Day in the life

A New Year's Eve Anxiety Vibration

-- I have watched 

the film

so many times 

and I never noticed

'Greensleeves' 

playing in the 

background 

as the Group Captain 

drives from base 

to The Jackdaw Inn.

-- 'Greensleeves', 
the sound of a late

Sunday afternoon --

Langney Green --

Such a miserable tune.

The weekend ends here!

Hairs on my neck

stood up --

Fucking 'Greensleeves'!

Haunted Sundays

And then an Ice cream van

rolled by my window.

-- The Battle of Britain is safe

although the same cannot be said

for Mr Bloody Whippy! 

Day in the life...

Orpheum

Found myself 

in the cinema

slightly drunk

mid-afternoon.

The long walk

from happiness

to Seaford Head.

-- The battle

with the bottle --

Staring into

rockpools and 

chalk caves.

The delicate

twist of an

ozone breeze

gliding North

--- Time to take 

a deep breath

a small step.

Day in the Life... (September 2020)

Flame

-- A cooling zephyr.

The garden alight

with the flames of Ra.

A TR-808 fires up

--- 120 BPM

a soundclash.

Sunday sessions

moving through 

the years...

Dub dreams

bass heavy --

A Samba breezes

through the leaves.

Welcome to 

'a discoteca solitária'!

Afternoon Films #3 - The Italian Job

Charlie Croker is released from prison. He meets up with the widow of his friend and fellow thief Roger Beckermann, who has been killed by the Mafia while driving a Lamborghini Miura in the Italian Alps. Mrs Beckermann gives Croker her husband's plans for the robbery that attracted the hostile attention of his killers, which detail a way to steal $4 million in gold in the city of Turin and escape to Switzerland.

Croker breaks back into his former prison to convince the powerful crime lord Mr. Bridger to finance the plan. Bridger, who has bribed almost all of the prison guards to work for him, initially rejects the plan, but changes his mind after he learns that Fiat is set to build a new factory in China.

With Bridger's backing, Croker recruits computer expert Professor Peach and a team of thieves and drivers. The plan calls for Peach to replace the programme in the computer that controls Turin's traffic control system, creating a paralysing traffic jam that will allow the thieves to escape with the gold in three Mini Cooper S getaway cars.

After planning and training, Croker, his girlfriend Lorna, and the heist crew set out for Turin. Mafia boss Altabani and his underlings are waiting in the Alps at the same pass where they killed Beckermann. Altabani warns Croker that the Mafia are aware of the gang's intentions and smashes their Jaguar E-Type cars, sending Croker's personal Aston Martin DB4 drophead off a cliff. Just as Altabani is about to give the order to shoot the gang, Croker tells him that Mr. Bridger will avenge their deaths by driving Italian merchants in selected British cities out of business. Not wanting to risk suffering on any fellow Italians, Altabani lets them go, ordering them to return to England and believing that it is too big a job for Croker to undertake. Instead, he proceeds with the plan, replacing the traffic control system's magnetic tape data storage reels. 

On the day of the robbery, Croker sends gang member Birkinshaw, disguised as a football fan, to jam the closed circuit television cameras that monitor traffic. The substitute data reel then causes widespread traffic chaos. The gang converge on the gold convoy, overpower the guards, and tow the armoured car into the entrance hall of the Museo Egizio. There, the gang transfer the gold to the Minis.

Altabani recognises that "If they planned this jam, they must have planned a way out." Pursued by the Turin police, the three Minis race through the shopping arcades of the city, speed down stairs, jump between rooftops, and finally escape the traffic jams by a pre-planned route across a weir. The getaway is timed perfectly, and they throw off the police by driving through a large sewer pipe. As Mr. Bridger receives the cheers and adulation of his fellow prison inmates, the gang drive the Minis into the back of a moving customised coach. They then unload the gold and dispose of the Minis by pushing them off the mountainside.

The rest of the gang, having sneaked out of the city in a minibus while disguised as football supporters, rendezvous with the coach in the Alps. On the looping mountain roads, driver "Big" William loses control of the coach. The back of the bus is left teetering over a cliff and the gold slides towards the rear doors. As Croker attempts to reach the gold, it slips further. The film finishes on a literal cliffhanger with Croker announcing: "Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea".

Legend has it that The Italian Job II was due to commence with Charlie and the gang planning to steel back the gold from the mafia - the gang having leapt to safety with the coach having fallen down the mountain, where the mafia had reclaimed the gold. 

• Michael Caine as Charlie Croker
• Noël Coward as Mr. Bridger
• Benny Hill as Professor Simon Peach
• Raf Vallone as Altabani
• Tony Beckley as Camp Freddie
• Rossano Brazzi as Roger Beckermann
• Maggie Blye as Lorna
• Irene Handl as Miss Peach
• John Le Mesurier as the Prison Governor
• Fred Emney as Birkinshaw

Poll results - What colour is Sunday?

Results in...

A split decision between Blue & Yellow.

Thank you for voting!

Why I’m not ruling anything in or out...

I suspect that barely a week goes by without the topic of suicide peering over my horizon, whether it is brushing the leaves of the past from the tree of history and coming up against the music or the writing or the art of someone who chose, hopefully after much deliberation that enough was enough. 

