Just another day

London, london,

well done, great presentation today, a compliment from the boss of the boss of my boss. Not bad Boss!

I'm tired again, and quite happy, i'm between a rock and a hard place, a bit sad when I really think about stuff, real stuff, emotional stuff, but that's just me.

It's all wrapped up ready to go

Cards strewn over the floor, and flash socks too.

Tired so i'm off to bed,

I am human and I need to be loved
just
like
anybody
else
does.

Three hours on the A46, then manouvering the car and me round loughborough leicestershire, heaton, smeetin, seaton, fleeton and godknowswherethefuckamiton.

I was tired when I got in, and promised myself no bread til Christmas, but i'm still awake at 11.30, and had toast a little while ago, washed down with some cute oranges.

I have a present for you, it's waiting wrapped in paper.

I look down at my white tshirted torso, and my pants, and my duvet, and its all a bit mundane. I wear the same white undershirt I promised i'd never wear...it's to keep the cold out I tell myself, but it's just about getting older.

Pipe smoke and cardigans next

london tomorrow, the hoards of staff members caring if you call them 'mate' or 'girl' like some jumped up Greer, burning their bra.
"Last week we went to football and the women stayed at home." Fuck they wouldn't like that, but that's fuckin reality duck, it's here and I grew up with it, and me and my uncles and dad and grandad are all members of the club, and you're not, and for that very fucking simple reason.

A final sip of water for today, from a glass smelling of beer in parts, the last taste of a victory pint this evening.

Uber tired but still enough for a chat and some hardcore blues on spotify

This warm comforting glow, I feel priveleged, and I lie here with heavy eyelids, but so many to chat to, others to ignore, more ignoring me.

Back on site these past few days, the room where much happened but not, that is gone, replaced by some steel eyesore, flapping tarps in the breezy Leeds wind and puddles in mud and sludge and crud, where flippant students throw empty Jacques cider bottles and fag ends

I lifted up my crucifix by Jesus' chin

It never got bright today, always a shadow of a day, a hung grey cloud.

The insistent drip drip drip 'good morning this is' drip drip drip 'how can i' drip drip drip


There's someone online and they're wanting banter, and I want sleep, glorious sleep,
but I had a nap earlier, so closing my eyes is like sliding a dead seal over a rock...can't can't just can't get there

Fuck what is this music? Get me that Christmas in the Heart by Dylan please. Eeeeeeeeee

And then

I threw up. Waking up throwing up as I entered work. From cold to colder, and the snails silver trails on the carpet, and falling dust as I slammed the door, was all too much.

Rubbing my legs against a ticking radiator, grabbing every last bit before putting the trousers back on,

lying on the floor with my head against the PC tower, warming my ears against a vibrating computer fan

quite cold toes and a white sock heel,

but hot laces from a car heater, like microwaving a witch.

Good evening, sweet prince

And then I was all alone, all alone, after a solitary text. Night over.

Isn't it funny how we get obsessed by texts, emails, facebook etc, but really a phone call could mean so much but it's getting the courage to do it. Sometimes the call is a minute, 5 seconds or even an hour. Then after that it's back to the texts and facebook chatter and emotion, which is really all 1s and 0s in binary, whereas the words are real and breathing in a conversation.

Oh my goodness there's no end to what i'm thinking right now, and you won't understand cause you can't, and there's been death and drunkeness and a broken tea cup that sat collecting dust on the dresser.

I'd like to get away, go North, and just stay in some library reading, and a girl brings me tea, and rests her head on my shoulder, then we ride home on bicycles, but I don't have one, so she goes ahead, and I walk, then it rains, and when I walk through the front door wet through she's gone. Where? God only knows. He only knows what i'd be with her, cause only God has that power, i'd never see it. Then I cry.

Scooters, holidays, autumn...label this post? Nothing strong enough. Leonard Cohen has been playing constantly for days, and i've started smoking again, and fag ends in egg yolks, cold tea and bread crusts.

And now they're all offline, and it's late, but i'm still smashing the keys down, and a tear

Poems

So tonight is going to be a pretty big night...my first open mic poetry slot for a good few years. I have my own poems, not poems from someone else, not comedy poems, my own heart felt, deep shit poems. They're honest poems, I try to write anonymous, like the person speaking isn't me, but it definitely is.

Been quite fragile recently. A bit sad, down, low, depressed is an over used term. Always get like this at this time of the year.

We shall have to see what happens!

With The Beatles

Beatles day yesterday, not sure what for. Can only think of Number 9...Revolution number 9 from the White Album. Why didn't the world end yesterday?

So Dave said he'd been listening more to the Beatles. I'd forgotten how good they were. Mum says the reason they did VERY well was because of the competition. But then I think of the competition they had and that was pretty amazing. It was a different style I suppose.

Would the Beatles have gone on and on without Yoko? I doubt it. Maybe she did us all a favour and acted as the catalyst of a group that was about to implode, that was going to start creating more Piggies than Paperback Writer and that would have been awful. For that reason the Beatles are seen in a positive light rather than a group that went off and dried out.

Maybe go and listen to some Beatles right now...

Bank Holidays

What's the big deal with them? Everythings closed, everyone is hungover, you can't go out in the evening or get drunk because you've got work the next day.

There's nothing on tele anymore, I'm hungover and i'm sleepy. It's my last day off before back at work and i'm tired but I don't want to go to bed cause it may be seen that i've wasted the day.

Yours, Larry David

So things happen

the past few days, things have happened. It's all been a big experience for me. Back in Leeds where the cool people go, driving under the depths of the heat of Leeds at Midnight, listening to Iggy Pop, windows down, dAnCiNg like an overweight Jim Morrison.

ahhhh well. BIG exhale. or was it a sigh? I'm not sure, ask a doctor. maybe I should check that out now.

it's raining outside but a blue sky overhead. could be a trick of the eye...oh no...it's coming through the window.

Look, i'm sorry it's been a while Baby. Have you missed me? You waited didn't you?

Aside >>she did she did!

So Leeds, yes yes alright guv'nor, guv'noress!

So I saw people I had not seen for a while. A return to my old uni which was surreal as half of it had been knocked down. We went to Asda to prepare for Leeds Fest. Two of the girls were going, I used to go out with one. The other, her boyfriend was her boyfriend at the time I used to see t'other one. Make sense sense make? It was weird...like old times. She's going out with someone different now...I got the spare room. It was cold and lonely. Her old room actually. Last time I slept there....sob sob. Boo hoo. In the past. Sigh.

Sat in the wetherspoons at Leeds Train station yesterday morning. I left their house in the dead of the morning, 9am. The house was still asleep. I waited, leaning against a cold wall outside, leather bag in tow, sucking on a lollipop. Mohammad Afzul...the name of the taxi driver. a really kind chap, we had a laugh...only cost me £7.

Then I wrote this...

Sleeping bags tied to packed rucks,
straps scraping against brand new green wellies.

Plastic bags out the back, pans tied to belts
bulging wallets about to be stolen
phones soon to be broken.

Sun hate, sun glasses, cute asses,
strapless tops
drainpipe jeans
lucky connies
muscles out of short checked shirts.

These are the festival goers,
whores to Kings of Leon, pendulum (i liked them before they were famous),
ting tings wallahs,
arctic monkeys junkies

Coca cola bottles with 3/4 vodka,
Rizla, bakky and other more criminal
accoutrement.

Hundreds of bags piled high
everyone buzzin
smokin
huggin

Eyes aloft, sunny day
rain expected Sat'day
Sun day on Sunday
sad day on monday
back to work on tuesday
lookin forward to wkend Friday.
Do it again

---

So that was an interesting few days. Back at work next week...can't wait for it!

Now watch this drive...

We've all heard those lines before. They came just after 9/11, or around that time. However they could have come at ANY time during Bush's Premiership. Bush never stopped going on about the WAR ON TERROR but he failed to realise the hypocrisy in what he was saying, as his armies slaughtered thousands across the world, treating people in his terrorist prisons like rats and held on to the biggest nuclear stockpile in the world. Now THAT'S terrible.

But, I digress. Yesterday I was reading the Guardian Newspaper and found a number of fitting tributes to the long standing senator, Ted Kennedy of the Kennedy political dynasty. The tributes were headed, and rightly so, by President Obama. Then came Tony Blair, Nancy Reagan, George Bush Sr, other US politicians. But nowhere could I bush Wubbleya. I was a bit surprised. Then I saw this video and remembered he wasn't serious about politics...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WMnI6kGXOQ

is it wrong that, at times, I think to myself in the first-person past tense? Everything tinged with an unrealised hindsight that would come later on?

