human liberation.' It opposed the establishment scientific method of analysing the world around us- both physically and socially- as inherently flawed because the practitioners [the scientists] were themselves part of the system/establishment, so independent assessment [and of course debate] of their findings was impossible. You can see this today for example, over the issue of the Big Bang, which so far as the scientific establishment is unquestionable in the spirit of true PC, yet the theory is clearly, deeply flawed.

As such, the vast majority of the population in western culture live in a condition of 'false consciousness,' i.e. they believe the society around them is relatively perfect or at least the best they can hope for, that the reality we are told by the establishment we live in is unimpeachable and that 'there is no alternative.' Sound familiar?

So in the belief that only by a process of unwavering criticism of all areas of our society, could the elite's propaganda and control and twisting of the reality that controlled us, be revealed. This process of critical theory has been a wonderful gift to the West's intellectual thought processes and in turn our society; it has unshackled us from many of the establishment's strictures since the fifties and given us a lot of freedoms and rights we now take for granted. Established ideas of religious control, the immutability of the nuclear family, human sexuality and racial differences were tackled head on and we now have a world with much improved levels of sexual equality, reductions in levels of racism, the integration of disabled people into mainstream society, greater acceptance of differences in sexuality, the acceptance of children being born out of wedlock as being no different from any one else, and the dismantling of the socio-economic straightjacket of state sponsored and inescapable 'marriage for life,' as well as many other life-enhancing, social freedoms we now enjoy.

These changes can be traced directly back to the thinking of the FS, but that doesn't make it Political Correctness. Yes, the FS was interested in 'human liberation,' and saw the breakdown of the establishment order that imposed those conditions of control in your list [but in more neutralised terms], but it was an intellectual exercise that was deconstructional and theoretical in nature, and never spawned a dedicated,engaged, political movement intent on drumming up a call to arms to put it all into practise, unlike say many of Bob Lind's RW libertarian treatises.

Which brings us again to the true, central core of what we understand as contemporary PC. The libertarian Right has picked up on neo-Marxist critical analysis, and have enthusiastically applied it for their own purposes. In fact the Libertarian Right has joined up the dots of critical theory in it's own way and, instead of getting an image of an ugly LW society destroying monster, have fashioned a picture of themselves.

In fact they recognised in the FS a potential pattern of societal change they could warp and use for their own corporate aims, although they could not in a million years admit it originated on the Left as a means of societal improvement for the common man, rather than the financial gain of the capitalist elite.

So they decided in the best of RW neoliberal traditions that blind attack was the best form of [smoke screening] defence, and thus the wonderful RW libertarian concept of Cultural Marxism' was born. Very clever.

Which brings us back to the central question that for all the bleatings about LW political correctness being rampant in our society, the RW NEVER addresses. It is this: If there are these strong neo-Marxist political pressures in our establishment, how have they managed to fashion a PC world in the FS image, when the over-riding political, economic and social ideology at work in our culture for over thirty years, has been largely unopposed RW corporate capitalism? Is the RW so weak and ineffective, that it is unable to weed out these neo-Marxist subversives that wield such power over us all?

And also, why is PC so prevalent in private enterprise? Why is Big Business and it's corporations such ardent practitioners of PC? Have Marxists infiltrated them too, and are managing to wield immense,subversive power in their boardrooms? Surely if PC was so strongly a Marxist ideology, it would be totally incompatible with the machinations of capitalism, and would therefore be stifled accordingly, yes?

But it still exists in Libertarian politics and free-market capitalism doesn't it, and it is getting more ingrained year after year. Why? BECAUSE IT IS A PHENOMENON OF THE LIBERTARIAN RIGHT, and entirely compatible with the aims of corporate capitalism. There are no neo-Marxist subversives at work in our establishment; it is a ridiculous idea, but RW disinformation, as with so many other things, does not baulk at making such daft assertions, because they work on the principle of if you say something often enough, no matter how fallacious it is, people eventually believe it.

So in a strange way, contemporary RW Libertarianism is taking us towards a quasi-Stalinist society, only one not dominated by a single political party, but by mutually self-interested corporations. Oh the irony but that discussion warrants a thread all of its own.

Anyway I've rambled on more than enough; if you're interested any further in the Frankfurt School [assuming you or anyone else has got this far in the post] there was a very good Radio 4 programme about it recently and here’s the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pr54s
Right. Line up the Samson and the cheese Doritos if you please, because it’s Saturday night.

TUC March and Piggy-Backing Anarchists: Direct Action in the Smoke

2011-03-28T20:10:00.001+01:00

Oh well back out of winter hibernation; what a chore the winter months are. Nothing to do but drink and eat microwaved lasagne with some garlic bread on the side for an occasional treat whist watching DVD box sets of Dexter, The Mentalist and Early Doors. But now the daffodils are showing their faces and gambolling sheep fill my thoughts.

This weekend however was a refreshing wake up call though as dear old blighty appears to be entering a Spring of discontent. The TUC protest in London against the public sector cuts had nearly half a million participants and went on peacefully without incident. Breaking away from it though, were a group of street activists commonly called ‘anarchists’ [usually by people who don’t really understand what an anarchist is] who were making their own anti-capitalist/corporate protest.

To be honest I think there's a fair bit of over-reaction going on about this breakaway protest It was pretty mickey mouse really compared to what goes on abroad, particularly in France where they really get stuck in, often for days on end. But all we really had were some broken windows, paint bombs, fireworks, graffiti and a bit of a ruck in the most expensive part of our capital. And it was interesting watching it now live on TV from the helicopter cameras, that the police were being just as violent- and often in an unprovoked way- with the protesters.

Since the 80s we have had an increasingly politicised police force, and that is becoming more obvious than ever these days. Live TV footage is really an eye opener as well nowadays, as are the twitter feeds which on the UK Uncut website on Saturday afternoon, were absolutely fascinating.

Yes damage was caused and there was violence, but damage to property is sometimes the only way to focus the mind of those you are protesting against if that property is all important to them. Corporations sit up and take notice when their property [and profit] is affected and direct action is- unfortunately- often the only way to achieve that. And this overriding importance of property is written into the very basis of English law, where crimes against property [e.g. fraud/tax evasion] can often carry bigger penalties than those against people e.g. rape. It is therefore entirely logic to attack property in order to make a point.

And besides the corporations themselves carry out violence on a sustained global scale every day of the year every year; whether it be prosecuting wars in order to enhance shareholder value and protect resources [Iraq], in employing both government forces and private armies to protect their interests in the developing world that terrorise/keep the local population impoverished, in deposing democratic governments in order to have their own corporate interests bedded in [S America in the 70s/80s] through supporting brutal fascist dictators, by supplying arms to ME dictators so that they can keep their own bread-line populations down whilst the elite cream off the profit from the resources that are shipped West by the corporations etc etc etc.

The list of corporate violence goes on and on and is not a very noble one. A bit of bother outside the Ritz and a peaceful sit in of Fortnum's is hardly in the same league when you think about it but one thing will be sure, for all the outraged bleating's of the establishment, they will most definitely- behind closed doors- be sitting up and taking notice because one thing they fear the most is the power of the civilian mob, and events in the ME are only reinforcing that fear.

Snow Business Like Dream Business

2010-12-30T18:38:00.001Z

Lord how it snowed…icicles the size of spears, snowmen the size of ogres, snow drifted in man-size embankments asking to be frozen further, pleading for permanence, whispering just to us ‘please, just this once, let us stay, we will be good…’

Global warming morphed into climate change which, perhaps, will now synch into the New Ice Age. Such is the age dominated by a media desperate for tags, obsessed by sellable sound bites.

The simple explanation? All things are cyclical and, I sense thirty years of relative non-winter may now be coming to an end for this sceptred isle,and Real Weather- having enjoyed a much needed relaxing break from the demands of the UK- has made a dramatic re-entry onto the stage, fired up and ready to kick our bums.

Welcome back The Weather.

Which makes one ponder the elements; they have their own personalities, their own foibles, they are distinct characters, just like the seasons. As such they have their own anxieties and conflicts, which can be as benevolent as a trusty copper coal scuttle, or as dangerous as a shiny gun.

Ideas like this occasionally get discussed at the bar of The Locomotion, which may come as some surprise, as a cursory take on the quiet pub might be one of immediate if cheery intellectual dismissal.

We have our moments though, when considerations of the merits of this years X-Factor contestants are left aside and mordant thoughts on the state of a neoliberal numbed society surface, and take turns then to the more metaphysical, where speculation is pursued on the nature of sleet…does it enjoy being neither one thing, nor the other…? and pure, finely-formed snowfall…does it really have a perfect heart and innocent intentions, or does it laughingly know and relish in the chaos it is soon to cause? And are raindrops head-strong individuals, or drone-like parts of the Greater Collective?

Also apparently polar bears are moving south out of the Arctic to mate with the grizzlies in Canada. Good luck to ‘em I say, good luck.

Imperial Bedrooms: Elvis Costello was never like this

2010-10-14T16:33:00.001+01:00

I must admit I have grown into a firm appreciation of Brett Easton Ellis rather than being a rabid fan from the outset. I enjoyed the first couple of books in the 80s [Clay, the narrator in Imperial Bedrooms, is a character from Less Than Zero] although well written, were almost disposable in a yuppies 80s sort of way. It was American Psycho that finally got me hooked and that book remains one of the best [and most shocking] I’ve ever read.

