Horn Of Bardship

She was a
whole lot more
trouble than she was worth
and
seeing how she was
bloody marvellous
we were all
really in trouble

There is always an England that’s dying

...
...
There is always an England that's dying

sweets you can't get any more...

makes of toy....

comics ....

publishers ....

shops ....

buildings ...

tools...

appliances

old comedian and actors...

there is always an england which is passing on, to be known no more

sometimes noticed in its passing

sometimes barely seen or mourned

and there is always an England which is being created...

new songs

new sounds

new ideas

new buildings

new words

new shops

new habits

...
for it has never been new to say
everywhere is always dying and birthing,
passing on and being reborn,
recreating itself and being re-created,
being destroyed and rebuilt,
spurred and slackened,
is always simultaneously rising and falling

...
Its simply very difficult,

in the here and now,

to see how much of either there is and

what the outcome will be

...

...

next stop cumnock

edinburgh
offski
eight great days on my todd in francis' flat
wandering about thinking
reading
rehearsing
bumping into old mates i've not seen since 2009
movies
takeaways
etc
...
plus i had a front page in the montreal gazettte
a very decent paper'n'all
yesterday, 29th
http://digital.montrealgazette.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
maybe
if you want to see something ugly
...
which went very well with the scotsman review
which justified the whole trip
...
so am now off to Glasgow
to see a music hall show at the Panopticon
[always had an ambition to do a show in a panopticon]
which robin cairns is in
robin got into performance poetry through big word
and is now the main guy running shows in Glasgow
...
and then we're off to Cumnock
a week ago i`d never even heard of Cumnock
in East Ayrshire
for a show
...
so its all an adventure, and we`ll see

...

A Mockney History Of Thingy And Thingammy

...
...
So Thingy’s working at a ******* factory near the Arsenal, it’s a crap job but it keeps him off the beer half the day, and in beer the rest, and one day this round chummy Chilean woman, Thingammy, who’s also working there and wants to do a pH.d but has visa problems so she suggests to Thingy they do the obvious and she’ll pay him fifteen hundred quid, this is way back so its decent cash, and Thingy is convinced that he, Thingy, is bi though all his mates just think he’s gay, he seems to have no interest in women whatsoever, but it ain’t like he’s taken and he needs the money though his liver doesn’t so if they're gonna do it they have to do it proper so she gets together this giant Chilean booze’n’knees up and everybody gets staggeringly hammered, as you do, and half the wedding is an army of Chilean musicians and Thingummy’s pretty good guitar and voice herself and then, when everyone’s gone, and this bit is unclear, did they have sex for a joke, did they fancy each other, did they just think they should???... whatever, they do it and in the morning they do it again and the upshot is they’re properly together and he never sees the slightest sniff of the fifteen hundred and now twenty years later they're still together, she’s a Doctor of Anthropology and they’ve got two kids and a nice flat in Muswell Hill, funny how it all works out yeah?
...
...

first press

...
rocking review
great review
scotsman, today

“Breathlessly mesmeric and exhilarating performance"

yeehah, all i neeed

especially for a quarter-assed fumble-fluff demiere... but sometimes journalists generously look through what a show is now to see what it will be... and i guess he did that

am still hanging out in francis's front room while he jollies around the Black Sea Coast and i had all these plans to get stuff done, and get down to writing, but the review cheered me up so much i forgot to do anything except drink more coffee and walk around even faster and so went off to meet my old-mate Gordon... ex-communist ex-physicist ex-new-labour ex-MSP-to-be ex-banker and now SNP computer whizzkid, dad, owner of 9 room posthouse in Linlithgow High St, and starter of his own HiTec start-up... and so, once again, having to work his absolute socks off

...

