Notes from Samsara

Another nice old man

2010-09-10T19:34:00.011+01:00

I met him a couple of weeks ago down at the gallery space that the Stoke Newington Library hires out now and again. His name is Owen Jeffreys.

Owen had a show on of his paintings. The whole large gallery space used to be a theatre, probably for local amateur productions that never happen anymore. It still has a simple stage down the far end. The floor is well worn and could really do with a good clean and polish.

Owen had his paintings hung two or three paintings high all over the walls. There must have been more or less a hundred paintings in there. They were reminiscent of Klee, Miro or Kandinsky; they had similar sorts of colours, shapes and designs to these artists, but I’d say that is because Owen had opened up a similar part of his brain for exploration; you do not get the feeling that he is copying anyone else.

If I had a large house and lots of money I’d have bought one or two of his pictures as they were good, honest paintings. Mostly they were abstract, but then occasionally there were the simplified shapes of ships, suns or moons floating in them. All the paintings looked like some kind of landscape, but really they were just pure bursts of improvisation formed from the shapes and colours that come straight from Owen's heart. You could tell that they were not painted by some young cynical artist who has been to art school and has read a lot of art theory; they were the real thing, and they were only two or three hundred pounds each, and so I’d buy one if I could.

When I first walked into the exhibition I was greeted by Owen who is short and has fine white hair combed in an old-fashioned way, and a moustache and thick black- rimmed glasses that make him look a little like a professor in an old black and white movie. He’s of the generation of Londoners that is happy to talk to anyone so long as the conversation is full of amusing stories and he did not seem at all interested in my social status, but just that I was someone who likes to hear some of his stories and was happy to tell him a few of mine too.

After we had gone around looking at and talking about his pictures together we found ourselves sitting along the edge of the old disused stage and Owen started talking about the war. He was a gunner in the RAAF in World War II. He told me about being shot at and having to open fire at other aircraft and you can tell he was not too proud of it, of having had to shoot at people, but that he was glad that I was interested. I suspect that he might have had to drop bombs on German cities, as he mentions this as if it were something that others had to do, but he seemed so emotional when he mentioned it that I wondered if it was something he had had to do himself. Yet I could tell that even though some of his memories of the war made him a little sad, he’d gotten used to feeling a little sad, and he also seemed to want to tell me some of the stories. And although the stories were often so terribly sad there were things to laugh about too. He told an amazing story about being in a radio control room and helping an American plane to land that had run out of fuel and might well crash. They had a great strong lamp shone towards it to help guide it down and although the odds were not good the plane got down okay. Then when they got out to the plane the pilot on board was so happy to still be alive that he gave Owen a lot of the chocolates and cigarettes that he had on board, from a casefull that were supposed to be there to be given to the British generals. And of all things he also had a piano onboard with him too, which was duly delivered to the officers mess. And so one of the stories that could have been terribly sad ended in a way that was funnier and more extraordinary than just about anything that could possibly happen when there is not a war on, and so I suppose that some of the memories were good memories to have, although perhaps I shouldn’t try and speak for Owen in this way.

Then he told me about what happened after he finally got out of the army.

‘I had been to art school before the war, and so I managed to get a job in one of the art studios,’ he said. ‘ That’s the way they used to do it then; you would get out of art school and then try and get in at one of the art studios. Anyway the first week I was in there I was terrified as I didn’t know what to do! And then this guy from the directors office comes in and tells myself and all the other young guys in the studio that we had to come up with something for Cadbury by the end of the week. Anyway, I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do, but then one evening when I’m at home I see this stuffed penguin that my mother bought me sitting there on the side board. And so I did a drawing of it, as good as I could, and then when it was the end of the week and we all had to submit our ideas, I gave them this drawing I had done of this stuffed penguin and then low and behold, two weeks later, there’s a new Cadburys chocolate biscuit out and it’s called ‘The Penguin!’ And there is my drawing of a penguin on every one!’

‘My God! I used to have those as a kid!’ I said.

‘Well now you know where they came from.’

This story about the penguin had really made my day. When I got home I wanted to know more about Owen Jeffreys, and so I googled him, but nothing came up. Then a few days later, in an idle moment I googled ‘Penguin biscuit history’ and a little entry on Wikepedia came up telling me that they were first put out in 1932 by McVities. So that would have been quite a few years before World War II, or before Owen would have been old enough to have designed the damn penguin for them.

Damn the internet. Sometimes it’s better if we simply don’t know the truth about something: I’m sure we used to get along okay without the internet but I’m not sure how we would get along without hearing a good story now and then, and sometimes, perhaps for the sake of a good story to survive, it would be better if we couldn’t look things up on the internet quite so easily…

God knows I love Hackney...

2010-05-15T14:53:00.011+01:00

Changes

2010-05-12T06:45:00.007+01:00

I must say I am fairly sure I will remember where I was when the news finally came in that Cameron was to be Prime Minister.

It was the first evening last night of a new life drawing group that has just started up at one of the art studios over the road from me. There are about 8 or 9 of us fussing about getting our bits of paper ready in this small dance studio; there is just about room for everyone and their easels and the wall behind which the model is to be standing is one huge mirror, in front of which the organizers have placed an old-fashioned folding screen -which you would perhaps get dressed behind in an old movie- and a pile of cushions off of couches and so forth.

I’m busy fussily sharpening a whole lot of my pastel pencils with my scalpel blade (so that I won’t have to stop and sharpen anything whilst drawing) when the model finally arrives and I’m aware that they are quickly undressing nearby behind me where I am sitting. I’m politely still looking down to finish off sharpening a pencil when they step onto the cushions and sit down and are still settling in to assume their fist pose. When I look up to begin drawing I find that for this first pose the model is sitting cross legged and facing away from me, yet turning to one side just far enough that the models breasts and profile are visible; and so my first thought on looking up is, so it is to be a middle-aged woman tonight. For some reason I realise I'm also not especially in the mood for drawing, yet here I am, and so I start sketching away this first quick pose.

Soon it is time for the model to assume a different pose. She gets up and then… hang on a minute… for a moment I’m confused as suddenly I’m faced with a man… or is it a woman?

Well actually, I suppose it would be fair to say she was a bit of both; the model not only had breasts, but cock and balls as well! Yet out of respect for the model I took the revelation as calmly as I could, as did the others in the room.

Before the evenings drawing was over somebody gets a text message and announces to the assembled artists wearily, ‘Cameron’s Prime Minister’. There are various sighs and groans around the room. A middle ages man with swarthy features who had been working furiously away with charcoal stops drawing briefly and raises a charcoal blacked hand to his brow and says angrily, ‘Great. It’ll be cuts, cuts, cuts. Cut’s to the arts; cuts to everything…’

At the evenings close we all politely thank Pia our model, who has done a good job, and have a look at each others drawings, and Agnes the organiser asks me if I enjoyed myself and if I think I’d be back next week. I tell her indeed I shall. If this is only week one of this new drawing group then I can’t wait to see what else she might have lined up once everyone has settled in a bit…

2010-05-11T13:31:00.000+01:00

Provocative Art

2010-05-07T23:50:00.043+01:00

Quite an unusual day in Hyde Park yesterday. Caught the tube to Oxford Circus and then on to Lancaster Gate, struggling to do my usual practice sketches of passengers on the sly as I have a guitar propped between my legs. Only two stops from Oxford Circus to Lancaster Gate; I spy a suit with the cocky sticky spiky hair look; can just see the cars, the coke and the appalling but beautiful girlfriend; yes, he thinks he’s the man. Just a few lines to try and catch him on paper; three or four glances and an effort to rely on memory, but oopsy; he’s seen me and I sense he doesn’t especially like it; occupational hazard for me really, although I figure most will recover from the experience. There he goes with a twitch of his nostrils and a sharp intake of breath, and then we’re at Lancaster Gate already. I snap the little sketchbook shut, slip it in my pocket, catch his eye and try on a smile and say ‘sorry mate’. Last thing I know he’s just sitting there still, and he did not return any sort of smile, nor any humanity at all. He's Mr Cool; think's he's above all that. Yet this is my stop and I'm leaving him and his attitude behind. The great people shuffling device of the Underground in London means the odds of me ever seeing him again are basically nil.

But no, there he is in the lift as we ascend to earth once again, the stern old recording of the posh lady saying over and over; ‘Doors closing. Please make sure you have your tickets ready.’ But there must be 20 of us in here and he's over the other side and so I pretend not to have noticed him.

Then through the ticket gates and stepping out into beautiful sunlight I walk towards the traffic lights to cross over to the park and I notice him one last time out the corner of my eye; quite bright navy blue in his suit in this sunlight; pink high blood-pressure face, yet he seems to be about to cross the road else where.

Then a guy with proper Bob Dylan sunglasses and a guitar on his back like myself is suddenly there before me, and then says to me with an American accent;

‘Are you Michael by any chance?’

‘Yes; I suppose you are J S?

He chuckles amiably and smiles and we shake hands and then head towards the park together.

Walking along together, beautiful day, conversation goes well. We have a good laugh about this and that; we are getting on well. Funny how after the brief conversation we had had on the phone the day before I thought he’d be a youngish student, but he’s more around about my age and been around a bit.

Ducks and swans on the river; the grass bright luscious green, every now and then a sweaty jogger struggles past us; we are bound for the Serpentine bridge. J S explains what he knows about the photo shoot. ‘It’s some kind of re-enactment of a scene in Hyde Park in the late 60’s when the Stones had a concert here to honour Brian Jones following his death.’

'Is he the one who took a whole lot of drugs and died at the bottom of a swimming pool?’

‘That’s right. Anyway, Mick Jagger had a whole lot of pigeons ordered for the concert and there was this moment when they released them into the sky, from some big bag or something, and most of them were still in the bag, completely dead; so that was a bit of a bummer…’

‘Oh dear. We’re not going to be killing any birds I hope?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘Actually in the email it said something about the Book of Revelations too…’

‘Oh yeah; that’s got something to do with it.’

‘Something or other.’

We get to the bridge and there was Justin on the otherside of the road surrounded by a lot of bags, a camera on the tripod, and one of his pretty young female assistants fussing about with some cables or something. J S and I were just about to cross the road over to him when there again before me was my spiky haired suit from the train suddenly in my face looking rather angry!

‘Hey!' he yells at me, 'you shouldn’t be drawing people on the underground!’

I wondered later if he had just snorted a big line of speed and coke in the nearby bushes prior to approaching, as he had that kind of slightly nutty, ego-gone-mad vibe about him, but at the time I didn’t really know what to think, nor less what to say. Then the next thing I know he whips out his Blackberry and holds it up to my face and takes a picture of me.