Whatever, Imperial Bedrooms. The Elvis Costello reference was the first thing that struck me and after thoroughly enjoying Lunar Park and it’s surreal mixture of faux autobiography and spook goings on I snapped this up for a bit of reading over a few quiet pints at the Loco.

This is a lot slimmer slice of ‘stream of consciousness’ story telling than those before in which there is in fact hardly any ‘story’ as such, but more of a snapshot of lifestyle anxiety in the neoliberal materialistic morass of the early 21^st century. Clay has returned to LA during a ‘break’ in his standard issue media career, although it’s not exactly clear how successful he’s been at it, although one suspects not very. Wealth has nonetheless still clung to him which is perhaps another salient indicator of the nature of our times. He is obviously close to a breakdown, filling a life he secretly acknowledges as being shallow with delusions of love and friendship fuelled by the usual drugs and drink. It culminates in the trademark BEE scene of sexual and narcotic debauchery which is probably less shocking now than it once was, but still efficiently does the job.

Imperial Bedrooms is little more than a novella and the criticism that it seems to have been rattled off quickly are understandable but I think this misses the mark; the prose is in fact deftly managed, experimental but not numbing and clearly has been carefully designed. It may seem like easy stream of consciousness stuff, but BEE’s talent is that he makes it look easy, when it is not at all.

In that way this book is perhaps closest to ‘The Informers’ in its atmosphere of materialist ennui and aimlessness, than any of its other predecessors.

This is a great book to lose yourself in for a few hours, to just let wash over you, and then allow its subtle messages to creep up on you. Although it is based on the monied ‘elite’ of a corporate America, BEE still has a strong message for our wider society in his analysis of that increasingly inept, corrupt, unimaginative but paradoxically continually enriched elite.

Finally, BEE is often described as the archetypal ‘post-modernist’ writer with his arch-irony and cynicism, but again this is a moniker that misses the mark to my mind. There is something stridently modernist in his work as he exposes the fundamental flaws in our consumerist, individual-obsessed western culture. He perhaps doesn’t meticulously pick it apart, or suggest any mechanisms for its amelioration as some modernist analysts do [of whom there are precious few of today anyway] but. as a novelist, he does do what a good novelist should do: he makes you think and then devise your own conclusions on what has been presented to you.

Welcome to the New Feudalism M’lud

2010-09-09T21:20:00.001+01:00

Oh well the UK’s banks which were hours away from going to the wall a couple of years ago are now bouncing back with big profits and juicy as ever bonuses for those hard working, city types. It’s true the profits of the nationalised banks are a lot lower than ones that didn’t get a direct handout, but they of course all benefit from the government guarantees that when [that really is when, not if] they hit the buffers again, they will be bailed out by the ratepayers. Nice [non] work if you can get it.

This is why of course the public sector must now suffer swingeing cuts and taxes for the ordinary folk are increased in ever more surreptitious ways whilst the rich are protected. So not so much back to business as usual, but old business ramped up even more so to the advantage of the rich and the global elite. What a terrific world we have sleepwalked into and continue to stumble through in denial.

Instead of waking up to this horrendous new society of gross inequality and serfdom, we read and nod in agreement at the tabloid headlines [owned incidentally by and large by tax avoiding non-doms] that benefit cheats should be hounded down and severely punished. This when barely 5 billion quid is lost to apparent ‘fraud’ a year, but 20 billion is lost through government department mistakes, a 100 billion is lost annually through tax evasion and, the HMRC has recently admitted after [another] computer system debacle, that up to 100 billion quid will fail to be collected through their ineptitude. This is of course in an Inland Revenue tax world where the rich get to have a private interview with a tax inspector in order to ‘come to some agreement,’ yet anyone owing a couple of thousand pounds will be viciously hounded and threatened with bailiffs, imprisonment etc if they don’t pay up.

Yep, the world in which we live. What a wonderful society we have brought down on ourselves whilst clutching our credit cards, and grinning inanely at those spiralling property prices [that is of course if you were lucky enough to be a property owner]. It’s interesting though….just what do we call this world we are now in? It certainly isn’t social democracy; it isn’t even democracy anymore. Any hope that anything approaching a resurgence of socialism for example, after the banks failed to do what the dreaded Trade Unions and even the Soviet Union failed to do- almost bring the entire western financial system crashing down, may occur, was seriously misplaced. So I think it is fair to say, we are now living in the new feudalism. I mentioned serfdom above, and that is exactly what the majority of us have become. We may have been allowed our brain numbing trinkets of plasma TVs, mobile phones and computer games, but we are still nonetheless, little more than serfs. As medieval peasants received physical protection from their lords in return for a proportion of their produce, so the new financial barons in the form of global corporations, provide pensions, insurance and mortgages for us, and in return they tax us by up to 20-25% of all transactions we make,as repayment. Governments remain powerless to this, in much the same way medieval monarchs were powerless against the feudal lords and barons. The only difference between the ruling barons of today and then however, is that the powers behind the new feudalism have refined their model to the level of super-efficiency; the barons of old were locked into the old system of ‘noblesse oblige;’ they were expected to behave under the maxim that wealth and power came with responsibility to the ‘lower order’ beneath them. No such obligation exists these days; the capitalist elite couldn’t give a toss about the hoi polloi that makes up the vast majority of the population that serves them; it’s not even a case of indifference most of the time, often it is one of contempt.

And we all put with it. Because after all we have a mortgage to pay for, and all those hours to put in at the call centre. Welcome to our world of the New Feudalism.

Cat In A Bin

2010-08-26T15:08:00.001+01:00

Outrage stalks the streets of Britain...pubs and clubs are full of threatening mutterings and muted calls for action; elsewhere, more vocal groups are talking openly on street corners of establishing vigilante groups to punish the evil bitch. Temperaments are fragile and venom levels are rising in the indignant blood of tabloid Britain....for one 50-something woman has this week done the unthinkable....she has put a cat in the bin.

The hapless woman was caught on CCTV recently, calmly stroking a tabby before she suddenly took it by the neck and efficiently dropped it into a wheelie bin. It has to be pointed out that it wasn't her cat, and it was rescued 15 hours later in a 'distressed state.'

Now it is not a nice thing to do, and I myself am in the employ of a couple of cats for food provision and shelter purposes, but some perspective must be put on this act, which is being outdone by the crazy levels of public outrage over the issue.

For one thing, she hardly poured petrol over it and set it alight, or tied fireworks to its tail [not unknown events in this sceptred isle]. Nor was fifteen hours a particularly long time in the great scheme of things- how many nice suburban cat owners have accidentally locked their treasured pussy in the shed for days before discovering their act of unspeakable cruelty?

Now the police are worried about this woman's safety and the RSPCA [are rightly] interviewing her, but will they be driven by madness enough to prosecute her?

I would guess first off, that the woman is ill- most likely depression- and prone to daft actions but there again, aren't we all at some stressful point in our lives? And the very same people who are baying [literally] for this poor woman's blood, are part of the same society whose citizens are aware of children [or a spouse] next door being battered and abused by their neighbours, yet do nothing about it. Who walk past people in distress on the street because they are 'embarrassing.' Who take no action when they see someone being mugged/attacked in the street/park/town centre as they walk past. Who watch millions of fellow humans starving and their lives taken away from them through flooding on the TV in a foreign land, yet can't even be bothered to donate a quid towards helping them.

But a batty woman putting a cat in the bin....outrageous. Is it because it is easy these days to vent your pent up anxieties and stresses [of which the UK probably now leads the world in everyday life] from behind the safety of a computer keyboard? That you can whip up civic action for something like this through Facebook, but then can't be arsed to set up similar task forces to deal with the real criminality in our society, namely the rape of our communities by the bankers and their neoliberal sycophantic hanger-on politicians?

Perhaps. It is nonetheless a succinct indicator of Our Times.

Move Any Mountain…

2010-08-23T16:50:00.001+01:00

Anton Chekhov didn’t have a clue

Walking through the coal smoke dark to the

outside toilet worrying about

the midnight horses

coming to take me away

sitting reading about the metaphysical properties

of a magnet

sat on the loo

[An ode for all Russians and skint shoplifters

of New Scientist magazine]

Burst Downpipe in Station Street

2010-08-20T21:00:00.001+01:00

Lord how it rained...

The chat in the Locomotion is of a face-lift...the pub has done well so far, surviving the vargarities of public hostelry interior design over the past couple of decades. The need for eighties faux art-deco glass lampage was by-passed; nineties demands for onyx table surfaces and neon logos advertising unpalatable American lagers was studious ignored; noughties expectations of a range of coffees to be served alongside the Samson and Stella were only reluctantly acquiesced to, with the concession of a cappuccino available if you really wanted one [i.e that is if some metrosexual out of towner or a female wanted one], and even then it was made out the back with a sachet of nescafé from the 'café classics' range picked up cut price and wholesale from Bookers [the first bottles of mineral water had only appeared in 2003, with it being widely accepted as re-packed tap water].

So far, only the the ceiling and walls have been painted since 1973, and the carpet cleverly but still fundamentally visibly patched up with similar coloured off-cuts from Bishop market. However, despite our slow emergence from recession [something barely noticed in permanently reccessed Shildon], The Brewery seems to be under the impression that The Locomotion needs a face lift. Hmmm. The book is open and odds are high it is only a passing, corporate fad that will soon be forgotten about during the next eye-watering, quarterly budget review.

But Lord did it rain....the heaven's opened after an hour of weird, alien light- as if a masked sun, crouching behind some half-forgotten warehouse, was shining on the clouds from below rather than above- and the deluge began.