...

two more nights here before the west of scotland beckons... shows in cumnock and glasgow... have to rehearse stuff not done for two years...
...
..

demiere

tight-calfed
10 mile stroll to Cramond, north to the river then west along the firth
then Cleo From 5 To 7, at the Filmhouse
French new wave movie, and very good indeed
would watch it again right now if i could
and when i came out of the cinema it had just rained heavily
though obviously briefly seeing some of the tarmac was steaming

...
a long walk to get rid of the near inevitable hangover after the demiere of the show last night
if i can invent the word demiere
premiere would be too ambitious a word
but yes, after months of preparation i finally did the show
and it was... ok
will have to get much better, and it will
and i made a few fluffs
too many fluffs
but it did work
was funnier than i thought it would be
[rehearsing always makes you forget which bits are meant to be funny because there's no-one there to laugh]
and the audience were pretty nice to me
though a scotsman journalist was in and i hope there's no review as i was semi-pro at best
and i got some good feedback from mates as the evening
slid into the Brass Monkey
and then Pivo
the Czech bar i would so often blunder into on my late way home back to Leith Walk
and woke to not feel quite so special...

angus calder

...
i just found out Angus Calder died two years ago
at 66
the writer critic poet academic
he wrote
Gods, Mongrels and Demons: 101 Brief but Essential Lives.
which every twenty year old should read
and a load of other books
old style writer thinker poet
...
i liked angus alot
though i'm not sure he liked me much
legendary drinker
to me as much as posh Englishman of the kind i went to college with
as a through and through thorough Scot
very smart guy
one of the smartest
and super funny
sober and hammered
...
i remember bumping into on the West Port at lunchtime and him being a tad hammered already
and saying to him
not knowing then he was a legendary boozer
isn't it a bit early to be plastered?
and him replying
yes jem, that might be true but its a bit indecent of you to say so
...
are you laughing?
I am
...

just a guy, doing his best to think
and doing pretty damn well
just a guy, in the pub, having a drink
cos he's done his work
and what the hell

...
...

robinson source

First show in eight hours

Not nervous but

Never have my nails

And the skin around them

Been so bitten

… now I need to try and sleep

The waves at the sea wall

Like feveredly jostling crowds in a riot

In January of 2009

I remember walking along the waterfront in copenhagen and looking at the cheap ugly buildings,

in a city which is not given to the cheap and ugly,

and thinking

This city does not expect a great future

This city is not building for a great future

This city is building for a future of mere getting by

Why?

...

The next day, fortunately, Priscilla decided she wanted too leave

And I resumed the peripatetic wander, no longer alone

...

...

Am watching the movie Robinson In Space

Patrick Keiller’s sequel to his excellent London

One of my favourite films ever

A wholly unique film and a film which has, uniquely perhaps,

had a great impact on the world of books

And was the progenitor of all the Iain Sinclair/ Lights Out For The Territory/ psychogeography stuff

Francis, who has just left for a publishing junket in Bulgaria

Was bought it by his girlfriend Hannah

Who is very young to be the head of the

Edinburgh International Film Festival

[got job at 29]

…

So I exclaimed wow

You’ve got a girlfriend who buys you London for your birthday

Wow, I’m impressed

… so that means Hannah is a cineaste

A word I only ever used for the first time

8 days ago

And now I’m meeting one

Wow

…

The film has an image of the large-membered hill-drawing at Cerne Abbas

The very large-membered man drawn in Chalk on the grass hill

…

And in the photo the well-trodden path around the member looks like a sheath, a condom

...

...

Roger Ebert’s new voice

Saw my mate Matthew last night

Who used to have a poetic alter-ego as Hawaiian Dave

But now runs a speech technology company

…

And it was him who

Redesigned Roger Ebert’s new voice

The film-critic

And writer of Beyond The Valley of The Dolls

After he had it removed for health reasons

So they recreated it synthetically to be just like the real one

…

…They are making voices for people

… wow

and at the forefront is my mate Matthew

…

All the press quote

Doctor Matthew Aylett

Which sounds very proper

And makes you think of white coats and a steady eye

But its just Matthew

Hawaiian Dave

Iffy shirt man

I went to his wedding

..

..

