May Daze

The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the JADE palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. I repeat... The red eagle has flown from the jade palace. Out.

Lockdown - Day #29

The Monday night queue for Dixieland is full of a slew of new Mods, old Punks, Soul Boys, us Dole boys and hundreds of smoothies and regular punters. A couple of New Romantics totter along the wooden plank floor. Below us all is the enticing maw of the English Channel. Rubbing gently against the iron legs that prop up nightclubs, pubs, bingo halls and half Seaside’s teenage population.

Inside the darkness, the stench of illicit cigarettes clings to the red velvet. The clash of Blue Stratos v Old Spice v Brut 33 goes on. The sweet cloying stickiness of the latest perfume merges with hairspray and tons of Country Fayre gel. 

A maximum of 3 songs per tribe… The funketeers dominate the dancefloor, meanwhile tribal conflicts simmer and the sordid lure of infidelity permeates every conversation. 

I promise I’ll dance with you next week…

Lockdown - Day #28

Loose change jangling in Levi’s pockets. Chip shop vinegar on the tiled floor. The Blue Room beckons. A day spent watching Pete play Space Invaders, Air Hockey tournaments that went on for the length of the summer holidays.

Along the Langney side of the pier, beyond the midway bar with the girl from Nottingham handing out the free pints and expensive kisses. Tourists grip the side rails or hunker down in the deckchairs.

A small souvenir hut full of dull shells and inaccurate replicas of the pier. Stuffed seagulls and badly made beachballs.

The sound of money spinning out of the hands of the unemployed into the bingo-masters back pocket. 10cc’s maudlin hit plays on repeat. One day, some bastard is going to torch the whole lot and retire to the Canaries on the insurance…

Lockdown - Day #27

In the passenger seat, twiddling the radio dial, messing with the cassette player, trying to finesse the soundtrack of another day. The Mini/Triumph/Morris Minor/VW Golf glides up and down the seafront at dawn/dusk midday/midnight.

The girl at the wheel, the boy looking seawards. The postboxes are full of Valentine’s cards and the phone boxes echo to the latest dial-a-disc hit. 

Stop in the bus bay by the pier. "Just drop me here..."

Meanwhile the cassette finally plays the track he'd been searching for since Princes Park.

'If you ever feel the time to drop me a loving line
maybe you should just think twice
I don't wait around on your advice
You tell me I can go this far, but no more
Try to show me heaven and then slam the door
You offer shelter at a price much too dear
And your kind of love's the kind that soon disappears

So don't brag how you have changed
And everything's been rearranged
I thought all that was over and done
But I still get the same from Each and Everyone
Being kind is just a way to keep me under your thumb
and I can cry because that's something we've always done
you tell me I'm free of the past now and all those lies
then offer me the same thing in a different guise...'

Lockdown - Day #26

There is a green-grey Morris Minor heading for a breakdown just outside Southampton, trundling from Stone Cross to Paradise Drive via the seafront. 

Two boys, two girls. The music fills the car. 

Behind the car, the School Bus. Upstairs, at the front. A Grammar School boy ponders The Jam/Ramones, Ramones/The Jam. A yellow and green Max Records back on his lap.

He looks beyond the immediate.

The English Channel stretches left to right (as it always has done), lapping softly against the bloodied shingle. 

Despite the best will in the world. This ain’t no Rockaway Beach.

Lockdown - Day #25

The flags on the pier are cowering from the horizon, bullied by the eternal sea fret. Marine Parade (an interloper in the Grand scheme of things), smothered by the worn rubber of a million tyres. The Corporation buses grinding full-on Leyland chug, from the Point to the Head and all stops in between.

A Deux Chevaux stutters and shudders from East Dean to Churchdale Road. It takes a boy and a girl to drive AND change gear. The cassette player chews the latest release by St Pancras Records.

"Hegemony, hegemony...

You are the fairest creature

You are the fairest creature that ever I have seen,

And it's all for Monopoly

On all those pretty sexibles/sensibles,

That rot and raise a nation the capacity for change

An honest day's pay for an honest day's work

You can't change human nature

Don't bite the hand that feeds you…"

Lockdown - Day #24

A disarray of Seagulls on the sun wounded rooftops behind Leaf Hall, 

early on a Sunday morning. 

 

The crack-clank-rattle of the milk float, chinking up Marine Road. Hungover Mods swaying on lampposts, benign besuited beggar men, drifting towards the damp cradle of the beach.

Frosted kisses burned into the back of the heart. 

She never looked that beautiful, until now.

