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November 06 The End of The Song Funeral today. Brisk, cold day with some sunshine. No appetite. Returning to places I knew as a child when visiting you. Your house just down the road still full of your things. You left it so suddenly and unexpectedly your pots were still in the sink, your slippers shucked by the bed, your little fire still on. Odd to think of it there, full of your things still. Such a beautiful church -  Victorian and full of wonderful stained glass, a painted organ, bas relief. Good to see the family again. Cousins I've not seen for years. I don't know why we do that. Your sons and grandchildren spoke about you and they all said the same things I thought - about your great kindness, your wisdom, your strength which was of the kind that some see as weakness but was 'like grass' - small and slight, but able to break through concrete. Your eternally child-like wonder at the world and what is in it, your wise council, which - knowing so well the follies and weaknesses of our human natures, gave comment without judgement, and was always given with such love because you had a care for tender things, like plants, creatures both bovine and savage, and especially people, with their foolish, foolish hearts. I
was ok until they played the opening music - Ar Lan y Mor, sung by Bryn
Terfel. Can't find a track of him singing it, but here's it is by some Welsh woman: not the same at all, but you can always google Bryn.
Ar Lan y Môr Down by the Seaside Ar lan y môr mae rhosys chochion Beside the sea, there are red roses Ar lan y môr mae lilis gwynion Beside the sea, there’s lovely lilies Ar lan y môr mae ‘nghariad inne Beside the sea, my sweetheart lives Yn cysgu’r nos a choddi’r bore. Asleep at night, awake at morning. Ar lan y môr mae carreg wastad Cold is the frost, and cold the snowfall Lle bum yn siarad gair âm cariad Cold the house without fire in winter Oddeutu hon fe dyf y lili Cold is the church without a vicar Ac ambell sbrigyn o rosmari. Cold am I also, without my lover. The church was warm, colourful and full of art and history. Your friends were there, including your Quaker friends, and I could almost see you smiling - your head tilted to one side, gently as you always did, and you may have laughed at what everyone was saying, because you knew yourself I think, and would have been amazed. But that was your gift. You did know yourself, and in your own life, full of richness, tragedy and colour, you could see us all as in a mirror. That's why you smiled. Then you exited to the Ashoken farewell. And then we went home October 23 Ffarwel fodryb P Half past six tonight, while I was fighting the roundabouts, you finally went. Here's some of the things you gave me: A Book each year on my birthday, each of which were huge in my life, and made me want to be a writer, too. A view of religion that transcended church buildings and vestements and narrow thinking. Your Jesus wore boots and was always ready to take you back. Masses of wonderful knowledge because you were so very clever, with a lively, unconventional mind. The fact that though you didn't suffer fools gladly, you had a kindness in you, that understood humanity and it's weakness. Your laughter. Long political discussions and arguments. You and Dad, who liked to wind you up. Your company on trips to the theater, museums and galleries. Your beautiful eyes and indomitable spirit through everything life threw at you. I remember: When you buried the cat, in a nightie and wellingtons (you, not the cat) in a thunderstorm at midnight - sliding it down into darkness like a ship into deep water, because you were independent and crazy. You giving all the trees around your home names, and visiting them on your walks, leaving them little gifts at their roots. You feeding the vixen and her cubs every day at your back door. You, falling in love with a Welshman, and learning Welsh. You - on the cliffpath out of Mousehole to Lamorna Cove - where you can walk free now whenever you like, along with all the other spirits that dwell there, waiting for me: "Diwedd y gan yw'r geiniog." - At the end of the song comes payment. "Bum gall unwraith - hynny oedd, llefain pan ym ganed." - I was wise once: when I was born, I cried." Bye, Aunt P. February 01 Snow flyingSnow flying Did you ever do that thing, when you were a kid, when it snowed at night? You find somewhere where the light is shining up into the sky, making the falling flakes shine, but you can’t see any trees or buildings, and just stare up into the whiteness unblinking. After a while, an optical illusion makes the direction appear to reverse, and instead of the snow falling, you begin to rise. Just for a while, before your brain kicks in and puts things right, it feels like you are shooting upwards in a spray of white. Up into the empty places of the sky like a rocket or a bird, like a soul flying free, the way you hope it will, one day when the traces of life are cut. Tonight we had snow, which may be commonplace where you are, but is not common in my part of the world. At best a smattering of white over the ground like icing sugar over a mince pie. Maybe up in the hills of Scotland or Wales or Cumbria the sheep are huddled behind rocks cursing the elements, but down here in the seamy cities, the hot breath of the underground blows up and melts the snowflakes as neatly as you like. Tonight we had snow – nice, fat and jolly, and I went outside in the darkness wearing my father’s cap. I went onto the lawn away from the house and looked upwards into the ‘singularity’ from where all snow comes. I waited and I waited, and in that silence what thoughts come. And then in the silence, what thoughts go. Maybe one day. Perhaps the soul is what we are underneath and inside, deep down. No flesh, no bone, no genetic inheritance. Nothing in the way, like your weight or your height or your ethnicity. Just the essential you that can go wherever it wishes. Standing there letting go, being a kid again - some things remained stubbornly the same: The night was still cold, I was still worried, the wine was still warm in my veins, the cat was still grumbling for her dinner, it was still sunday night into monday morning, and I still loved you. In the end I rose.
( and to think I was treading on these.)
October 31 WaterIf you take the train along the coast into Dublin, you can see
the sea pretty close up. Picture a track with just enough room for two trains to pass, with a high wall on one side, and a short wall on the other, and then picture the sea.
It's a thick, shiny metal grey sea, the same height as the window of the train, and no more than twelve feet away just over an ordinary little wall. Today its an angry sea, because it's cold, with sleet on the Wicklow hills, and the surface is no mirror flat blue, but this boiling metal that leaps up and around in sharp peaks and troughs, billows and breakers, sucking and blowing and throwing up spume at the top of which little marbles of water are pitched upwards to tickle the feet of gulls who seem to make a game of ducking and then leaping away from them like kids on a tideline. Now and then, an especially enthusiastic wave breaks over the wall and sprays the side of the train with brine, and the wall is breached here and there with runnels of sea water. What happens in the true heart of winter when the storms are flying is a mystery - how could the train possibly run? The track would be flooded and overwhelmed, shells and fish flapping and cracking along the rails - and Lord only knows about the electrics!