‘See how you like it!’ he yells. He’s really quite angry, yet I think I might have simply smiled out of habit when he took the picture.

‘You’ll be hearing from me!’ He says finally, with intense seriousness, before turning and marching off.

I still didn’t know how on earth to react to that; I was struck completely dumb, a little shaken to be honest; but J S seemed a bit more on the ball and was shouting after him, ‘Go fuck yourself you dumb fuck!’ or some such, and so I was in good company, I suppose.

‘I wish I’d taken the phone off him and chucked it in the river!’ J S said a bit later once I explained about how I had sketched the man on the train. I wondered what on earth he could actually do with his picture of me, but in the end we both decided he could do precisely nothing, and that actually that was a bit of a shame, as an article in the paper would only do my career good, and if I was going to get in trouble with the law about something, then it would actually be quite nice if it was something do with my efforts as an artist.

When we caught up with Justin he briefly smirked when we told him about what had happened, and looked at me with an affectionate, ‘There goes Michael getting into mischief again!’ sort of expression. Ever the amateur-psychoanalyst, Justin opined that the man sounded like a 'classic screwed-up passive-aggressive type'.

'Even so, I must say I prefer passive-aggressive to aggressive-aggressive,' I replied.

More fiddling with camera's and cables needed to be done for quite a while yet, and so J S and I were ordered off to sit under a tree and play our guitars, to return in a hour and begin attempting to enlist members of the public to form a crowd around as we played our guitars and were photographed. J S and I discussed the suit with his camera-phone a while and I realised that I had actually been unwittingly successfully provocative with my art, which was something quite satisfying in a way as it is something artists often yearn to do. How often is it said about artist's that they are being 'challenging' or 'provocative' when really everything is just safely happening in the usual safe white cube and none of the viewers are being especially provoked at all compared to the reaction of the man in the navy coloured suit? The most that will happen is that they will remember what they have seen and politely discuss it over capuccino's later on, yet here I am with my tiny little sketchbbook and pencil, really causing a stir! How the man could not have known how he had helped make my day!

A couple of hours later J S and I are standing around with our guitars at the appointed spot beneath the bridge, and along comes a mother and several children in a peddle boat, all nice and snug in their life jackets, saying yes, they’ll be in the picture. J S and I had completely forgotten asking quite some time earlier, at complete random, whilst at the nearby café, before soon deciding between us that the odds of them turning up were very slim, yet here they were. Justin decided that he’d like them to stay in the boat. Then along come a couple of friendly middle-aged bottle-blond ladies from Essex, dressed smartly- if a little undertakeresque- and they have with them a small cage complete with it’s own portable plastic palladial column on which to sit, and within the cage are two doves, which when Justin gives the word are to be released so as to form part of the picture, and assuming some viewers pop culture knowledge to be especially acute, will thus apparently invoke the aforementioned Mick Jagger incident, although it will surely be a pretty part of the picture even if you are nonethewiser.

Meanwhile J C and I start banging out bits of tunes on our guitars and accosting various passers by to see if they would like to be in the picture. Eventually we have a couple of attractive young girls who had been jogging by and a middle-aged German lady, and we are all getting on very well, when Justin’s assistant comes over and gives me a white jacket to get on.

As far as I can tell everyone is still chatting away when no sooner have I struggled into this rather-too-small-for-me jacket, much to the hilarity of the jogger girls, and had my guitar handed back to me by someone, J S comes over and tells me it’s all over. Apparently the police have come along and told Justin to move on as he has no licence to shoot pictures in Hyde Park, and so he had just madly fired off a few shots before putting the camera down, and somehow managed to at least get the doves released whilst I was probably rather unglamourously halfway through struggling my way into the ill-fitting white coat and being laughed at by one of the jogger girls. Thus I shall now perhaps be forever immortalised and remembered, and perhaps even destined for the walls of the Tate in this latest grand work by Coombes.

Our rather random little group are still in good spirits once the photo's have been taken though. We stood about a while and had a chat and I only wished that Justin had budgeted for some beers or snacks, yet I succeed in getting the number off of one of the nice attractive jogger girls and shall be seeing her tomorrow, so all was not lost…

2010-05-03T14:15:00.000+01:00

The French

2010-04-29T12:55:00.009+01:00

Another evening at the French, one could talk about the ghosts of Francis Bacon and Jeffrey Bernard or whoever, but what a bore; here comes Paul Ryan, With his Bela Lugosi stare and slicked back hair, and he’s looking my way just long enough for me to quickly sketch him..

Beautiful woman in a buff coat, carefully and expensively crumpled, how the lovely many rose like folds around her arms and breast make me ache to do more than simply stand afar and draw her! Will she just carry on talking to the tall Italian, with his ‘Days of Our Lives' hair and jaw and stupidly confident quarter smile ? Yes, she does… and she does not ever notice me, but for the best in the end: the drawing comes off not too bad. Best thing in this last little pocket sketchbook of mine and so I’ll share it with you…

Rubbish Man

2010-04-28T19:21:00.002+01:00

Spring!

2010-04-26T18:41:00.002+01:00

Late at night on the 149

2010-04-21T23:50:00.001+01:00

Beautiful Hackney

2010-03-30T11:46:00.006+01:00

I no longer own a camera save for the one on my phone, for which I have a specially designed zip-up pocket in all of my trousers: any technical limitations of this camera are surpassed by the more important quality it has of always being to hand. Though it takes me a few moments to whip out, and then there is the delay between pressing the shutter button being pressed and the photo actually being snapped- and so one cannot quite capture the 'decisive moment'- nevertheless these following photo's could not have been taken with any other sort of camera, for the simple reason that I doubt that I would have had any other kind of camera on my person (even if I did own one) when I saw the following scenes spontaneously before me and felt inspiration strike...

Captured

2010-03-11T18:44:00.019Z

I've just been immortalised in Wanstead...

All the people at this class are amateurs, yet I felt their work was full of life and the results were a real testament to Eamon's great enthusiasm and skill as a teacher...

Stuckism

2010-02-28T12:24:00.007Z

Eamon knows a thing or two. Eamon is a Stuckist- a member of the art movement started by Billy Childish. If you want to know more then google it, as people are constantly saying to me rather than engaging in conversation, but basically, the story goes that Tracy Emin, who was going out with Billy Childish some 2o years ago while he was starting out in his efforts to be some kind of earnest Expressionist painter said to him disdainfully some thing along the lines of, ‘You’re so bloody stuck with all your ideas about art Billy! Why would you want to paint pictures? That’s all been done!’ And So Billy thought, something like, 'Fuck you Tracy, I'll start an art movement of my own and call it Stuckism and it will celebrate everything you hate!' Anyway, all these years later there are a whole lot of Stuckists out there and a little while ago they had a big show at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, and now here Eamon is trying to get me interested in becoming a Stuckist.

We sit up late into the night in Eamon's studio drinking whisky, the wonderful infinite spectrum of colours radiating from his canvases all around.

‘Did you know that Cornwall is mostly owned by the Prince of Wales.’

‘Get away…’

‘Oh yes…’

He can be a little inscrutable with his beard and his natural tendency to look rather serious and sober whatever else might be going on. He’s never excitable or gushing or angry or especially happy or gloomy; but watching, listening, always watching, and not missing a thing. He’s an old-school long time paid-up Labour member and true bohemian. As he was growing up he lived in many countries and had his horizons broadened early on; Irish stock, well settled since the 70’s in the East End, and now owns the upper half of a terrace house just a stones throw from Epping forest. The sober touch of nature and fresh air that is so rare in London has done him good these last few years and grounded him. I say to him that if I lived in his place I’d have to go out and paint in the forest, but Eamon has found his painstaking metier; he paints slow figurative works of figures in interiors, portraits and works inspired by great paintings. Realism is plucked apart gracefully by cubism and there is a whiff of the cartoon, always a kaleidoscope of colours, all only ever considered and adjusted by daylight; once the light of day dies he puts down his brushes and picks up a book… something serendipitously appearing on the table at Wanstead house that has taken his fancy.., or off his shelf some poetry, history, Homer, Buddhism. At the moment he is reading Tom Sharpe. There is not the slightest trace of an advertiser or fashionable trend having influenced the presence of any object in his living room or kitchen or choice of reading matter or indeed his painting. He has achieved timelessness. His paintings will live for ever. In hundreds of years time they will be protected from bombs, environmental breakdown, by the lineage of people who care and understand, perhaps, with hope, with luck, by the state, and play their part amongst the procession of true painting to keep civilisation going.

He says, ‘I don’t care about overpopulation. I believe we are destined to go into space. People will just have to move out there.’

This is one of the few things we have a very different views about. I say, ‘But who will want to go? Space will be boring you know; Suburbs in a bubble and outside the bubble no wilderness, but just dead rock, not even oxygen. Probably fucking McDonalds, but nothing so good as a coronership, a terraced house. It will probably all be done on the cheap too.’

‘Perhaps it will be like Australia?’

‘Australia is beautiful, you bugger. But space will be shit.’

And now I have been invited to be a Stuckist. I’ll have to think it over. There are some pretty wild characters in there. Some guy who paints pretty frightening and crude pictures; sailors sucking one another off, a blond who looks like she’s taking steroids with holding aloft a huge axe dripping blood… Apparently it’s not ironic at all; the artist is a twitchy Romanian guy who has a problem with his aggression. Eamon has no trouble with him, but if a gallery sits a check owed to a Stuckist for a while so as to earn the interest on it rather than handing it straight over to the artist then they only have to make a visit to the gallery with this guy and tell them they want the money, and the Romanian will start to get twitchy and the check is always handed over quickly and politely…

Nice Old Men

2010-01-25T20:00:00.004Z

So to the Rochester Castle for Sunday dinner last night. Roast and a pint for a fiver. All the familiar faces sitting around in the gloom of the place. Old Rob was at the bar. He approves of the new girl behind the bar. ‘Same again love,’ he says, waving a crumpled fiver at her that looks as if it had until now been screwed up into a ball in his pocket for a few years. ‘Oh, yes, I know!’ the girl says, playfully scolding him, before getting a glass and pulling him his preferred pint. The girl hands him his pint and then rushes to the other end of the bar to serve someone else. Old Rob turns to me and gives me a toothy grin, although there are only two or three teeth left it would seem. ‘She’s alright, this one!’ he said fondly. ‘I wonder how long she’ll last?’ I say, but Rob doesn’t seem to hear me as some young guy starts shouting at the barman, ‘Why won’t you serve me? I’ve been fucking nice to you! Why won’t you fucking serve me?’