Darkened back room, sunflower curtains

and half a bottle of oakysmoke, 

easy to remember, 

inevitable she’ll forget.

These streets, eroded by memory, occasionally swept by the council. Blood money loose change, sluiced down the drains… ghost barmen still serving in the Burma Star Club…

A sweet tender suffocation, another cancer, another death.  The afternoon haze collapses beneath the ash swirls, buffeted by the prevailing South-Westerly.

Humour me and pretend we are all free...

Lockdown - Day #23

The taste of another Kronenbourg night reminds me where I am, not alone in a single bed. Dressed, out and up the steps back onto Marine Parade. Back over the rode giving the flying fists of The Crown & Anchor I wide berth.

The tide is inching back, the gulls are hopping from bin to KFC box. I can clearly make out the miles of anti-landing wire & wood rolling along the beach. All the way from the threat of Operation SeaLion to VE Day.

Six young men in two different bands, split into two teams and yet another rusted can of Pepsi is converted into an Adidas Mondial. A blur of tartan shirts, Levis and chukka boots. A brace of bikes stolen from outside the town centre Library are leaning gently against the dark blue railings. 

Final score: Hip Troop 13 v 12 Aztec Camera... 
(Based on time-honoured last goal stands tradition)

Lockdown - Day #22

It is tempting to leave the seafront and just pop into the Marine for a pint or two but we’ll leave that for Christmas Eve (or post cup-final lash ups). Equally tempting to pop into Fusciardi’s Ice Cream Parlour, all the while remembering Dayville’s ghastly but memorable Bubble Gum ice cream…

The rear of The Leaf Hall (never did know what it was for) looming over some rooftops, backrooms and bedrooms. The Seagulls starting to mass on the rooftops and railings. The humdrum, dead-drunk pubs become more plentiful.

Waking up in one of the back bedrooms, to the sound of gulls bending TV aerials and tapping against windows. Going to sleep in a damp basement flat, with the sound of taxi’s careening round the corner at club closing time, with the taste of Rico’s Special Burger on my lips.

Lockdown - Day #21

A young George Orwell escapes from his prep school (St Cyprian's) for an afternoon. He finds himself on the eastern side of the pier, he misses the tiny clutch of New Romantics edging their way home from Dixieland after another brush with the Soul Boys. He also fails to see Frederick Engels taking a lunchtime break from editing the Communist Manifesto.

Eric Arthur Blair (as he was then) is too busy looking at the fishermen selling their daily catch under the pier, meanwhile Douglas Bader and Tommy Cooper pass each other 45 years apart

Time strolls along the seafront. Sir Peter Blake's Butterfly Man barely visible in the distance. Roger Moore leaving his penthouse for a barely relaxing walk. The famous and notorious arm-in-arm, stretching the length and breadth of history...

All the while, the tide shuttles to the rhythm of the moon, relentlessly shimmying up and down the beach. Picking its way over the pebbles, seaweed and the daily decay...

Another day, another wedding ring lost at low tide.

Lockdown - Day #20

Meanwhile back on the other side of Royal Parade, the B&B’s and Guest Houses transform into Hotels (no motels or Holiday Inn’s). The number of potential party venues increase. Eighteenth and Twenty-first, Wedding receptions and cricket club dinner and dances. 

Inside the sound of Southern Freeze warps minds. I don’t know what this is but I have to dance to it… On the road itself, the itchy/scratchy sound of FS1E (Fizzy’s) ricochet between the parked Capris and Allegros. The Hailsham Boys are in town, all Saxon and Iron Maiden. 

Meanwhile, Claude Debussy takes his daily walk along the promenade with his inamorata the young Emma. His life in exile only enlightened by the memory of her delicate kisses in the morning and the music of the sea… the eternal music of the sea!

Lockdown - Day #19

The smell of the seafront, all damp salt, John Player Special and the distant tang of Sarsons. Above our heads the row of lights sails on to Holywell. 

Jumping down on to the shingle, loose stones tumbling towards the dried upper sand. The permanently waterlogged groynes, used as wind-shelters, goals and wickets. 

The arc of the stone from hand to sea.

Lockdown - Day #18

It isn’t all sunshine, murder and Christmas on this walk. Now that the green to the right has disappeared, the taste of Creamline Toffees starts to invade the pallet. The prom is strewn with “toffee wrappers and this mornings papers”… 

Young spirits hold hands and try to ignore the feral lust that washes over them like waves. In the distance, satisfaction, recrimination, isolation and ultimately reconciliation melt into the horizon. She looks at him through a deep fringe and he looks at her through the silence.