A Morning in the life...

Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my....oh dear I have mixed up my life with that of ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney and in doing so quoted a Day in The Life from Sgt Pepper. Oh well.

It all started like this...

I had missed the train from Langley Mill so got the tram from Phoenix Park to Nottingham.

Why was I strangely worried and over anxious? Well it was a perfect sunny July morning and got to watch the impenetrable girl who smiled, charmed, flirted but never actually sat next to me.

I was on the tram by accident; fault of my Mum who, despite getting up at 4:30am waits until 6:00am to start getting ready. She needs to be at work at half 6, I need to be at the train station 4 miles away, for 6.36am. Normally we end up speeding to the station but this time I just exhaled, 'nah forget it.'

Now i'm not talking to myself here, or my Souther drawled American chauffeur. I'm on about my Dad, my honest, do-anything-for-anyone Pater. I'd be lost without him. He did say though, in a rather stressed and strained voice, "we need to get you a car" as we drove to Phoenix Park.

....

Just looked out of the train window, another pulled up besdie us at Beeston Station. "Bloody hell" I thought, "what an old piece of shit that is" as I peered up across the windows. It was then that I realised I was looking at the reflection of our train.

....

To my left a lovely selection of barges, boats, burny grasses and a few dappledown garages. Chocolate box.
To my right the large and looming dominants of the East Midlands horizon: Radcliffe on Soar Power Station.
Tool box.

....

Walking up Syston's section of Melton Rd, I can't help but feel a bit lonely. It's a busy road at 8:17am but there's little folk about.

I wait outside the Alliance and Leicester where the bank's cleaner arrives on time in her new Seat (I've waited here a few times!) She really can't properly and this is annoying (my Dad deems it a weakness if someone can't park properly), she arrives at an angle, with her front left tyre gently kissing then falling flat on the face of the kerb.

Then this battered old L plate blue Transit van pulls out. The side door is clumsily painted with a white gloss, then this Hyacinth Bucket character gets out. Love it!

....

The bus has stopped - I honestly don't know why it doesn't come a little later. The bus comes from Leicester into the burbs and there's never any serious traffic. We wait at different stops along the way.

....

Passing by a nursery for trees, then a nursery for children called 'The Laurels,' we make the slow rise from East Goscote into Rearsby. Freshly cut grass smell in the air, followed closely by the high pitched screetch of the bus's breaks as the driver misjudges a Ford Mondeo's speed at the island.

I am bored of where I work, what I do and i'm not even in today!

A Bangladeshi Story

On this train
Passing through perfect houses
with brightly coloured well kept gardens,
I think back in the not-to-distant past
On the road to Mongla, at the side of the river
waiting for a bridge to be fixed.

The ramshackle shops selling all sorts
cigarettes to sweets to car batteries.
7Up, biscuits and ripe brinjal.
I head someone speak
they motioned for us to sit down.

We ate and drank.

Despite the dirt and lack of social convention I was accustomed to;
there was a surprising degree of normality and order.

Children swam down stream,
and women wash clothes in the dirty water,
followed by their bodies in the thick grey mud.

The Train Frustration Blues

a wee ditty I composed a while back when annoyed at a train conductor:

I was feelin tired and kinda red
Yesterday's Sun had burnt my head,
I just pulled myself out of bed,
to get the Mornin train
it's Monday again!
Oh dear.

Running up those high steep steps
The last few I strided and lept
onto the platform,
hoping for a train on time
I was late - train was later.

My usual fare, unusually low,
a one off, anomaly ticket.
They didn't sell it,
I couldn't have it.
Shit.
"In all my fifteen years..."
I shouted, then stopped,
falling back
don't get into trouble.

Marching up at Nottingham
I had a plan,
formed in rage,
and then, when played,
decided it was foolish.
Where was my Jeeves?

A petition!
A survey!
A mass stand-off,
strike of the like from miners,
not seen in Notts though.
Won't know what hit 'em.

It's all part of your freaky dream!

Last night I had a freaky dream!

I was in a car in London somewhere with my Dad, then a police car started chasing someone near us, they went behind a building so we followed them. Then I decided that I needed to visit some people. I went into a white house that had this old rickety staircase in it. I climbed it and opened a red creaking door. There was a small gap between the door and the floor. A thin gentleman with short grey hair and beard to match was wearing a cheesecloth red shirt and some sort of fur jacket. "Come in" he said. So I did. I hopped over the gap and was given a cup of tea. Green tea was in the air and people were painting pictures and talking about philosophy, which I greatly enjoyed.


Some girls started talking to me, then I went into a room which was really a cupboard. When I came out we were in a sort of function room which I later found out was in Donington. There were many dishes to try and some rather interesting folk too. As we drove away I remember saying "well they are going to have to buck their ideas up if they want to host the Grand Prix next year!"

So far so much!

Yes, all right, I know it's been a while, but I still think about the blog at least. If it makes you feel any better, I haven't done much work on our work blog either!

It's been a frantic few weeks indeed, as that is set to follow. In no particular order over the next few weeks I have a trip to Leeds, 3 days in Lincoln including a school trip to an outdoor centre, 2 days in London, a summer fayre, a few goes on the radio, a meeting in Crich, a birthday party, a christening, a few BBQs, relatives from overseas visiting and then a weekend in Blackpool.

Some of the things I am really looking forward to, other not so much, the rest I just think why the hell did I say 'yes' to that?

Sunday I went to John Mayall, a blues singer and band leader from the 1960s. Mayall, a white blues man and very good at that, had 12 differently noted harmonicas in a wooden rack on the stage, and his band were a right motley crew of all walks of life. His bassist did some of the weirdest solos I've ever seen.

I will link to a video for you to see a typical performance of his. He recently performed with B B King...surely enough to convince you?

---

On the train this morning I spotted a chap in his about-40s, with looks akin to a weasel and a tax collector. Some may say the two are synonymous with each other! I wouldn't want to get in his bad books. There was a woman singing on there too, just between Nottingham and East Midlands Parkway, but still caused a few disturbances and laughs, may I add, to an otherwise boring and uneventful journey.

Falling asleep on the bus to Rearsby, I was woken up by a young lad with obvious behavioural problems shouting in my ear 'hey there my duck' he obviously meant 'ey up mi duck.' He then kicked the back of my chair. God I was child brutality was legal some mornings!

Luminarium

Designed in 1992 by Alan Parkinson, the luminaria are hand made and assembled in an old lace factory in Nottingham. Their coloured pieces of PVC encourage sunlight to shine through creating a unique experience. This coupled with the relaxing music creates an inflatable structure of chillaxing. Please don't run

This in an example of something I was stewarding at the weekend. It indeed is an amazing structure and one that, with your first experience, makes you laugh, cry, chilled, complacent. It was a joy to be a steward when the weather was warm outside, and not many people were there. But when it was sleeting it down and was windy, and at full capacity, and children ran around jumping off the walls then it made the job a lot more unlikeable.

An old mate from Leeds had contracted a few of us to come and steward the structure for the travelling company that had brought it. However he had said that two chaps from college were coming too. Two lads that most people liked, and I tolerated, on a good day. A very very good day.

The day started ok, but one of the lads has a very interesting mind. He likes to see the best in all situations. So here we are, freezing our tits off outside this bouncy castle thing that wasn't a bouncy castle, and it's raining, and our feet are cold too, and i say 'fuck me this is shit.' He replies, 'well don't see it like that. In some countries, these kids would be soldiers.' Now I'm no expert on either Peace studies or biology, but I am pretty certain that 4 year old girls and boys don't have the strength and dexterity in their fingers to hold AK-47s. Then he'd walk around singing and dancing, at the top of his voice, like old times. People don't want to hear the fuckin guitar for three hours on tea-on-the-landing for fucks sake!

'I've experienced something different today...the green light bouncing off your bald head.' I don't mind mates joking about my baldness, but mates only please.

PRICK

This went on for two days, and I was ready for smacking him. 'No-one has ever gunned down a New York Police Chief before' those words of Sal in Godfather Part 1. But they did it, and it ripped everything open. I should have smacked him. I'm not sure anyone ever has. Extroverts also have things to hide and hide that. Introverts have things to hide but people know it too.