I ordered roast pork and then went and sat down and it arrived in all of three or four minutes, freshly nuked in the microwave I suppose. It’s not the best Sunday roast going but it’s the only one that is a affordable to me at the moment. Yet it’s a shame the Rochester Castle is such a shithole really, seeing as I depend on it for recreating the illusion of a proper home cooked roast once a week

I have been thinking about nice old men who turn up on the telly now and then yet who surely are a dying breed: John Snow, Tony Benn, David Dimbleby. Nice old men with white hair who are all somehow immensely reassuring in their old fashioned yet sharp as a button manner, yet who surely are the last of something… something rather important. From Australia I can think of Gough Whitlam, but most certainly not the awful Bob Hawke or John Howard. None of the young blokes you see on the telly are up to it really…

Got home from the pub and switched the television on only to find some sort of rodents scurrying about and Davis Attenborough droning off in his endearingly plodding staccato. Yes, but off course: that is another old guy with white hair that shall not be properly replaced by anyone else when he pops off. Last I heard he is putting a lot of weight behind a campaign in favour of trying to stop the world’s population from continuing to skyrocket out of control. I’m all for that. I shall have to add him to my list of posh yet also wonderful old men who will never be replaced once they are gone.

The Cat Haven Bookshop in Finsbury Park

2009-11-27T19:16:00.042Z

Actually there are two cat haven bookshops; one on either side of the road. I visit them to relax. I tell myself that buying a book is not important, indeed it is something I mustn't do as I already have too many books and nowhere to put any more. But then I usually do buy something anyway.

The other day I was in the larger and far better organized of the two shops having a good browse through the books and it was past five o'clock, dark and rainy outside. I was in the kind of mood that I could have rummaged about for hours, reading the occasional random page or two of something every now and then before rummaging around some more. Yet I wanted to try and make sure I got a bit of a look around both shops before they closed and so I asked the ginger bearded man behind the desk, who seems a sensitive soul, if he knew when the shop opposite would be open until.

'I wouldn't know.' he said gloomily. 'She does her own thing.'

'Oh, I thought you were part of the same charity?' I said, trying to sound positive.

'Well, we are really...' he said. And then he looked forlornly into space for a moment, before turning back to meet my gaze with a weak smile. 'But we had a disagreement about something, and she didn't want do things the same way as the rest of us and so she does her own thing now.'

It was hard to know what to say to that. I think I just said, 'Oh dear.'

In the smaller of the two cat haven bookshops, which was indeed still open when I got to it, it's always the same old lady with the same no-nonsense expression on her face. She has long straight grey hair that she tucks behind her ears and today she had a dark green cardigan on. She radiates a certain moodiness- of the kind that does seem to be an occupational hazard for the proprietors of secondhand bookshops I have noticed over my years of rummaging about in a great many of them- yet I get on alright with her. She is always reading and politely ignores you as you come in, despite it being such a tiny shop (made even tinier by the books that are precariously piled about everywhere) which does create a certain inescapable intimacy between her and whoever else is in there.

'Aha! It's still here!' I say spontaneously and happily, leaning over a precarious tower of books to gently prise loose form another pile an old and scruffy second-hand hardback copy of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.

For some reason I'd kept thinking about this particular book since I saw it in there a week or two ago, although I had read it before and was not sure if it was the sort of thing I should pick up again in my early 30's.

'You had you're beady eye on it did you?' the lady said, in that severe and school-mistress like way she has that is really quite friendly. Yet it's a certain sort of English manner you perhaps don't get so much anymore and it could probably be misinterpreted by the timid.

'Yes, I did indeed!' I said, happy that the book had not been bought by someone else.

It is raining outside and so I decide to linger a bit. I sit down on the milk crate that has the ancient cushion on it and read random snatches from the first few pages of the book so as to try and perhaps discover that it's not really my thing anymore and to thereby persuade myself not to buy it, yet I just have my curiosity for this peculiar old book further provoked. However, although it may be a first British edition, well bound and printed on good quality paper, it is without it's dust jacket and scruffy enough not to be at all valuable and what's more, she wants three pounds for it.

I consider building up the nerve to say innocently, 'Is that supposed to be three pounds?' which might be enough to prompt her to offer me a reduction, although I doubt it. I'd have to quickly and disarmingly and with a hint of distress add, 'I tell you what, I've only got two quid. Don't suppose you could do it for that?'

She'd probably go for that. I would not think about doing this sort of thing in a charity shop normally- being happy enough that the money is going to charity, whatever it is they are charging- but this place is to help fund a cat haven for God's sake! Now don't get me wrong; it's not that I don't like cats. In fact I am rather fond of cats, but nevertheless it's well known that little old ladies frequently end up leaving all their money to bloody cat havens in their will.

But then just as I have worked out what I'm going to say to her another old lady comes in and the two of them start chatting. Old lady number two has a red anorak on, short grey hair and seems to be a lot more animated and enjoy smiling far more than old lady number one. She's probably the type who grins and says to people heartily, 'Well, smile and the world smiles at you!' when they are feeling especially low. She certainly seems a brusk and practical sort. She's doing most of the talking to begin with and at first I thought she was perhaps one of that particular breed of customers that second hand book dealers dread; the ones who are a bit lonely and with too much free time on their hands, who come in and talk endlessly whilst the book dealer sits mute and imprisoned behind their desk, usually too polite to do anything but sit it out. But then I realise that lady number one is interested enough in what lady number two is saying and it soon becomes apparent that lady number two has something to do with the running of the shop as well. I sense that she is the type who would raise her eyebrows with light disdain if I asked old lady number one for a discount now. There would be a pregnant pause, before the two of them would exchange glances and then lady number one would flatly refuse my request, so as to not to be seen of as a soft touch by old lady number two. And so while they chat to one another I procrastinate and look at some other books, in case old lady number two might soon leave, although she does seems to be settling in rather.

'I just had a dolly-bird in here' old lady number one is saying to old lady number two by the time I have decided I will just buy the book and can't be bothered trying to get a discount. 'She comes in and looks about quickly and then says quite seriously, " I need to buy a present for a friend. What's the best book in here?" So I directed her to the Maeve Binchlys. Anyway, she settles down a bit and has a proper look around, and then ends up walking out with "Women Who Kill!"'

They both erupt into laughter.

Old lady number two says haughtily, 'Well, if the men start disappearing around here you'll know what's happened to them!'

'Oh, don't! I feel quite guilty now!'

'Oh don't worry. Perhaps she was going to kill someone anyway but she just needed to find out how to do it!'

They both erupted again.

Shortly after that I bought my book and left the shop to leave them to it. Thank God the internet has not entirely wiped out all the second hand book shops of the world. They have always been far more to me than simply a place where I have gone to buy books.

Michael Horovitz's Evening of Art and Poetry at the Nehru Centre

2009-11-23T21:27:00.040Z

A few nights ago I enjoyed the most delightful evening of poetry and art at the Nehru Centre, which houses the 'Cultural Wing' of the High Commission of India in London and hosts various cultural events. I had never been there before. It is located in a lovely old building in Mayfair and has a delightfully old fashioned and formal, yet also relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.

After being asked to sign in by a lady in a green sari, who stood serenely nearby and greeted everyone with a brief smile, and then as swiftly as was politely possible locating the table with the free wine on it, I firstly wandered about the large downstairs room taking in Michael Horovitz's mini retrospective of paintings that was being exhibited. Mr Horovitz's main occupation, or certainly his main vocation, would appear to be that of a poet, although he is perhaps most well known for having been the organiser of a huge poetry event at the Albert Hall in the 60's, which had on the bill the likes of Allen Ginsberg and ended up going down in poetry history. Yet he also likes to paint. There were all kinds of utterly unselfconscious and colourful abstract paintings as well as collages on the walls, and although you could say that the work was a little uneven or some such here and there, it seemed to radiate a good-deal more life energy than much slicko contemporary stuff you see.

However the appreciation I felt for the pictures on the wall was probably partly due to the presence of Mr Horovitz himself, who drifted about the room with quite a lovey-like yet seemingly entirely earnest interest in everybody around him. There is something most endearing about him, yet I'd also go so far as to say magical, as I don't think I have ever encountered such lack of pretension and such warmth at an art opening, and this was I suspect largely due to Mr Horovitz's remarkably benevolent charisma that somehow seemed quite contagious and got people talking to one another most comfortably.

He has recently written a very long poem which he published as a poetry book with an accompanying political tract called 'The New Wasteland.' The book has been on my bedside table for the past few weeks encouraging various nightmares and inspiring myriad moments of depression, yet I have found it quite an education and feel duty bound to go on with it, despite it being rather hard going. What with the photograph of a mushroom cloud adorning the front cover and the generally apocalyptic tenor of the poem itself I had not expected that in person Mr Horovitz would create the impression of the almost childlike and optimistic old hippy that he appears to in someways be. He is in his 70's now and wore a colourful and perhaps slightly oversized shirt with a quite kaleidoscope-like pattern on it, top two or three buttons undone, sleeves rolled up any-old how and not tucked in to his white cotton trousers. Everyone else seemed quite smartly dressed up yet I'm quite certain Mr Horovitz could not have cared less about what he or anyone else was wearing. I asked him to sign my copy of his book which I had brought along with and he obliged happily and seemed genuinely pleased to have met me.

We were eventually called to the upstairs room where they have a small stage and were then regaled with poetry by various poets. There was a very good quality control in operation and nobody outstayed their welcome. Mr Horovitz had a passionate performative approach to the reading of his own work which was a joy to behold. It included occasional interruptions of fragments of tunes from a kazoo, which in anyone elses hands may have come across as a clownish gimmick, yet seemed nothing but poignant coming from Mr Horovitz. Indeed it somehow served to add much emotion to his poetry and amoungst the audience created the sort of smiles and gentle laughter that come with the surprise of simple delight in something both original and charming.

I accompanied a couple of very pleasant ladies to the tube afterwards. One had a superb fur covered Russian-style hat on; together with her elegant black winter coat she looked quite the Bond girl.

We discussed the poetry and swapped Facebook details- the way you do these days- and then they were on their merry way. Apparently they needed to get home as the Bondgirls friend had a cat that needed injecting with something, or so she said.

We have rightly spared the rod, yet still spoilt our children

2009-11-19T01:05:00.071Z

‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ they used to say. Yet nobody will go so far as to declare sympathy for such a attitude today, not even the professed Christian teachers in Christian Schools, despite the fact that this old saying actually supposedly reflects the wishes of God himself, as it originates from the Bible; from a statement to be found in Proverbs which is in fact even more explicitly severe: ‘he that spareth his rod hateth his son.’