..

edinburgh

dismal drear morn

dreik

boiling greys loom deep behind the bold green

i premiere tonight so the pressure is on

this is one of those days wholly given over to... just one thing

the new show

the hour, 9-10

two rehearses

healthy food

a sleep

a dvd

a climb up calton hill and

alot but not too much coffee

...

that's the day

and The Scotsman are apparently coming to review so its

double-pressure

nice

...

saw Bad Lieutenant

good not great

nicely twisted but overdone twistedness at times

then Robin Hood

which is OK despite having a lousy story

and historically being ridiculous

though looking OK

decent cast

Russell Crowe is great as Russell Crowe being Robin Hood

...

but i wonder

if you remember the last Robin Hood which was great despite the fact Kevin Costner was terrible

and he was in a crap movie whereas Morgan Freeman Mary-Stuart whatsername and especially Alan Rickman were all in very different but great movies.

so what if you could ditch Kevin and get in Russell?

what if?

...

a negro culture in pre-etruscan italy

a long time ago i read a book by James Frazer

he who wrote The Golden Bough
most venerable English academic since Gibbon
who went to 1890 Australia and recorded the Aborigines on tubes
and who kinda invented the discipline now known as Anthropology
though the Golden Bough is chiefly a work of Classics

called, i think
Folk Lore In The Old Testament
and i think it was in this book he said something like
at some point someone will have to explore the evidences of a
negro culture in pre-Etruscan Italy
now Frazer was a very serious bloke
and i have never heard any mention of this idea anywhere ever
ever
...
has anyone?
a negro culture in pre-etruscan italy
...

...
Frazer of course was an archetypal academic coward
he had a jolly nice sinecure at Cambridge
and didn't want to rock any boats
especially by saying there is nothing original about any of Christianity
all the imagery is taken from pre-existing religions
a common idea now but groundbreaking
and even earth-shattering then
which he had certainly discovered
and kinda hid
for reasons of keeping-job
within the middle of The Golden Bough
in the same kinda place where Gibbon put his anti-Christian discoveries in
The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire
which all puts Frazer in a category with Copernicus
revolutionary thinkers who did their best to hide what they had found
...

...

The Golden Bough was of course a by-product of the engine, of world travel, meaning all those details of all those cultures the world over, could be gathered by one brain somewhere
...
whatever,
a negro culture in pre-etruscan italy?

perfectionism is, of course, arduous

...

...

when the only things worth

saying

are so obvious

they do not need

saying

...

because the only things worth saying

are the only things you

can be sure of

and the only things you can be sure of

are the wholly obvious

...

and therefore the

only things worth

saying

are so obvious

they do not need

saying

...

face value

...

...

The Canadians are a very face value kind of people

while me, well

I hear the phrase face value and I think

What does value mean?

What does a face mean?

Has a face got a value?

How many different kinds of face are there?

Meanings of face are there?

In how many meanings of face can it have a value?

…

So I have to conclude

I’m not a face value kind of guy

But then its much easier to say what kind of you bloke you aren’t

Than what kind of guy you are

By which time all definitions and categories have blurred and frayed at the edges

And eventually they bow and break and collapse into ether powder and all round never-existedness

And everything means nothing and everything

…

Which is probably further proof I’m not a

Face value kind of guy

...

...

edinburgh

o frabjous green morning

the leafy trees over london road before calton hill

gently shifting in the morning breeze

to sit and coffee and idly finger this

in the way of thinking

...
...
writing can become so instinctive it
gets in the way of thinking
...
...
...