I had initially cowered in the exit vestibule, espadrille clad feet sticking to the carpet where the smokers had spilt their pints lighting up fags after the smoking ban on the way out onto the pavement, chatting to Porker about how his current project which was to write a letter to his girlfriend [3 years in Strangeways, Assault and Battery with a dustbin], that would include every album song title by The Clash. It was a challenging project, but worth the effort and besides, kept him out of the pub and [vaguely] solvent until the next benefits cheque.

I decided to leave, just as the downpipe beside the door began to crack. I stood transfixed as the water shot out at me, and then the guttering above buckled. I was drenched in more water than you can imagine being viable, from a water receptacle of such limited profile. There was a distant roll of thunder and I imagined God chuckling. So I put my hand in my pocket, pulled out a couple more beer tokens, and went in to have another pint to get my own back.

Comments

2010-08-15T14:38:00.002+01:00

I'm having problems getting blogger to put comment boxes at the bottom of my posts at the mo.' For now there is a common comment box at the bottom of this page, please use that until i can get this sorted [and of course if anyone has any ideas on how to fix it....]

ADDENDUM: prob fixed. Another button incorrectly flicked [story of my life]. After post comments now enabled, but you can still comment below if you wish....isn't the world of choice a truly splendid thing.

Over Analysis and Heroes For Failure

2010-08-14T21:24:00.001+01:00

Maybe the relentless pursuit of the inner man is the true sign of the artist; that is, to put all else on the back burner, to live full on... to live out the old cliche, live fast die young. But as with all the best cliches, is that perhaps not in fact the essence of Eternal Truth?

What of people who can embrace nihilism, who accept with glee that there is a self-destruct button in the middle of their forehead, which they push everyday with wild laughing abandon, what of them? Are they to be admired or mocked or even...feared?

It takes a certain heroism to discard all else in life to discover the inner man, or it does to my mind anyway. It is often seen as a writer's excuse to plunge headlong into a life of debauchery and health eroding activities, undertaken with a vocational commitment to over-indulgence, hedonism. The search for Inner Man....plunging headlong into the personal abyss but in there, through the murk, pain and unexpected joys, is there Some Sort of Answer there? Beyond the shadow of the bottle and the wandering spectres floating through the crumbling back streets, gauging and waiting, waiting.....

Test Code

2010-08-14T14:52:00.001+01:00

4PVUN4AVVCZK

Drinking Alone In An Empty Bar

2010-08-05T21:15:00.001+01:00

[for Charles Bukowski]

Poetry without motion
let's play a kissing game with glue
below the mortar fire and
over the radar
into the
far far away

Brinkverse

2010-07-24T21:23:00.002+01:00

Brinkverse, the first chapbook to be released by Parachute Poetry, has been dropped into local communities in the North West of England. This is a free collection of my poetry, left in public locations for the discernment and delight of any local people who may wish to pick one up, read, absorb and hopefully, enjoy. The most recent location for such guerrilla literary action this week has included the town and environs of St. Bees in Cumbria. Further locations across the country will be soon be affected; it has started. There will be no escape. The Age of Total Poetry is upon us.

A free, downloadable pdf version of the chapbook is available on my emergent website, benbrinkburn.com. Here's a lovely link for you.

http://benbrinkburn.com/Works.html

England England Oh Woe is Me

2010-07-04T15:43:00.003+01:00

World Cup disaster...again. But an interesting study in masochistic urges, don't you think? Watching the game in The Locomotive was as always a experience, mixed as it was this time with initial heady [intensely unrealistic] optimism, quickly dissolving into apprehension, then a glowering despair, then anger [what rubbish!] then indignation [it was a goal...as usual we are going to be robbed!] then....as the drink gathered it's hold, a shouty blame game leading to adject realisation that our national team....really is...not just ordinary... but rather rubbish.

The afternoon game pixellated away into a drunken state of maudlin rejection and terrorising realisation...as if a partner in a marriage of thirty odd years had suddenly, blindingly had the realisation injected into their senses that they had been deluded [and hoodwinked] all alone by their other half.

Our national game is a disgrace. How did we get here, and where do we go? With this thought heavy in the air, The Locomotive descended into an early evening air of drunken menace and a need for the aggressive outlet of some action, anything, anything.

The media is in many ways responsible for this national delusion- of course the ultimate in cynicism dictates that they need people to read the papers, log onto the websites and watch the telly in their millions, and so an unrealistic projection of England's footballing prowess and possibilities must be played out to the hilt...but it is far from the only motovator. Maybe it is a hangover from Empire days; perhaps we cannot fully face up to the fact that we a mid-range nation now. Once we thought we could control and fix everything [with good reason- in the 19th century we could]- and this cultural mindset is still all pervading, despite best political correct drives to erode our sense of historical pride and level understanding. This is extended to the international football field, where we just cannot face up to the fact that we have a very ordinary team on a par with somewhere like Bulgaria. This is a difficult pill to swallow, although the 4-1 defeat by the auld foe Germany may well have been a final, conclusive boot to our senses along this much needed path of awareness, a path we must navigate, because we have no choice.

It is clear that our national team is full of highly paid players who are highly motivated [and pampered] by their clubs, but really don't give a toss about playing for their country. It is seen as a chore. This sentiment was written across nearly all of their faces in every one of their dreadful World Cup matches in South Africa [Slovenia was not a wonderful victory and a glimpse of possible form; they did what was the absolute bare necceisty to get through to the last sixteen- nothing more]. A national team made up of players from the Championship would have done no worse, in fact, it's likely they would have done a lot better.

It has to faced, that just because a player is highly paid and treated as a celebrity at club level, does NOT make them an automatic fit for the national team. A new team needs to be built with less prima donna inclusions, and more TEAM players. A hunger and national pride needs to be reinstilled into our national team, and that is clearly not there in it's more highly paid, club orientated players like Wayne Rooney.

It's not necessarily a problem unique to England. most of the big, celebrity players in the World Cup under-performed to almost comical levels from many countries. The over-paid celebrity footballer has become a different class of player in the 21st century; they may pull the crowds in clubs across the world, but it is increasingly obvious that they have no place anymore in their national teams. It is time to give other, talented less high profile players a chance, and until a national will returns to our celebrity players, kick them decisively to touch when a team to repesent our country is chosen.

Life in the Land of The Untitled

2010-05-25T20:02:00.005+01:00

From whence we came
to there we will never return
forever in thrall to the forward hurl
of the magic bullet
strapped to the hot metal
laughing laughing
fuck this I'm going to go out walking
become my own blur
piss on my own shadow
grinning snorting
visiting the land where the untitled roam
knowing that in all likelihood
here I will stay
whilst still moving.

Dinky

2010-02-22T18:57:00.003Z

When all is said and done

the dog scratching around the bins

the smell of frying from the chippie

the drone of a housefly

the clatter of a passing bus

the sound of breaking glass from the alley

I'm glad that there are enough angels

to dance on the head of a pin

and I'm here

with you.

A Shildon State of Mind

2010-02-20T20:22:00.002Z

I miss the sound of industry and the hoot and chug of trains; it's all faux noises now like example toots from the Locomotion museum or the clank of palettes in nearby warehouses or the ubiquitous puncture of traffic noise on the bypass.

The whiff of coal smoke is something I hang onto, I savour it like the aroma of a fine wine, it centres and grounds me at the same time as enveloping me in a swirl of what is at first nostalgia, but which eventually solidifies into something more substantial, more mature, more erudite. It gives a place in historical time, it reminds me that line is not linear, it is circular or more precisely,a spiral. Coal smoke takes me full circle to my childhood, it crosses the breach of time and settles my brain patterns into an older and at the same time younger configuration. It gives me the comfort of a solid ancient lineage as well as projecting hope into the future. there may be ups and downs in our lifes, but there is always one precious thing for the Lucky Ones: continuity.

Continuity

2010-02-20T14:13:00.002Z

Torn space through the prism of a legend

where the dogs run through confused light,

where the twisted fallen trees beckon,

where the tracks of an old route laboured

by miners snakes, stumbling over

the rusted iron stanchions of an old gate.

There’s a glade where nothing grows-

where the aliens landed.

Lights dancing through the confused trees,

sprites of old, peering around damp nettles

and piles of dog piss wet leaves; let’s dance

around the place from whence I had the

calling, dreaming of a new life

amongst the stars.

Dando

2010-02-19T21:17:00.002Z

If dancing thrice around the split shield wasn't

enough, the bronze razor sharp the trident cracked,

where the legion whores picked across the dead, as

absent wives dreamed and sensed the worst.

Where glory tore through the heavens with the stab

of a torn standard, and Peresphone pretended to be free,

climbing out of a fissure in the earth, for another spring

of dance and glutinous, temporary glee.

New Model Faith

2010-01-19T13:58:00.003Z

The world turns

the gods smile and giggle

[cheap strong cider hard times

on Mount Olympus]

nicely numbed to the realty

of rule by death cult.

How did the world get this way?

Why did it turn to the glories of blood

to self-sacrifice

to the bitterness of a barbed crown

in place of one soothed with velvet and gold?

Why worship distress over comfort,

pain over pleasure and then-

there-

find Joy?

Needing to work to find divine acceptance

to suffer, is to take you closer to God.

Is that really salvation

or did we take a wrong turn as we strolled

the banks of Axios

and lost sight of Chiron in the cooling woods

as he disapeared amongst the damp birch

for the last time.