Let’s be absolutely clear: such a notion didn’t just used to be something people went along with, but rather it was an attitude that those many who believed in God considered to be what God himself wanted them to adopt. Those that both believed in and regularly acted on such supposedly Christian sentiments included of course both parents and teachers, but also kings, queens and lawmakers. And so we came to formally institute a culture of violence against children, the cane or worse, sanctified by the church and we also came to both justify and make commonplace the emotional and physical scaring of our children and the consequent fucking up of our adult population, which would become a long unbroken chain through countless generations. Only recently has this chain become largely broken. Only recently have we come to almost entirely reject the attitude that is epitomized by this notion.

Supplementary to such long held beliefs in such popular Christian mantras as 'he that spareth his Rod hateh his son' there was also the even more psychologically twisted belief in the ‘Doctrine of Original Sin’, which unlike the saying about sparing the rod is still bandied about today of course, although I suspect it is rarely (thank God or thank goodness) taken to heart in quite the way it used to be. For The Doctrine of Original Sin was for centuries considered to have been a divinely inspired doctrine that had arisen from the supposed historically and spiritually true story of the ‘Fall of Man’, which had supposedly occurred in the Garden of Eden. This Christian Doctrine, which was both fashionable and influential for centuries, had arisen from theologian’s scholarly analysis of- as well no doubt from the answers they believed they received from their prayers for divine inspiration on- the story of Adam, Eve, the snake and the apple. Once it's theological formulation was completed, The Doctrine of Original Sin considered that children and women were equally suspect as ‘weaker vessels’, closer to nature than man perhaps, yet to a nature that was flawed by the loss of Eden. It was therefore concluded when considering what we would these day perhaps refer to as behaviour management that it was only discipline which could correct the ‘frailty of Eve’ and the ‘animal spirits of her offspring’.

I can still remember the canes on the wall of the office of my old headmaster at the school I attended in Exeter in the 1980's. They were somehow suspended horizontally, alongside various pictures and photographs. The smell of something like leather and old, old wood that there was in that office comes back to me as I think about it... I must have done something wrong at school to have ended up in my headmaster’s office at all; I don’t think there could have been any other reason why I would have been in there, although I can’t remember what I did wrong now. Yet so far as I ever knew I don’t think he ever used those canes on any of the boys. The canes were there as some sort of decoration- this much is certain- although it is hard to know now quite how he felt about them. I somehow doubt they were a joke birthday present and I also doubt the idea was to frighten the boys who were brought into his office. Yet could one perhaps conclude that to some extent, he still approved of their use? Had he indeed used them personally earlier in his career, before attitudes shifted as much as they had by then? He did not find the objects themselves distasteful, that much is certain; after all a headmaster, like any boss, always takes some degree of pride in the personal touches he makes to his office. So could he perhaps have ever occasionally wondered if the canes on his wall might have some usefulness still; that they could be a viable option in certain cases, despite the fact that so far as I ever knew, he dared not ever take one of those canes down and put it to use on the backside of a boy during my time at the school. Perhaps all that ever stopped him was his fear of complaints by parents with whom, although he did not entirely agree with on this matter, he was bound to defer to?

Whatever the true feelings of my headmaster were about those those canes on his wall were, I know now that at the very least they signified the very last trace of an era, and a very long era at that; did my headmaster know then that soon they would not only be never used again in a Western country, but that they would probably have be taken down off the wall as well, as they would not even be seen as an acceptable object to hang on a wall at a school at all? Whether or not in his career as a teacher he had ever had slightest inclination to use these- or any other- canes at all, perhaps now they had become simply an object upon which he could ponder the past and what it all meant and how it affected countless generations of our society and our people.

However it could be argued that, despite the fact that the hitting of children by adults was both acceptable and commonplace in the West until quite recently, that today’s relatively relaxed attitude to the discipline of children has it’s true roots not in recent history, but in in the inspired musings of the French philosopher Montaigne back in the 16^th century. Montaigne wrote that he believed in a ‘liberal education’ which would develop an ‘all-round personality’ capable of ‘moving easily through the various strata of of the social world, appreciative of it’s delights and inured to it’s hardships.’ He also argued for a ‘sweet-severe mildness’ to replace the ‘savagery which doth more than bastardise and dizzie a well-born and gentle nature.’

Although, relatively speaking, Montaigne sounds quite in step with modern attitudes, and although I suspect he was thinking more so of primary aged children when he wrote these words, how I would dearly love to somehow teleport him into the present in order to take him around some of today's secondary schools in London. I have no doubt that, not only would he not be terribly impressed at all, but the newspapers would surely report on his reactions to such an expedition, and what's more, maybe, just maybe, the politicians and educational bureaucrats would have to listen to such a venerable visitor from the past, with a seriousness with which they would never listen to me.

Although it would of course be best to hear it from Montaigne, I am quite certain of what some of his feelings would be. For example, even if Montaigne both understood and spoke fluent English as well as his French and Latin, he could probably not understand three quarters of what the teenagers are saying to one another for starters, and my guess is that he would not be afraid to say so. Now I certainly can’t understand most of what the teenagers I hear speaking are on about in London yet feel socially pressured not to say anything about it; it would therefore be nice to commiserate in the staffroom about this common state of affairs amongst the young in this city with someone who is as esteemed even today as Montaigne, as I’m sure one easily could, rather than once again have to calmly put up with the various excuses that teachers make to explain and attempt to rationalise this state of affairs.

It would likewise certainly be pleasant to at last get a properly historical perspective on matters from having Monsieur Montaigne at hand to join the staffroom discussion, and thus inspire any teachers present to not be at quite such easy and smug liberty to so quickly dismiss any mention of the the past in favour of fashionable modern educational and cultural fads. My guess is that, although Montaigne would be pleased to see that out society has finally stopped routinely beating it's children, he would nevertheless certainly have something both persuasively damning and fairly caustic to say about how chaotic things generally are in the class rooms today and that if he thought there was any hope left in the upbringing of teenagers at all, then upon surveying the sorts of computer games that they are commonly and often interminably playing at home these days, he would probably be at least a little concerned that all hope was possibly now completely lost. For surely there are many things around today that ‘doth more than bastardise and dizzie a well-born nature,’ even without the cane being around any more. Surely one must at least be able to agree there is much dizziness.

I suppose the main point I am trying to make is this: although we our have as a society recently sensibly decided to 'spare the rod'- despite God's alleged recommendations- have we not nevertheless still managed to spoil a good many of our children?

2009-09-25T08:36:00.000+01:00

Blackberries

2009-09-18T10:06:00.030+01:00

It had not been a good couple of weeks and while on a long distance call to mother she suggested I go and pick some blackberries. She reminded me that around this time last year I had told her about how I had found a place that not many people seemed to know about, at least it was a place where the blackberries went unpicked. It will help you clear your head, she said. I dismissed the idea at first, saying there were so many other things that I needed to do so there was hardly time for me to be going and picking blackberries. But then a couple of days later there was still no work coming in so I thought what the heck, I’m broke, and this is something I can do which won’t cost me any of what little money I have left.

It was the end of the day. Early evening in fact and I wasn’t sure that maybe I had left it too late, that as it was quite an overcast day that it may get dark before I managed to get any blackberries, even if they were still there. Yet I packed plenty of plastic bags in my backpack, got my coat on and got onto my bike and rode off anyway.

I rode down Cazenove Road, where there are many orthodox Jews living and so you see them walking about; the men in their cylindrical fur coated hats with their beards and long black coats, the women with their hair hidden beneath their wigs that are always styled in a bob, and always wearing a beret and deliberately unglamorous clothes; all this is recommended within their community as a means to ward off any unwanted attention from any men other than their husbands. Then there is the large Muslim community. You always see groups of Muslim men with their white throbe robes and fezes, walking about, or else standing about chatting or just enjoying the pleasant atmosphere of the early evening, in a way you never seem to see much with white English people anymore. The Jews have their synagogue nearby and the Muslims have converted a row of old 19th century terrace houses into a mosque. As far as I know the two communities don’t have any trouble between them, but whether they have much to do with each other I don’t know.

At the end of Cazenove road I headed down to Springfield park and then I could stop peddling as I rocketed down the path that takes you down towards the canal. My secret place where the blackberries don’t seem to get picked is somewhere in this part of London, but I won’t tell you anymore than that. I rode along the canal where the barges have little plumes of smoke coming out of their chimneys as if in slow motion, and the end of day sun makes the smoke look very beautiful and the leaves on the trees on the other side of the canal appear dusted with gold. This is always the best time of day and the best thing to be doing and the best place to think things over, and already I was glad that I’d taken the trouble to ride along here. I wondered if the blackberries would still be there as they were last year. All along the canal any blackberry bushes had been picked, yet this was the same as last year. I hoped that when I got to the place I had found so many of them untouched last year that there would be plenty left to pick this year too, but then it was good just to be riding along this way anyway.

Yet it was very pleasant to have a special and secret destination in mind. Although the blackberries may seem a relatively trivial thing to be looking forward too, the thought of them doubled the pleasure of riding along the canal, and it was not unlike the good feeling that comes over you as you are on your way to a date with a girl that you like very much, that feeling of anticipation that makes you without tiring (indeed with extra energy) to walk a little faster, or in this case to peddle a little harder.

When I got to the place and locked up my bike and wondered around this wonderfully overgrown and seemingly almost completely forgotten and neglected little park it did not take long before I could get the plastic bag out of my pocket and start to fill it with a good number of blackberries. There were not quite as many as last year, and clearly quite a few had been picked, yet as I had left it till the end of the summer there were some I could find that had ripened perfectly into beautiful large and sweet berries that had perhaps still been red and bitter when last someone had come along to pick blackberries here.

I had just about wondered around all of the maze-like park and had managed to fill my bag with about enough berries for three or four bowls of blackberries and ice cream when I realised it would soon be dark, and so I put the lights on my bike and rode back happily the way I came.

I was very glad that the berries were there for me when I came for them, yet it also seemed a shame that so few people out of the many thousands who lived all around had explored the area enough to have found them themselves. I was always surprised how few people there were in the parks at the end of the day, which is the time I most love to be in a park and when I always find that it is the most relaxing time and when natures ability to help clear the mind and help sort out your thoughts are at their greatest.