the 2010 me looks across the backyards at the 2006

edinburgh
yesterday, burning hot in the second day of summer
as the aircon train wound its delayed way north through carlisle
today, the level grey blanket uniform above
breaks rain on the cold street
before the sun and the heat break out again
...
where,
right outside
its the edinburgh marathon starting point
and a tannoy
yes a tannoy
of excitable male voice blares loud
into Francis' unshuttered window
with an intermittent commentary on
a good day for running
as the knots of coloured vests and shorts
collect and thicken into
one homogenous street-filling rectangular crowd
limb-flexing in anticipation
keeping themselves warm
some wearing binliners
lining politely for the portaloos
while disco classics sound in the gap between
his street-filling enthusings
a cheese of international welcome
big shout out to everyone here from Belgium
driving me to the
back of the house
...
looking out over the backyards to realise
that's the back of montgomery street
where i spent a winter
in the basement way across
that's the last place i called home
[though i spent five months on macmillan in winnipeg
and 12 weeks in friederiksborg in copenhagen]
a whole winter, 2005/6
a whole life got used to
its own normality
its own uniqueness
its whole beginning and end
a whole life long gone, thank god
yet a whole passage of writing
... that was where i wrote and learnt my 2006 show,
a show i like a lot
my favourite show of poems rather than one long poem
a whole show created over full months
collating ideas fusing ideas editing ideas fevering ideas
creating pieces poems jokes refrains
creating a whole
refashioning a whole
and then learning
learning
first mouthing
louder stronger broader wider faster louder
varying changing diversifying reimagining expanding shrinking
boiling down ideas into a whole
and learning learning learning for months until
i ejected into the Canadian tour
for four rampaging months of success and exhaustion
and there was
no coming back to that abandoned life
the wreckage strewn in my wake
and me gone and
shocked to find myself single
...
...

change of change of state

according to einstein
...
acceleration is
the process by which energy becomes mass
...
and deceleration
the process by which mass becomes energy

...
hmmm
...
have always thought that
less state
or change of state
but change of change of state
or rate of change of change
is the most fruitful place to be looking
...

after the summer

...
When the summer is over, and the last show is done, I’m going to get out my pallet… the one splodged with thick festered sauces of ideas… and I’m going to work them again… and boy is it going to be some fun... winter will come in all the way to -40c in and I’ll be facing a fresh canvass, with deep wells of unused strong mature ideas all primed and ready for use
Some of them will need diluting, othering sugaring, others devinegaring, some a shake or a stirfry, some a scrape of battering or two
Whatever, its gonna be fun
I have, I’ve had, all these ideas following me round for years and decades, I used up many in the shopping show, but I’ve got loads left to get to cook, to mosaic together, to stitch together with seamless artless joins and flow one into the other like fred astaire across the floor
That'll be the gig

...

its gonna be great
...

mind you, there's a whole life between me and then

the summer is giant

60 gigs

...

60

...

remurphy

the sun
having no choice
moved across the sky
[beckett... first line of murphy, i think]
...
so perhaps one could riposte
the sun
overwhelmed by choice
once more elected to take the same route across the sky
...
but
ahhh
seeing the sun doesn't actually move

perhaps that should be
the earth
overwhelmed by choice
once more elected to take the same route across the ...
...
no
no
...
so here we go
i know
the earth
powerless yet again
decided to let the sun move whatever way it liked across the sky
secretly
the earth wished the sun would

do something different for a change
but that's the problem with dominant powers
they get set into a certain way of doing things and
then stick with them forever
and ever
...

Typical history

...
Perfectly exampled by those
Tossy Welsh princes in the
13th Century
Who arrogated themselves to try and push out the English
And so, after their defeat
Brought nemesis
Upon their own people
In the form of harsh English rule and taxes and confiscation
…
If they had not tried to exert their power to the full
And beyond
And of course lost to a much wealthier power
Then English feudalism might never have extended to them
At least it might have taken a few extra centuries
…
But no
Llewellyn
And Dafydd ap Gruffud
Had too arrogate themselves
Had to want it all
And more…
And with each uprising’s defeats’s retreat came the English
Following the trail to create their fiefs and castles
Taking more neach timer
Securing themselves more each time
And those Prince’s fellow Welshmen
Suffered for centuries as a
Consequence of their
Near inevitable defeat
…
And some would say
They are suffering still

…
The lesson?
Don’t fight battles you can’t win?
Let sleeping giants lie?
Don’t wave red rags at John Bull?

summer's here

...
its here
its summer
the swelter
an old fashioned scorcher
...
...

off to edinburgh tomorrow

and live off salad

they're predicting the hottest mayday ever

so here i go

...