The low rumble of the corporation cream and blue number 3 single decker merges with gull skaw from behind the retreating Redoubt. The sounds of teenage years push in and out… A telecaster skank step, a Rickenbacker hum. 

Lockdown - Day #17

Torn old copies of the Eastbourne Gazette and Herald, smudged newsprint and yellowing paper stuffed under the seat of THAT seafront shelter. The ripped clothes and the naked body of a girl on the beach. It is Christmas Day and the Sussex Constabulary swarm over the cold windswept pebbles. Still remembered and still try to say a prayer for her on Christmas Day. Poor Nicole (RIP).

Another winter and THAT shelter is home to a different kind of tragedy. An old homeless man, regular visitor to Seaside off-licence, wrapped in differing editions of the Gazette/Herald, moves along the bench to a cold teenage boy. Raised voices, a misunderstanding, shouting and the youth runs away towards Langney. It was just a misunderstanding.

The pace always quickens when walking by... So, time to move on from THAT shelter. Seagulls pirouette above, the sun silhouettes them high in the Sussex heavens and the (at first tinny) sounds of a ghetto-blaster reach out from above the shoulders of a group of golden souls… 

“Run for the shadows, run for the shadows

Run for the shadows in these golden years”

Hero of the British Art Resistance

Billy Childish formed the "non organisation" The British Art Resistance in 2008. An exhibition was held under the title Hero of The British Art Resistance at The Aquarium L-13 gallery in London. It featured a  collection of paintings, books, records, pamphlets, poems, prints, letters, film, photographs made that year.

The recent sad loss of Andrew Weatherall (Jan 2020) led me to seek out interviews featuring the 'reluctant superstar DJ' and all round top chap. I was delighted to see in one interview that he was wearing a 'Hero of The British Art Resistance' pin. A fact that reassured me of his credentials as a champion of the under-achievers of the world. 

Apart from being a DJ, musician, remixer, record label owner, fan of A Certain Ratio and artist - he was a gentlemen in the truest sense of the word. Courteous, generous and wore a fine suit on occasion...

His succinct mantra seems perfect for a world packed full of pomposity and stupidity:

"If you're not on the margins, you're taking up too much room”

Lockdown - Day #16

Once the corner turns at 90º, the first thing that hits you is the Pier in the distance (a few days further along on this walk). The shingle shelf falls from stage right down to the gunmetal water. Ragged tooth groynes reach tentatively into the sea, whilst piles of imported stones weigh the land end down, making sure they don’t simply drift into oblivion. 

Inside the Redoubt, the remains of old wars and model villages are trampled in the rush to buy yet more ice-cream.

A film crew sets up in the catacombs. We are frozen in time. The sweetened scent of Country Fayre gel fills the whole room. “Lights, Camera, Action.” Her dark fringe gently caresses her eye-lashes. There is nothing more all-encompassing than love in the summertime on the Sussex Coast. 

No cannon fire today. Outside - The corporation railings, dark/light blue, broken by regular steps onto the shingle. Overhead the nightlights shimmer from here to Holywell. A sun lounge café squeezes itself onto the edge of a sliced and diced triangle of perfectly cut grass. We are spoilt for choice… More than we will ever knew!

Lockdown - Day #15

The English Channel, the tangerine sun and the Downs bounced wind often combine to create small rainbows that hover in the foreground when looking west towards Beachy Head. Meanwhile on the right, Treasure Island, a scene of late night raids and Smirnoff fuelled escapades. 100 paces on the bowling greens look in remarkably good condition as the Redoubt looms ahead. I never could remember when the Tank on the road side of the fortress actually arrived and why it ever did. There must be a plaque attached but I’m blowed if I can remember it.

The close packed fleet, avoiding the high-tide advances of La Manche, sit close together and the riggings clang in rasping harmony. Only an idiot would leave their oars in their boat – too many pubs and too many other idiots. The Lifeboat House behind me, with the beach winch, called out far too often and far too late to rescue members of the Harp Lager Appreciation Society (Marine Div). 

Turn left at the Redoubt towards the long glass and wooden fronted café. Stride by the discarded serviettes and the tomato shaped sauce bottles sitting next to the sugar shaker on the empty formica-topped tables behind the glass. I can hear a distant chikka-chikka from The Beech, a Friday night Ska band, drenched in Pernod and Black. The James Bond Theme skank-style saturates the sticky red carpet. One day my band will play in this pub, one day…

Lockdown - Day #14

Many thanks to all those already in the know. And to all of those who were up until now unaware. I can exclusively reveal that today I have been honoured by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and will henceforth be known as:

The Rt Honourable Lord Langney 

The Royal Beach Poet Laureate in Extremis

I am eligible to to take up this appointment and my place in the House of Lords effective from today.