As I pushed the bike up the hill at Springfield park and breathed my last clean lungfuls of air before heading back along Cazenove road towards home I thought of the many thousands of people in the houses all around, and the countless people piled often some 20 stories high in the many blocks of council flats, and wondered what they might all be doing that was more important than being in the park on such a beautiful evening and it seemed a little sad to think how many thousands off them must be watching the television to relax rather than spending some time watching the trees and breathing in the beautiful clean air along the canal.

My England is gone

2009-08-26T12:58:00.015+01:00

Slipping away,
the England that I once knew
that I always thought I'd know.
Lost, like childhood
like a toy stolen at playtime
and none of the teachers care.
I feel I'm not allowed to stare
not allowed to say
I was there!
Do you remember?
I was really there...

But these days now instead
it's always a turning away
even though people have so much to say.
They doubt they even ever wanted
to say the things they once had to say.
Do you remember Alan?
He was there on the high street before they opened the Tesco...
He was ever such a nice chap,
always a smile and hello
'What will it be today Miss?'
I missed him
that time we went away
when we came back
there was nothing much to say.
'He died... didn't you know?
Very sad.
Another cup of tea?
and now would you believe,
Even here they have CCTV
another biscuit?
no really I mustn't.
In fact I best be going
take care dear
take care
and don't dare go near
all that one fears
don't say too much
of all that is gone
so many things one can no longer touch.
Who would have ever thought we'd miss Tinnley's so much?
the waiters with their long white aprons
the sausages you got in a paper cone
and Pinder and Tuckwell,
that was a good name
but things have to change
things are not allowed to stay the same

didn't you know
she had to go...
no she wasn't well
the pills didn't seem to help
she missed too many things
she didn't want to change
'why should she?' she'd say
and now I suppose she's had her own way
but I miss her
funny the things you miss

They had it about right
1973
swinging from a tree
then when you got older
the local dance
you had a chance
The Chinese had not yet invaded.
But now all that has faded
we don't need the science fiction novels we used to read
as we are in one now
but it's still England that we need...
England that we need
on that at least,
are we agreed?

Pennies from Heaven...

2009-07-15T12:32:00.002+01:00

I’m the kind of person who picks one p pieces up off the pavement whenever I see them, even though I’d have to pick up a hundred of course, just to make a pound. Well I still do it. I’ve thought about it- whether or not it’s really worth it and so on- and I still like to pick those one penny pieces up. I suppose I have decided it makes me a little sad to walk past them if I see them lying there before me, so I may as well pick them up and not get that feeling.

I’m not sure quite what sort of person this makes me, but I guess what ever sort of person it makes me I’m one of them. Perhaps I could let you know a little more about me by telling you that not only do I pick up these one penny pieces but I always have a look at the date on them, and then for a moment I try and remember something about what happened to me in that year. If it says 1975 or before then I always get a little thrill from the thought that I didn’t even exist at that point. The coin was made, and yet the person holding it and looking at it was not. Cosmic…

Paris

2009-06-07T08:15:00.093+01:00

Last month I spent a wonderful three nights in Paris with my girlfriend Tess, which was initially prompted by an invitation to her cousins wedding to a Frenchman. Now I am most grateful to this chance intervention into my fate as, though I had long wanted to go to Paris since I returned to live in England from Australia, I had kept putting it off and probably would not have made it over there for a long time otherwise. Once we decided to go to this wedding together Tess and I decided to make it into a little holiday too, and luckily, in Paris at least, everything worked out very well.

Yet it all could have been a bit of a disaster. As it was getting very late the night before we were to leave when we should have been in bed getting some sleep I was still sorting out what to pack. Close to midnight there was still a lot of stuff laid out on my bed surrounding my suitcase, yet I thought that had everything pretty well worked out. Then at the last minute, just as I had managed to zip up my bag, Tess had suggested that I should take a different jacket with me to France than the one I had laid out on the bed. It was all the same to me so I went along with to her suggestion, yet this simple action, which normally would have been quickly forgotten, was to soon become something that would become a decidedly ominous memory during the entire trip.

When we woke at 3.30 in the morning, feeling a little worse for wear having only slept some three hours, whilst doing my last minute check that I had everything we needed I must have manically checked everything that was in my bag twice over but had unfortunately forgotten that I had changed my jacket at the last minute. When we were on a bus and halfway to the train station I casually checked everything again and only then did I discover that I did not seem to have the tickets with me. With a sudden dreadful realisation I suddenly knew where they were: they were in the breast pocket of the jacket I had swapped at the last minute for the one I was then wearing! Although I had remembered to pack almost every other useful thing you could imagine taking with you on a city break- including a compass for God’s sake- of all things had forgotten the damn train tickets! The trouble was that the envelope with my Euros in looked pretty much the same as the one which had the tickets in.

Needless to say Tess was not terribly impressed. She took the news reasonably calmly, although I think we were both too exhausted to find the energy for a proper panic. As the bus full of tired looking shift workers continued to rumble along in the cold grey dawn we quickly decided our only hope was to get off the bus at the next available stop and hopefully find a cab that would take us back to the flat, where with luck I would quickly find the ticket without too much trouble, before we hoped that there would not be too many red lights on the subsequent dash back to Kings Cross.

When we got off the bus we stepped onto an eerily quiet street. We had half an hour before we were supposed to check in and an hour before the train would depart, unconcerned whether we were on it or not.

After about two minutes standing on the side of the almost silent and car-less Islington street at 4.30 in the morning we realised that we could hardly count on the usual steady stream of taxis that you find on London’s main streets during the daytime and at evenings to rescue us at this hour of the morning. Gazing out at the almost deserted road, I finally felt my sleepy brain, albeit in a low battery mode, put two and two together and send the appropriate panic response down into my stomach from whence it fanned out throughout my entire nervous system. I looked at Tess- probably a tad sheepishly- and wondered if there was going to be any bouncing back from this particular disaster. Whilst she remained calm, after a sigh she gave me a particular look for a moment or two that suggested I may be better off simply making a run for it.

But then, only moments after we realised how stuffed we most likely were, an angel arrived. Suddenly we spied a black cab heading our way, and although it had no light on its roof indicating that it was available to take passengers, luckily our wild jumping up and down caused it to slow a little, and then- miracle of miracles- to stop. The driver could not have been a better man. As soon as he heard the cause of our distress he let us in and put his foot down, not caring for the existence of speed bumps nor the speed limit. As we screeched to a halt outside my flat I jumped out and raced up the stairs, breathlessly recovered the ticket from my other jackets inside pocket and then raced back down to the cab. And then we were off again at full throttle towards Kings Cross St Pancras station. ‘I was just on my way ‘ome actually.’ The cabbie told us. ‘That’s why I didn’t ‘ave the light on. But you looked like you were in trouble so I thought I better stop.’

‘I can’t tell you how thankful we are that you did,’ I said.

There was no reply, or words spoken for a while, but rather a rather pregnant silence ensued. I could feel that both Tess and also the cabbie were not terribly impressed with me. Now I was starting to resent his sort of salt of the earth silent siding with Tess on the matter, as this could only help support her reconsideration of man qualifications. Although as I could hardly believe our good luck I was cautious not to say too much until we actually got to the station.

Happily we made it in good time to check-in, almost exactly half an hour before the train was due to depart in fact. Once the train had departed, so as to attempt to atone for my sins, I went and bought two ‘cappuccinos’ from a lithesome French girl with beautiful dark hair behind the counter at the buffet carriage who I thought for a mad moment was actually flirting with me in a small way. After placing my order her smug assistant- a short and slightly overweight young man with short spiky hair that appeared sticky with hair gel- proceeded to make the coffee while the girl lent casually against the back counter, seemingly smiling at some private joke and occasionally looking my way with an ambiguous yet certainly amused expression. The man squirted from a can into two paper cups what looked like shaving cream on top of two small puddles of coffee, which as I could see no coffee machine, were probably simply comprised of spoonfuls of Nescafe mixed with a splash of hot water rather than the proper shot of real coffee that Tess and I usually needed. The squirting sound the can made was exactly the sound made by a child determined to finish every last drop of milkshake in a paper cup left by means of a straw. I wondered if this was some clever new invention- ‘cappuccino in a can’- or something.

Once back in my seat Tess and I both struggled to drink the damn things at all. Not only did they taste revolting but also it was very difficult to even slurp the vile coffee itself through the mountain of shaving cream-like frothy milk that did not taste at all like milk and which filled up most of the cup. It seemed now that even the supposedly non-sentient objects that comprised reality were conspiring against me to turn Tess against me and spoil the holiday. As I sipped it down as best as I could I suspected that what I had taken to be a brief moment of flirtation was actually a brief moment of schadenfreude on the part of the girl whom I had paid for these wretched drinks. I was convinced that her smiles, which I now thought of as having been smirks, were inspired by her considering that I could not have known how dreadful the coffees were on the train, or I would not even have considered purchasing one, no-matter how bad the need was. Perhaps deliberately making disgusting coffees meant an easier shift for the buffet staff, as one would have thought that on a train departing at 5.30 am there would be a fair few Londoners in need of a coffee, although I soon realised that I had seen no one else with one. I reflected that it was possible that they were all regular passengers who had come to know better; perhaps each had at one time bought a coffee on this train once before that had been made in this surely deliberately disgusting way and would consequently never bother the buffet staff for one again. This would mean they would have more time to read their magazines behind the counter which was what they had been doing when I first went to the counter. Such were my thoughts as deprived of both sleep, caffeine and love, we hurtled through the ancient fields of the English countryside, before plummeting into the futuristic strangeness of the Channel tunnel.

And yet in their way these vile coffees actually were just what the doctor ordered. After finishing both mine and most of Tess's (she didn't want to finish it you see) I felt sufficiently caffeinated to perk up and relax and yet the amount of caffeine in them was such that not long after attempting to drink them we both managed to do what we really needed and had a snooze.

When we awoke we were arriving in Paris and I felt a little calmer and sensed that I had perhaps been forgiven for the trouble I had inadvertently caused earlier. All that mattered now was that we were in Paris and that we were, so it would seem, happy.

* * *

That first morning in Paris, after recaffinating properly at a café near the Gare du Nord station where the Eurostar arrives in Paris, we walked to the Musée Gustave Moreau.

The great Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau is something of a hero of mine. A teacher of both Matisse and Rouault, Moreau knew all the tricks of classical painting yet in his later years explored the possibilities of what could be done with oil painting with such radicalism that- although he always used a mythological or biblical subject as his starting point- saw him get so very close to both expressionism and pure abstraction at times that, though in the 20th century he has never become a household name, has meant that he has enjoyed many mini revivals of interest both from the Surrealists and also from various waves of expressionist and abstract painters. Nevertheless he himself was always a Symbolist at heart.