Psychedelic Breakfast?

Floyd fans of you will notice the title; a track from Atom Heart Mother. I ate my cereal crunching in sync with the track. Then, as I moved to the laptop my Dad and Mum started a conversation with me. It was difficult as, whenever they said something the music kicked in, so I had to ask them to repeat.

My Dad rushes my Mum about, 'ah fuck you then' she shouts, 'go without me.' (You may be standing back now with a look of absurd shock on your face...don't worry. They don't mean it.) Dad went in to the car, Mum followed soon after. Dad drove away 'woooooooaaaaaaaahhhhhhh' exclaimed Mum as she attempted to chase Dad down the street.

Bought an mp3 player last night so I can put talking books on there. Hope it will encourage me to walk about more.

Hello...(sheepish)

So sorry for not replying sooner!

Mind you, I think there's only about 3 people who read this blog and they text me regular! Would be nice for some new readers though.

So last night was the final of the Apprentice and I really enjoyed it; the whole 12 weeks worth. There was some rate drivvle in the mix, esp Mr Ben Sandhurst and Noorul the Pathetic Fish but all in all a good bunch. Not that Phil Pants Man though. God i'd like to gerrim darrrnn vat pub and gee 'im a good threshin...as my Mother may have, on occasions, uttered.

I had a rather interesting and enjoyable weekend too but that can be saved for another blog. One thought however; there are some people from college that I didn't like, and didn't miss. This weekend has re-affirmed that thought.

A quicky

Starting to get active again, trying to lose some of those accumulated pounds. I look at myself and I don't like the way I look, I think 'what do the women think?' It's superficial I know I know I know but that's the way men and women think. The genuine girls, well they are all taken up, well most are anyway, or they don't like me, so there...there there, take comfort.

In Khulna

Tuesday, our second day in Bangladesh. We flew from Dhaka Domestic to Jessore. A small flight in an even smaller plane, but we passed over the mighty Padma river, which turns into the Ganges when you get into India.

A few hours later and i'm sitting, with fans blowing furiously in our room, a mosquito net trapping most of the cool wind and leaving me with heat and sweat and humidity.

Our bathroom doesn't work. There is a urinal with a leak in it, the shower is on but no water comes out. I washed myself with a potty jug, pleading with the tap to let me have some water. It wreaks too, of egg. Best just washing, don't smell it. I couldn't write my diary that night. The pen scrawls are reminscent of the huge spider that got its muddy leg prints all over the bathroom floor in the morning. I lay awake for most of the night, starkers, insect repellant in between my toes.

There are these little sandy coloured lizards running up the sky blue walls. They frighten me a bit...."what about the fucking cockraoches and rats" i think. The compound here is a lot more rural, and birds that sound like they're having it off squark around us. It's magical but i'm too hot and tired to appreciate it. Only when I get back to rainy grey Ilkeston can I appreciate it!

Lines composed on Day 1 of Dhaka traffic:

Bangladesh, with its colours, sights and sounds. Dhaka, never far from a car horn, whistle or bells, a shout, scream, curse. The city's life blood is its many inhabitants, travelling through the hundreds of veins that make up the hectic and dangerous roads.

The hoards of people pressed against the iron gates of the airport, waiting for brothers, sons, fathers to come out with bags of chocolates from the Middle East. They work there and come back home now and again to see their family.

We leave the airport and pass by hundreds of people lining the streets where they make their living. Shops selling all sorts, an old man feeds sugar cane through a mangle collecting the juice to sell, small children are bullied by the bigger ones scouring the rubbish for bits to sell.

Stopped on the road, surrounded by cars, the heat rising. You hear a light tap on the window from a fingernail, then a hand, then a fist thumps, getting your attention. A lonely mother surrounded by her children, she carries a limp babe in her arms. Tured, the baby has been carried around the streets as an object of sympathy so her mother can feed them, or just feed her, or take drugs. No one knows. Then the eye contact, they have you, every thing

STOPS

Returning to the war zone

"The reason the house smells of shit is because of the chip wrapper in your room from last night."
No-one said my Dad didn't over-react. God I wish I was back in the Desh right now, but, alas, I have endured and enjoyed, reflected then refracted onto the bed. Home is moribund compared to the vibrancy of Bangladeshi life, the colourful driving conditions and equally colourful array of new people, new friends that stared for hours at our white new western faces.

I commandeered a diary whilst on my small travels (in duration, but big on experiences) and I am currently in the process of selecting various entries to put here.

In other news there's a lot coming out about poetry and it makes me wish I was writing the bloody stuff, it's frustrating as I know that as soon as I get something on the page i'll be able to perform it. I hope more venues in Notts start bridging the poetry gap!

Bangladesh

It's getting closer and closer. A week today I will be in Bangladesh; Dhaka to be precise. Over the next 6 days I am going to be getting more and more stressed and more and more anxious. I have been reading some of the internal reports on Bangladesh, interviews with people who survived the cyclone that hit in 2007 - Sidr. It caused country-wide damage and ripped apart homes both psychologically and materially. Hearing stories of people with nothing but a sheet of thin metal over their heads, no fishing nets to feed their family with.

People can see the tides are rising but mention Climate Change out there and you would get a blank face. They don't know what it is, they haven't caused it. People liken Bangladesh to India, but they've never set foot in either. India is developing all the time, Bangladesh is not, well, not as fast anyway. Micro-credit is enabling people to buy things to live, but the number of loans they are paying off means they probably will not know a life without paying them. It's sad but, many believe, a necessary evil.

I'm moaning and stressing because I haven't done certain things for the trip; silly things like take photos of my house and family. I don't think I could bare to pass them over to a Bangladeshi person...'why are you showing me this?'

I like the sound

of snooker. The white hitting the red, the swish of the pocket, the ball sliding down the metal frame. It's comforting, it's home, just as well I'm at home too!

Well there have been a few moments over the last two days or so that I wish for you goodly peoples to read about then COMMENT on.

My good friend of many years is leaving for lands far and wide in a few days. I will be away on my own not-so-jolly Jaunt when he goes so I wanted to spend the next few days doing the things we have been used to doing - drinking, playing pool, having a laugh etc etc.

However my radio co-host has started 'seeing' him. All through the kind orchestration of myself, and I regret it now, as they have started to really annoy and take the piss out of me!

Am I an object of ridicule? Do I deserve it?

Last night, at the radio show I was practically doing the show by myself. Next week they are off to Skegness for the weekend and I shall be going to London on Saturday so I am not so bothered...but last night, even though they were there in the studio they spent the most part taking the mick and going on the internet whilst I did the show. My co-host was intentionally loud and I had to turn her mic off. The radio for me isn't a joke; I enjoy it!

On Wednesday and Thursday I wanted t go to the pub with my mate and have good times...a pub quiz, lots of pints, 'wacky bingo' and all sorts of other things. But I don't think I will enjoy my last few days with him if she's there. I am not sure if I even like the girl.

Anyway, dear blog, I thought I would let you know of feelings so true and honest.

Written yesterday

There's a smell of yeast on this train,

a ginger ticket inspector gets on, stretched out from kissing her 6ft boyfriend on tip toes,
before we leave,
A grey haired blue jeans wearing lady sips at her herbal tea and casually takes notes from her copy of the Guardian and the New Statesman.

Maybe she's taking notes on me - how does it feel?


Wow - that ticket lady was fit! Her wrists adorned with silver and beads, she sounded sweet, smiled too.

It's her job to smile, deal with it!


Our train fills up and up with all sorts - it's Summer now though, and, as in winter my mind was on capturing the moment and keeping warm, now i'm focussed on other core subjects; fucking and getting fucked (for those not of the youthful minset; shagging and drinking.)

I wonder how couples who live together 'do' sex. Do they ever spice it up, or just splice the urge?...Business Time Business Time...

Do they have a special night, a time? My mate's neighbours in Leeds - every Sunday at 10:45 a.m, yeah Dave? He fell out with them on the day they moved in so I doubt he's losing sleep about the fact i've just 'revealed' them. And thence from that time, the two be-spectacled did elope, and it was good, for at least two minutes.

Hahaha - I love laughing - that was a laugh then. What about when people are on MSN or Facebook or texting, and they go 'lol.' I doubt many are laughing out loud. Do people actually 'lol' on the train? I've done it once and once only - actually laugh out loud! Lol will become so ingested into consciousness, will lose meaning, our children won't know what it stands for. Will 'lol'ing replace laughing?