The broad extent of my dominion.

Pay homage

Lockdown - Day #13

The bank of swans in Princes Park, bloated on stale Sunblest, avoid the wayward shots being launched from the raised 10^th tee of the ‘Royal’ Princes Park pitch & putt. Underneath the overhang, a pair of discarded knickers that should never have made it out of the phone box. Every Christmas Eve they promised it would end this way. 

Back on the sea side of the road, a dull pat of tennis balls ricochet off the Lifeboat shed and the first of a million tawdry B&B’s waft fried bread, bacon and eggs back down Channel View Road. It is (nearly always) time to move on to the actual beach… 

The sea, ridding itself of ozone and seaweed, pushes up the past the Queen’s median high-tide line. Orange rope meshes with old fishing nets and the rust spreads like some kind of twisted cruel virus of the future. The wretched swell of decay takes a firm grip and the first sign of the path of the beaten army, signposted by the discarded trail of chip wrappers and cans of Top Deck and Colt 45 leads us beyond the Butterfly Centre and towards the Fisherman’s Club.

Over on the horizon, the Royal Sovereign Lightship is scuttled and the Royal Sovereign Light Platform rises from the sea. A portal to a new Atlantis… to be decommissioned in 2020!

Lockdown - Day #12

The ghost of trams skittering out of Princes Park on a one-way trip to back from whence they came… silently surfing the stone cuttings/crumbling carpet out as far as nowhere. The tramshed, distant and foreboding, garish holiday season adverts festoon the way. The melting ice cream dripping on to the back of the seat in front.

Housemartins and Swallows gather to fly south. Starlings will wait to form a Murmuration over the Pier a little later on my walk. Back on the tram a Lyons Maid block slips from the oblong cone onto the wooden floor. I walk by the Leisure Pool and am brushed by the group of teenagers from the Grammar & High School, smelling of chlorine, Blue Stratos and ulterior motives. “Somebody will get chucked tonight"…

The sound of The Isley Brothers fills the night and the hostess lets the corner of her blonde bob fall over one eye. Meanwhile, the heady anguish of a Friday night rolls on inexorably to a hastily snatched kiss and the promise of a visit to the Crumbles to follow.

One day, in the heart of a global lockdown, these nights will seem like Paradise made real!

Lockdown - Day #11

Over on the other side of the road, my old paper round, Middleton Road – Jervis Avenue and off-shoots in between. The suggestion of stolen (near frozen) diet Coke slides across my tongue. The taste of illicit daybreak transactions: Coca-Cola for copies of Silk & Whitehouse…. 

Marching on, in the distance the new yet now ancient leisure pool, back down the coast, the line of Martello Towers standing stubborn amongst the shingle – stout sentinels (a younger man once wrote) – reaching as far as the sea fret allows. The hint of a marina barely sketched out on a town-planner’s desk, the Crumbles retreating slowly.

Gun emplacements seemingly unoccupied, the concrete walls betraying the everyday conquests of rogues and lovers alike. Remnants of yet more paper-boy transactions litter the floor, empty cartons, crushed Embassy No.6 and torn silver foil that had once contained the ultimate contraband (courtesy of the London Rubber Company). Whilst couples amused each other on the way back from the fair at Seaside Rec, a thousand matches simultaneously play on the three football pitches at 5 Acres. The raw tang of Deep Heat and liniment scars the back of the throat as the changing rooms are finally unlocked (Nobby had the key – as we suspected).

Well played lads!

Lockdown - Day #10

Pull shut the glass door, head up the garden path, avoiding the rose bush thorns that twist out of number 12's greyish soil. Only one Strawberry left. Open/close the gate. Look back down the Bay Road towards Kings Caravan Park. Memories of the guy that the local kids called 'Honky Tonk' (after a Dick Emery character), gently flouncing his way to whatever job it was that he did in the nightclub.

Cross over Pevensey Bay Road and stroll past the four houses that originally earmarked the beginning of the track to Pevensey. As the Roman Catholic Church slides by one step at a time on my left. I look across the fields, beyond the orchard, up the hill to see if a bus is coming down from the Martello. I then double check to see whether the girl that lives/lived over the roundabout is in/out/running for a bus or striding over to see me. All and none of the above.