Spider

2009-11-29T17:21:00.001Z

I have a spider in my drawer

in my cutlery drawer

and it’s cool

I like spiders

clean

like cats and

as bloody difficult.

It’s been there three days now-

Scuttling about.

And I've tried to rescue it;

It’s obviously forgotten about

the way it got in.

But hell, can I help?

No chance.

I try a knife. Metal.

Doesn’t like metal.

No way

I try my finger

tender exploration

hesitation

Then it pulls back.

‘Hell!’ I curse, ‘I’m trying to help you!’

Then it scuttles down towards

the spoon section.

Idea

I try a spoon

Still doesn't like metal

I'm in despair

This cannot go on

but the little bugger needs at least

a fighting chance.

There’s some string in the drawer.

So I tug it out and the spider tentatively

feels it- backs away a little-

then feels it again.

I give it time.

I sense but do not know (exactly)

That spider time

may be different

from mine.

So I hang in there, wait.

And the spider climbs aboard

but I do not know for how long,

how long this will be for.

So I quickly put the spider on the floor.

And off it runs. Along the kitchen length,

under the door.

To who knows where.

But, good luck, I say.

Bloody good luck.

One of the Wasted

2009-11-29T17:19:00.000Z

I watch them from my kitchen window

walking up the hill.

Oblivious to me

and who can blame them.

But I can see who they are

I can spot them

and I want to cry

and/or run out and shake their hand.

Because we are together in this:

an unnamed shambles of a club.

We are all part of the wasted

So maybe for once

We should link arms

And celebrate.

The Flash Card Muse [Draft]

2009-11-20T15:22:00.003Z

For me it’s totally exhausting

to ride the riddle out

feeling the undertow in a crunchy leaf world

where the greenfly live

my father thinking of becoming an undertaker

and my childish dread no no not that profession

and the weed covered banks of the railway cut

nettle stings no trains here even the bridge has gone

thistle filled sidings leading to broken sheds

the predator hawk lazes above

the scavaging fox roots and barks and

leads it’s cubs along sodium bright streets

and my mother crying at her father’s funeral

and we all thought she hated him

then struggling with pity in Regent’s Park deep in the zoo

watching the beavers go back and forth

back and forth channeled in concrete runs

[some attempted dams made out of rubbish]

beaver instinct oh the glory metropolitan boredom

prodded into a fissure like liquid stucco

fill up the cracks paint out the blemishes

new money platinum and coral

old money diamond and pearl

draped over Chippendale home county chairs

and shotguns find the fox or even some deer

minor vibrations become a tremor become a howl

of escaping air from below the Earth’s crust but

doom is only a game it can be played with a joystick

then there’s chocolate money the best you can have

eaten on a grassy slope above where once

steam trains rolled

and amazons ran.

Obits

2009-11-13T16:54:00.003Z

That's obits not orbits although I've dreamt of many of those lately, a lazy orbit of the Earth or even the moon, not too fast a spin just a leisurely path befitting a man of my age, so that I can study the craters, mountains and dusty seas of our stablising satellite.

And where have all the stars gone? There is a bite in the air these days, autumn seems to have not happened; we have drifted from a wet summer almost immediately into a wet winter; the rain is cold, the pavements damp, dogs and cats more scraggy and downcast than usual. So I stood in All Saint's graveyard the other night after maybe a pint or two too many in the Locomotive [I felt the need for a winter warmer] and tried to see the stars.

It was a clear enough night, but the light pollution was too much; could make out Cassiopia and Orion and the dependable Pole Star, but little else. Not like my younger days. As you get older, do even the stars dissapear? Do they even appear less bright?

And so here we are as a culture; we have even managed to pollute the night; we have even managed to mask the stars. Night time life goes on in Bishop, Newton Aycliffe and Darlington, at the expense of starlight. When were we ever asked if we wanted to sign up for such a bargain?

Anyway, standing in a graveyard gives me a tenuous link to Obits. Those newspaper column inches, where you realise people are starting to die that are your contemporaries; your own birth year, is becoming common parlance on headstones.

It's a stunning realisation to suddenly dawn on you; and one that surprisingly, isn't that distressing because in truth, the darkness may not be that dark at all. In fact it is sobering to remember that most ghost sightings report that the figures seen are surrounded by light; so there may not that much darkness on the other side at all; maybe in fact, there is a special form of divine light pollution 'over there.'

Night Night

2009-11-13T16:52:00.000Z

Night Night

Can darkness ascend

It certainly can

It creeps up from the black earth

It seeps out of the pores of plants

As bushes and bracken thicken

It billows out of the bark

As trees inflate

And cars in the lot are more easily found

Defined and located by a Key ring fob bleep

whilst in the confines of an artificial stone wall

perimeter enclosure [kept tight]

night is banished by people armed with urban angst

faux dreads kept at bay in the light guilt-free glee

cavorting high on electric light

parades of confidence bubbles of fluorescence

night is history for now is the end

of history

away from a primitive home of nature reliance

and even beyond the freecrete wall out there over the ridge

there is a beauty bound in battery light

watching the motorway with my hands on hip proud

its upward curve an automated stream

an annotated flow of red tail lights contra flowed

white headlights in an organised synchronicity of organised lanes

everyone toes the line no room for rebels there

strict discipline to avoid all out chaos

even in the night

night

and it can still win we all know that

chances still stalk the light

the night sprites gather and sit astride two hills

my candle held high space and has done a volteface

it is here with me on the ground now

but the sky is lazified in a dull glow

and Cassiopia is there but low quite low

not much else to see through the light pollution

hee hee

a new venerable invention of the rocket age

we can now sully the stars themselves with our light

even the black night the

night

polluted

my candle blows out but I am prepared

I have a light

On my mobile phone it is handy

Clean and cold and to the ready I can call

Bombay if I wish

Or a distant war zone ring a Disney phone tune

Somewhere in Khandahar perhaps

And I head home

Wary of traps.

The Update

2009-10-02T10:28:00.004+01:00

Lord how it rained.

Summer breaks in the gulag. More in due time. Back to a soggy world of autumn slipping seamlessly from the soggy world of summer. Climate change means only one thing to the clear headed- the fish will inherent the earth. The cloud gathers, the heavens open, the Old Farts corner of The Locomotive becomes increasingly like a comfortable cocoon. The twilight of 2009 stumbles in, it's last act cloaked in a damp pac-a-mac. Moss on tombstones, a dead cat in the back lane, wood and coal smoke hanging above the bus stop, the butcher's dog sheltering behind a wheelie bin.

Updates come to those who wait, and are given by those who stumble. More in due time.

Dragons, Boxes and Liberace.

2009-08-08T14:03:00.003+01:00

What comes first, the poetry or the ether or the thought? Does the poetry first exist in the ether, then the thought brings it down. It's anybody's to have...you just need to attune your neurons correctly to find it and make it yours to share.

Or do you create the poetry first sub-consciously in your brain- it could be at anytime, it could be when you were a blissfully unaware seven year old falling off the witch's hat on Sugar Hill, in the carefree days before fascist health and safety regulations turned playgrounds into realms for the sensory deprived, in the days when children were thought worthy products of a global empire built on adventure, not the worry about insurance clauses and lawyer-fee enhancing litigational threat.

Or it could be a few years ago when you were shopping in the Co-op, or maybe, even in the future, accessed by a mostly forgotten gauze-like dream. The right moment crystallises and your your brain aligns with the piece and the poem is born...it is a personal expression and has nothing to do with the human Collective Mind.

Who knows. And who cares? It is interesting debate after half a dozen pints of Samson when even Gappy starts sounding as if he's read more erudite material than The Sport, but perhaps that is all.

In a world where dragons are but a shadow of their former selves, where boxes provide not shelter but threat and Liberace is a hero at that crucial moment in a loud nightclub, when you realise you are twenty years past the last time you should have been there, there is perhaps more to fascinate about.

A Pocketful of Dragons

I’ve got this pocketful of dragons

and it’s doing my head in.

They just won’t stay still.

They keep roaring and when they

get really upset they breath this fire,

Yes, bloody fire,

and it plays havoc with the lining

of your jacket.

But there are compensations; dragons

have had a bad press you know.

Although volatile and let’s face it

-utterly unpredictable- they tend to

balance this out with a world-weary

wisdom; an erudition that takes us back

to the dinosaurs, to that time

When They Ruled The World

and although occasionally bitter

about their fall, they’re still up for it,

oh yes, and so:

I put them on the table in front of me

and sympathize with their woes and sigh at

the resigned acceptance of their fate.

They don’t seem to mind

They just want to help

To contribute even

but all they do is live in my pocket

which hack’s them off to a certain extent.

but after a few pints of diesel they just sit back

and relax, kick back and have a laugh

and slur ‘sailor vee,’ and eventually pass out,

at which point I gently gather them up,

and put them back into my pocket.

A Fear of Boxes

He lived in a tent in the garden of a city,

avoiding boxes and other enclosing

structures of any substantial nature.

As such he studiously pursued a life plan

of taking one day at a time

which involved:

avoiding houses (brick boxes)

and motor vehicles (metal boxes)

and offices (glass boxes)

and rubbish bins (plastic boxes)

and sheds (wooden boxes) until

eventually he had to leave and

walk past the factory where

he once worked but he

survived this ordeal,

making it out to a place in the

country, down litter strewn lanes

and muddy towpaths beside

scummy canal arms, to where

there was a camp of like-minded

people.

And he was happy there; until

one morning he let down

his guard and was handed a

corn flakes box and he took

it and he looked at it and

the breakdown began…

again.