"It's been too long..."

he said as one man embraced the other. Old friends.

The days begin earlier according to our watches, mist clings to the fields like old cladding around antique pipes - dead grandma's blankets with no other home.

The pastelled Sun in the sky glances over everything, even our slow moving train.

There's been lots to report since my last jottings, and there are loads of changes and things I have learnt, namely:

• their Ofsted inspection hasn't gone public yet
• Cats react to sudden change
• Co-codamol and beer do not mix
• Children with asperges eat particularly

As Bangladesh looms ever closer I can't help think that the colour and glamour of Bollywood is certainly overshadowed by the 'slum' aspect of Slumdog Millionaire. Of course I am not going to Mumbai, but it's the only thing I can compare it to. That film was excellent and it made my cry and laugh. Suppose they'll be more of the former on my travels.

I've got, fuck, loads to do for next week, including two days in London in the week for meetings that I am actually looking forward to.

Got Cat Steven's Just Another Night in my head, that'll be the first track on YouTube as I come in, followed by 'Where True Love Goes' and they'll be loads of comments saying

bst sng eva! by LordRasta
wow - brings me to tears every time! by Purple1
fuck shit, die Islam by Mistter Christian

but I just ignore those and go for my own comment, in my head, and no, you can't have it!

Love is a funny thing isn't it?

Well maybe not that funny when it's unrequited, and you're sobbing into a beer because she can't say yes, cause she's already spoken for, and anyway it wouldn't work cause we're too far away and so much has changed and we're good friends, and if you have anymore cliches then please send them to:

Romance Cliches
Lonely Steet
Hurtsville
U S Aye?

God i've missed this!

What am I Doing?

Like buying a piece of furniture I don't really need, reading the flat pack instructions and realise what i've got myself into. Confusion right now, did I make the right choice? Am I happy? Whta do I really want?

You know, you set things up and you think you're happy, that you have done a good thing, then you hear people are together and I think...why can't that happen to me?

So I am a little empty now, cause I was just chatting to someone on the internet, some girl I really used to like as more than a friend. She's not had a great time of it, the past few years, and she is so sweet and lovely. And I want to go and see her and spend some time with her, a catch up and all that, and whenever she comes online I feel nice, but weak, or a bit sad, or dry mouthed, empty, then she'll text, and that's nice too.

Well well well

Yesterday as I boarded the tram at Phoenix Park there was a freshness in the air. The sun shone through the large green windows as we zoomed through the Nottingham boroughs before stopping at Station Street. I was a lovely ride into town and I saw lots of things that excited and delighted me, mainly nice ladies!

The train was boring. I just read my book. Read page after page of Danny Wallace. He uses too many words does that lad.! The front of the book read ''The Man's a genius.' Now I think that the word 'genius' is over-used. Churchill was a genius, Darwin a genius, Picasso too. But I think you have to challenge the credence of the statement 'the man's a genius' when it comes from Davina McCall. I thought Mr Wallace had a little more self-respect than that!

Anyway we arrived in London. It was an effortless journey. I was tired though, and when I had walked up Stockwell Road and met some of my colleagues outside of the meeting room there was an enormous sense of foreboding. Can I really go along with this? How can I talk civilly to these people for the next five hours? Will I manage to stay awake?

1. No I can't go along with this but I just managed it!
2. No I didn't talk civilly to them for 5 hours. I had quiet moments and towards the end of the day just walked away
3. I fell asleep a few times during the day.

Yesterday also made me realise that I am not experienced enough to do the job I do. Realistically, when I think about it, I don't fit in. I always want to have a laugh, go to the pub, can't concentrate, hardly ever put my serious cap on and no I continually think 'ah to fuck with it!'

Then I log on to Match.com...it's no secret I am on there, and girls chat for a few messages then nothing. Well manners cost nothing. A short reply message wouldn't go amiss. Fuck off if you can't be bothered. You can hide behind your wall of numbers and the Internet...it's the cowards way out!

So here I am, sat inside on a beautiful day, after coming back from a lovely afternoon with my Gran, in Nottingham and I think 'maybe I should just fuck it all over and do something TOTALLY different. I'll wait until June and think. A rethink and a review. It's always a good thing. Think about how your life is shit.

Stop. Ranking full stop!

When the muse calls; answer

These words, from an interview with Allen Ginsberg some years ago really identify the reason for the lack of blogs on here. I don't have anything to talk about right now; it's all in there and doesn't want to get out.

A trip to London tomorrow will no doubt bring some creative worms from the soil. There is always lots to think about, things to see, to do, to admire, to be disgusted at...then I will have some things to talk about.

A trip to Nottingham with a family member on Wednesday followed by a meeting in the evening, then a day at work on Thursday, a weekend in Coventry...if I haven't got something after that then i'm giving up.

I haven't forgot one of the first blogs on here...say yes more, open my thoughts, enjoy life. That's what I am trying to do.

Doggy died, Mummy cried

I saw a terrible thing today...

A car zoomed round the corner and I heard a thump, then some god-awful crying. I turned back and a dog was on the floor. It's back leg was crumpled and it was jumping up and down. It was dying. Having a fit, crying so awfully. I banged on a door and this woman comes out in her socks and pjs. It's her dog. She was crying. Some people got round, the driver was upset. I put my hand on his shoulder. 'It's ok' I said. It definitely wasn't. 'I'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry' he kept saying, then stroking the dog. The dogs eyes sunk back into it's school, the roof of its mouth went white, tongue out, horrible.

I was sad. I felt like praying. I just gave the driver my number and name. What can you do when a dog dies? It's that woman's little kid. It's her friend. It's dead. I walked away, kept turning back, she was still there, on her knees, stroking her dog. It just lay there, a big dead weight. Once a gorgeous black and white sheep dog and now it was just dead. End.

As I walked away I cried a bit. It was sad. I thought about it all day, still am, and that poor woman, and that man who probably was driving a little faster to get to work. He wore good clothes, had a nice car, but at that moment we were all equals, sad, worried, caring about this dog. It hurt.

The Land Where I belong Part 4

I'm staying in Morley right now, Morley, Leeds.

It's a bit weird here as it reminds me so much of my hometown, Ilkeston. With a plethora of charity shops and empty windows, as I walked up the main high street I could have closed my eyes and thought I was back on Bath Street. Morley has an almost flat vista however and Ilson does not.

The people here are old, gristly and set in. But they are kind, forgiving, cute, they don't offend like Londoners. If you hold the door for them they thank you for it, with a smile too.

The old ladies and gents are true characters.. They all look like loving grandparents that comfort their grandchildren with mint humbugs and sunday dinners. Not like in London, where every other person is a drunkerd or a druggie. Not saying that isnt a problem up here; it is, and i've seen it outside of windows, behind shops, near bins, but up here it's sort of not as bad.

The people here know each other. Not always a good thing but at least the community spirit is one unbettered elsewhere. It means there is always a friend nearby. Lovely.

So, off to the pub, with BNP sympathies. I'm not foreign though, I feel at home here, so I reckon i'll be alright. As long as they don't think i'm from London. Us midlanders can never please. London folk think we're from up neweth, Leeds people think we're from dahn safth.

The Land Where I Belong Part 2

It was night time in the big city, wet taxi cabs flew by, hot red buses full of crack pots and junkies went by, we jumped on one, made some jokes then dropped ourselves off at the Canteen restaurant, Spitalfields.
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It's a nice enough area now, but back in Victorian Britain it saw many of Jack the Ripper's victims draw their last breaths. It's quite trendy now; quite arty with famous residents Tracey Emin and even Damien Hurst a few years back. Jeremy Bentham of 'greatest good for the greatest number Utilitarian' fame was born there too.

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So after a rather drunken meal, well drunken for me anyway...culminating in a nice drop of brandy, ended then we stumbled out, across white paving, under funky lighting reflecting off smooth shiny new walls of glass and steel.

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After a few drinks in a glorified factory, and cashing in on it too, we went to a place called Tabernacle, a weird if none-event which boasted big crowds and bigger prices upstairs, but a quite quaint yet smart club downstairs, with a lit up disco floor, and small star lights in the wall. Not that I paid much attention of course; I was too busy getting pissed on sambuca, tequila, beer, vodka, gin, wine and whatever else took my fancy. Twas like Tom Brown in an alcoholic sweet shop!