Not too far down Princes Road I pass Pete's house and the sound of a big amp being revved up to 11 greets the soundtrack of my past. The Admiral's Estate and the lure of the girls that haunt the phone box/bus stops and newsagents caress my lustful soul. The sound of Choppers and Raleigh's reverberate the length and breadth of Ramsey Way. Loose change rattles into the phone slot. The brick wall is occupied and our vantage point is secured...

It's going to be a nice day today.

Lockdown - Day #9

The lockdown requirements continue to tighten (rightly so). Meanwhile, the realm of imagination and creativity expands and contracts with the cycle of the moon.

I've long been fascinated with the psychogeographical meanderings of the Situationists/Lettrists or Flâneurs and I'm using these days to stretch my meanderings. I'll be going on a series of walks from the comfort of my writing table over the next few days. But before I do, a poem about one of our greater flâneurs. Ladies and Gentlemen Dr John Cooper Clarke.

Le grands Flâneur (for Dr JCC)

And there he was

on the radio

and to think I thought he was dead

Sharkskin suit

skinny tie

and a voice BBC still dread

Highway 61 shades

A book of verse

And Rapier wit

A heroin addiction

And a rogueish charm

With added northern grit

He’s the ultimate Boulavardier

He’s Le grands Flâneur

He’s the man I always knew he was

The British Baudeliare

Manchester’s Messiah

He’s the man I always dreamt he was

He’s the ultimate Boulavardier

He’s Le grands Flâneur

He’s the man I always knew he was

The British Baudeliare

Manchester’s Messiah

He’s the man I always dreamt he was.

Lockdown - Day #8

The healing power of music cannot be underestimated.

I spent much of the day hunting down video performance footage of the delightful Martin Stephenson (he of Martin Stephenson & The Daintees). Martin has been on my musical radar since the very early days of Kitchenware Records (Prefab Sprout, Kane Gang etc). And whilst he undoubtedly had star quality (as both songwriter and performer), it was obvious that the glitz/glamour/plastic nature of the 80's wasn't for him.


Fortunately he didn't walk away from performing and writing. He merely found his own way through the Forest of Pop. He is still recording and performing and his music is available via Bandcamp.

The reason I have such a fondness for his work is his unique and uplifting view on how artist and audience connect. On days like these when we have time to think and examine our lives, you could do much worse than spare a little time for Martin's work.

Lockdown - Day #7

The sun shone today. I sat in the garden and the Magpie returned.

Meanwhile, in other news, marketeers are not missing the opportunity to cash in on the crisis. Covid-19 specialist cleaning services, home gyms and the relentless reminder that you are not a proper human being unless you have a mortgage.

The current lockdown playlist features....

• Martin Stephenson & The Daintees
• Le Superhomard
• Juniore
• Supergrass
• The Spits
• Kalima
• James Brown
• Fred Wesley
• Funkadelic
• Leroy Hutson

More to follow on my Mixcloud playlist tomorrow.

Lockdown - Day #6

We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone. We have each other. We are not alone.

Remember that! x

Lockdown - Day #5

This day, same as yesterday, not unlike tomorrow.

The temptation is to plunge into the bottle and swim all the way to the bottom. but that won't happen (at least not today).

There seems to be a correlation (at least in Sydney) between reduced traffic and increased rainfall. I'm not sure whether this is a genuine occurrence or just a perceived phenomenon.

How many episodes of Silent Witness are there?

Lockdown - Day #4

Woke up this morning...

Hurrah!

The tranquility of another lockdown day... A Magpie popped his head in the door this morning. But he kept his distance. Smart birds Magpies.

I've run out of bread, which is a good thing.

Lockdown - Day #3

I feel ok today. The sound of early morning deliveries and late-night Uber dashes fill the pre-dawn sky, bounce into my room and tap on my ear drums.

A pile of books reach to the sky and decisions, decisions....

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah - Bob Stanley (again)

Lockdown - Day #2

I do have a cough. I sometimes have a cough. I have survived cough's like this before but... to be on the safe I will stay here alone. I expect to be fine. I'll be back tomorrow. I'll be alone.

Alone with a lot of books...

Lockdown - Day #1

And so the lockdown has arrived... finally.

The reason for saying finally is not specifically a criticism of the current half-arsed communication strategy of a leaderless government. Their venal nature can and will be unpicked over the next few weeks. No, the reason for saying finally is that I felt this coming.