So he fled further into his

rural sanctum, an asylum

for the bedevilled, deeper into

the pseudo-archaic geography

where street lights became

ever distant and – at times-

not even visible at all.

A yawning landscape that he

sensed held an inner green

Arcanum but most importantly

of all, had within it, very

few boxes to fear.

Often he slept under trees

and at times in his tent in

caravan parks, when he felt

particularly tired and dirty

enough to sneak-use the

(outdoor) shower facilities and

he lived like this for sometime,

Lord of the Great Ideas.

Until one day he reached a river

with a waterfall. He sat down,

wishing he could sketch it:

Wishing He Still Had It.

That promise that had become

in the end, nothing but a weekend

talent.

Then he cried a little.

This was a place where the lonely

had clear thoughts; the worry of

hollow hearts. It was then that

he decided it was time,

time to write his Diary of the

Dreaming Room.

Liberace On Acid

What’s your favourite colour?

Do you play tennis?

Who do you fancy for the cup?

Ha Ha Ha

Joke

Laugh a minute, me.

Liberace?

Love him.

Yeah, Babe

Saw him once, wearing

a jacket that lit up.

Cool

Domino’s?

The only pizza-

Chicken Pie, Chicken Tikka-

fave though has got to be,

The Hot and Spicy.

What’s yours?

Yeah

Nice one

Art Blakey?

Yeah,

love his paintings.

Swiss Army knives,

now they’re cool,

they can do all sorts of shit

like open bottles

saw up twigs

cut open bodies

and, I do believe,

there is even a little fucking

trowel thing

for potting up seeds.

Oh yeah

Now that’s cool, babe

Hey

Look at that guy dance.

Like Liberace on acid.

Love the waistcoat though.

Where can I get one?

Legs

Love your legs

Acker Bilk, what a guy,

A real bloke’s bloke

Losing a grip on reality?

Me?

No way, babe.

I’d love to own a Porsche...

Yeah

You know, maybe a Carrera,

that one, you know, the one

with the wheels…

People Crackers

2009-08-08T12:20:00.004+01:00

I can have nothing to do with motor vehicles for some time, and then have an intensive experience of them.

Road rage is an interesting phenomenon. Is it a new manisfestation of the human psyche, all fresh and virgin for medical and social analysts to pour over and theorise, or is it merely a new twist on an old very human set of characteristics?

I suspect the latter. It's fascinating to watch though, as usually quite placid, easy going souls climb into their metal boxes, divorce themselves for the world in their little kingdoms, so secure there that they in fact almost consider themselves invisible [witness the rampant nose picking in any traffic queue, and turn into aggressive, abusive, 'never a wrong decision made' dark age autocrats. A world of their own...there own fiefdom that can magically transport them many hundreds of miles if they wish, on nothing more than a whim. And of course, also with the power to kill...not only oneself in a blaze of glory, but others in an uncontrollable flash [which invariably of course, was never your fault if you yourself survive to tell the tale].

People Crackers

I am dripping down the wall,

and it’s not very nice-

a bit like seagull shit-

and traffic management systems.

Observe the thirty limit

absorb The Highway Code

Cut in

Cut up

Block off

Jack knifed…

Fucking idiot

Outside lane for

overtaking only.

Middle lane hogger,

Dickhead

Pulling out like that

Wheels within wheels,

Express coaches,

going too fast.

(the wall, kiss the wall, condensed flesh, just add water)

Wankers!

Can you believe that?

Women Women Women

Bloody Women

Bloody lights

Bloody Highways Agency

Bloody Volvo drivers.

Who wants to drive

a Toyota Corolla?

Reliant Robin, saw one on

a feeder road, coming out

of Norwich. The memory lingers:

Uncle Jack, free flat cap,

in every dashboard

glove compartment.

Make-up in the rear view mirror

Shaving in a lay-by

Pissing on a hedge

Services...

Smiling sodding faces

Little fucking chefs

Cones bloody cones

Speed! Speed! Speed!

Don’t want to live like this

Sodding concrete motorway surfaces!

Road noise

Sports cars

SHIT! DID YOU SEE THAT!

Bastards

(nice red brick vertical surfaces, study the skill inherent in that mortar)

Clever

Maniacs Zodiacs Cardiacs

“So, what do you drive?”

People crackers,

falling asleep,

at the wheel.

The World of Car Parks

2009-07-28T11:41:00.003+01:00

I was in the Locomotive yesterday evening flicking through an old dog-eared copy of the New Statesman I'd found at home earlier, shoved half-forgotten behind the toilet, when an old mate called Gappy shambled over to my table and sat down.

He's called gappy because- predictably- two of his front teeth have been missing since anyone can remember [and some of those go back to the primary school schools of indsutrial smoke and dust ridden roofs] and has spent the majority of the past thirty years in prison for relatively short stretches at a time for relatively minor but bang-upable offences.

Usually ebbulent and feisty [i.e. drunk] I noticed however a more serious air to him as he nursed his pint in front of me. He'd always liked a drink or five and he always had held it well without any violent tendencies and only went loopy a few years ago when he discovered Ecstacy and started burning down domestic wooden fences and torching unfortunate, 'in the wrong place at the wrong time' cats.

He was nearly fifty he told me, nearly bloody fifty and it was time for him to turn over a new leaf. Prison wasn't the place it used to be and most of his mates he'd touch base with there periodically were either dead, gone straigt, or movd to psychiatric wings for the foreseeable future.

He'd therefore got a job as a car park attendant for Asda in Bishop Auckland- he basically went around collecting trollies but if he proved his worth he would be allowed to use the counting machine in a couple of weeks time- and this pleased him. He even showed me his green name badge; the first one he'd ever had that didn't involve criminal law related photos and activities he told me in all seriousness.

Determined also to carve out a new life he was regularly going to AA meetings and they were great, and I looked down at his pint and remember seeing him at eleven o'clock this morning entering this pub as I strolled my way down to the Co op, and marvel at the power of the 12 steps.

Whatever, he was trying to find a new way and perhaps in the words of the great Raymond Carver, he had found a new path to the waterfall.

He had only one reservation about it all though. he was becoming obsessed with car park and car parking spaces. he dreamt of them, stopped to study them when passing, had began to a notebook listing his favourite ones. I assured him it was an unusual obsession [I didn't mention it must also be an intensely boring one], but essentially harmless. He seemed pleased at this reassurance.

Please [I ♥ Car parks]

Is there anything left to do

or has it all been done

already?

Please tell me

I’m lying in the road

I’m walking the ghost

I’m kissing exotic petals

paddling through the jungle.

I am sifting through an interesting

range of small glass objects,

one of which is an owl

and I am now counting car park

Spaces at Morrison’s.

Oh yes I’ve found a new hobby

and I am becoming obsessive.

I am twisted into a sordid dream state

Of integrated parking structures, of free

standing multi-storeys in multiplexes,

out of town malls, town centre Galleries

and other associated parking opportunities

[often free of charge with good maneuvering

zones clearly designed-in].

I write all these details down in a small

blue notebook, narrow lined with a

margin, from WH Smith’s.

The Numbers:

Morison’s 420

Marks and Spencers 350

Metro Centre 1322 [still counting]

The Nag’s Head, Mitcham 26

[Remember thought that this is only an

extract from the journal]

Oh no

I’ve just discovered some

clammy doughnuts,

deep in my overcoat

the sugar congealed,

just how I like it.

Someone is singing

‘show me the way to go home.’

I say show me the way to Broom Street’s

Multi-storey car park [NCP]:

State of the art entry and exit facilities

Token meters

In five languages

Please

Please tell me the optimum size

of European parking spaces and

what extra allowances need to

be made for American manufactured

motor vehicles although I realise

this is less of a critical matter now,

as Americans are going through

a culture shift

towards smaller cars.

Please.

Poetry Competitions- Instruments of Satan

2009-07-23T11:03:00.005+01:00

I Hate Poetry Experts and Competitions.

Occasionally I weaken and enter a poetry competition then as soon as the envelope has been eaten by the bored post box outside the butcher's, I immediately regret the few quid I've just squandered musing ruefully that it would have been better spent in the pub.

However I always make sure I enclose an envelope for the results; this cost of a second class stamp is the most useful expenditure of the whole exercise. When you get the results list [which with 99.9% certainty you will not be on], check some of the names on the web. Goggle them. Anybody worth their poetic salt has a web presence these days [witness my own grumpy effort] and people who are well connected enough to win poetry competitions DEFINITELY have a web presence, because it takes a certain type of self-promotionalist to win poetry competitions.

So google the winners/almost rans. You will only have to scratch the surface to find connections between them, the organisers of the competition, and by default the judges.

The world of poetry is a small, intense, thoroughly corrupted world. I like to think of it as something akin to a group of aesthetes drunk on port, cavorting around a plush club room masturbating themselves and their friends in one orgy of self-congratulation, back-scratching, score keeping and artifice.

Poetry publishers, magazine editors, competition organizers and judges are the amongst some of the most dubious of taste arbitrators and literary ‘experts’ in the field of the arts- not just literature- and that’s saying something. Smug, aloof and self-promotional to the point of hollow narcissism are terms that spring readily to mind [they even beat literary agents in the relentless application of these qualities].

Other gross offenders are Creative Writer Tutors. If ever there was truism to the notion that those who can write, write and get paid for it, and those that can’t teach it and get paid for it, having 'Creative Writing Tutor' on your passport is one of them.