Later, I manage to get some time to myself in Dublin, well relatively anyway. I'm in the Writer's museum, looking at typewriters that wrote the original 'This' or the first draft of 'that'. With the writer's things - a suit, a beer mug, a pair of glasses, a typewriter allegedly thrown through a pub window by Brendan Behan' - behind glass for our perusal, as if they were somehow clues to what made them able to write as they did. I like it for the silence and the beautiful old building, the temporary respite from noise and clamour, the chance to let my mind hum along its own lines, taking your hand through the rooms and the glass cases, smiling at you, grimacing, letting the scent of the scant sunshine through the glass, the colours on the odd illuminated page, the ink, the black and white photos curl between us like fog.
My mind hums like a machine on standby, the engine ticking over but the microchip still, one light blinking. This is peace of a temporary sort, within which the bare bones of peace can begin to clothe themselves again.
The Brandy Glass
Only let it form within his hands once more -
The moment cradled like a brandy glass.
Sitting alone in the empty dining hall . . .
From the chandeliers the snow begins to fall
Piling around carafes and table legs
And chokes the passage of the revolving door.
The last diner, like a ventriloquist's doll
Left by his master, gazes before him, begs:
'Only let it form within my hands once more.'
Louis Macneice.
I even managed to walk along Grafton Street:
'In Grafton Street in November, we tripped lightly along the ledge. . .'
sadly, Grafton Street is a shopping centre full of brightly lit shops, but never mind.......
' . . . when the angel woos, the clay, he'll lose, his wings at the dawn of day...'
Bydda i'n aros amdana ti am byth os oes angen Cariad. Be well.
September 21 Two Gifts The World Gives UsIt was sunny here today, which made people stop in the streets and gasp in wonder - what was this thing?
For the whole of August it was away from us, except for a day during my visit to Scotland when it filled the valley with light like butter in a bowl, illuminating the sheep, energising the thistles and bringing Nessie to the surface of the loch to sport and gamble. I would have had a photograph of him to show you except that I found when I got there that I had only one shot left on my camera, and I'd already spent that on a particularly attractive ewe. Two things came to me while I was away, that I've thought about since. Two Gifts the World Gives us.
When people knew I would be travelling alone, they split into two camps. Those who sympathised as if some terrible calamity had come to pass, and those who just said, 'Oh.' Now I like to travel alone. I like to be alone (not lonely, that's when you have no choice). I liked rambling about pleasing myself, syphoning up sushi without having to ask if someone else liked it, watching the Olympics while dropping gravy down my front, and when I got there, strolling up the lane talking to myself and chatting up the locals (those short horns have very nice wool too.) I wondered what it must be like for people who don't feel at home with themselves, until I remembered exactly how that feels - rather like a liferaft with a slow puncture.
As wanderers, it's nice to find a home in someone you love. Long ago when we pattered across the planet perhaps we developed the habit of carrying a little bit of those we love, and who love us, in our hearts, rather like a backpack, or a handwarmer, so that wherever we are, we are not entirely alone ever. Gift one is the gift of home that we carry with us.
And then there is Sleep. While I was in Scotland, there was, in the evenings, an abundance of whisky and beer and after partaking I would go outside, halfway down the lane in the darkness to stand on one leg and 'phone home' after which I would walk back, warm with this, and fall into my bed where I sunk into a swift and deep slumber like a warm pool. Normally it takes me hours to get to sleep, but not then. Like an otter I dived and the waters took me down and rolled me gently in a tide swell until morning. Gift two is the gift of sleep that heals and soothes.
Here's Bryn to sing you a Welsh lullaby:
And here's verse one so you can sing along:
Huna blentyn ar fy mynwes Clyd a chynnes ydyw hon; Breichiau mam sy'n dynn amdanat, Cariad mam sy dan fy mron. Ni cha' dim amharu'th gyntun, Ni wna undyn a+ thi gam, Huna'n dawel annwyl blentyn, Huna'n fwyn ar fron dy fam. September 02 No EndIt was not a nice night. Mid winter; cold and I had school in the morning. The place was the fifteenth floor of a block of partially abandoned flats, the scene was one I have mentioned before - a room without heating, lit by a few candles, with three men sitting on broken chair cushions on the floor. One heating heroin in a spoon, one shooting up into a vein on his ankle, one already having done it, floating in a wide blue yonder all of his own.
I wondered, not for the first time, what I was doing there, and why. I was about 14 or 15 - why didn't I just go home? I suppose, in these days of personal responsibility, it was my fault. I didn't have to be there did I? No one had strapped me to the back of a camel train and sold me to the city of ruination. Didn't I go there myself?
Didn't I just get bored with being a bright, articulate, happy kid who wanted to be an archaelogist and had a rock collection and a telescope, and thought saying 'bloody' was a terrible thing worthy of being publicly denounced on TV.and decide it would be more fun to throw rocks rather than classify them and wrap them up in tissue paper?
That's what they told me anyway. What other possible reason could there be? Well. The fact is that someone introduced me to all these lovely folk when they should have been looking out for me, just for starters.
Hell's teeth, did I just say that? Did I just suggest...... no. Can't be.
Isn't it absolutely fine to have your world turned upside down and shaken like a toy farm - all the pigs and ducks falling into the combine harvester, the dogs and chickens into the spiky end of a plough, the secret disease research centre cracking open and releasing all the toxic waste into the silvery stream and burning up the fishy-wishies; absolutely fine to become a cross between a piece of tin on an anvil and a unwilling twink being hugged just a little too tightly by the piano teacher; fine to become the one person with the key to Bluebeards secret - keeping the happy wife from opening the door while getting the blame for never leaving the keyhole for fear she might look through and know what you know.
Oh wrap it up for Pete's sake (who is Pete by the way?) or let's just sell tickets for a flaming matinee.
Ok. Let me explain:
I really don't like to be a whiner. It's just been twice in a month now that I've found some things just won't leave you alone. The first time was just sad and I blogged about it then wiped it. This time, not sad - disturbing in the extreme.
I was out yesterday when I heard that someone was trying to get in contact with my bro. Maybe wanting something I don't know how to answer. Someone who also knows what's behind Bluebeard's door, who might need me to help clean up the axe blade. Well, I don't want to.
For the first time, I felt fed up. I mean, when you think you've nailed the door shut, that should be it right, as much as it ever can be, but it isn't. Ever. It's not only made me in some ways, someone I don't want to be, but I'm tired of playing George from 'Of Mice and Men.'