The museum, which was once monsieur Moreau’s home and studio, thankfully seems to have barely registered the passing of time in the 100 odd years it has been open following his death. In our dazed and sleep-deprived state Tess and I found it to be the perfect place to begin our stay in Paris, for the huge paintings- sometimes hung thee or four from floor to ceiling in one of the huge rooms- perfectly capture the dreamlike, idle reverie of being half asleep, or perhaps on the brink of sleep, both in their subject matter, their endlessly inventive and groundbreaking use of paint and also in the strange manner in which most are at least partially unfinished in one way or another; the fact of which probably actually only adds to their magical allure.

Although Moreau’s experimentation with different ways of painting clearly had a massive influence on countless artists, as we walked reverently around the quiet and huge rooms full of paintings I wondered if this mysterious and haunting quality which comes with the works in this museum being unfinished possibly had more of an influence on more artists than anything else about him. Later in our stay we were to see extremely beautiful and significant paintings by both Matisse and Picasso, as well as Balthus, which were left partly ‘unfinished’. Furthermore, all of these artists, having spent substantial amounts of time in Paris, must have been to this museum, where the great power a work can have when left unfinished is so notable that no artist could possibly miss it. Could Moreau have been their inspiration in this regard?

When we left the museum in search of a underground ‘metro’ station a combination of the weight of our bags, the overcast yet hot and glary weather and also simply the wonderful feeling of actually being in Paris at last caused us to sit and relax for a few minutes on a seat in a small park that we stumbled upon in front of some grand old building. We both agreed that the Parisians on the other seats, who were presumably mostly local workers on their lunch breaks, seemed a good deal more relaxed than their London counterparts. Was it just that we were so delighted to be here, or was there indeed a lot less stress in the atmosphere?

After catching our breath in the park we took the metro to our hotel which was about a 25 minute journey south of the city centre and a pleasant short walk through some quiet and rather quaint streets from the Malakoff Plateau de Vanves metro station. There we finally collapsed onto our bed almost immediately and fell asleep.

Yet we were not to rest for long for we were both too excited. After a couple of hours sleep we eventually took the metro that evening back into the centre of Paris and walked around Notre dame cathedral. We then walked along the river until we found ‘Shakespeare and Company’, the famous English language that over the decades has been a place of pilgrimage to so many writers, both famous and unknown, and where we found in great abundance that special spirit of true ‘liberté, égalité and fraternité’, which the French are so fond of declaring in words carved into the stone of various public buildings and the like, whether appropriate or not, and that is always to be found in some measure in all the true magical second-hand bookshops that I have found to be such sanctuaries in our increasingly insane world. I stumbled upon a first edition of one of my all time favourite books, ‘The Naked Civil Servant’ by Quentin Crisp, for six Euros. It had no dust jacket, yet if it had, it would have cost about 50 times that price. Nevertheless I rather like scruffy first editions, resonant of having been actually read and passed around perhaps many times, books that you can stuff in your shoulder bag without any anxiety that you may age it a little more for it is not worth very much anyway. This particular book haunted me with the thought that it had begun its life in the late sixties and, though I would never be able to tell the tale of where it had been and who exactly had read it seemed, as I held it in my hands, to have a warm aura about it for having made that journey.

We ate that evening in a cheap restaurant around the corner from the bookshop that we later discovered had been in an area described in my guidebook as ‘bacteria alley’, and strongly advised against, yet I was glad that we had followed our own instincts rather than the opinions of the guidebook as we had a perfectly good meal. Firstly there was extremely good onion soup, then Tess had chicken and chips whereas I had a turkey fillet and chips, and then we both finished off the meal with a slice of fresh fruit tart. Everything was very good and cost us only 10 Euros each, although they hit you for 6.50 for a beer, which due to the warmth and the still rather dazed state that we were both in, was entirely necessary, despite our both being on a tight budget.

After the meal we then very sleepily yet happily made our way back to the hotel.

* * *

The following morning we met up with Tess’s sister Outi and her boyfriend Patricio at their hotel down the road from ours. Together we bought bread that was still warm from the bakery and some beautiful cheese and tomatoes, and, as it was so warm, improvised our breakfast on a seat in the local town square, washing everything down with good strong espresso coffees from a nearby café.

Then we all caught the metro together to the Pompidou Centre where we gorged ourselves on art. Firstly there was a huge Kandinsky retrospective, followed by an exhibition of contemporary female artists, followed by a walk around the permanent collection of modernist paintings where there were so many extraordinarily good pieces I could spend the day writing about them if I let myself, but in the end, what really is the point? Somebody once said that writing about art is like dancing about architecture, and I often feel the same way.

After the Pompidou Centre we had drinks on a large boat moored on the Seine in order to relax and revitalise ourselves. There was a gentle breeze and the temperature was still the perfect warmth.

Later we walked along the Seine a little while and due to it being nearby stopped by Shakespeare and Company briefly again. As Tess and I dawdled outside the shop looking through some boxes of books a very old man appeared at a doorway to the side of the shop. Having seen a photograph of him in a newspaper somewhere once, I realised it was George Whitman, the former famous proprietor, who having run the place for many decades and befriended and assisted so many great or poor and unknown writers over the years had finally retired and left the shop to his daughter, yet I had heard that he still lived upstairs. I wanted to shake his hand, but felt it would be something of an imposition. In his slightly scruffy jacket and trousers and with a wisp of his white hair undulating atop his head in the gentle breeze coming from the river nearby, he walked haltingly over to one of the boxes of books, ruffled through it for a few moments, picked two scruffy paperbacks out and then walked back towards the door and finally sat down on the bench outside the shop, looking very, very old. Then a very young man wearing a perfectly clean white T-shirt who was sat on the other end of the bench, radiant with youth and perhaps idle idealism said, ‘Hello George’. Though George only nodded and smiled his reply, as if he were too tired to say anything, as I furtively glanced at the scene I caught a distinct twinkling in his eye.

As we walked away shortly afterwards in search of a place to eat I felt quite star-struck, although it was perhaps more a sadness, a sense that when magical places and magical people disappear, then that magic is gone, and sometimes there is nothing or nobody around that seems to in anyway replace them. I couldn’t help feeling that, when George dies, though his bookshop will at least surely outlive him, there will simply be a little less magic in the world.

That evening the four of us dined in the famous ‘Latin Quarter’, just a short walk north of the Place du Panthéon at one of the many charming restaurants at the top of the steep Rue Valette. Afterwards we strolled leisurely in the direction of St Michel, the evening still warm, and whilst waiting to cross a road were warned not to cross by a fellow pedestrian as three or four men who looked like police rollerbladed past us at a great speed on an otherwise deserted street. After these men disappeared again and I saw no reason not to I made to cross, but then somebody drew me back, and our attention was drawn by what sounded like a steady river of thunder to look to our left, where there was a great mass of people approaching. At first it looked like the front of the London marathon was in the distance, but within a few short moments this mass of people, who at first glance all seemed to be a good 100 metres or so were roaring past us at a tremendous speed, everyone of them on rollerblades. There were hundreds of them, seemingly a cross section of ages and types, all somehow beautifully united by the wheels on their feet. We watched in wonderment for what seemed like several minutes. Eventually they disappeared again, and with fresh smiles of amazement on our faces we carried on walking towards St Michel.

There were so many bookshops along the way that Tess had to yank me away from them as we walked, although this was not hard to do as, although I could not help slowing a little and gazing a few moments at what was stacked in the windows and in boxes on tables outside the shops, just about all the books were written in French! I found this mildly irritating but needed to accept that it was only fair seeing as we were in France.

Soon we arrived at the Place St Michel, where there is a colossal monument to the angel who is my namesake; Michel, or Michael, the angel who carved up the demons and if not defeated, at least subdued awhile Lucifer himself. As I gazed up at the muscle-bound larger than life-size sculpture of Michel, who stands atop a great waterfall, I saw that he had one arm in the air and seemed at first to be giving the finger to all of Paris, but then I realised it was an index finger he held aloft, as if boasting to an assembled crowd of fans that having sorted out the devil he will shortly be popping back up to heaven.

Yet the scene was stolen by a crowd which had amassed beneath this great monument to watch some young lads break-dance. They were extremely good; what a beautiful expression of youthfulness to spin around on your shoulders awhile with your legs in the air and then casually do a back flip, keeping in time to the beat the whole while. They took it in turns to show their moves before their portable amplifier and then passed their hat around, and got a few pennies out of us, for they had provided the perfect end to our evening. We stepped down the steps of the St Michel Metro station nearby so as to get back to out hotels and a good nights sleep, as tomorrow would be wedding day.

* * *

As soon as we woke up in the morning Tess and I began tidying up our room and packing our bags- as we were to be staying overnight in another hotel near where the wedding reception was to be held that evening- and then we fussed about getting ourselves ready for wedding day.

Patricio and I managed to slip away around midday and take the metro down to the Musee d’Orsay to see the great impressionist paintings there. Neither of us had any idea what a huge collection it is, nor how utterly wondrous it would be. As we only had an hour there before the wedding I ended up having to hurry strait past the Van Gogh’s, turning my head for only a split second at one of his especially intense self-portraits, from which his eyes seemed to stare into mine for that split second with great disapproval that I was not giving him more of my time. ‘Sorry Vincent!’ I whispered as I rushed after Patricio. Then just as we thought we had found the stairs to take us to the exit we passed a room dimly lit room full of beautiful Odilon Redon pastels. I could not help myself but dash in and kiss the glass behind which lay his beautiful picture of a shell, before Patricio had to drag me away.

The two of us made it via metro and bus to what we hoped was the town hall where Tess and Outi’s cousin Elsa and her soon to be husband Nicolas were to sign the local marriage register with a comfortable five or ten minutes to spare. A crowd was waiting around outside and I spied some elderly people with features a little reminiscent of Tess’s, along with a lot of other smartly dressed people, so we began to relax after a rather anxious journey where due to our enchantment with the pictures at the Musée d’Orsay we had gambled a little on getting there at the correct time at all.

Within a few minutes of catching our breath Tess and Outi appeared on the other side of the road, and when crossing over towards Patricio and I, had looks of utter disbelief on their faces.

‘You made it!’ Tess exclaimed. She seemed most pleasantly surprised.

‘Of course,’ I replied, as casually as I could.