The world of words is now full of Experts. There are now in fact more people 'Expert' at assessing literature than practicing it. This is no more apparent than in the literary ghetto of Poetry than elsewhere in the spectrum of wordcraft. It embraces the cliquiest, clubbiest of paramours; it encourages it's members to be self-congratulatory, self-assessing, auto-masturbatory, and practise an unerring aloof confidence in the knowledge of their inherent skill in judgment and criticism of others work- to those outside of the club that is. But once within it's hallowed confines…

...therein, you may bask in the mutual appreciation society that is poetry clubs with their attendant [fixed] competitions and the small poetry presses that are the self appointed arbitrators of taste and practise in the fair art of poetry and prose.

But ask yourself this- look at the plethora of small poetry presses, magazines and their associated [fixed] competitions here and in the US. Can they all be populated with experts? Are they all, collectively, a reliable gold standard in their assessment of what is ‘good’ [and therefore publishable] poetry?

Of course not- many of it's owners/sponsors are stuck up self-anointed aesthetes who through an inherent inferiority complex- developed no doubt from bullying in the school canteen at an early age [no Boltsin-Naipe, I’m having your jam roly-poly today!]- some are well meaning poetry buffs, a few are talented outsiders who never made it into the club for a variety of reasons [each one no doubt more interesting in the tale than any Expert Poem about concrete seagulls and/or drinking tea in Cambodia wearing straw sandals] and operate blithely- usually with half a bottle of vodka in hand- at the margins, and many more again are self-inflated egotists who always fancied setting up a magazine- the kudos, the attention- and a poetry one is the simplest and most direct way to exercise critical power over their peers.

So: very few real experts, many chancers and carefully masked, low-esteem ridden self-appointed arbitrators of taste and talent who, particularly these days, know their way around website design.

These are the people who judge your poetry entries in their dubious ‘open’ competitions at 3-5 GBP a pop. The simple process of selecting a shortlist and eventual winner[s] of most competitions is this:

The organisers trouser the fee first then look at the entrant. This is the most important part, and the primary reason for running the competition in the first place. Then look at the entrant. Is he/she a subscriber to the magazine? No, so bin it. That usually halves the pile. Then there is the scanning over of names that are recognizable [forget about this not happening even if it’s assured to be an ‘anonymous entry' judgment. The short listing assessors still get to see the real names, all is fair in love and war after all].

Then the short list gets in front of the primary judge[s]. They look at the entrants, pull out the names they recognize [particularly ones they drink/email/blog/ with, tutor, or simply ‘owe one’]. This then gets down to the hardest of assessments for the judge[s], who need to trade off favours and repayments in an equitable but primarily self-serving way.

The result: one of the poetry world’s lovey’s is invariably selected. In essence, this is 9/10 a person who a] subscribes to the magazine [if a mag contest] b] is recognizable as a member of an on-line or real life poetry group c] has been or is in the process of being tutored by one of the judges in a Creative Writing course d] has previously won a prize or e] is a new writer who is a friend/lover/relation of one of the judges or by association, one of the magazine publishing board.

The chances of getting anywhere in a poetry competition are therefore very slim. Unless you have unlimited funds and can afford subscriptions to every poetry magazine in the land, that alone should be enough to convince you to save your money, only enter poetry competitions that are free [and certainly NOT Arts Council funded magazines and projects that charge a fee- THEY SHOULD OF ALL THE COMPETITION THROWERS BE FREE] and find other ways to promote your work.

And there is nowt wrong with as much self promotion as you can manage. After all in the world of poetry expert artifice, you opinion on the value of your work is as good as anybody else’s; poetry is a pure expression of one’s inner self, it is a defining, concentrated moment of your psyche beamed down on to a page. It is YOU. if other people like it, all well and good. If so called poetry ‘experts’ tell you it is rubbish, ignore them. If you look at it and think it is accomplished, then that is all to the good. It is all you need. You’re not going to make a fortune or a career out of poetry, so what does it matter if self-appointed assessors don’t like it? Just get it out there and into print anyway you can, and see what the great world public make of it, because at the end of the day, they are the only ones that matter [after yourself.]

Rant over. I'm off out now to buy some dog food for the cat.

What Did The Romans Ever Do For Us

2009-07-22T19:54:00.004+01:00

I spent this afternoon scrambling around some Roman ruins at Binchester. It was the site of an old fort; a sleepy, quite boring posting I would have imagined, some way back from Hadrian's Wall, probably a place for posting rookies, the soon to be retired legionaires, and aspiring militarists who had got on the wrong side of the emperor/field general/provincial governor [Ha! I know, lets send that arrogant sod to Binchester in Britain, that'll teach 'im...].

The weather was much like I imagined it was most of the time two millennia ago in the fort. It pretty much pissed down all of the time. No doubt the flagons of wine shipped in from Sicily helped dull the pain and the local mead perhaps took the edge of the frustrating disappointment of it all. 'I joined the legions for glory....I had so many quite brilliant ideas...'

I've often wondered what it was like those decades after the Romans had left their outlying provinces. There must have been ghost town after ghost town, as Britain suddenly shed off it's brief dalliance with urbanisation and the indigenous population reverted to form...i.e. went back into the woods.

The Roman Trumpet

What happens at that vanishing point,

at the nexus on the horizon where

one culture parts into the next? Is it

a gradual dissolution or a sudden transfer?

Found the roman trumpet beneath the

falling stone bridge, nearby a temple

once home to Ceres, where

sack cloth robed scribes scoured ivy

clad entablatures of starlings, deer and vine-

a small chancel dedicated to Maia, as if in apology,

worshipped even then as a semi-god in waiting

for the fall, now home to

a cross of beech and twine-

even the old cosy gods of wood stone and water,

air fire and ice now hide in the hills

wary of the thorn crowned king,

the lasting legacy of a tired empire, where

once simple certainties are now scrubbed

away with stories of pain and love as you

scramble through the deserted towns

the heavy horn sounding an empty herald to

bureaucrats and soldiers

farmers and capricious gods

left running for the Boat Home jibbering that they’ve

finally been found out,

the game is up, cut by thistle and gorse

starlings darting, happy to be no longer

food although the barons

will miss the wine-

fingering the flying figures in the spandrels

of the temple,

light graceful winged souls with a confident lack of

care or worry unaware that humans are more

complex beings;

a monk sits on a fallen column laughing,

‘how soon nature returns, how weak the once apparently

Irremovable is, upon removal of

the Cloak of Power.’

He has a torn book of bridges, beautiful sketches of

grace from the Pons Fabricus to solid fordings of Sabrina,

still old Hafren to us all and so shall it always be on an

angled isle once shrouded in the curves of Rome;

a story of concavity and convexity

amongst the fresh ruins, of arcades and vaults

and arches and basilicas, of clever

hydraulics and artificial stone,

ancient Etruscan dreams transformed

through custodial centuries into new shapes

and spears of piety and power.

Blow the roman trumpet, its gold cool and fresh,

bracken crawling and splitting where once there was rose

but it is a poignant moment, a bitter-sweet view as

the new risen king stands tall in a sphere of tears

and spent blood, of self-sacrifice and powerless tombs,

the grace of temples dismantled

to build walls and forts and barns.

Placing the golden trumpet below the cross,

now blown for the last time in a place

where unbeknown to you,

your sons will build a church.

The Mysteries of Geography

2009-07-21T11:38:00.002+01:00

Well another week looms. Yesterday's brief bright glimpse of July has today, true to form, defaulted a wet early autumn, early October any year.

It occurred to me the other day whilst nursing a pint of Samson in The Locomotive, half listening to Crackers rambling on about getting so annoyed with the gurgling of a neighbours backyard water feature that he'd tipped washing up liquid into it, and much froth and bubbling had ensued, that for some reason i had always being drawn to places with a railway heritage. And this, without hardly any interest in railways and their machines and accessories at all. My geographical movements have in some ways been a train spotters fevered dream. Born in Darlington, I worked for some time near Clapham Junction in London [where trains and lines are forever present anyway, even below your feet], ended up making doors amongst other things in Swindon, former railway capital of the South, then settled back in Shildon, the world home of all things railway.

Then it occurred to me my geographical placements have also some serious linkage with towns ending in '-on,' I could even add Brighton to that list where once I sold ice creams and insurance during an earlier episode of my young wanderlust and, could even further define it by towns ending in '-don.'

There seemed to be a creepy synchronicity to this it began to strike me, as I slowly got pleasantly drunk on a Sunday lunchtime and ordering another pint deciding to speed up the process of inebriation.

There seemed suspiciously to be perhaps the hint of some master plan at work, which truly both appalled and fascinated me at the same time. Did 'God' use a simple geographical road map to plan out my life. Was this name place and industrial function similarity one of his sniggered little jokey attempts at whimsical wit? disturbing indeed, as up until now, i had wondered about the possibility that we may have it all wrong, maybe God simply doesn't have a Master plan. I may now however after further analysis, have to alter my world view.

There Is No Master Plan

What if the creator doesn’t have a master plan?

Have we got it all wrong

believing a Deity has it

all mapped out when

really

everything is random and even

God

can get confused?

It’s a scary thought

the Father sometimes scratching his head

wondering

perhaps a little hung over

from too much of Heaven’s nectar

too many pole dancing angels

so maybe as humans we are wrong

we cannot live in chaos so

we want to get it straight in our head

that the higher power has

A Plan.

He probably doesn’t.

But that’s God for you.

Predictable in His

Unpredictability.