I realised in the few seconds it took to realise that - this time, I didnt' want to be put off my pitta bread and humous - that none of this was actually my fault, that really, I'd been up to my neck in some other farmer's manure heap and was still smelling it. That really, I'm owed, not in debt; need an apology not a clip round the ear; need a thank you for keeping my finger in a dyke way bigger than I was, not a hundred lines for having a dirty pinky finger.
Do I sound whiny? Boring? Pathetic? Well, maybe I do, but tonight I don't care. Tonight, I'm wondering what to do about this voice from the past who won't get his answer either. Realising I might have to deal with some fall out, hoping I won't have to, and wondering whether I should have another drink, because ever since yesterday, I've been replaying a conversation I once had, that no one would want to have, certainly not at an age when you just don't know what to do, and - 'Promise you won't say....Promise...tell me what to do..' - that, under those circumstances then, you could only go away and wonder about; about what might result from the things you had to keep silent about. Had to. And now, maybe I know.
But I guess, I made some sort of progress because It suddenly came to me what a stonking kid I was. It's just a shame it's taken me this long to run screaming into the night with my rock-hammer and my telescope, because I lost both of those things a long time ago. And that was a damn shame. It was.
Thanks for listening, if you made it this far. June 29 A Day of big stuffToday I had to take a trip down the M25 to attend a course I've been on, and the road was busy so I daren't let my mind wander. This was good, except for the danger of my falling asleep at the wheel which I never thought was possible before now, but it is. Scary stuff. To combat this, I let my mind wander. Just a bit.
Facing the arse end of cars and lorries for an hour or so affords a different perspective on things - the odd stuff people keep on their parcel shelves for instance, or the variety of businesses winging their way up and down the country.
I was stuck behind one for miles - a white van with:
"A Distributor of HUGE Cheeses" painted on the back. It didn't seem a very big van for such cargo, but for a while I wondered what would happen in the event of an accident ( motorist survives crash only to be crushed by HUGE rolling cheese), and then for another mile or two, I considered the mechanics of making HUGE cheeses, then what it must be like to spend years making it:
'What did you do with your life?'
'I was a distributor of Huge Cheeses.'
'Is that what you always wanted to be?'
'Yes. I planned it from a young age. From the first time I saw cheese. That was it for me.'
It's odd the paths people take into different careers. How you end up dedicating your life to producing cheese for eg, or advertising gherkins. What was it we wanted to be at first? Where did we hope to be? Why are we not? Why do I keep asking all these pointless questions?
I mean, how many kids do you know who, the first time they were asked the question 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' answered, 'I want to work in a big room with no windows, pulling the handle of a machine that makes plastic bags.' or, 'I want to spend my days sitting behind a table putting calls through to some bloke who makes HUGE cheeses.' I began to wonder why I was on this course, why I do the job I do. Where my goats went to.
When I reached my destination it was a beautiful day, but lagging somewhere in the back of my heart. The sun was hauling itself up over the yard arms of the tallest trees and there was nothing wrong, just no peace. I couldn't concentrate on the day's events - not least because of the view of the golfers straight out of the windows ahead - just what is that little wiggle of the arse needed for, before you take a shot? No. I was wondering where it all went, and what to do now.
I had it all worked out once. I was going to spend my life dressed as a wizard, farming goats on an island, bringing out one book a year. I know because I found this written in an old First School notebook. I was a bright, sparky, if slightly solitary kid before I let it go tits-up. Then I made the mistake of taking my goats and retreating - to an internal island which I seem to be damned if I can escape from.
Boats come, now and then - some of them the most beautiful boats you ever saw, with sails like sheets of white paper slapping in the wind, fittings of gold glinting in the sun, the sound of life affirming and gorgeous belly laughs coming from the galley - and they sail right up close to the rocks and throw me ropes - but the damned goats keep crowding me away. Damn me, no one told me they could get so stinky.
June 19 SuckerI went back to work the other day. Money needs to be made, food to be eaten. It was like surfacing after a long sleep to find the world the same, yet different. The lawn is a bog, the plants I put in two or three weeks ago with such optimism had drowned or died from lack of water - a contradiction like so much else.
The first thing I had to do was monitor a maths exam. A roomful of 'special' kids who qualify for help of various kinds and need a separate room and a separate invigilator. All I had to do was sit for two hours watching a woman respond to their requests for help, and the faces of those with learning problems creasing with concentration as they wrote out ten lots of £2.00 down the page to add them up, not knowing you can just move the point; watching the pierced, bleary faces of those who have brains but don't use them because they just don't care, or are 'hard nuts', sighing and settling down to a boring hour and a half and a paper with most of the answers written thus:
"I dunno cos I dont get it do I."
I was doing ok, until about half way through. Then, when the stillness of the room was broken only by the odd sniff or scratch, and its really hard to stay awake, I looked up and saw her. A girl. Well known as a big drinker and smoker, a girl with a mouth like a sewer, about as lovable as herpes, began to nod off at her desk. Her mascara streaked lids drooped, her head dropped, and then....
... almost asleep, her thumb sneaked into her mouth, her head went back on her shoulder and the room filled with a gentle sucking sound. Heads went up, eyes swivelled round, and I got ready to quell the storms of laughter. One boy, known for his Mickey taking and mean spirit saw her, and just for a moment all the sass and bullshit faded from his eyes, he just looked at her and then with a sigh turned back to his chewed paper while she slept on, like the little baby she still is, deep inside.
That was the hardest moment of my first day back. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to pick her up and run her away somewhere where we don't have to hide behind these walls that start off fencing us in, and end up fencing us out. Here in the cold where you really don't want to be.
May 10 StrayThe other thing I noticed in Athens was the dogs. Everywhere you go, there they are. Up at the acropolis there were so many they had to be a gang. I called them 'The Acropolis boys' and I believe its hard to gain membership. The site is a good one after all. It offers shade and wide, sunny pavements to sleep on, and lots of people for diversion.
All the dogs are strays, don't be fooled by the collars. They are looked after by an animal charity that makes sure they don't starve, and are neutered. (Apparently the reason there are so many is because Greek men are so precious about their manhood that they can't bear to sterilise their pets!) So the numbers of stray dogs is amazing. They all looked the same type to me too - large dogs, a cross between an alsatian and a retriever - mostly golden in colour. They lie around flaked out on the stonework, oblivious to everyone, and when you see one, there will be another, and more. There were seven I counted in the Acropolis gang.