After watching a lot of solemn words being spoken by various well dressed men in languages I could not at all understand inside the town hall and after being introduced by Tess to her various Finish relatives, we made our way into the church over the road, where even more incomprehensible speeches were made, in both Finish and French, yet there was a nice atmosphere in there and proceedings were interspersed a few times by Tess playing beautifully on her Violin accompanied by Outi on her flute. On one occasion they were joined by a Frenchman who sang something rather rousing in French, and on another occassion by their young cousin Suvi who sang a very beautiful song in Finish.

There were so many photographs being taken by so many of the congregation throughout the whole service, and with such ever increasing boldness, that by the time Tess and Outi were preparing to perform their last piece of music as others were occasionally getting up to take photographs and as several of the happy couples friends were out of their seats to watch them take their vows, I decided to try and make a recording of what they were to play on my phone. I quickly fiddled about to find the recording function and then crept over to place the phone on a pew a little closer to where Tess and Otti were standing. I then sat down nearby. Tess and Outi played an arrangement of ‘Clair de Lune’ beautifully, and I only hoped that the phone would make a reasonable recording of it.

Once the girls had finished playing I quietly retrieved my phone and sat down again close to where I had been seated earlier, yet without thinking at a slightly different seat, and fumbled with the buttons on the phone to try and ensure that the recording was saved. Only before I could work out how to do this I was interrupted by the sound of somebody pointedly clearing their throat. I looked up to see three beautifully dressed girlfriends of the bride standing before me wishing to return to their seats. They were all glaring at me, as I was- I now suddenly realised- sitting where they had been seated previously. Yet they were also perhaps glaring at me so intently as- to my intense embaressment it quickly also dawned on me- that it must have looked as if I were texting somebody on my phone! Right at the pivotal part of the whole service! And so I quickly slipped the telephone into my jacket pocket and sheepishly scampered back to my former seat.

Luckily when I checked later I was relieved to discover that I had at least managed to successfully save the recording, yet I was worried that I had made a rather bad first impression to the brides very best girlfriends, and hoped I would somehow be able to redeem myself at the wedding reception later.

After the church service was over those of us without cars all piled into an enormous coach that would take us to the wedding banquet out of town. We passed through the outskirts of Paris and on into the surrounding countryside, where the blue sky, the heat, the flatness of the land and the general look of the various small businesses along the sides of the well built and well maintained road that we travelled along all reminded me of the outskirts of Perth in Australia. Only here the landscape was far greener and the heat- then at least- was more comfortable than the extreme heat I always think of when I remember my years in Perth. How I would love to live here, I thought to myself. It has a similarly beautiful dry heat to Perth and the surrounding countriside, yet is so wonderfully more vibrant in the city and you would be far from isolated if you were to live here. If someone was to offer me a job here, I thought to myself as the coach rolled along, then I would take it in a flash.

Tess translated to me some of what her uncles in the seats in front of us were saying. ‘He’s saying he can’t believe the roads here are as good as they are in Finland, and something about the war.’

‘I wish I could understand them myself,’ I replied, ‘but they all seem very friendly anyway.’

'They are,’ she said smiling, perhaps relieved that so far, despite the language difficulties, we all seemed to be getting along well enough.

We finally arrived at the place where the wedding reception was to be held. It looked as if it had once been an enormous old barn for stoing mountains of grain or something. As we all lugged our luggage off the bus and into the building to find a place where it could be left, we passed through the enormous main room which was as large as a good sized church. All elements of the buildings agricultural past seemed to have been tastefully cleaned away except for the rough stone walls and the occasional ancient farming implement, such as a sickle or scythe which decorated the walls. There were round tables set for about ten guests each, and there must have been at least 10 or 12 tables in total.

But first of all we savoured the warm and still light evening outside on the patio where three or four chefs were hastily working away with Woks and frying pans behind a set of tables to deliver to the hundred odd guests that were milling about such a beautiful range of orderves that one could have quite easily had an excellent meal before the actual feast was to properly begin. There were huge prawns, and beautifully cooked hunks of pork, the fat still attached, sweet and succulent. There were some sort of spicy vegetables balls in delicious orangey-red breadcrumbs. There were many other treats besides, as well as a choice of good red or white wine or champagne. Once we were all seated at our table and the meal proper began Tess and I were all quite overcome with the magnificent extravagance of it all. There was delicious soup, beautifully cooked duck, sumptuous cheeses, and finally we were served a sample of three different kinds of cake and a profiterole- all as light and fresh and beautifully creamy as you could possibly desire. Everything was so perfectly cooked and presented that I felt on occasion as if I were at some royal or movie stars party. The dinner lasted some three or four hours, interspersed by some speeches and a great deal of conversation that never seamed to run dry on the tables all around us.

All of this was followed by some dancing, that was a little slow to get going, probably because we were all so stuffed! Yet once it did get going I found myself whisked around the dance floor with great gusto by Tess to some Finish Rock and Roll interspersed with various French numbers that had all the young French guests singing noisily and happily along. Then there were the inevitable boozy discussions, people sitting about smoking outside on white plastic stackable chairs often with ties and high heals disposed of.

Yet there was a definate divide between the Finish and the French present. Happily for me when they spoke with one another they spoke English, yet unfortunately they generally kept to their own language groups and therefore conversation was mostly in either Finish or French. As the night wore on I had brief discussions with some of the friends of the bride and groom, yet they never seemed to get very far. I wished I knew a little French as most of them could not be bothered with more than the briefest of conversations in English if they could be bothered at all.

At around two or three o'clock in the morning we were eventually driven by a large Frenchman, who had been dutifully videoing the church service, to our lodgings for the night, which turned out to be a riding school. We were to spend the night in a dormitory of squeaky bunk beds with several of Tess’s relations, which was a bit of a shock after the opulence of the wedding and the room we had shared the previous two nights. Tess and I took a stroll around the grounds a while, being not yet ready for bed, yet everywhere we went in the dark seemed to set off sensor lights. We could make out the profile of horses in their stables and did not want to wake them up, and so we soon realised that we had not much choice but to go back inside to our respective squeaky bunk beds and trust that the booze we had drunk would send us to sleep sooner or later.

* * *

The following morning we awoke to find ourselves part of a beautiful sunny country landscape, the riding school itself a hive of activity. A stroll down a country lane saw us step straight into a painting by Monet: the poppies were out in the fields amongst the long fresh green grass, the red of the poppies against the green of the grass and the almost turquoise blue sky with a few stray wisps of cloud exactly the same as I had seen in the first Monet I encountered the previous day at the Musée D’Orsay. I photographed Tess in the scene using the camera on my phone, trying my best to emulate my memory of the Monet painting. The only thing missing was an extravagant hat with ribbons aflutter in the breeze to sit atop Tess’s head. I wished I did not feel so hungover and Tess seemed especially distant. By the end of the day we would be in London again; it did not seem either possible or real.

After even more rather decadent food for lunch on tables sitting out in the perfectly warm sun chatting to anyone who had a few words at least of English, while Tess occasionally chatted away in Finish in conversations I so dearly wished I could understand, it was finally time for us to leave. We caught a lift back into Paris with a young French couple who dropped us at a metro station on the outskirts of Paris, and realised that this particular line would take us straight to the Eiffel tower. And so with just over two hours left before our train was to depart, and already the perhaps inevitable sadness that I suppose must come with a holiday that is coming to an end setting in, we journeyed to what would have to be our final destination before we had to return to the same train station from which we had first stepped out into Paris from.

After hauling our bags up the steps of the metro station and then turning from the street towards the lookout point at the Place de Varsovie, there was the tower! It lay about half a kilometre away, the other side of the river, the opulent buildings and gardens of the Place Jacques Rueff between its legs in such perfect symmetry with the tower it almost seemed to be an illusion, something impossible yet true, as in a Magritte painting. The sight of it was as magnificent to me as when I had seen the Taj Mahal. When I knew I was going to be seeing the Taj Mahal I had deliberately avoided looking at photographs of it and had even delayed looking up at the real thing until it was visible in its best light and from the best view, thinking that this would provide me with the greatest possible aesthetic pleasure, which I believe it did. Yet alhough I had tried the same trick as regards the eifell Tower prior to coming to Paris, I had assumed that the image was so burned into my mind that to see the real thing could not possibly be that much of a surprise. Yet somehow it was unspoilt by these endless reproductions one cannot help but see before one sees the real thing. Gazing at ithat day, the tiny lifts slipping up and down it’s inner spine like tiny colourful beads amongst the grey metal bringing home just how huge it is, it seemed so resonant with the wild enthusiasm and strong hopes and dreams of a past age! Such a wonderful monument to humanity!

We lay a while in the grass in a nearby park, where the tower could still be seen in the distance dwarfing the nearby trees, and rested a while, and drifted onto a discussion of the possible future of the world that became so sad it needed to be dropped. Neither of us were looking forward to returning to London. I tried to enjoy that last short time we had left in Paris relaxing in the park but finally knew I could not, and that it could not be otherwise. Life would probably always mostly consist of grinding work, so as to afford the privilege of surviving at least, and so as to pay for the occasional short time when if one was lucky one could be somewhere else, and be able to be relaxed and free enough to even begin to feel that it could somehow be otherwise, before eventually and all to soon such- perhaps necessay- spells are broken once again.

We took the metro back to the Gard du Nord station and got there with time for one last expresso at a table in the sun at a splendid café on the other side of the road to the station. Already the beauty of Paris that was still all around us was not able to touch me anymore. We almost had an argument over who should pay for the coffees, and then for some reason it would not entirely blow over, and then we took it in turns to stay at the café table with the bags whilst the other popped down the road to a nearby shop to buy some cheese to take back to London. We finished our expressos and went over to the station to check in. Tess bought me an English newspaper whilst I sat guarding our bags yet once on the train I feared to open it as I didn’t want anything to take the feeling I had in my head and heart in Paris away from me any quicker than was inevitable anyway.

The train sped through the French countryside whilst Tess slept besides me. I glanced through the paper; what really should one know? There are times when some things are simply best not read about. All a newspaper will do is spoil your own idle thoughts as they drift about in your head. I decided not to let the days various sad and tragic stories that were so solemnly reported in The Independent into my head too much, and soon put the paper aside and let my memories of the last few days mill about in my head, already hazy and sadly distant.

And London? Back in London, things were not so good. But that’s another story.

Sex, Smoke and Sweeties

2009-05-19T20:57:00.022+01:00

I don't really have the time to write this thing, but I want to do it again, so it's going to be rough and ready and straight out with little editing or probably not at all this time around. Hope some of you enjoy it from time to time. But I'm not going to worry about what this blog will be anymore, except that I hope others will enjoy it- that it be a little more than pure self indulgence at least- and that it continues to chart the vicissitudes of the world we live in in a manner which though always at least a little serious, is also at least a (hopefully) little funny from time to time. Without there being some humour in life I am honestly not sure what the point is and yet humour can also of course be a way of being very serious: one is surely often ideally a symptom of the other and together I think they are better value than prozac or cigarettes. Also I don't believe we can have too much of either humour or seriousness, provided we have a little of both working together within us.