I've long had an intuitive streak and about 18-30 months ago I felt that the normal vision of the future was narrowing. I couldn't see beyond my birthday in December 2019. In part this can be put down to the story I was told by my maternal grandmother: All members of my paternal family died from heart-attacks around the age of 56. Now despite the evidence of my own father lasting to the age of 77, it was something that hovered around in my hyperactive subconscious. Anyway, the final day came and went but the feeling of a horror persisted.

The bushfires that had pretty much suffocated Sydney, finally died down but there was still an aspect of suspended belief that permeated conversations. Something else was on the way.

I wrote a poem in 2017, that was published in December 2018 (Soul Bay Press)....

The Quickening
As the sun gets brighter (still)
the dogs will start leaving home
cats will just disappear
melting back into the forests
the sky will be black & white with magpies
wild Dazzle ships in flight...
all trying to avoid the final closing down sale
the ultimate fight, the ultimate showdown,
the greatest, the biggest, the boldest
the play-off winners mega grand-final, year-end of, best ever everything must go
limbs raising to the skies
everyone must go
this week,
next week,
the week after
still feeling weak after
The ultimate The final The last
Accelerate BABY! Grow
build more, faster, higher quicker stronger big sale, BIGGER,
the quickening is coming
even the ghosts are leaving town...
all the little Samsung babies wrapped tight in their digital homes looking backward sideways upwards in praise of their head dip phones brimming with red-eyed withdrawal

the desolate stares of Microsoft clones mumbling everywhere everyday
constantly burning beyond the bounds of light empty energy of dead candle flicker
there are no more shared midnights the quickening is coming
there are to be no more goodnights
even the ghosts are leaving town...

From 'Sunflower eclipse over Troia Nova' by Andrew Franks

Day in the life of a Poet (March 2020) #2

It is a proper Springfield sky today. Dazzling blue with a Simpsons cloud puncturing the azure canvas. The doors are locked and breathing is regular. The turntables spin in the darkened corners of the empty nightclub.

The beauty of being alone.

With nothing but books and records and guitars and wine and Cadbury's Mini-Eggs...

Tomorrow I shall walk to Long Reef, tonight I will write a poem for the girl with the broken heart.

Day in the life of a Poet (March 2020)

Wake up, well before dawn... Autumn is coming.

Birdsong will permeate the locale in 30 minutes. Meanwhile, the reluctant thunder of rush-hour traffic prepares to unleash itself on the suburb.

Is it a 24/7 thing? Or am I only a poet when I'm writing? Or am I only a poet when I'm reading my poems aloud? Or am I only a poet when I'm reading my poems to a crowd? Or am I only a poet when words rhyme?

I stumble through a small pile of unfinished work... Autumn is coming.

The virus is too.

The Art of being an English Gentlemen (part 9)

Look here... Just because I haven't managed to file a report on this subject for a few years (8+ to be precise). It doesn't mean that the Art of being an English Gentlemen still isn't uppermost in my mind.

Even with the world spinning hopelessly out of control, there are some key decisions to be made. Laces or slip-ons? Oxfords or brogues? Etc etc..

The current word from The Committee for The Club for summer 2020 is as follows:

1. Gentlemen will mostly be wearing the loafer (with socks).
2. Only three types of tie knot are acceptable (in order of preference).
1. Half Windsor
2. Full Windsor
3. Four in hand
3. Club blazers are completely unacceptable (with following exceptions).
1. Genuine sports clubs
2. The Modern Jazz Quartet
3. French gentlemen 40+
4. "Manbags" are strictly verboten.
5. The following band/artist/pop t-shirts are to be decommissioned until 2022 (unless stated).
1. Ramones
2. The Clash
3. The Smiths (nb Johnny Marr T-shirts are still valid and acceptable)
4. Morrissey (2035)
5. Mod Target
6. Coldplay (indefinite)
7. Radiohead
8. Oasis
9. Wings (nb: other ironic t-shirts such as Bay City Rollers, The Osmonds inc.)
10. Never mind the bollocks/Sex Pistols
6. The blanket ban on English gentlemen wearing baseball caps is to remain in place until further notice. Ditto: Truckers Caps.
7. The flat-cap (aka the Peaky Blinders cap) must not be worn with anything other than a brogue or stout boot. The flat-cap/training shoe combination must never be worn. Penalty - 
1. 1st offence. All club rights national and international to be revoked for 12 months.
2. 2nd offence. As above for 3 years.
3. 3rd offence. A lifetime worldwide ban from the club, premises & events. In addition to be regarded as persona non grata.
8. The Cane - Gentlemen favouring a cane must note that sword-sticks are still outlawed in some of the clubs territories. However, use within The Club HQ is still permitted between 9pm and dawn.
9. Espadrilles can only be worn in the following countries:
1. Spain
2. Mexico
3. Portugal
4. Morocco.
10. Colours for this summer: Pink, Powder Blue, Navy Blue. 