The thing that amazed me is how sweet natured the dogs are. Their life can't have been easy, yet they were not frightening or aggressive in any way and most seemed well looked after. Only once did that change. I took a coach to the coast one day, and in the middle of a small town the traffic ground to a halt and I looked down out of the window and there, making its way through the cars and coaches was the memory of a dog - a dead dog walking, just a skeleton. Its head hung down, it staggered and seemed not to care about the danger it was in. Maybe it hoped something would put an end to it, I don't know. I wanted to get off the coach and do something. I wondered why the people allowed it to go on. It spoilt my day. It was a far cry from the Acropolis boys.
Here's a bit of a You tube vid. showing some of the dogs, taken by some Americans (yes, that's a disclaimer. I'm kidding ok?)
I didn't see a single act of aggression, or even much barking, and they were everywhere you looked. Really cute beasts, though ithey do have a forlorn look about them. It seems they should be hunting the steppes, tossing snow up into the wind, chasing down prey across the mountains, but here they are, snoozing in the streets of Athens, dreaming of the past. Aristotole with a big juicy bone perhaps. Archimedes with a plate of ham.
I had to post this because I mentioned I would say something about cats and dogs and I wasn't in the mood, but here you are, best get it over with and never commit myself to a definite again!
May 04 No paperI took a short break in Athens a little while ago. I was just in the mood for wandering, as I often have been, over the years. People grow up and they develop their ways. Not all noble, not all the stuff of legend, but all of it part of what life has made us.
Walking the streets of Athens with my i-pod was an interesting experience. It's a modern city of course, yet at the same time its a city surrounded, illuminated and limited by its past - rather like all of us I guess. To walk about in it is to be struck by the burden that the past is. It's something you can't get away from. Even if you build new things there are limits. Boundaries you can't cross, areas you can't get to, and even in the middle of modernity you only have to turn round and there is the past again, looking right over your shoulder. It's hard to know what to do with it.
In Greece, the past is so close you can almost have a consultation with the people who went before, and instead of being remote and strange, there is something about the ruins that is almost contemporary. You can tell these people were really just like us, that nothing has changed, that there were dopes like me wandering around contemplating their own folly in just the same way as now - except I have to wonder if the toilets weren't better back then. I really do.
In Greece you cannot flush paper. You can't. You really cannot flush paper. There's a sign over every toilet asking you not to, and a little bin - not the sort of ladybox-industrial waste-used syringe type of box you might expect either - but a little flip top steel thing like the ones you put your tissues in, with an open top plastic bag for the poor maids to take out every morning. No way! In contrast, if you walk in the gardens below the acropolis you can see the drains the guys there had going all that time ago, and beautiful they are too - branching away east and west beneath the city under great slabs of stone - I bet there was no problem with the Andrex then.
Personally I couldn't bear the thought of my nice room maids who brought a chocolate and a clean towel to my room each evening having to sift through my 'personal-tissue-unwanteds' bearing anything more than a gentle evening pee, so I took to visiting the loos just about anywhere else I could find, which was fine until I hit somewhere where the water was turned off for two days to 'mend the cisterns'.
This experience, including having to wash my hands in bottled lemonade provided by the management was enough to put my system on strike until I reached home again, but what would travel be without such pleasures?
Wherever you go in Athens, you will rub your back on a piece of antiquity. You can have dinner next to a fallen temple with the tower of the four winds looking down on you. You can stroll out - as I did - onto your hotel balcony and look across the road with its insane drivers swerving and honking - to the ruined temple of Zeus just across the other side, and have breakfast looking out of the window and up the hill to the Acropolis while the sun glances off the cats and satellite dishes of the terracotta roofs below.
You can follow the sound of flutes over a long distance, certain that they will lead you back in time to find priestesses dancing behind an olive grove - only to find it is the wind playing beautiful music in the metal piping of a barrier fence. It's that sort of place - like the front and back of a shadow, the past as close as the turning of a page in the wind.
Here's a Youtube tour of some of the main places, to give you an idea if you've not been there:
next time, a word about dogs and cats.
March 01 St. David's DayWhatever else, today is still St. David's Day.
Saint David, or Dewi Sant, as he is known in the Welsh language, is the patron saint of Wales. He was a Celtic monk, abbot and bishop, who lived in the sixth century. During his life, he was the archbishop of Wales,
Dewi is said to have been of royal lineage. His father, Sant, was the son of Ceredig, who was prince of Ceredigion, a region in South-West Wales. His mother, Non, was the daughter of a local chieftain. Legend has it that Non was also a niece of King Arthur.
St. David spoke an old form of Welsh fourteen centuries ago, and the Saint has become synonymous with keeping the language alive, and all that is good in the Welsh way of life. Welsh is one of the oldest living European languages, and although it has been oppressed for centuries, it has refused to die and is alive and growing today.
'Do the little things' ('Gwnewch y pethau bychain') - Dewi Sant
January 21 Mutt and JeffIt's been a while, and while it still may be curtains; For now, a story of ears:
Today was all ears. First mine, which have been playing up recently. Everytime I swallow they go 'SQueeeeshcwekl', and worse than that, I've found myself staring at the kids in class with a glassy expression when they've clearly said something, then had to lean forward and say
'Eh? What? Can you do what...?' while cupping my ear like a baby chick.
Obviously it's caused amusement - with some wags enunciating clearly and loudly for my benefit (little gits). Despite ruinous amounts of medication - including a daily inahler of some malodorous, nasty tasting stuff reminiscent of drugs dripping down the back of your throat via the nasal passages (but without the effect) - nothing has helped, so off to be tested.
The nurse stuck a pair of aircraft earphones over my nut and snuck behind me (no doubt to secretly admire my butt), while playing sounds into my ears one at a time. Now me, I'd have chosen birdsong, or perhaps some faintly erotic cooing, but no. Just a series of diminishing bleeps that I had to acknowledge with the tap of a button. At one point, my thoughts crept away to brighter shores, and realising I must have missed a bleep or two, I punched the button a couple of times as insurance, which may or may not have explained the strange blip in the results pattern.
I have to see my doctor on friday to receive the diagnosis, but the nurse assured me that it seems fine, apart from one odd bit of patterning... heh.
Later on, I had to drive the mother up to the same place to have her wires re-routed (the sister who was going to do the lift being away.) The same nurse eyed me strangely, obviously wondering if I had some bizaare aural fetish which had now spread to acquiring an older woman to toy with, and pattered away. She will see that the mother has been deaf since her thirties, and is now, without assistance, able to hear almost nothing. She was there to be torn bodily from her old hearing aids which are held together with string and chewing gum, and acquainted with the digital age despite her resistance.