The Post Code Lottery

2009-07-18T17:56:00.004+01:00

The sense of geographical displacement has something that has haunted my poetry fo some time.

Well, I say haunted... more like niggled me a bit. Prodded my senses and made me write a couple of things which I could wax lyrical on about being informed directly by geographical issues and urban angst, the latter of which I have in plentiful supply having lived in a wide range of urban environments, not always I might add, through direct personal choice. However they are more like ditties that jumped into my head and I then wrote down and then in turn pretty much forgot about. The first one in particular, really was reality aping the artifice of cliche as I scribbled it out on a torn open fag packet whilst sat, drunk, in an Aldershot pub the name of which has long since escaped me.

Post Code Lottery

Forget the post code lottery

and go for some sort of

Middle England coterie

beware of the railway towns

and all they used to promise

avoid the light industrial towns

the ones that make biscuits

and plastic windows and trap your

children in call centres

the comfort of non-jobs

selling nothing to people who

are nonetheless convinced

they need it

and avoid cities with cathedrals

and universities

they are artifice personified they

have only one aim to debilitate you

with pretense and false hope

and sophistry, deep in Middle England

Do Not Go To Cities With Ports

they are as thieves in the night

forever looking for opportunity

eternally gazing outward beyond

the boundary of shores unwaveringly

scathing of convention and respectable

behaviour

and ignore dormitory towns urbania

designed only to eat and sleep in

and cut the grass although

the swinging scene

may have its diversions

and then those army towns cowering

below the shambling spectre of

beaten squaddie pubs concrete and

brick boxes with overflowing bottle banks

and what of flower filled market towns

with neat shops and bi-weekly markets

and Friday night louts and teeming

takeaways and broken windows but

you can escape

to a suburban bungalow

lock the gate feed the carp

watch wildlife programmes and

laugh

then running running running

you find

a suitable small mountain village

where you unwittingly

unexpectedly after stroking a

black and white cat

get run over by a drunken postman

in a neat

little red van.

A Fear of Boxes

He lived in a tent in the garden of a city,

avoiding boxes and other enclosing

structures of any substantial nature.

As such he studiously pursued a life plan

of taking one day at a time

which involved:

avoiding houses (brick boxes)

and motor vehicles (metal boxes)

and offices (glass boxes)

and rubbish bins (plastic boxes)

and sheds (wooden boxes) until

eventually he had to leave and

walk past the factory where

he once worked but he

survived this ordeal,

making it out to a place in the

country, down litter strewn lanes

and muddy towpaths beside

scummy canal arms, to where

there was a camp of like-minded

people.

And he was happy there; until

one morning he let down

his guard and was handed a

corn flakes box and he took

it and he looked at it and

the breakdown began…

again.

So he fled further into his

rural sanctum, an asylum

for the bedevilled, deeper into

the pseudo-archaic geography

where street lights became

ever distant and – at times-

not even visible at all.

A yawning landscape that he

sensed held an inner green

Arcanum but most importantly

of all, had within it, very

few boxes to fear.

Often he slept under trees

and at times in his tent in

caravan parks, when he felt

particularly tired and dirty

enough to sneak-use the

(outdoor) shower facilities and

he lived like this for sometime,

Lord of the Great Ideas.

Until one day he reached a river

with a waterfall. He sat down,

wishing he could sketch it:

Wishing He Still Had It.

That promise that had become

in the end, nothing but a weekend

talent.

Then he cried a little.

This was a place where the lonely

had clear thoughts; the worry of

hollow hearts. It was then that

he decided it was time,

time to write his Diary of the

Dreaming Room.

Ebullience, Grumpiness, Imagine Being A Train

2009-07-16T18:23:00.006+01:00

I can wake up in the morning feeling ebullient but not long after the [calloused] feet have hit the bedroom floorboards, and pretty much just as I am finishing my first bowl of Sugar Puffs and stubbing out my first Embassy of the day in a saucer of fag ends that should have been cleared away last month, grumpiness and a weariness that is not much worldly but galactic takes up residence on the stool by the entrance door to the dusty and rarely visited museum that is my mind.

In fact I am prey to that common dichotomy of the human condition; I'd be grumpy if I didn't feel grumpy at the right time every day; happy being miserable, glad to be sad, heroic when trodden-down.

Chug

shhhhhzzzzzzzzz

changle chingle chink

chug chug chug

connections between carriages

creak

steel peg pinion latches

peg pinion latches

steel peg pinion latches

chug chug chink

grinding steel iron chainlinks

tension on the chainlinks

chainklinks tension chainlinks tension

chug chug chug

steam smoke snarling

owl too-reet-too-roo

too-too

steel peg pinion latches

peg pin steel latches

tension chainlink sccreeching

peg pinion steel latches

holding the carriage

creaking timber frameworks

steel vulcan snarlings

snarlings snarlings clinkings

chug

c h u g.

Do The Locomotive

2009-07-14T11:30:00.006+01:00

There's a pub near me called the Locomotive. It is believe it or not an old railway mans pub, close to what used to be Shildon railway works in the days of real jobs, real work, when men were men and women were glad of it etc.

It's still a decent boozer but no where near the glorious baseness of it's heyday- it now has relatively new velveteen curtains at the windows and furniture that is less than thirty years old, but it still keeps the old flag flying for the great British Drinker.

All that's left of the railways in Shildon now though, is a small commuter station, the Timothy Hackworth Museum based on a nice cottage and a couple of sheds and the new flagship, the all-singing and dancing [or should that be chugging] Locomotion Museum, home to some 60 locomotives and assorted carriages and other paraphernalia. It even has a coffee bar which serves cappuccino which until 2004 was an anathemetic concept to Shildonians.

A big shiny shed on the edge of the town, it neatly sums up all that is efficient, accessible and recreational about the UK in the early 21st century. Of course for that, you could read instead predictable, clinical and dumbed down, even dare I say, disposable, which would be another valid assessment of the present State of the Nation.

People come from across the world to see it- well people for whom feats of railway engineering lights their emotive candle- and its opening helped to more than double local property prices but don't get excited, a small house instead of being worth the price of a one car garage in the Home Counties, became worth that of a double garage in said same Home Counties, so it had a beneficial effect economically to people but...is that it? Maybe that is another sign of the skewered economic situation our nation is in; the most auspicious effect of any [particularly EU and/or Lottery funded] high profile, local development , is on the individuals property values. it is thus the success of the subject project is duly judged. The complete transformation of dwellings from homes to business opportunity/investments is complete.

But again, I digress. 'Locomotion' is a pleasant experience, it's airiness offsets the shear size of the locomotives quite admirably, but you can't help feeling that they have been denuded. Castrated even; their power has gone, there is no sense of it in the vast, clean shed setting in which they sit. The noise, the dirt, the heat, the POWER, all stripped away to the point that they might as well be models. In fact that is what has happened, fact has reverted to art; the real artifacts have now become no more than models themselves, full scale replicas of the Hornby models men the world over plied around their toy tracks for nigh on over a hundred years. Yet another useful metaphor for the world we live in today.

Do The Locomotive With Me

Come on baby do the Locomotive with me,

sink a few lunchtime Samsons with

a Hollands Steak and Pepper Pie and watch

Argentinian football on Sky,

then stagger with me along the old railway track

lined with memorabilia, photos of

workmen and women and passengers

long since past cast in perpetuity

in dressed stone and concrete amongst

petunias and even hanging baskets of

lobellia and pansies,

a still warm air, the distant drone of the bypass,

a crocodile of school children who we

skillfully navigate our way past staring at a

large stanchion ahead with an array of

coloured lights linked to the internet,

sending a message to anyone caring to listen

anywhere in the world

like some alien transmission station perhaps

luring perhaps intriguing like a limp siren call

to railway enthusiasts, or plain simple

cyberspace trawling insomniacs.

So come on baby do the 'Locomotion' with me.

See the shiny aluminium shed

enter through the large hanger-like doors see

the huge steam engines retired and sanguine

sublime and rested,

a retirement home for steam engines and other

locomotives and carriages and there are plenty

of books to consider many pamphlets of

technicalities and route maps of lost lines to

pour over and wonder,

but a mate laughs too much asks if the cafe

serves beer but we make do with lattes

with marshmallows on top and a torn copy

of The Star as the sun opens up between the

Shildon cloud and floods the shed, a veritable shed that

would make a dentist proud and motes of dust

flicker in the rays try to twinkle but don't quite

make it, they more half heartedly shimmy

around the large engines as if daring not to touch,

DO NOT DIRTY because white coated clinicians will arrive

with dust pan and brush and scrubber [yellow sponge]

to clean the slightest speck of sulliness from the

gleaming iron and steel.

So come on do the locomotive with me,

enter Vulcan's labyrinth the only problem is

that particular God has gone away, left a reserve

crew in control, a lower command who does not

like grime and smoke and piles of coal and the hissing

of steam, Vulcan has been usurped behind his back,

by the Hygiene and Neatness squads of the

three showers a day politically correct.

Huge machines quiet, unmoving, emasculated.

The power not only drained, but sucked out

with a force

that leaves no sign of the former glory,

no sense of that might and purpose and presence,

all that is left are iron and glass and timber casings,

and maybe some lessons but who would really know

or care looking at these

full scale models, even less useful than their Hornby

wannabes, because at least the latter,

are going somewhere.

So come on we've done The Locomotion let us now

retire, let us wobble with stomaches full of Italian

coffee derivative refeshments, to the erstwhile comforts

of the pub, that had within it's walls, more authentic

stories to bring.