The Committee

The Island of Pointless Romantic Gestures (Recollections #3)

February 29th - Bachelor's Day - Postscript

The years have skidded by, like clouds over the Sussex Downs.

Aphrodite moved out of her flat the day after she'd come to mine. She moved to Denmark Hill in London before I'd had a chance to even speak with her. Her friends were loyal and mine were dumbfounded.

Every leap year I would recall the whole day in painful and pointless detail. Every year I would make sure I had fresh coffee, croissants and flowers. I made sure my friends all had my latest address. I even tidied my rooms and if it was a work day then I'd either book it off or phone in sick.

Every leap year, I waited for her to come and to ask me the question.

I am home all day today. I have coffee, croissants and flowers.

The Island of Pointless Romantic Gestures (Recollections #2)

February 29th - Bachelor's Day

The sun had risen over Langney Point, the Unigate Dairy milk floats had spread all over the postcodes and retreated as slowly as they came and the morning paper rounds had been completed.

The faded green curtains shared a glimpse of the courtyard outside and wild spread white sheets inside. My bedroom was on the first floor at the top of the stairs and could be reached via the ground floor kitchen and front door.

Most week day visitors used to start arriving after midday, except Thursdays when friends and or others would come an hour or so earlier, dependent on how long the queue at the dole office was. Today was a Friday though - Friday 29th February.

Aphrodite and I had been together for just over 3 years (exactly 3 Valentine Days + 15 x 24hr in fact). She was beautiful, relatively tall, very blonde and what film directors used to call gamine. I was ridiculously lucky that she even bothered to talk to me, let alone that she was prepared to be seen in public with me and the fact that she was happy for us to sleep together was beyond comprehension.

Normally (unless she was at mine or me at hers) we'd wait until she'd finished her morning's writing and her brutally brisk walk to and from Beachy Head. I was sort of awake, that sort of not really awake at all awake. I heard soft footsteps on the stairs, the door opened and there she was captured in the door frame like a blonde Holly G at Tiffany's. Aphrodite stopped and smiled and raised a coffee and a smile.

"Happy Bachelor's Day, Boy".

She always called me Boy even though I was a good 4 years older than her. She flung my copy of 'A Happy Death' on the floor from the pillow (for a writer she was surprisingly rough with books). She cleared a small space on the bedside table and plonked the coffees down. She rustled in her battered BEA rucksack and pulled out a greaseproof bag that revealed two hot croissants.

"A morning picnic today, Boy". She said. At the same time dipping her head in for the most delicate of kisses.

"Wow, that very thoughtful of you. What's the occasion?"

She looked at me and gave me her 'you idiot' frown. "I've already told you. It's Bachelor's Day".

"Not another Clinton Cards thing is it? Haven't they made their money this month already?" I responded all kind of smug/glib.

The frown repeated. "Of course it isn't a corporate construct. It dates back centuries".

I took a sip of my coffee, noticing that she'd sat up and faced me, front on.

"It's a leap year day. On this day, women can ask men to marry them".

"Oh". I mumbled.

An opaque silence filled the book cluttered bedroom. The curtains were still revealing very little either in or out.

"Boy..."

"Don't".

She got off the bed, bent down and kissed me and then she walked out the room, gently closing the down behind her. I looked at her coffee cup, the untouched croissants and then through the small gap.

The sun must be somewhere over to the pier by now.

The Island of Pointless Romantic Gestures (Recollections #1)

I used to live on a small island off the northern coast of Europe surrounded by the North Sea, Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It was a quiet island, inhabited by silent dreams, futile relationships and pointless romantic gestures. Invariably it was a cold and wet place with borders, history, pubs, memories, lies, arcane laws, ludicrous accents, wild folk tales and long winters.

Yet it occasionally, when bathed in a rare lemonade shade sun, transformed itself into (an albeit scaled down) version of paradise. Full of summer picnics on the Downs, languid days on the beach and late nights wrapped in the the deep embrace of cheap vodka and expensive perfume.

Pure love was the only thing to strive for and even then you had to be...Lucky.
So, very lucky!

One early spring morning I awoke in my home town (the name of which I have long forgotten) before the frost and milkman had arrived. Sitting down at my chair and loading the sheet of paper into my typewriter I proceeded to write the hundred and one things I loved about Mon Amante.