I had the faithful i-pod on hand as ever when forced to endure hospital surroundings - the only other entertainment available being copies of SAGA magazine and some admittedly rather fetching artworks featuring the inner workings of the ear, and a poem I liked a lot but didn't write down sadly or I'd share it. My music selection seemed to trouble an old lady who appeared to resent me 'ruining my ears' while hers were so ungratefully malfunctioning, and I was jerked out of a pleasant reverie by the arrival of an old man who sat - no - flumped himself down next to me and started an unnecessary battle for the armrest. I say unnecessary because I just want to prove I can spell it right and impress you. - No, I say unnecessary (there, aren't I clever?) because there were about forty chairs in that waiting room, serving six people, so my question was - Why? Why did he come and squash in next to me and then try to battle my arm off the armrest and breathe onion all over me while I was trying to listen to Radiohead? Perhaps he too resented this treatement of my ears. Perhaps he wanted them for himself, who knows.
Either way, when the mother came out, it was to find me partly submerged beneath this old, but very large man refusing to give up my armrest. She was fuming about the 'damn digital doohickeys' and telling me they couldn't tell if they'd be any good until she had her ears irrigated, which put me in mind of farmers (don't ask). I then endured a hideous bun in the hospital cafe (I'm sorry but I can't enjoy food while surrounded by worryingly ill looking people and depressed looking visitors). I checked the bun over for evidence of MRSA then looked at the ceiling rather than the man on the table next to me who had sprayed his head with some of that fake hair stuff:
This guy wasn't that old, but had a biggish bald patch and the rest of his hair cut to a number 1. The problem? If you see a white man, with a black bald patch, what are you to think? Either he hadn't sprayed on enough of the stuff to make it look like some sort of hair, or he'd had shampoo in his eyes and reached for the car paint by mistake (no, I don't know why it would be in the bathroom either). I was in danger of laughing, and so we exited quickly, I ejected the mother on the doorstep and felt the glorious freedom that comes when you are having time off work that you didn't know you'd have.
I took a train to a nearby town and bought some dvds and a couple of books. Ooooh, don't I know how to live eh?
Well, that's it. Its the first time I've felt like adding anything to the blog for quite some time, so you'd better appreciate it. You may also notice bits of the blog are missing - prolly not - as I was in the middle of dismantling it limb by limb.
THIS is so beautiful, it takes my breath away, and I wanted you to see it too. It's Space courtesy of the HUBBLE TELESCOPE. Marvel. Be at peace:
December 20 Joy to the WorldYou tube Music Video - The Mountain Goats, Love, Love, Love.
Not the best day. Second session with the dentist. After a morning breaking up fights and watching Shrek 2 in Spanish, I went off at half one for round two of the sorting out of the fractured tooth. Last week I had two hours gazing into the deep brown eyes of my german dentist while he sadistically borrowed into my jawbone, and today was round two. Two hours of further fun in a rubber covered chair - and I get to pay £800 squid for it.
The worst bit was when he stopped, packed my jaw with cotton wads and said, 'Excuse me, I have two emergencies downstairs. I have to leave you for a short while. I will be back as soon as I can, ok? Just relax.' then he sat me up and went! Now, when your jaw is levered open and packed with plugs, its difficult to relax in any way, especially when the view from the window is an arse of a leylandi tree, the only picture on the wall is of a goat rendered in pastel, and next to you is a tray of implements shortly to be shoved into your cake hole and wiggled about. While the saliva pooled mercilessly in my mouth and began to dribble down my chin, I surveyed the goat, trying to extract some meditative lesson in life from it. Nothing came. I inhaled, and one of the cotton plugs shot to the back of my throat threatening to choke me. The door opened and the cheery young dental nurse came in.
'Are you alright?' she asked, sharpening a pointy thing
'Arghghghlrt' I said.
'Oh good. He won't be long.'
'Arglerhhgrh...!'
She went out, leaving me with the goat, which was wearing a mocking expression. Crap, how much I wanted to close my mouth. How much I wished I wasn't drooling. It was suddenly very lonely in that chair. I thought of torture chambers, and how long I'd last. I tell you, before they got to the stage of 'showing' me the instruments of torture, I'd have folded. At the top of the stairs I'd have asked for pen and paper to write down all the state secrets I knew. Then again, I'm nothing if not terminally stubborn. I just don't like dentists.
'Ah,' said a voice behind me. 'You like my goat?' He was back. No I didn't like the bloody goat, but couldn't say so. He lay me down again and off we went once more. This time steam rose from my molar as he did whatever he was doing. I eyeballed the goat and tried to think of nicer things. Trouble is, my head is a strange and empty place. Out of the corner of my eye the goat winked at me and began to count the money draining invisibly out of my pockets. The fracture is right down deep apparently, and all this joy might be in vain. I might have the enormous pleasure of being able to go back and have it forcibly evicted. We'll see. For now, it was done. Four hours down, two more to go tomorrow.
Walked home through the busy streets, traffic and fairy lights, and the music playing my feet forward in the biting cold. Tomorrow my nice German dentist will finish fixing my tooth, and I'll be able to chew again.
Nadolig Llawen (Happy Christmas) to my friends.
December 06 Let's wipe thatMy last post is embarrassing me. It was splurged out on a very low day when I'd had a drink or two, and was something best left between me and myself. Pulling it off now is a bit stable door, so I'll have to live with the scorn and embarrassment. However, I don't want to be remembered like that, so I thought I'd best cover it over with these thoughs of a rainy day in Surrey, on a time wasting course in behaviour management.
I parked in semi-darkness at the station, squeezing my way into a space left by two others who seemed to have no idea how to stop between two white lines and went to put my money in the machine. It had gone. No fee. Sounded good to me (more later). Then I made my way to the train to the accompaniment of my i-pod nano, which gave it a strange 'I'm in a movie quality' as I waited to the sound of violins, got on the train to the sound of Eric Bibb and stared out into the gloom to the strains of 'I need some sleep' by Eels, which I sure do.
Getting off the other end I had 'insomnia' - bit of a theme here, but if anything could have put me to sleep it was the course. Delivered by a man who thought he was funny but wasn't, in a room three sizes too small which soon had me wanting to strip naked just to get some air, we spent the hours until lunch vainly searching for a grain of new information. I was sorely tempted to put my earphones back in like the kids at school do, but made do with doodling instead.