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So after an expensive night then I was well out of reddies. I went to the Sudanese corner shop at the top of the road and scraped enough for some juice and a crap pizza. Fell from rich to poor in a matter of minutes. At least I had my Oyster card...oh shit where has that gone?

So

So

So

So I enjoyed it, LONDON, but it wasn't me. You can't look at people on the bus, can't talk to people at the bus stop, exchange a familiar glance with communters on the train home, can't moan about the weather or the shit running times of the trains. You leave your place in a morning and go all focussed in getting to work. I still do it; I will bump into someone and still say sorry. You do that and they treat you with the same level of contempt if you were to bump into someone then walk away in Nottingham...lots of words there for a very small point. London is my capital city, I feel proud to walk past the statues of Cromwell and Churchill...tourist points for the Japs and Americans, my heritage, MY HISTORY. London is my capital city but I don't belong...I don't belong anymore than anyone else down there.
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Get back home, or jump up and down Briggate in Leeds...I feel welcome there. I still feel welcome in Headingley, or in the Dolphin or Leeds Market, or Upper Parliament Street.
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London; theres shit loads of people there, all different nationalities, all faiths, a mixture, DIVERSITY, the buzz words we're all shouting out for...a diverse city! That's good though; I welcome it, but it's not my capital, not like Nottingham or, dare I say it, Ilkeston, or Leeds. I'd rather be a Midlander, or Northerner than a Londoner. Notice I didn't say Southerner? I like some parts of the south...queen of the south, not THE Queen. Give us back our houses, sell your jewels and give the money to the poor.

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...

The Land Where I Belong Part 1

Just returned from a weekend in London. I have spoken about London a few times on this ere blog but the level of detail I am about to dive into has never yet been attempted.

Well the reason I went down was for a friend's birthday. I got the train down with him with another one of our friends who has turned into a bit of a diva now...do this, do that etc. Everything's made sweet with a smile but less of that.

So we made our way down there and it was a beautiful day...the sun was shining, the birds were singing their sweet song (not that you could tell as we zoomed 100mph down the tracks) and everyone was sort of happy. We were reading Private Eye and they were talking about the conflicting news stories about Jade Goody from two years ago to last week. It seems that all the red tops are willing to jump on the Goody Train...just leave her to die in peace. That is definitely not what she wants!

So London then, it's a funny place. Everything is so hectic. I wonder where all those people are rushing to. It'd be good to see on a map where their route is dotted out on different coloured lines. No doubt it'd be like a massive circle of lines and different colours.

Efficiency is the name of the game down there. There was an accident with a cyclist on the corner of my mates road and the traffic was only stopped for about 15 minutes. Sirens a go-go and all that stuff. A few horns honked and a few people stopped to look. My friend then told me not to look at anyone...there was this Mother shouting at her kids and they were running around. I sort of chuckled to myself as they looked really sweet but then Ben said, "don't...don't" because he knows I would probably have wanted to strike up a conversation. He said something like "not down here" which meant not in London. Made me think 'this is my capital city, but I don't belong here. More of that later.

Ben's flat/house/pad/place is an interesting sort of abode. Set in a slight gated community, you enter into a typical front room, complete with laminate flooring and IKEA furniture. He's got these metal stairs with grips (think external fireescape type one) and, although they may look trendy when you're in shoes, in bare feet they are not so nice. His room is right at the top of a very narrow and shaky set off metal and mdf stairs...spiral of course...nothing is ever simple. Muggins here ended up taking most of the bags up. Ben had a lot to carry...a few pillows.

After a few hours of moping around we made our way into town for some food. After a rather tense yet humourous 30 minutes or so choosing where to eat we opted for a non-descript Italian that boasted of Tiramisu and a few nice specials. I opted for a few glasses of an ok Shiraz and a lovely Lamb ragu with pasta that could have been a little too overcooked for my liking. Still, nice food, alright conversation.

Afterwards we went for a few pints but Ben wasn't feeling too great so him and another friend went home whilst James and myself went to the pub and had quite a lot to drink. We stumbled in about 12 by which time we were a bit pissed but Ben and Carol were definitely not. After spilling some vodka on the floor and then clumsily getting into my sleeping bag I drifted off. In the morning I didn't feel that bad considering the cocktail of booze I had consumed. Carol and Ben were rather annoyed that both James and myself were not in the clinches of a full raging hangover. After a hastily cooked breakfast that was by far from good we made our way into town, doing the sights and walking around. We didn't actually do anything other than walk over some bridges and see some pretty things but it was time spent with friends that I really enjoyed.

And so to part 2 of the Land Where I belong will come, hopefully drawing on some conclusions

This was a Week...it was!

But I can't think of much, if anything, to write about right now.

Therefore i'll leave you with this nice picture of Cappadocia:is

A song for Bob

He carried music, the voice of Youth, so much on those weak shoulders
Eyes like boulders, lyrics hot, harmonica smoulders

A hooked crooked nose
No-one knows
what goes through his head

Hear him play that country guitar
Through a creaking door, ajar,
Through to Cash's house
With June too

Blood on the tracks
Stacks and stacks of stolen records
From journeys cross country
Bus hopping, pill popping, train don't stopping
Crazy!

Well well well

It is a boring saturday morning, i'm on the mac, sitting on the nice sofa, with the blackslatefireplaceandgreentiles wondering when my mum and dad are going to go out so I can watch Shameless.

What to do tonight? I was going to go to an irish dance type thing but can't now, as I have no-one to go with. Then I find out that my other mates from home are going out, but I didn't hear about it until last night, and still I hadn't been invited. Do I sound like a college student with no friends? Yes! I shouldn't be bothered really but I am. Mind you i'm going to London next weekend, and i've got a pretty busy schedule from Sunday evening to Wednesday evening so i'm looking forward to that. The dreaded Monday area meeting of course, which stirrs up sickness and foreboding in the stomach, but you get a free school dinner so it's not all bad.

Anyway i'll get going cause I am going to have a bet on the geegees today (not to be confused with the high pitched singing of the BeeGees) and hopefully win some money, but more likely just spend some quality time with my Grandparents.

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14.3

You know, this is probably the hardest blog to write. When you carry on with your own life, hating it, moaning about it, wishing you were someone, somewhere else, then someone else is losing theirs, then loses it. How we all get too selfish about stuff, when really we should all become a little more grateful for what we have; to see our friends and family enjoy their life, and for us to enjoy it too - that's what's important. Not whether you've lost your car parking space or misplaced your keys, or hate your job.

Prayer is good, i've found, for bringing us back to reality. I don't pray for God to change things automatically. If people do that then they will lose faith because what they pray for (world peace, someone to be saved from death, an extension on their coursework) will probably never happen, then they'll lose faith. Instead, pray for strength, pray for the holy spirit to work within those people, to nourish them, to energise them, to make them not feel lonely.

Sorry this is getting a bit religious now and again, but these are my passions; music, nature, religion, poetry...I shouldn't apologise. I don't want people to stop reading this JUST because it's religious. It's sad that I should think that but some people ARE like that.

I'm also feeling a little sick right now. Just a mixture of nice food, emotions, tiredness and over-thinking. Plus, everyone is out and i'm staying in to save up for next week and the week after! I suppose it should do me good.

Just remembered...

..
Bloody area meeting on Monday - can't wait for the trivial boredom that is. Talking about documents i'll never read, people i'll never meet.
"What's your opinion on?"

"Nothing! Fuck it! I don't care!" is what I want to say

"Well I believe we have to consider all the avenues before coming to a conclusion." I should say

"Sorry I haven't read the document." is what I normally say.

Then there's the civil social chat at lunchtime, which I hate getting involved in, because I couldn't spend social time with most of these people. I would rather talk about the documents that I haven't read.
"What are you doing at the weekend? Did you have a good one? Any future plans?"

"Sorry - didn't know you were my social worker AND a boss."

I treat everyone like a boss, just so I don't fuck up. I think someone's being nice to me, being a friend, then as soon as I be friendly, "cya later girls, how's it going? Did you get your kids sorted in the end?" They take it the wrong way. Email: "I do not think your language is appropriate...now bend over and let us fuck you with a stick of political correctness gone mad."

Station to Station

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They probably all have to do their stint on the platform. You see some more there than others. It's always the grumpy old men when I get there though; times; the extremeties of the day.