Or whether it is simply the seemingly inevitable curve that my life is currently on. The prospect of seeing out the rest of my days surrounded by love, comfort, friends & family battles with the notion that perhaps I should be the one choosing la fecha de fallecimiento.

The stigma of suicide is still that it is a coward’s way out. However, the ever-increasing numbers of suicides suggests that being branded a coward after death counts for little when weighing up the choice to continue to live on in pain or to settle things for good.

People often suggest that there is so much to live for but that isn’t always that apparent to the person gripped by whichever strand of despair they are being slowly suffocated by. Is it really worth carrying on down the road to inevitable collapse, fuelled by alcohol or drugs, crippled by inertia and anxiety? Or is it better to just move on.

And what about the people you leave behind? Isn’t it selfish. I am not so desperate to recognize the fact that if I do decide to just stop this whole dizzy whirl that there will be people who will mourn my passing. A handful of people maybe but they will move on. They will forget the passing and hopefully remember the substance of my life and not the route out of it.

I could of course hang around and see what happens next but you see I have been here before. I made serious plans to take my own life in 2013. But I thought my action was too selfish and I owed it to my family to stay strong. But I know the truth, I am not strong. I am vulnerable and hate the way that makes me look and feel. I decided to stay around for my sons and I also decided to ‘see what happens’. What happened was my marriage collapsed, Brexit & Donald Trump too. Whilst I wouldn’t blame my sense of futility on either of the last two, neither fill my heart with anything other than bitter & twisted anguish. Nor, I must stress, do I blame my ex-wife on the marriage collapsing – that was all down to me.

Sitting at this wooden table and listening to the Lorikeets, Magpies and Myna bickering in the garden, whilst I listen to Joao Gilberto, waiting for the water to boil, everything is calm. I am making plans for the week, looking at possible gigs to go to in January 2018, applying for jobs, wondering if I should stay in Australia or to move on. I’ve got tickets for The Ashes (although that won’t offer much respite). I am looking forward to at least February. But that’s the odd thing you see. I used to look way beyond the next three months. I cannot do that anymore however hard I try.

In closing, I know that I am loved and I love. So, all is not lost.

And even if I decide to stop, nothing is lost. It will just be different.

Ax

Swan Vestas

Volatile, iconic and the epitome of un-Safety matches. God bless 'em!!

Rainy Sundays

Waking up late to the smell of slightly burnt toast. It is raining outside. Move seamlessly from breakfast to lunch in the time it takes to read the sports sections of the broadsheets. It is raining outside. Bubble & Squeak and mint sauce. Batman, The Big Match. It is raining outside. Light fading. 633 Squadron. It is raining outside. More toast for tea. It is raining outside. Radio Luxembourg 'Street Sounds'. It is raining outside. Back in bed... It is still raining outside.

Sometimes you've just got to spray it on a wall

Never buy The Sun

Someone's hiding in the bushes with a telephoto lens

While their editor assures them, the means justify the ends

Because we only hunt celebrities and it's all a bit of fun

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

And the parents of the missing girl cling desperately to hope

While a copper takes improper payments in a big brown envelope

And nobody in the newsroom asks where this information's from

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

Tabloids make their money betting bullshit baffles brains

And they cynically hold up their hands if anyone complains

And they say "Well, we're just giving the people what they 

Well they're crying out for justice, people crying out for justice 

And the man they call "The Digger" casts a proprietary

Over what goes on in the gutter and what happens in the Sky

And he claims he's fit and proper and the watchdog sings his

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

International executives they hang their heads in shame

Tell us with their hands on hearts that the paperboy's to blame

But everyone who loves that kiss'n'tell, you must share the

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

Tabloids make their money betting bullshit baffles brains

And they cynically hold up their hands if anyone complains

And they say "Well, we're just giving the people what they

Well they're crying out for justice, people crying out for justice

In the corridors of power they all sit down to sup

with the devil and his minions and they for his opinions

But the politicians wring their hands and say "What's to be

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

Well no-one comes out well when all is said and done

But the Scousers never buy the Sun

Martello Melancholy...

On a Sunday night on the other side of the world, six years into exile. A 10 second news report on a local station and I'm gone... lost. 

I miss you.

Walmington-On-Sea

It just so happens that I've spent the last month watching daily repeats of the exploits of Captain Mainwaring and the 1st Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard. From the bumptious Captain via the Laconic Sgt Wilson (who reminds me of my Grandfather), Walker (who didn't), Fraser, Jones & Pike through to the wonderful Mr Godfrey. 

Ironically, apart from thoroughly enjoying the actually rather good ensemble acting, I was thinking how good it was that Clive Dunn was still hanging on in there and then the news wires filled with news of his passing.  

Inevitable, I know. But sad all the same!

Things I miss fact: I went to the same school as Captain Mainwaring!

Strings of Desire - #4

Guild M-20 Acoustic

Good enough for Nick Drake, good enough for us all!

Don’t you have a word
to show what may be done
Have you never heard
a way to find the sun
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Won’t you come and say
If you know the way to blue

Have you seen the land living by the breeze
Can you understand a light among the trees
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Tell us all today
If you know the way to blue?

Look through time and find your rhyme
Tell us what you find
We will wait
At your gate
Hoping like the blind

Can you now recall all that you have known
Will you never fall
When the light has flown
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Won’t you come and say
If you know the way to blue?