There was a woman who kept dragging her bra straps up, a man who kept investigating the inside of his nose, the rain coming down over the river just outside the window, and those danged christmas lights coming on over the bridge. I wanted out. Everyone was sweating like it was a sauna, and after lunch - which wasn't half bad - a brandy and a snooze would have been ok. but wasn't forthcoming.
We finished up about 3, nice and early, so I wandered into town to try and absorb some Christmas cheer. The rain was drifting down in a soft, fine mist and the lights were defiant amongst the shopping. I always feel rather separate, but with the i-pod I discovered a whole new world. Firstly that (because I have funny ears and the normal earphones fall out) when you wear in-the-ear phones, you can't hear a damn thing of the outside world, so that when you drop a pound coin and it rolls down the street and you say 'bollocks' in what you think is a quiet undertone, its actually very loud - and tends to frighten old ladies who you happen to have been looking right at as you said it. Second, that when you have a favourite song come on, and are singing along in your broken french, you are actually giving a concert performance to the stalls - and the stalls don't really appreciate it.
I went into the bookshop and spent some time amongst the secret gospels of Jesus, the poetry section (not good), the Sci-fi section (no one has written anything I'm waiting for) and the Science and technology section (good) before deciding to take off by way of HMV where I spent £78 in a rare burst of retail therapy. Then I walked over the water (the bridge, not on foot) and along the street to the strains of something sad and boarded the train home. I sat opposite a man with silver hair who was also 'plugged in' and kept shutting his eyes and waving his hand gently in his lap like a starfish in warm water to the strains of whatever he had going in his ears.
When I got back to my car some bugger of a parking attendant pissed off with having to work in the rain, in a duck's arse of a station car park had given me a bloody ticket for 'parking outside the lines' - !!!!!! half a tyre tread???? because I had no bleeding choice? £60 for that gross violation?
I put the i-pod on and calmed myself for five minutes. It played 'The Monkey Song' by some insane children's choir from America. When the hell did I download that????
Home, glass of wine. Try to sleep early.
Less embarrassing if only slightly less dull. Still, I'd not want to be remembered as a lame duck. I'm not really. The question is - why do I care what anyone thinks? It's all to do with measuring up. God, I'm so full of garbage. This blog started as a way of offloading stuff that needed offloading. Maybe it was easier when no one read it. Sorry folks. Wipe over the last offering as you would any other unwise disclosure.
December 02 Nothing is funnyGuys. It's coming up to Christmas and everyone knows I hate Christmas. A few years ago, two weeks before Christmas Dad died. We held the funeral five days before. Driving through the traffic among the pointless street decorations and the beered up people in reindeer horns and red noses was a surreal experience. Never before had it struck me quite so forcibly how pointless it all actually is. If it's a religious thing - what is all the boozing and eating and reindeer stuff all about? and if its just a good old food fest, why all the pressure and the debt and the drinking?
I realise I'm Scrooge, that I'm missing the point. All that. Perhaps its all the Christmasses I spent under tension. Sitting next to a stinking alcoholic that everyone was scared of, and too many Christmas Eve's dreading the pub closing hour. Dad's death finished it off. I remember mum had bought him this ridiculous battery operated parrot that said things, I can't remember why. I remember how we tried to carry on with Christmas that year, and how totally, utterly pointless it all appeared. The tinsel and the turkey and the fake bonhomie (sp? who knows or cares?). The parrot was on mum's lap and she kept making it go - 'Give us a kiss baby.' .... 'Aaark, pieces of 8.' Dad never had much time for such things. It was meant as a joke, but boy how lame it seemed then.
A nice online friend has been asking me to blog again - something funny, and I told her I'll try, but sorry. Nothing is funny.
My raison d'etre has gone. My mojo has failed. My heart is sleeping. I am undone.
Well, I can't seem to be good for anything much, so I guess I'd best be.....
Last night driving home from a late shift I was sad. A man I didn't know had asked me on the 'phone. 'Don't go, please... talk to me.. take my hand' and I couldn't. I can't even take my own. All I could hear on the way home was an old voice saying:
'Stop your whining boy.... stop it or I'll stop it for you...' on a Christmas long ago. 'Don't even think about shouting,' it said, 'No one will hear you, and no one really gives a shit anyway. Why would anyone give a shit about you?'
And I guess he was right. I'm no real use to anyone. Just a voice on the end of a 'phone trying to make up for the fact I stopped reaching out in real time long ago.
So, nothing is funny anymore.
I wish you all a Merry Whatever, and I'm sorry for everything. Bad news is, its only 1.28 in the afternoon and I think I'm pissed.
August 23 All in the name of 'Art' darlingYou tube music video - related to stars - Bry Terfel (good Welsh lad) singing Suo Gan - a lullaby. You can read the entry to it, or go to sleep by it. Thought I'd go for a bit of culture this time round.
I was tired when I went on my writing week, inside and out. Everything clamours, especially in my head. Where I ended up, you had to leave your clamour in the left luggage, then watch your mobile signal slowly diminish the further you were driven into the cowish surroundings of the Devon countryside. By the time we left the road and wound down a gentle slope through tall hedges and fields, the mobile had grown daisies, and the quiet made the world like a high ceilinged room.
What suffering it was. No 'phone, no telly, no radio, no papers, no internet. Just us - 14 individuals of all ages and 5 nationalities forced together in a huge farmhouse, hundreds of years old - many of us had to walk bent over due to the low roofs, and you could see through the floorboards into the rooms beneath. Everyone got on really well - whether they were a seventy year old woman from Ireland, or a lawyer from Australia, everyone was fun and interesting, and thankfully unshockable. (It's quite startling to hear an 'old lady' writing about having an orgasm in a field of sheep, but we managed. It's all one in the world of fiction don't you know.)
All we had to do was write really. Morning tutorials from published writers, the rest of the day free to work on our own stuff, whether sitting in a window seat distracted by the house martin babies putting their heads out of their nests in the thatch outside the window; in the meadow at the back, or in one of the libraries. Alternatively you could sit with a glass of wine and talk to all these interesting people around the massive old table, listening to the cooks (groups of us in turn), laughing in the kitchen over the best way to abuse garlic for so many people.
The evenings consisted of more torture - further wine drinking and conversation in the old barn, or listening to the visiting writer reading from their work, or the tutors, or we ourselves trying out our work on each other. As we got to know each other, some fun and games were also had. Certain beds not slept in overnight, certain conversations
overheard through floorboards, much laughter and not a few shannanigans. I'm sure you all feel sorry for my ordeal - trying to work with such goings-on!