Always a bit scared when the ticket person flips and zips down the aisle. I've had it a million times before:

"This ticket is not valid...mate!"

Sometimes I get a "Sir" but they're not normally that professional. They can behave how they want when a fare lister is involved. Once, I was frog-marched down to the excess fares office at Leicester. He told me what I told everyone, "it's an anomaly ticket, i'm from an un-manned station, it's not my fault....the dog ate it!!! ARGH!"

"Un-manned station?" What's that? It's not even a station, just a bus shelter on a strip of concrete in the middle of nowhere. Never seen a ticket man theres. Turns out a few train staff are from where I live, they hate the "station" too!

So, after a regorous negotiation i'm free, only to suffer the same fate at Leciester, and, unless the large Indian guy with the manic laugh is at the gate (he is my friend) then i'll get the same POW treatment.

Grassroots

So I was at this event tonight, where this priest chap was talking about his work in Zimbabwe. You may see him on the street and think "_________" because if you saw him on the street you wouldn't think anything, you'd just walk straight past him without thinking anything. We do it all the time; we ignore people, even people we know, we don't look at people, we don't acknowledge.

Now this guy turns out to be a bloody saint. Not a 'self-professed, look at me working for UNICEF in front of all the cameras and holding little babies' saint. A proper self-less, humble person who acts, not for himself, but for other people. He says he looks after children who are orphaned by AIDS...not single orphaned, but double, i.e both their parents have died. They have no-one anymore. So this charity takes care of them, looks after them, feeds, clothes, houses them and even pays for their medicine. Of course the moneys there. It won't always be, but for the most part we can say 'yes I donated, I helped.' But out of us, who could say that they cuddled that child when their Mum and Dad died? Who could say that we entered Zimbabwe knowing full well that if the government saw us then they would imprison us and kill us? Who could say that they eat with lepers and people with cholera? I can't. It would take a lot of courage to do that. I'm not sure if I'm spiritually strong enough to do that.

At mass at the weekend the priest said that faith wasn't some inward thing. Faith has to be outward looking, it has to work from inside to out, to be transformed into action.

I suppose what I witnessed tonight was the telling of faith. True Faith (NO NOT NEW ORDER!) of a real kind. The kind that isn't done through countless reading of religious texts and saying 'hmmmm but if we look at what Augustine was saying blah blah blah." It is grass roots, it is on the ground, with the poorest of the poor. We're not saying here that God hates the rich. God loves all of His children. Its just that the older rich children take more from the poorer children and so God, as the Mother is telling the rich off and giving back to the poor what is theirs. This is what the liberation theologians were all about. Even today this message is fresh, it's new, but it's the root, the first drop of water from the fountain of Christianity. This is how the Gospel speaks to us. It's a liberating set of books telling the life of a liberator. That liberator is Jesus Christ...he doesn't mince around in gold vestments saying lots of nice prayers with candles and incence and all that stuff. He gets his hands dirty, mucks in with the farmers, the cleaners, the builders, the carpenters, he isn't bothered where you're from, but he espeically sees the good in the outcasts of society.

A jealous monk sniffing drainpipes

That's me looking at some Roman ruins...some old fightin arena me thinks. I like it. Old being respected by new

Would Turner be proud?

Leaving Leicester through the arse-end this evening, the Victorian factories stood beside the pre-fab and 21st century glass and steel. There was this yard with loads of yellow skips piled high. Old cranes lay in gravel yards, dying. Graffitied walls bordered it all. Made me think, "how many men had it taken to make this landscape?" "How many wives had cooked dinners that lay cold on kitchen tables whilst their men worked in the sod and shit and thick black rain to create this?"

I was crossing through history and we never appreciate it. We read our spreadsheets and drink our lattes, talk to colleagues and eat bacon butties, but outside there's a world, a landscape, a changing planet, it's all fluxed up out there

Yours sincerely, not me

Well it's been an up-and-down couple of days.

I'm just not feeling myself right now. There are words inside but they just don't want to come out.

It's just one bad thing after another. Can't go into it, don't want to go into it.

You know, being a happy jokey, walking, talking, jumping, smirking, laughing dancing chancing guy I find it frustrating when i just want a few quiet moments. If i'm not joking in a meeting, or not shouting my mouth off when out then people think something is wrong. 9 times out of 10 they probably are right.

Saw this poster on a bus shelter last night:

The fact is, I AM tired of putting on that same brave face. There's no cancer involved here, but that really sums it all up right now. I love my job but it's boring sometimes, there's not enough hours, not enough money, I want to get out, I'm going to get tied down. I need to escape. The more I escape the more I realise that I actually want to be there. My mates at home are good. I love them, I respect them, I enjoy going out, having a laugh, blah blah blah, but I need to escape the town, the house, the way of boring life. Not that Leeds wouldn't have its boring bits, but it'd be a new start, a fresh beginning.

Depression is an over-used condition, though sometimes I do get depressed. I haven't felt this bad in a while. There's no 'pulling yourself together'...that just ain't working right now. Probably doesn't help that i'm skint, overweight, underpaid, no car, stuck.

I suppose i should ride out the storm and see where I go!

Swimming

Well for the first time back in the pool I had a bloody good sesh today. I dragged mesen outta bed at half 7...a little late for a change. Then got changed and jumped in the pool. It was full of old men and women. They say they go swimming in the morning but all they do is stand around getting in your way and nattering, then they go for two lengths and get out. They're all on a sky high pension, fuel allowance and get free swims and they use it it to sub-aqua-chat. Not that i'm bitter.

Well i'm back at home, stinking of chlorine and feeling really good but bloody shattered.

Here Comes the Sun

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The houses were only just waking up as we rudely interrupted their sleep. This old train may start at a snail's pace, but when it gets going, that engine really roars. The British Rail Class 43 (cheers Brian...the nicotine train manager) These trains are flat, green, spacious and great for relaxing, but when they power through at 100mph all H E Bates Romanticism goes out of the window.

For the last few mornings the sun has been an electrifying orange. I can feel it - spring is coming!

Last night as I lay in my bed I felt totally at ease. I slipped into a sleep that soothed and, just as I began dreaming, the light came on, "GET UP, TIME FOR WORK!"I hate that initial moment. But, as I write this, still with a sleepy head, and joints that haven't been fully stretched, I realise that if I would have remained in that cocoon of dreams and rest then I would have missed the Sun being born that morning, as it hides behind the thick morning cumulus clouds and mottled blue (W C Williams cheers) sky, to become fixed up there, as if it had never disappeared the afternoon prior.

It's been a while my dears...

Twas a cock fest on the train this morning. That could mean one of three things:

1. A festival of chickens
2. Men with their cocks out taking part in some bizarre ritual
   OR FOR THOSE OF YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE URBAN DICTIONARY
3. More men than women in one particular area.

Not that this is a bad thing. Blokes know how to communicate properly when there are no women around. We become our normal ignorant selfs. With women there's nearly always some tension involved. 68.9% of the time I don't feel comfortable in the presence of women. Sorry, it's just the case. Plus, when i'm doing my hawk-like scour of nosiness in the morning (after the inital sleepy lill where you realise that you can't sleep on a rickety train) women feel phased by this.

If music be the food of love

...then get stuck in

According to Yusef Islam(if you don't know who he is then you need a good wake-up) music helps to feed the soul. We need music for spiritual fulfilment and nourishment. On reason we sing hymns at church is to express our faith in another way. It offers something different and we remember the words more if we sing them to a tune, rather than mindlessly repeat them each week.

I think that listening to music for fulfilment is connected rather strongly to psychology. By listening to music at significant times of our lives we take a musical photograph where, when we next listen to that piece of music, we take ourselves back. They aren't as vivid as photographs - you aren't taken back immediately, but, with some recollection it does eventually work.

For example, Last Nite by the Strokes takes me back to the summers of 2001 and 2002, when they were reaching a more wider audience within the realms of indie/popular music. The album, Is This It, with the black glove on the ladies bare bottom, with a paper inner booklet rather than over produced glossy finish - i remembers it all like it wer yesterday - the heat of the sun, the drinking, the celebration. all good, all innocent, all exciting, all real.

I started singing a song from Oliver! the other day in my room. I played Mr Bumble in the Lionel Bart version of the Charles Dickens classic whilst at secondary school. It was a great role and relished one of the most famous lines of the play: "Mooooorrrrrrrrrreeee??????" Obviously it didn't have the high pitched wheeze of Harry Secombe but I made up for that with an equally comedic performance. Well, that's what I thought at the time.