Heartless

...
I was just in the back garden smashing up old cupboards with an axe
There’s a great pleasure to be had in smashing up old cupboards with an axe
Have you ever smashed up cupboards with an axe?
Its great fun, I would recommend it.
…

Except the last thing smashed up was our old ottoman
You know, an ottoman, an old Turkish style box on wheels you can also sit on
And I sat on it for years at the family table

From little to not so little at all
And it used to have our toys in, lots of them

At 4, i used to hide my chilblain tablets inside it

and other food i hated
And then I go and brute-basic smash it to bits with an axe
[it reminded me of that song when emily loved me, in Toy Story…
biggest tragedy for infant girls since the death of Bambi]
…
Is that heartless?

To have smashed it up

Quick callous brutal

Is that heartless?
It feels heartless
...

...
Sylvana Mangano?
?
Mambo?
!!!!!

are you you?

off to edinburgh tomorrow
...
time before last i was in edin i had a couple of people ask me
are you jem rolls?
which is a weird question for anyone to be asked
are you you?
...
an existential thrower, yes?
...
i mean it would seem to imply i was someone
at one stage...
wouldn't it?
...
and maybe still am
...
???
apparently

silly, dumb, here we come

...

...

downright silly
...

downright dumb

...
downright stupid

...
here we come

...

...

particular words in a particular way

...

Yet more
Words from
Minds with
A
Narrow-minded
Certainty
Every word means
Exactly what they
Think it means
…

That it has always done
And always will
…

A free-wheeling happiness to use
particular words in a particular way
as if they will always be meaningful in the same way

...
somewhere below i wrote
there is nothing new under the sun
providing words don’t change their meanings
nor meanings their words

lead us not into sensation

...

Soho always makes me feel acutely self-aware
Always makes me feel like an outsider
Maybe it does that to everyone

...

...

...
And no
I’ve never seen that face before
But yes, if I’d’ve thought about it
I’d’ve guessed there’d be a face like that

...

...

republican party in excruciating agony

anyone ever read The Final Days
woodward and bernstein's sequel to
All the President's Men?
…
no?
…
well if the idea of the
Republican Party in
excruciating agony
for months on end
cranks your handle
then it is the book for you
...
...

...
America
I hope you've been extra nice to everyone on the way up
because you're going to be meeting them all again
on the way down

...

so

have you?

colonic irritation... enzymeless

...
...

149 bus from Stoke Newington to Hoxton
Bendy bus
A giant gurgitating stomach
Seats and standing and aisle
A bus-sized intestine digesting people for five

ten

fifteen minutes and then

excreting them out the sides onto the pavement
…
The ruminative road-rattled churn
The soft shoving grind of bodies
The air and light and shape and shadow slowly pushing against each other
Freezedried in an enzymeless light

A fecundless bright

Maintaining/ Inanimating them in unreaction

…
The Vancouver buses are also bendy buses
Yet they do not
Repeat not
Feel like colons
…
So why do the London bendy buses
Feel like stomachs
Digesting people?

...

...

a wrung-out rag of a man

...

...

A few times...

I was a wrung-out rag of a man

In need of a good iron

a good squaring cleaning reappointing
A few times...

I remember thinking
I need something good to happen
And you know what?
Each time it did...
Luck and reward and coincidence and good good times
Gave me that iron

That squaring that clean that reapponting
And pretty soon I was
Pretty spruce
Back in it
Back up again
And back having fun

...

...

divide between north and south

...

...