It was easy, the reasons flew to the page. I finished, showered, dressed and walked to the railway station. She lived about 50 miles away but I'd have to travel via Capital. I bought a 2nd class ticket and boarded the train, heading for the buffet car. Where I ordered 4 slices of hot buttered toast and 4 cans of full strength lager.

Despite it being commuter hour, the train was relatively quiet. I sat back on the smoke backed seat and started breakfast, reading the newspaper I'd found on the seat whilst simultaneously watching the countryside slip by at 60mph and the lager slip down at a no less impressive rate. By the time we reached Capital, I'd topped up twice on the liquid company. The portable tape cassette player I had with me had provided a delightful soundtrack. Sinatra, ACR and Sinatra some more. I double-checked the 101 and then proceeded to write a companion piece of a further 72 reasons that no love in the world had ever existed like this.

An hour later, the train reached Capital and I made my way to the river. Standing next to the obelisk, I wrote 'Lips like Honey' in Paloma Picasso lipstick beneath the Sphinx and took a couple of pictures with my Polaroid™ camera. I then carried along beside the river to the other station. My next train wasn't until midday but the station bar was open. There is nothing more romantic than sitting alone in a station bar, with a pint of lager at 11.01am.

That lager disappeared, the train arrived. A new lager arrived, that train disappeared. My notebook was creased, the words were flow/fly all over the white/lines. I popped out of the station and bought two bottles of Thunderbird Wine. I got on the 1:30 train. I had to arrive before 3:30. The train meandered though the silence of SE Capital. Stopping at all the halts, cuttings and sidings ever invented (and a few more etc...). The train arrived at Destination Central. I left one empty bottle on the seat.

DC's cab rank was empty but the freephone was working. Her address was tattooed on my arm and we'd arrived and I'd paid before I'd even had the chance to ignore the drab town centre, where the pub with the Iron Wheel outside played host to the Indie Disco every third Thursday...

Dropped off 50 yards from her house. sealing the envelope with the 101 reasons + 72 train observations, two sphinx photos, a postcard of a Young Sinatra, a bar of white chocolate and a wrap of speed - I walked up her path.  I then gently placed the flowers and bottle of Thunderbird wine behind a big grey flowerpot (obscuring it from the road and the thirsty but in view from the open door). I then slipped the envelope through the letterbox.

The Corporation bus journey back in to Capital was less than eventful, the Sinatra batteries faded and the words waxed, waned and then disappeared completely.

"It happened in.... a long time ago".

Dusk was busying itself amongst the emerging streetlights. I stepped into The Lord Nelson, ordered a full one and asked to use the phone at the end of the bar. I rang her number, she picked up the receiver and the 10p dropped. "Open the door".

I didn't wait for her answer. I was lucky, very lucky...

Even if only for that day! On that small island.

The Cummings Dozen

The original purpose of this blog was to enable me to reflect on the things that sprang to mind about the country of my birth and where I’d lived for all my life until moving to the other side of the world in 2007. Some of the memories/recollections/visions were obvious... “Spangles eh! Remember them?” Some less so...

It has never meant to be a space for me to champion anything approaching some sort of superiority for being born in English. It is purely sleight of hand, a trick of fate. Being born in England, at the time I was born does not bestow greatness of any kind. Although I recognise the exceptionally good fortune I have had: No major war, relatively good health and a good education etc. England is just another place on the planet, with borders, people, history, pubs, memories, lies, arcane laws, ludicrous accents, wild folk tales and long winters.

England is just a country and currently it is in a mess.

It has been hijacked by dangerous ‘influences’ (NB not influencers - save them for a wholly different day) who seem to think that the British Empire still exists and that more importantly the entitled are somehow born of greater value, IQ and worthiness. The cult of the Pseudo-Scientific at the heart of this current government (Neo-Tory/Fascist) is an alarming but not unsurprising trend. They sadly believe such guff and nonsense and without a credible opposition (Political &/or Media) they are being allowed to dip a toe in the water to market test the viability of their obnoxious eugenics obsession.

Choose the brightest egg from these, guaranteed top IQ - The Cummings Dozen.

These are the darkest of times and we must accelerate our resistance, time is running out.

Film 2020 - #2

The Ipcress File

"Very neat. Must we sit through any more of this torture? I've got a lot of things to do."

Brexit

Cºuntrycide

31st January 2020 - 11:00pm (GMT)

Film 2020 - #1

Sexy Beast

“What a shithole. What a toilet. Every cunt with a long face shuffling about, moaning, all worried. No thanks, not for me.”