Music takes me back to all different periods in my life. The first time I heard the Clash was when I went to a party and only put it on to impress a girl I quite fancied. A ll I will say now is that a few years down the line...married, three children and a massive house...is ain't what I has got.

Decals

Following the blog entry 'Just a T-Shirt' I have decided to upload the advert for Lick My Decals Off Baby:

This is proper serious dirty Beefheart. It's weird, it's genius, it's interesting and curious and just darn right amazing. I don't apologise if you don't like it..."you may think Im crazy but I want you to lick my decals off baby."

What does it mean? I think it's about getting rid of all the labels, the stereotypes and just going for the music pure and simple.

Loving it!

Saturday was St Commercial Day. I would say that though; I'm single and didn't get any cards ergo i'm also a bitter bastard.

Actually single people should be praying to St Raphael, as St Valentine is for already established couples.

I sat on the yellow bus and played, rhythmically with my phone, attempting to avoid the eye of an envious boyfriend as I caught sneaky glimpses of their very attractive girlfriends. A bottle of vodka later, and several goes on the Bullseye game and I wasn't bothered about pulling. It was all about my mates. We had a bloody good laugh, got drunk and a little dance.

Was in Stealth and saw this very shit drum and bass outfit. The guy had a wire around the side of his face that formed half a pair of glasses and a frame around his mouth...you had to be there. I was going to jump up on stage and do an Ian Curtis, but was warned not to by the angry crowd. Rescue Rooms - I would have been a hero. Stealth - I would have been a zero.

We left, got some more beers and cooked some packet pasta. Played some xbox and went to bed. It wasn't an amazing night, but, cause we just ignored the valentines shizzle and got on with the job of getting pissed then it turned into a pretty pretty pretty good one.

Desperately seeking someone? Nah not really...if it comes along then i'll go for it, but it's about enjoying life, not getting confused by trivialities. The map is a bit faded but never lost sight of the goal.

Fight the 'good' fight?

__

I'm currently reading a book by Stephen Bates, God's Own Country: Religion and Politics in the USA and it is very interesting. Faith is a rather tricky subject. I find it fascinating but extremely tiresome too. There's always the same arguments being bounded about.

Take Richard Dawkins for example, he is an atheist. No ordinary atheist though. He goes on telly, writes books, gets into peoples faces and generously forces his opinion on others. He is what I call, a militant atheist. So therefore, in that respect, he is arguing against great strength with great strength. His belief is in nihilo. Christians believe that God created ex nihilo. But, this aside, whilst Dawkins fervently argues against the faith that corrupts: That is, religious fundamentalism, he is a fundamentally an atheist, does not offer others to give their view point and shouts down any that do as idiocy, immature and uneducated. There are a great many respectable atheists who do not force their faith on others, just as there are many Christians, Muslims, Hindus etc that do not force their belief on others.

And then he thought it a good idea to say there was no God on the side of buses. Now there are some Christians who believe that they should preach the word of God in public, through shouting in the street, 'healing' people, writing it on posters and generally making nuisances of themselves. Why is this ok? It's not. Get fundamentalist faith off the streets. Instead, we should be Christians in how we behave, how we act towards other people. You can't say 'I went to war because God told me' or 'well, when it comes to the war in Iraq, I will be judged in Heaven' (Messrs Bush and Blair resp.) Don't use your faith as an excuse. With Dawkins; just because you are an atheist and you think faith is silly doesn't mean that everyone else that has faith is silly. 'God doesn't exist so get on with your lives.' Whether I am against or for the statement is not the case here; it is that the statement has a public platform. Get on with your life Dicky, and don't bother anyone else.

From experience, I have found that as soon as someone knows you are a Christian, they set to prove you wrong, they want to trip you up, like when Satan tested Christ in the desert. The secret is not to fall into the trap. When we constantly question everything in life, we lose out on the meaning, we think there is a motive to everything.

Don't go forcing your faith on others. They won't like you for it. If people want God in their life then He will come to them. If they call He will answer. If people aren't bothered in God then leave them to it - they will still be happy. We all believe in something, whether it is God, another god or deity, a prophet, a messenger or even nothing.

Is Beauty really Truth?

..
As another fellow blogger has recently remarked, in a tone usually taken by my Grandma, "the days are getting lighter." Indeed the mornings are brighter - this morning there's a reassuring plethora of pastels above Meadow Lane. The morning is cold, bitter, unforgiving, yet, the world seems brighter. Maybe it's the music I'm listening to, the hot tea I'm slurping at through the plastic cover, the thought of the weekend, or maybe it's just because the sun is starting to shine!!!

Passing through Radcliffe Power Station, the sun glanced the side of the towers, the steam and smoke plumes a-wake and rest neatly in the sky. I think that's beautiful - industry amongst nature - how it all has its place.

Now, my town has its nice places, good views etc but I cannot appreciate them anymore. I associate them with a lot of negativity ergo they are not beautiful to me anymore. You move away for a few years then return, and you love it. Someone grew up in London and they beg and yearn for the country, and vice versa. Say you grew up in Liverpool. A beautiful city, especially in the Summer. The way the Mersey lights up the city with the glimmering sun dancing over the waves, the architecture, the heritage then you move away.

You go to Sheffield or Manchester or Nottingham to Uni, and you dig that place for a few years. But when you return home you appreciate it - your parents, your town, the way each street has its own smell. Don't tell me Billy Wordsworth didn't pine for the city sometimes - he loved London,

"The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air."

That really is taking the piss though...London has never been like that..."smokeless air"? But, each to their own I suppose. He probably yearned for London if it was THAT good, especially on his walks around the Lakes with Dorothy, "Fuck me Dozzer...I only want to read a good broadsheet and score some quality Opium...Coleridge knows a bloke down Fleet Street."

I want to escape all this hideousness - get to the countryside, another town, city, country, and live, breathe, walk, run and dive in, then come back home at weekends.

Loving the alien

Can't read this? Be creative!

These relationship things get going so quickly don't they?

The amazingly fucked up thing for me is that the girls see me as a friend. Fuck Friendship. She told me someone had invited her for a drink and I didn't reply. She knew. I never say anything. I'm rather quiet. I'm repressive, silent, that's why these words are loud and I'm bitter inside.

Asking a bird out now is like filling out a job application. Emailing birds because they have things in common with you:

• You both like felines
• You both have never been married

I pay good money for that...pathetic! I pay money to feel shit, to be rejected, to say, yeah I like cinema, found Cuckoo's nest very sad but no date thanks...good luck. Good luck? Am I jumping out of a plan? Is this Nam at My Lai?

I'm good at this, shit at that, what's my best feature, what do you like doing in your spare time? Fuck me you don't have to come out with these things on a Saturday night at City. It's all 'I like Jimi Hendrix too - lets go back to yours!'

My soul is open on there. So many pictures that someone could go up to me in the middle of the street and tell me what I do, how many pets I have, my ideal places abroad, but no, I don't want to go on a date with you.

and another thing...

i see lots of these ere blogs have fancy pictures, daubings, drawings, embedded youtube vids but I don't know how to do these.

I'm in it for the words.

If I can find out how to edit my blog so that I keep it my own but make it a little more exciting than my real life then I will go through the process. Just so ya know

the link from FB is coming off soon cause I think i'm going to get a little more outspoken

Reading into it...

..

I sometime think that, after comparing myself to famous folks of my age, that I have failed so I become depressed, sad, errant.

Michael Owen was earning BIG bucks, so too was Beckham at 22. No doubt Kevin Spacey was appearing on stage in front of vast numbers of people and Oscar Wilde was being his usual over-the-top-and-still-being-beautiful self. Course, not a COMPLETE cross section and so my faith is restored. Monet was a post-humous success. Others of particular note are:

• Emily Dickinson
• Van Gogh
• J S Bach
• James Dean
• Billy Holiday

So I suppose I shouldn't feel downhearted. I'm at that crossroads now and I probably won't know if I did the right thing until when I get to the end of the road, look back over the journey and either think 'oh fuck - look what I missed out on' or 'wow I've not done bad for myself!' I do hope it's the latter. Oh and Jesus didn't start his ministry until about 30 so I have a few more years to really make an impact!

Surrounded by piles of books by young poets. I've still got 6 years on Armitage but erm erm erm the words don't come out as well as I would like 'em too!