DIVIDE BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH

New Overground from Dalston to Crystal Palace
[Lastish gasp of new labour coming up trumps?]
…
Now why would anyone
Says a guy on the street
Want to go to Crystal Palace?
It’s a shitehole
…
Aaahh I get it
To get away from Crystal Palace

New Overground from Crystal Palace to Dalston
[Ta Gordon]
…
Now why would anyone
Says the guy on the street
Want to go to Dalston?
It’s a shithole
…
Aaahh I get it
To get away from Dalston
…
…

And e’er the
Ne’er the
Twain
Shall meet
…
E’er the
Ne’er the
…
E’er the
Ne’er the
…
E’er the
Ne’er the
…
Its changed
You haven’t been there
…
E’er the
Ne’er the
twain sha-a-all... mee-ee-ee-eet

…

A Cartoon Everyface

...

...

A CARTOON EVERYFACE

i, in the horde of manswarm cyphers

a floating transparency at the whim of the air

blown in the breath of the city crowd,

i, watching the flicking book of faces

the cartoon everyface

the everchanging composite of the

city's thousands' faces

i, watching, fascinated, enjoying

the cityface of

...

sunday

Soho

Chinatown

...

...

BEST WAR EVER

...
All five scumbags responsible for it died shortly after it began

...
In 1285
French invasion of Aragon, over Sicily [I think]
Dubbed a crusade by yet another venal murderous pope
All five responsible died very shortly after it barely began
So it never really happened
…
Phillip III of France, dying of plague shortly after entry into Aragon
Like his father died of plague in the ultra-crap Crusade which only got as far as Tunis
[which is not on the way to Jerusalem]
…
Peter of Aragon, succumbed to the void
like any warmaker should
…
Charles of Anjou
Scumbag supreme
Finally did the world a favour and
After a zillion iniquities
Died
…
Pope Martin the can’t-kill-em-fast-enough VI
Died
…
So the King of Spain
Not wishing to miss out
Died too
…
BEST WAR EVER
...
...

sunshine's sweet morning

dalston
sunshine's sweet green morning along the canal to victoria park
...
up in the morning to inflict the show upon poor hostkate ollie
not co much unsuspecting as
resigned to this kind of behaviour by now
and now a tootle up ridley road market to my mate john's for the cup final
will chelsea win the double
...
well you have to say they are mighty favourites
...

hackney
i used to live here
what did new labour did for england
well a fair amount
if hackney is anything to go by
...
new tube line
swanky swanky new school in haggerston
...
swankiest state school i ever seen
...
...

...

can't sit still

why sit still?
...

...

...

...

...

...

next stop the smoke

...

...

super self-conscious morning rehearsing

on the armyfield just a quarter mile off

in my self-marked-out

24 by 20 ft stage

with dogwalkers looking and

englishly-notlooking askance

at the large weirdo,

moi,

shouting and

waving his arms around

to one side of the large playing field...

ahhh the diverse humiliations of the job

...

being a poet is not the process one might imagine

at least, not for me it isn't

...

photos

press releases

aeroplane ticket cheap in advance

printshops

endless rehearsals

long walks less pontificatory than recitative

vocal warmups

physical warmups

fonts

logos

dates

times

lotteries

postering, tape, blu-tak, etc

billet requests

etc

...

etc

p to gtwk

...

am jutting out my lower lip and looking feeling kinda blank

...

just drove p to gatwick

we've been inseparable

haven't spent a day apart

since sept/ oct of last year

when i flew from London Ontario to Dauphin

...

so am feeling rather lost

back to talking to myself
back to slow empty hours
back to much less laughs and much less warmth
back to...
...

the news...

...
...

THE NEWS

IS BLUES

...

...

can't leave a room without

walking back into it
its amazing i ever get anywhere

which seeing as how i'm back in the family fold

albeit temporarily

maybe i haven't

...