Once, I went for a walk up a long hill and, balancing on one leg, holding the 'phone above my head and leaning at thirty degrees, managed to get enough reception to hear beautiful voices from the world outside, and one wonderful night I stood outside the barn at four in the morning and looked up to utter and absolute darkness (no city, no streetlights, no light except the gleaming teeth of cows) and turned around and around under a bowl of stars. There was the Milky Way, there were the constellations, there were millions of stars like diamonds dropped in an inverted ocean. Long time no see.
There's something great about sitting next to people you only recently met, tapping away in companionable silence, with the excuse to do nothing but that - or talk, or sleep, or share books, or indeed eat cake. Seems to me people that write have a lot in common, to all get along so well. Certainly by the end of the week we all smelt the same - mostly of garlic! Ahh well.
Well, I've given you some idea of the hardships faced but I don't want to ramble. I'm going to break this post up. Next time 'll tell you about my humiliating incident with a cattle grid. About a dead mole, and what I know about garlic.
Until then... July 30 Summer in the CityYou tube video - Placebo, Every Me, Every You
I went to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy yesterday. Something I do every year. The sun came out for the first time in about two months. The streets were full of people, tourists taking 'photos of places I know well, horseguards in their big black boots, girls in little summer dresses, bad tempered motorists swearing out of windows, even rickshaw drivers risking life and limb to ferry people through the traffic chaos.
There was a bit Hare Krishna parade too which closed a few roads - a tiny bit of which you can see here:
there were hundreds of people in beautiful saris and guys with trousers tied between their legs and little top-knots. They ended up in Trafalgar square which bemused the lions, where there were loads of stalls and goings on. Not a hint of trouble that I saw, making me happy and proud of my diverse country, where most people just want to get on with each other.
This little video will show you where I went next - the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. After a bit of waffle, the video shows you the place, the big metal dinosaurs in the entry courtyard, and especially the new Hockney, which I have to say, knocked my socks off though I'm not a massive fan.
I also, due to a sudden surge of appreciation for life due to recent bad times, went a little mad and bought a print there, that I can't really afford. Someone pretty wonderful once gave me the ooomph to grab a little of what you don't think you deserve - and though I'm still learning, I figured today that I deserved this print! So I marched out to the desk and laid my money down (well, my credit should I say).
I'm learning that I'm just human. I'm not the best, I'm not the worst, nor do I have to be. I just have to be me without paying any price for that.
Life is about so much pain, interlaced with moments of pleasure and love that are piercing in their utter unexpectedness and privilege. Its just that sometimes it feels hard to see that.
July 26 WetYou tube music video - pure morning, Placebo
Hello again:England is under water. We've gone from the newsreaders screaming about global warming causing the desert like drought and baking conditions of last year - when I was brushing pollen from my dusty navel as I roasted slowly under the sun in the centre of the white-grassed garden - to this year, where its been raining for over a month now, almost two.
Every day no sun, every day the skies as grey and heavy as an elephant after a chocolate binge. We need a whiff of summer here - winter comes too soon. So far, nothing. In many places, people are pictured sitting in their armchairs with cups of tea, and three feet of water. Water supplies have been contaminated, and homes ruined.
Where I live we're ok, just wet and pissed off. The other day apparently the school flooded, stranding the children in their classrooms for part of the afternoon, and the drains are bubbling. The field was turned into a living geography lesson, as small streams appeared, forming little ox-bows as they meandered across the ground before joining up with others and making a lake of the astro turf pitch. Me, I was a little out of things. Too busy being a fool down on the coast.
I'm back now - chastened and a little tired. Still not sure what I will do with the blog, or if, but I will play catch-up soon and visit everyone - and thanks a lot for all the comments, you're not a bad bunch are you?
Here's a bit of our summer:
and here, for peace, is some film of the Gower coast in Wales, without rain. I spent a lot of time here as a child:
Anyway. Going to do some cleaning up, interior and exterior. Lend us an umbrella someone.
May 30 Crawl SpaceYou tube music video - Street Spirit, Radio Head
I read the odd American book as a child ('odd' as in occasional (well, ok, some 'odd' as in odd too)), and one of the things I liked was the names. The Shultz's and Schmidtz's, the Chuck's and the Marie-Jo's. Then there was the 'sidewalks' and the 'trash-cans', the 'Sure Mom's' and the brown paper grocery 'carry-outs'. The other thing I discovered was this thing called a 'crawl-space'. Now, as far as I know, we don't have crawl spaces over here, so I had this vision of Americans secretly roaming their homes like little moles, until I found out what one was - and then I wanted one.
I could have done with a crawl space. Instead I used my bedroom cupboard (closet to you guys of the Uncle Sam persuasion). If I got in the side of it, behind the coats and trousers, anyone opening the door couldn't see me. Sometimes I'd go in there and sit, listening to the shouting downstairs come up through the floorboards like someone else's t.v. It was dark, and I could shut my eyes and listen to my own breathing, disconnected so it was almost like having someone else in there with me. I had a torch, lots of pencils, paper and books, some emergency snack stuff in case I didn't want to come out but got hungry. Outside the noise would go on. Sometimes it would come upstairs and get louder, sometimes it would go away. Sometimes I'd fall asleep.
I developed this trick of slowing my mind down and fading off into a sort of halfway territory, neither asleep nor awake, where I could daydream into another place. Sometimes I'd do it outside too - in school, on the bus, even over dinner. It was nice.
Later on, I think I took it further. Carrying secrets takes you outside where everyone else is at, so I first invented a sort of invisible friend who'd go along with me everywhere and be my repository, and then, when I got a bit too old and it became embarrassing even to myself, I remembered the strange American crawl space idea, and carved one out inside my own head. There behind the mental coats and trousers I could sit in the darkness, hold my own hand and listen to the noises outside and not have them touch me.
What I'm sorry for now is that I ever got in there in the first place. Even now, people remain somewhere outside, in front of the coats, where I get first kick at their tender places the moment they try to kick mine. They call up the stairs to come on out, and they don't even know I'm in there.
You, however, I let into the crawl space. And now I don't know what to do. The door has come half open, the light is coming in, and while there are a lot of bats flying outwards, I'm feeling like a snake does when its half in and half out of a new skin. My crawl space no longer holds the snacks and the little American paperbacks; It holds a bottle of vodka, some chemicals and a whole lot of other crap that I'm in the process of chucking out. House move. How I always hated house moves.