Public libraries are grand. They bring books to the masses. The weirdos, the smellies, the wanderers and the homeless come for the books. I'm probably a mixture of all those types. The chattering ladies behind the counter tell the old men to shush!!! Their page turning is too much for the women, as they slurp hot coffee and crunch noisy parkin. I have always wondered how Mp3 people can listen to their music in the library, force EVERYONE else to listen to it and then read...or at least look like they are very convincingly.

Then there's distractions outside of the library. With beautiful buildings from the third floor up, green domes, chiseled statues and capitals, stone pillars sheltering pigeons from the rain, plus lots of other architectural beauties I don't know the name for. The buses go by so much you don't notice. The chavs and birds shit everywhere.

I just wish they would all go away and let me read my Viz in peace!

Trains, seat gains and traffic lanes!

I think I have spent an enormous amount of time looking at people on trains.



Ever seen a pretty girl get on, only for her face to be restricted by a dirty head rest or an even dirtier old man? The perfectly combed and trimmed eyebrows means that there's a 98% chance of her being a stunner.

Now don't go writing to the Police or National Rail saying that there's a stalker on its trains bewtween Langley Mill and Leicester. That would be darned foolish!



Train carry thousands of people to work each day - they continue on their linear route but people will get on and off. Such a variety of journeys and a variety of weather conditions calls for a variety of passengers, ergo, there's bound to be a few lookers in amongst the lot.



Trains are friendlier than the tubes. When I is working trying to save the world I have to visit our head office down in Landan (London in a stereotypical southern accent) probably twice a month on average. You can't look at people on the tubes, no swearing, no smiling. They've only just allowed breathing on there!



The trains encourage a smile now and again. You HAVE to talk to the conductor. I once offered a seat to a lady on the Tube and she glared at me along with the rest of the carriage. I kept my seat. Her name was Rose Parks.
Who does this Northerner think he is? They all thought

Well I's a Midlander actually, my good man, but I don't speak Brummy - it's a large area...like the south and I KNOW you don't all speak like you were born within the bells of St Mary-le-Bow.

Take the following as an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ac8KL838jw&feature=related

JUST a T-Shirt?

..
..
A freezing morning today however one chap in his luminous pink jacket was displaying a Clash T-shirt...that classic London Calling album nicked off of Elvis. Now you wear this kind of t-shirt (think black cheap t-shirt with a perfectly square transfer of an 'iconic' album on the front) to either:

1. Show you were there at the time and/ or you genuinely like them
   OR
2. You're just conforming with the rest of the show off brigade and wearing an oconic album t-shirt for the sake of it.

This guy had some years on me, and I can imagine him banging his head to Rudie Can't Fail whilst nursing a pint of foamy nut brown ale in his one bedroomed granny flat near Heanor Market...for this reason alone I will let him off.

Now i am a strong believer in the idea that all music is opinion. If lots of people like the music then the more established the opinion becomes. However, this aside...if someone can justify liking a Phil Collins song (exc. Sussudio and In The Air Tonight) then I probably will like you less for it...not that you should like certain music to gain approval from certain people. That's what these t-shirts do; they encourage you to think..."ahh he likes the Clash, like me, and like Mark Radcliffe, and Brad Pitt and so I think he's quite cool." And if you see the Humph (Lyttleton) you'll think "yeah he was a nice chap," but if you realise he rocked out to Clash City Rockers then no doubt you'll think, "wow, what a cool bloke that Humph was."

---

Not sure if you've ever done this but...I once asked someone what they thought of Beefheart. They replied "yeah his Trout Mask Replica album was pretty weird."
"Well, yes, it was," I reply, "but what about Decals or Spotlight?"
"Eh?!" He is confused.

You see, people will listen to the most famous album of an artist and they think that's it...they can like them. Sure you can, but when you actually get talking about the musician and their life you can't sum up the whole of their career in one album. If they based their whole opinion of Dylan on Self Portrait then they'd come away thinking, "Dylan...rubbish!"

I was asked a girl at 6th form college what she thought of the Beach Boys. I expected her to name some of the surfin songs but she just said, "erm well Good Vibrations is cool." Oh
I then asked her what she thought of Pet Sounds. She said she had never heard of it.
Now I think that college is an excellent time to listen to music you have never listened to before, so when someone asks you 'have you heard Pet Sounds' and they reply 'no' then that's ok.
So I lent her my copy. Two months later she hands it back to me with a cracked case, saying she didn't get time to play it. Now that IS a piss take!

That musical journey is long and you never stop listening to music. But just because you have listened to Trout Mask Replica by Beefheart doesn't mean you stop there. You go deeper and listen to Mirror Man in the dark early in the morning, or drive with Crazy Little Thing blasting out to rush hour commuters.

Rant over.

Peace

Twittering on

I don't know what it is, I don't know how it works, but all i know is that everyone is talking about Twitter. Do you just follow people round via noticeboards? Do you send messages of support and then that's it? If someone knows then write it on a postcard, wipe your arse with it and send it to the Queen. This boy aint giving no shizzle!

I had a delightful journey home this evening. I ran my socks off up Syston high street to get the train and I felt tired but good afterwards...specially as the train was just pulling in. I was like in an American movie and it all went my way. Then I got to Nottingham station and all the new signs were pointing the wrong way. If I get another bloody Japanese tourist asking me where the trams are!!! I told a steward and he seemed disinterested, as I guessed.

Tea was grand - a pork dinner with sweet red cabbage and
home made stuffing balls.

I has got this crackin poem i'll plaster on this ere wall for your reading pleasures tomorrow night.

Been reading about the Pope and how he's sort of cocked up this excommunication thingy. Here's what's happened for yous that don't know: This English Bishop (Williamson) is part of this conservative French Catholic group that believe women shouldn't be allowed to go to Uni and all that weird stuff (another Bishop from this group said that Hurricane Katrina was an attack against the most sinful state in the US and it was God angry at them, so he washed away abortion clinics, nightclubs and gay bars) well he said that no Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The Pope has lifted the ban of excommunication on him without knowing he was a Holocaust denier.

Big Big Big implications for Catholic Jewish dialogue...it's like Regensberg all over again but, cause it's not Muslims this time, it won't get featured in the news so much.

I'll keep that religion lark out of this ere blog from now on.

A footnote of clarification: for an excellent set of articles on this current issue, please get a copy of this week's Tablet Magazine with an excellent article from Ed Kessler

Ice is nice...not

Woke up this morning (Dis ain't no song from A3 though!)

I slipped about this morning. From leaving the car, to tip-toe-ing over the crunchy morning offerring, to hauling my overlarded body up the steps, dancing from one train to the other, jumping off, skidding down the ramp, up the solid black roads, on to the bus, off the bus and down the alley, across the bridge, up past the posh houses then up the path across the field which is where I gone done and worked.

I hate walking on ice. For one, I am a very unstable person. Secondly I seem to slip over easily. Thirdly I have no confidence when the ground is uneven or untrustworthy beneath me. Shoes need to be solid, stable, like the foundations of a house, or a good economic policy. Rollarskates are awful to me...broken wrist at Derby Rollerworld to the tune of Happy Days. I still reel in pain and discomfort when I hear that tune...plus...a man in a leather jacket taking other men into his toilet that also happens to be his office? Fonz...Winklett (yes I know his name is Winkler but I though i would call him that cause it scans well)...yous got some explainin to do boi!!!

I I I I I always start with I...eye must be egocentric or summot like dat. Aye used to like signing my name and initialling things. It proved too much in the end though - I ended up owing a lot of money to people through the Fun Bank cheques I continually did wrote out like.

At work now, it's cold and quiet...like the heart, not mine though. Mine is warm, like Spring (Love Unlimited 1973 cheers!) and I feel sort of melancholic. Pathetic fallacy I expect. Never really known how to use that term other than randomly in a sentence with no subject.

This has been a good'un methinks. Hoping to address you goodly citizens soon with some Bard like poetry, barred from poetry houses and coffee shops this world over.

Also, wells dones duns, to me old Mate, Mater some might say, Tommy Holgate. He's running, cycling, dancing, prancing, chancing romancing...oohh come on and hold me tight (oops) for Great Ormond Street so go and sponsor him http://www.justgiving.com/tommyholgate He's a grand chap, nice lad, great hat, sound socks, rainbow coloured box-o-tricks.

Peace