...

the billion-footed season marching lightly north

as the flowered feet of springtime

comes on over this earth

the billion-footed season marching lightly north

in a scatter a riot a splash of colour

the bright confetti of the celebration
of the marriage of hope and time

...
...
...
first full rehearsal on the army field out the back
...

priscilla leaves in two days

and won't see her for two months

!
chelsea won

goodbye brown

money is an alien attack virus...

the blossom out in force

ahhh the greens of English sping

the number of greens growing with every passing week
...

the heathland under the blue white and grey
the same heathland i used to play in at 8 9 10 11...
squaddyland... because sandhurst army college is so close
a few square miles of straw and heather and ferns and conifers... of woods in part cut down for the army to exercise in... clumpy meadows... and muddy streamsides... and pylons ... and stretches of rhododendron... and ferns now uncoiling as they stretch up into summer
...
and land which, seeing how much has been built on in the South East,
owlsmoor over the other side was tiny 30 years ago but now has estate after estate
[i think... but why go to properly find out?]...
land which would not still be there if it wasn't for those squaddies, all so keen to daub their faces with charcoal and crawl around the undergrowth firing blanks at each other...
...
...
...

here come the ferns
which makes me think of laurie anderson
which makes me think of the line
language is a virus from outer space
which makes me think
is language a life force?
an unstoppable ever-evolving lifeforce?
to what extent do words and ideas have life-forces of their own?
songs do
myths do
jingles do
... the docomo adverts in India now are a virus runing in and out of millions of heads
words do
ideas do... [good ones and bad]
and i've always wondered what value there is in considering money to be a life force
is money an alien attack virus?
yes, i've always wanted to write an essay on
the biology of money
and i've always wondered what value there is in considering
traffic jams to be a life force
...

so yes,
language
and money and traffic jams
might need us
and there's plenty of things we biologically need
but to what extent does language have a life of its own
and would treating language in this fashion
from this angle
be the most fruitful take?
...

would it?

room for improvement

...
and if a show has 8500 words
then that means it has at least 100,000 ways of being better

...
which
lets face it
is a lot of

room for improvement

...
...

Caerphilly Castle

1273
Gilbert de Clare, Duke of Glamorgan, begins to complete his castle at Caerphilly
as part of his struggle with Llywyln Gryffud
and from that point on
WALES IS STUFFED
...
it was a bigger tougher castle than there had ever been in Britain
a few years before the Tower of London as expanded by Edward the First
and both are similarly concentric
...
and from that point on
as long as the English were inside Caerphilly
Wales would always be vulnerable
and has been under English domination ever since
...
...

one castle = 800 years of subjugation
...
OUCH!

...

...

paNG hurliament...

...
...

paNG!!! Hurliament...

...

...

...

silly season

ahhh
you have to vote
...
think how many people died to get the vote
the long grinding struggle through the decades to the point of
[near] universal suffrage
how much death
how much misery
how much imprisonment...
...
how many men died
and had their lives destroyed
and went to jail to get the vote
...
how many women died
and went to prison
to get the vote
...
how many indians and pakistanis and bangladeshis died
and went to prison
to get the vote
...
how many west indians died
and struggled
and went to prison
to get the vote
...
and then you think again, all the bigger and clearer, just how many people died and went to prison to get the vote
and then you think who didn't
...

and then you think of the
Conservative Party

some of whom might have died
but they died trying to stop everyone else getting the vote
forced people to crawl through grind and misery and struggle to get the vote
held up the country for centuries of grim small-minded bigotry and decline
...
and then think
to the tune of i'm getting married in the morning
they're going to be back in power in the morning

...

...

don't you think the whole election has been a bit silly season?
...
there's been alot of political immaturity for starters
like everyone being so impressed by the leaderships debates
i know its the first time they've had them but...
it still wouldn't happen anywhere else
...

and all the big noise about the liberal democrats and nick clegg

am i the only remembers that this happens EVERY ELECTION?

that early on there's load of fuss about the liberals as was?

or the lib dems as is?

and they feature big time for the first two weeks and then begin to fade out

well this is just the same

except they're bigger than before

but they still look like fading out to a considerable extent

...

blessed are the peacemakers

do you ever come across things so seemingly peculiar that they make you think your view of the world is much too narrow?