2009-07-13T11:35:00.001+01:00

x76zkwtjg3

An experience whilst putting the bin out

2009-07-13T10:59:00.006+01:00

The Grunt

Something grunting this way came

I had a feeling it felt no shame

as it shambled down the lane

I studied it carefully

through the grimey

window pane.

It didn't worry me as I felt

it too

was not necessarily looking for fame

but more carried the air of being

the standard bearer of the lame

taking it to the brink with

its faux pain.

Get back down that lane

you don't fool me no fame no gain

I'm not that insane

you're all the same

all far too tame

I played the game I've a string

of victories to my name

too far gone for you

to worry me now.

Swindon Luck, Money and Door Manufacturing

2009-07-12T12:59:00.005+01:00

I spent some time in Swindon many moons ago. I went there to make some money and it was during the recession of the early nineties which seems like yesterday. I don't know what the fuss is about these days, all these kids running around bleating about the economic slump as if it's never happened to anybody else before, but that's kids for you.

The hope that this recession may be the end of 'Capitalism As We Know It' appears to be a false dawn. It seems the almost collapse of the western world's financial systems [current estimates are that in October it was three hours away] appear not to have focused the big banks' mind, as they clamour to hand out huge bonuses to executives for contributing no more to the well-being of their company than wearing a nice [expensive] tie, and many of them don't even seem to be bothering to even do that these days as we go continentally casual, but I digress.

Swindon was/is a peculiarity in our eclectic set of English towns. An old railway centre it was until the seventies like a northern industrial town picked up and sort of -dumped- in rural north Witshire. Then from the eighties onwards it became like a northern industrial town dumped in rural Wiltshire with- well tall buildings and, by geographical fluke [which first brought the railways], sitting on top of the major motorway route between London, Bristol and South Wales.

Result: many company HQ's locating there, [such as the Nationwide Building Society bless it's heart] generally still crap living environment, the archetypal Big Town with a small market town mentality, with plenty of drugs and booze thrown in [therefore completing the similarity with your average English market town].

Whatever, along with the bank and insurance HQ's there was also an extensive manufacturing base and I worked for sometime making doors.

It appealed to my poetic sense of place in the world at that time; displaced from the North East in some cardboard cut-out wannabe northern town stuck in [admittedly beautiful] Thames Valley countryside, I was making doors. Portals to a new life....fashioned by my own hand....sold by Crosby's to offices and factories across the world...I imagined my 2100x850 flush door [with insulating egg carton interior] grazing the entrance to some Indonesian executive's new office, holding up to the bending sweating twisting heat and insect attack of the tropical Far Eastern Indies with the stoicism of a True Great British Product.

I drank in a nearby pub frequented by twenty somethings from the nearby council estate [recently converted almost entirely to gnome filled front garden owner occupation]. Most of the lads worked as self-employed jobbing roofer and plumbers. It was 1993 and they were making a mint. They had mobile phones, holidays in Greece, 4x4 vehicles on huge loans that they laughingly didn't expect to be able to keep up for more than a year or so, drank gallons of Stella every week and bought their drugs from a couple of fresh faced dealers in the toilets every Friday night.

I lived in a bedsit near the town centre. Below me on the ground floor, a Norwegian IT techie sat permanently at his table in the bay window of his empty flat, playing on his laptop. He worked for a large software company on a temporary contract; he was claiming for expensive accommodation but lived low rent so as to pocket the difference in expenses he could claim. Above, lived a young Spanish man who played the acoustic guitar a lot, had parties and at weekends, numerous groups of other people shouting up at his attic flat window in Spanish [could there really be that many Spanish in Swindon?].

It was a time of displacement, isolation and drunkenness for me [well there wasn't much else to do]. I lived on a hill that connected the town centre bars and clubs with the more popular, early evening pubs of the Old Town above, and would watch the groups of people walk up the hill relatively sober, then later career down blind drunk to go clubbing. I watched them, bemused, thinking there may be a story there, but was often too depressed to do anything about it. I wrote some poems though.

One of the Wasted

I watch them from my kitchen window

walking up the hill.

Oblivious to me

and who can blame them.

But I can see who they are

I can spot them

and I want to cry

and/or run out and shake their hand.

Because we are together in this:

an unnamed shambles of a club.

We are all part of the wasted

So maybe for once

We should link arms

And celebrate.

True

me broken

you something whole

me someplace

else

in a whole

dodgy parallax

who knows

who cares

hey there’s a small

pink

beetle on my desk

a toy

it’s true

take’s you back

it’s true

the love of someone

who owes you nothing

but

the truth

return of the truth

but

not at this venue

A Struggle with Hamadryad

2009-07-11T11:35:00.011+01:00

Not sure why I started this off with me struggling with Hamdryad- it's a nice word's all and if my creaking brain remembers correctly it's some sort of Indian snake goddess so there are worse things to struggle with.

The poetry comes to me everyday in varying quantities. Half a dozen may take up residence in my sparking mind from the outset of lunchtime [mornings are often a dead zone] at other times, more mundane but perhaps more practical issues such as devising a shopping list for my tri-weekly visit to the Co-Op take up residence in the daily grind of my mental processes.

There are various works in progress. In fact one of the poems is called 'Work In Progress' which gives a snappy synchronicity to my present work. The jumble of poem ideas in my head- some fresh, some ancient- are sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse. Is it wrong to have so many ethereal tracts in your head, some which may never see the reality of a piece of paper [and even if they achieve that, are perhaps unlikely to be read]?

It is perhaps a lot like frogs. I get frogspawn every year; it starts off as hundreds of initial simple 'eggs.' Not much of that transforms into first tadpoles. Most of those die ignominious deaths on the side of the bucket. Few of them move onto the next stage and the one after that. Perhaps half a dozen make it to a recognisable frog-like state and then even them have to take precarious chances once out in and out of the pond.

Perhaps poems are like that. Only a few make it to full development and widespread readership, but each one no less along the line, perhaps in some small way has an impact on the ecology of the collective human mind.

The Return of Whimsy

Something happening out

of town

He’s coming back Titus laughed

in the Old Gum Shoe

Well that’s what we still call it

it’s a Weatherspoon’s now

Something like ‘the Weather Vane’

but at least the beer’s cheap

Still like the idea of

an old shoe

so anyway she’s coming back

someone said so what

it’s supposed to be a he

but

I care little, I know of whimsy’s

and this and that

small china cats

and owls

always in charity shops

always

an anchor, saw a nice tapestry once

of an anchor

Portland Bill

red and white lighthouse

what a thrill

enjoy the muzak of seagulls.

Always out there

kill the cat

or maybe not

this and that.

To Be a Dot

2009-07-10T14:27:00.007+01:00

To Be a Dot

To be a dot
to be a speck
try to be nothing
at all
curled and compacted
reduces thoughts so that
there are no ideas
only flesh
satisfactory sinew
thoughts frozen in flight
a family resistance
to sense and reason
a bite at the peach
juice
as a life impact.

Musings: Life can be a very small thing to yourself, but to others? Either nothing, or everything.

Heating My Brain Up

2009-07-09T20:48:00.003+01:00

Are mobile phones an unnecessary evil? Humanity got this far without them and they have only been around for mass use for less than fifteen years and yet, many people freely admit to not being able to live without the little plastic bastards.

Heating My Brain Up

I can’t help it
The fucker’s heating
my brain up.
I hold it in my hand
I talk into it
but as the day goes on
It gets hotter…
…and hotter
and I feel like a slave.
Microwaved into hell;
the worst sort of hell
one full of a motorway
load of phones-
four lanes-
and I am part of the script.
I’m a forgotten bit player;
I’m a piece of flotsam,
a chunk of the bridge
broken off a sunken tanker:
stranded on a foreign
beach, jagged in the
sand and the foam.

But

Please

Just let me get a call into
my dry cleaners.
I need those shirts
for Tuesday.
The brain is hot.
I wish for arctic conditions
and I pray with Aztec deference.
Deep in submission to my
fried organic circuitry
I cast my petition high,
As if shooting an arrow
blindfolded, without sense.
Aware of Rights but in
denial of responsibilities.

Is there a way forward?

I remember a time of freedom,
When I held my clenched fist
high with youthful indignation.
But even then:
survival?
The core of all things.

Just let me go.

Held up on the hard shoulder
of the M40 [southbound].
Time to move on
But to where?

Maybe I’ll become a comedian.

And find my own way back
to the waterfall.
To a place of
Einsteinian security,
a place of
cosmic certainty.
But you have to watch out for
the bloody black holes, the
sods suck you in…

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER CRUNCHIE BAR

2009-07-08T20:52:00.002+01:00

Today was a day of two halves. The first half was a hearty one of attacking the goal; full of vim and vigour I rushed the opposing defence intent on scoring a hat-trick, to demolish the visitors before they could find their feet, the crowd bayed me on.

But the enthusiasm didn't produce the craved for result. A superior than previously assessed defence thwarted me and after a lunchtime break of an apple, a tasteless cereal bar [good for the heart, bad for the soul] and a Crunchie washed down by two bottles of Marston's Pedigree, I embarked on the second half with less energy and focus than the pre-lunch one.

Not surprisingly I flagged quickly, the opposition scored an early goal, I conceded an own goal which resulted in a heated argument with the ref, the crowd went quiet then started to leave early. Many missed my spectacular save of a late penalty imposed by a myopic dodgy linesman but it was to be expected; the game was lost early in the second half. I had- as always- peaked too soon.