'Zoooo.... what do you think you should do?'
'I think I should dose myself up with something strong'
'For what? To achieve what end?'
'To get out of my head.'
'Zo, yaa.... unt into what exactly.. Hmmm?'
'Hmmm....aa.......hmmmmmaaaaaa.......ahmmmmm.....'
'I'm glad I'm gettink paid for zis, not you'
'!!'
Well, I'm sorry guys, but the closet door is creaking open, and I'm buggered if I'm sure what's out there.
I've been away a few days. Not away away, but away, on a long, lost weekend that spilled over into a monday and tuesday. Now I find myself disgustedly staring at myself in the mirror, wanting to slap my own face, wondering how I came to be here where I am now, and where I want to go from here. Thanks to someone, I am on the way there. Someone holds my secrets and never lets them out, only sometimes pokes fun at the silly things about me, will always be the keeper of the things that no one else ever got to see. There's no getting away from that, or taking them back. I don't want to - I know they will always be safe.
I don't know what to do with the blog now. I'm not in the mood to make light and funny (ok, I try) entries, and I'm tired of whining into the blue, it makes me ashamed of myself. If I don't come here for a time, that is why.
'Shift your arse hiatus, I'm sick of your face'
'Is it my hair?'
'sod your hair'
'Is it my lack of conversation?'
'You have no conversation'
'Is it that I have no hands?'
'It's that you have nothing. You're not real'
'Are you going somewhere?'
'I'm going nowhere, and that is a waste of time'
'take me with you?'
'sure. Lets sit here and go nowhere.'
Someday, the thread will snap, and I'll feel it. I don't want to be here when that happens.
May 15 Sometimes......When Tony Blair came to power, he stated that his most important mission was: EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION
Scene: Classroom, Tony Blair's Britain. May 07
Four students sit round a table - they are meant to be studying a poem, one of fifteen they will need to have done before their exams:
Teacher - 'Ok. You need your books and your pens'
Student A - 'Haven't got my book'
Students B and C - 'Nor 'ave I', 'I 'avent eiver'
Teacher - 'Then I'll give you paper.'
Student C - 'Don't want paper - what we doing this for anyway, it's shit'
Teacher - 'That may be so, but you need to do it, and we need to start. Put the 'phone away please Khadeeja, or I'll take it away'
Khadeeja - 'I'm calling my mate - it's important..... 'ello? 'ello! did he dump you....?'
Student A - 'I aint got a pen sir......'
Teacher - 'borrow one. Khadeeja, give me the 'phone please, that's it'
Door bursts open, in comes student D, talking into his 'phone...
Teacher - 'You're ten minutes late, why? Turn the 'phone off and sit down please'
Student D - 'I dunno...... awww no, not this crap again..... Oi! Martin you fuckin' gayboy, give me my magazine back...'
Teacher - 'It's now almost fifteen minutes since we should have started. I want the 'phones away now, I want you to sit down, I want you to open your books and I want to start. Last warning...'
And so on. Over the space of an hour and twenty minutes, the average written output is five lines of illegible scrawl puncuated by complaints, swearing and demands to know the point of learning poetry when you can barely read, and its 'shit anyway' Any question is met with:
'I dunno'
'Who cares'
'How do you spell heat?'
'Who gives a shit about being an old man'
'I can't think. What do I say?'
Khadeeja does nothing at all. She keeps up a steady and numbing stream of conversation, complaints, whining, swearing and requests to go to the toilet, outside, home, anywhere really.... but here.
They ask - 'why do we have to do this?' to which I long to reply, 'I really cannot imagine guys. I truly can't. However, the great minds in Government education say that you must - that next year you will be be studying Shakespeare too - Hamlet, perhaps The Tempest, won't that be fun? And soon, they will raise the leaving age to 18 instead of sixteen, so that you can stay here even longer. This is so they can claim that everyone is educated to a ripe old age - but mainly its to try and keep you off the streets a bit longer, never mind turning us into zoo keepers to do so.
Also, in order to meet all the targets, to show how much standards have improved, they will probably make more of course work. These units can be re-taken by you over and over again until you get it right. If you still can't, you can copy from someone brighter and more hardworking and submit it again, that way going by the statistics you all look like you are mental giants, and that standards have risen and risen. Never mind that you can barely read, or string a couple of independent thoughts together.
A long time ago, you would have been doing something else. Maybe learning a trade or an apprenticeship - anything that gave you a useful future, except that someone decided that might mean you were somehow not as good as the academically bright and motivated kids, and that everyone should pretend you are all the same, and can do the same. They make 'different' into 'lesser', and foist it onto you.
Fifteen years ago, we could have changed the lesson to teach you what you need to know - but now we have to follow a rigid curriculum no matter whether its relevant to you or not.
If you were mine you'd be getting different things. I'd be reading to you out loud - plays and stories to make your imaginations soar, to make you want to try and read, to want to know what happens next. I'd read you poetry that would make you laugh and make you think - I'd teach you to write a basic letter - you'd use it to send off for some free stuff which you'd get in the post, or to book tickets to see some Shakespeare at The Globe in London, like ordinary people did when he wrote it. You'd learn how to manage your money, cook a meal, change a plug, but you'd do it in relevant practical ways to achieve an end that you wanted to reach, could see some point in, and take some pride in. I'd try to let you see what possibilities are out there, what jobs there are, what you might be..... put some zing into you. If nothing else, I'd want to show you some of the pleasure you can get from your own mind, from other people's minds.
This is not allowed to happen. Until then you'll sit here and throw food around, sit in french lessons when you can barely speak English, learn to hate poetry and reading, learn that when things get too boring, you can do something outrageous and be removed by a bouncer, just to get away.
Sometimes - especially when I'm low anyway - I wonder why we bother. I wonder who is running the show with blinkers on; I come within a hair's breadth of just packing it all in........
But then. Maybe one of you will reach the end of a line of difficult three and five letter words and smile with pride. Or one of you, after calling me a c**t for the last week, will really hear something I say to you, and grin at me, and ask someone if I will do your extra work with you because I'm 'alright' or maybe you'll learn how to do something that might just help a tiny bit, or maybe its only that I'll make you laugh or feel a tiny bit better about yourself or........ God knows really.
I really don't know. I just think that the lunatics are running the asylum from above - and there's nothing I can do about it.
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