...
i do
...
and, for just one of [gratifyingly] many instances
ulster politicians ian paisley and martin mcguinness as apparent chums
...
for those who don't know
the Rev Ian Paisley always seemed the epitome of the bigoted firebrand
and has been a bigoted firebrand since the early 60s
and had as much a hand as anyone in creating the grief that overwhelmed Northern Ireland for three decades
successfully and belligerently destroying any chance of political advance on numerous occasions
yet a protestant minister and very respected in his own Ulster
...
and Martin McGuinness
who few seem to doubt was once head of the IRA
which means he ordered some very ghastly actions indeed
...
and they were as implacable opponents as its possible to get
...
and yet
at the end of a very long political road
they ended up as first and second ministers of the Ulster Assembly
and were seen more than once chatting amicably
and even joking
on the steps of the Assembly and elsewhere

and even even ended up being dubbed the
Chuckle Brothers

...
which is, from a 70s 80-s 0r 90s perspective, utterly incomprehensible
and yet its happened
...
which can only mean my take on Ulster Politics
and what people are capable of
is wrong
...

which is certainly making me think

...

...

always already there before i get there but have also always already just left...

...
vancouver keep asking me
how many people in the show?
well, i keep trying to explain
somewhere between nought and one
because
am trying very very hard at the
wholly innovative technique of
live self-erasure
of visibly and audibly physically disappearing
or at least lessening
while onstage before the watching audience
but really cannot guaranteee or promise this
groundbreaking physical theatre techniquing will be on stream for this summer
...
so i might just have to keep talking instead
...

is it all about increasing the space between the atoms so the light can get through?
...
or is it about bending the light around me by harnessing the power of the magnet?
...
or simply mesmerising the audience into believing i am not longer properly there?
...
or cunningly convincing the paying punters that they would rather not be there,
so that it is them who are only half there to see me?
...
ahhh, that would be telling
...
or sending half or more of me off on a pioneering double-speed time travel into the future...
...

so that i am
always already there before i get there but have also always already just left...
maybe...
maybe...
...

ahhh the quiescence...

...

ahhh the gentle slow english sponge cake of it all

...
ahhh the slow greenery of it all

ahhh the slow drama of the skies

all rich blue and white white and glowering grey

...

ahhh the ease

...

the simplicity

...
the calm

...

the quiet of it all

...

ahhh...

and...

and its 2 nil to Chelsea
should be there now
one game left, one point ahead, only wigan to beat
...
should be there now
...

crunch match

chelsea at anfield
in 90 mins time
...
funny to have done so well all season, top most of the time, but to then have to beat liverpool away to secure the title

...

its gonna be well tense and, personally, i would not bet at all on the outcome

at all

...

back south

motorwayed out
belt bombing barrelling down the three-laned-grey south south and souther from The Lakes to Surrey
6 becomes 1 becomes 25 becomes 3
with me, the numbheaded national-artery pedal-floorer, 5th gearing the pristine Ford Transit on the speedo so 70 stays 70 stays 70
while the spagehtti lanes of concrete wind around and around and around the head pulling tighter tauter tenser, stress-testing the numbheaded flesh, weals fading on the flexible skin, geometric curves and flatnesses in virtual inner-cranial-space
as everyday as everyday as...
the glass metal boxes in unceasing pour south down the flat lined gutterings of grey, a liquid stream of glass metal shapes on wheels
the unending discrete streams, the colour varying at pure random
all those wheels all those drivers all those decisions
all those lives all those thoughts all those concerns worries joys hopes
all those human-nesses on such a scale all pouring south south souther
till the brainzeroed jointcreaker handbrakes in parental drive and falls out the white door onto his wobbly pins into cup of tea tv tv cup of tea cake sleep
...

two day trip edin surrey

one night in lovely windermere, of which we were too knacked to see much

lovely drive past ullswater etc

the sheep the hills the clouds the valley the greens the silver grey waters

then we just kept going for it further south

...

you're gonna need a heap of glue

when they all catch up with you