So, to begin. To begin again. Where to begin?

Sex

Well Sex Ed is going to be taught next week to the Year 5's and the warning letters went out to parents at the end of the day. The letters also invited them to an 'information evening' to try and calm down the various concerns that some of them had- which had even got so far as the local paper- about the children being hopelessly corrupted by a mention of the word 'gay'or I suppose 'ejaculation', or even perhaps merely whatever sort of tame explanation we intended to give of how it was they all came to be here at all in the first place. Yet I can't see how the issue can really be dodged forever, however squeamish you may be about such things. Wouldn't that be a bit like giving a child some cake and refusing to explain either the mixing in the bowl of all the ingredients or the bit where it's in the oven?

I myself am rather more concerned that so many of London's primary school children seem to watch Eastenders and play various computer games where they go around killing sometimes hundreds of people in a sitting in simulations almost indistinguishable from a live action film, but I suppose I am old fashioned, as nobody else seems to care about these things very much. I mean you get the odd sigh in the staffroom when such matters come up, but that's about as far as it goes. Nobody seems to mind that almost every scene in Eastenders features two or more adults shouting and screaming at each other, or at the very least scheming, stealing, cursing, mocking or lying to each other. And that's if they are not just getting on with it and killing each other, of course, which I suppose occurs from time to time in order to keep people watching. It's not exactly role-model central, for either young children nor teenagers or even adults I'd say, and yet it was someone off Eastenders- rather than one of Jesus's chums (as it would have been when I was at school back in deep dark Thatcherite Britain 20-odd years ago)- who was name dropped a few weeks ago by a headmistress who shall remain nameless in an assembly I was in in order to highlight a point about something or other.

But I need not worry about all this sort of thing really. One young boys father, whose son is about 10 years old and whom I encouraged to come along to the Sex Ed information evening replied, 'I got no problem with that, mate. You know, I'll sit 'im down and show 'im an adult film and explain everfing ee needs to know one of these days.'

I did try to smile politely although I fear I may have winced a little. 'I think that may be going a little far,' I said, all sweetness and light. I would have like to have said, 'For God's sake just leave it with us!'

Smoke

Now I read something about this a few days ago in the paper and can't find the article now but have been unable to get it out of my head: in Zing-zang province (or something sounding a bit like that), in China, the local government is fighting the recession by insisting that all it's governmental officials and civil servants smoke a prescribed number of cigarettes each week. However, reassuringly, they are also simultaneously funding a campaign advising people to give up smoking, so there is really no cause for alarm as China is clearly completely wiz-bang and 'modernizing' at an impressive pace these days. And thank God they are 'modernizing'; we really need a bit more carbon in the atmosphere...

Perhaps they should have a beer quota here in Britain, and in Australia too for that matter. I can just see Gordan Brown in the ads. His unnerving smile would at last make some sort of sense. What shall it be? three pints a day for everybody? Hmmmmm. In Australia's case they would have to bring back Bob Hawke to do the ads. I don't think Mr Rudd would be quite up to it.

Sweeties

I have just let my sweet tooth go lately. After work, I pop into one of the small shops around here and buy 10p sweets just like a kid. Now it's becoming a habit and I am really delighting in making my way through every new strangely coloured and oddly shaped thing I can find. Tonight it was a turquoise coloured dolphin and long thin bendy tubes that were Kermit green on the inside and rhubarb red on the outside. And why not? Heaven. The shop keepers are getting to remember me dropping in in the early evening and even in miserable mind-your-own-business-London I am getting a few spontaneous smiles and chuckles for a change. Why not give it a go yourself?

Hope you are all well, or at least keeping your heads above water.

Snow

2009-02-02T11:04:00.007Z

Down it comes, out of the window, yes, the beauty of snow at last, huge chunks of it floating down... the buses and trains are down, no work to go to today and there is the time and shift in appearances needed to think.

20 years since I last saw it... while in Australia train tracks buckle and in the heat and admissions are made by polititions that global warming is starting to cause the devastation the scientist promised... it is impossible if one does not live in denial to feel at least a little sadness part of everyday...

Perhaps to live in denial keeps folk healthy these days?

Madness first thing in the morning...

2008-12-11T09:35:00.005Z

No Snow...

2008-02-08T00:01:00.001Z

No, there was no snow in London last weekend as had been predicted. No snow this past week either. Just more of the same instead. I’m either on a train whizzing across London or I’m being pestered or yelled at by a roomful of children for hours on end, or else I’m pottering about in the flat here in Stoke Newington doing all those little things you have to do. On and on it goes and I have very little time left or wind in my sails in the evenings when all the chores are done to do any painting of consequence. So there it is. The world keeps turning, no matter if you are sinking or swimming or just floating along waving at people or having or trying to have intercourse of one kind or another with people, and it will turn just as surely even if you bang your head against the wall all day long or pray for things to be different, or whatever your own style of wishing is. It helps to remember that most people are not paying much notice, least of all Mr God (he’s a busy guy you know) and so don’t go banging your head against the wall or else you will find you won’t have time to do all the things you have to do and besides, I’m sure you can bang your head against the wall online now. Even if it is a crappy substitute for the real thing that does not seem to bother most people as they sit there in front of their computers gawping away at whatever it is. I suppose it’s a bit like doing nothing, only even easier as not only can you sit or even lie there (if you have a laptop) not really moving, but you don’t have to be bothered by your thoughts while you are doing it as there is an endless supply of your own personal preference in crap to gaze at instead.

Oh, I won’t get it I know… but still, how I wish it would snow…

There could be a snowstorm coming...

2008-01-31T22:31:00.004Z

In the staffroom today at the nice primary school I’ve been at this week I overheard someone saying that snow was expected to be coming. ‘What? to London?’ I asked. The lady said indeed it had been forecast. Apparently it was due in the next couple of days.

There has not been the slightest hint in the air of the feeling that it could possibly snow all through this winter thus far as far as I have been able to tell. Indeed I forgot all about this brief exchange until I was on the train out of Liverpool Street on my way home and I picked up one of the free newspapers up off the seat in front of me, and there it was- page three- a little article headed, ‘Snowstorm for central London.’ Apparently major problems are expected for commuters about 5 o’ clock tomorrow, ‘along with gale force winds and freezing temperatures, lasting until Sunday.’ I can hardly wait! And I’m not joking! I just hope I manage to get home before it hits- it’s expected about 5pm- which may be possible if I do all my marking during my lunch break. I want to trudge through snow on Friday evening in search of adventures in the snow…

Maybe my luck is changing? I had been daydreaming about snow; indeed I had wished for it with great solemnity. Perhaps you could even say that I prayed for it; that I had made one of those immensely popular, yet generally futile attempts to get through to God (albeit in an rather off-hand sort of way, which I'm sure he doesn't really mind). Well for once it looks as if perhaps the lines through to the big guy in the sky were not permanently engaged due to ‘high call volume’, which is what the recorded message at the tax office has been explaining to me every time I have tried to call them this past few days. (The two letters they sent to me may as well have been written in Eskimo script, if there is such a thing, which is probably why their lines are engaged all the time, as I doubt I’m the only one who is completely confused about what I have to do about my tax.)

Yes, please let it snow. I want the world I am in to change completely for a while… into a world of white. I want to throw a snowball again, and walk around in a world of white… crunching footprints along a completely white world, white streets, white sky… let something new happen.

Perhaps there will be some snowball fights to be had? Perhaps the girls downstairs will come up for hot chocolate? Perhaps the wonderfully dishevelled and overgrown Abney cemetery around the corner will be open and I can plod around it and Justin will have an excuse not to be busy for a change and could walk up from his house and meet me there and we could plod around it together...

Perhaps something that needs an excuse like snow to happen will happen. Perhaps something good…

Or perhaps nothing much new will happen except for the snow. But at least there would be the snow.

Please snow tomorrow…

Winter Blues

2008-01-20T23:14:00.003Z

Out of the bus window on the way down to Angel in Islington today I passed a stuffed polar bear, standing on his hind legs in the window of the taxidermist shop, ‘Get Stuffed.’ London is still grinding me down at the moment, but at least it’s grinding me down whilst occasionally showing me wonderful sights every now and then, such as stuffed polar bears in shop windows. That’s something.

On Saturday evening I went to the promisingly named ‘Low-life’ bar on Baker street to a friend of a friends birthday party. I was feeling rather flat and couldn’t hear much of what was being said around me due to volume of the music, which was only ever turned down for all of 10 pleasant seconds whilst a cake was brought out at one point, during which time everyones cheerful voices could be heard wishing the birthday girl well and so on. For these brief few moments I felt at last to be enjoying myself but it was not to last. Once the candles had been blown out the awful racket in the place, as well as the impossibility of getting very far with any conversation that one was part of, was reinstated once more.

Of course the name of the bar- 'Low-life'- was ironic. Everyone there was disconcertingly smartly turned out and well behaved. A better name for it the night I was there would have been ‘Still-life’, as I sat in the same seat all night simply trying my best to vaguely follow the thread of the conversation that was being shouted from ear to ear at my table. It was one of those nights when generally everyone seems to be talking to everyone they know already, when the one or two women you like the look of always seem to be accompanied by rather serious looking stocky gym-pumped boyfriends bursting out of shiny shirts, who do their best to laugh along with their girlfriends even when they can't hear what on earth the joke was and so on, and who are doubtless more wonderful providers then I could ever wish to be. Nevertheless, Andy reported that the rather jumpy cokehead barman, who was apparently babbling away in a language that nobody but himself understood, was mixing the drinks generously. When all else fails there is always vodka. Also, I timed the sipping of my drinks well and it was time to leave before it was my turn to buy a round, so all was not lost.

Winter is well and truly here. I don't care though as I now have two nice warm and well fitting winter coats that have come my way on the two occasions I have had a serendipitously satisfying fossick through the secondhand racks of the wonderful Real McCoy shop in Exeter. Yet how I long for snow, to awake to a world of white; to draw back the curtains one morning and see that there is no possibility of going to work and that almost everything is white. Perhaps global warming has made this scenario less likely than it used to be here in the south of England, yet the grey overcast day is doubtless here to stay, and we shall doubtless be losing many more beautiful things besides snow.

How I long for… tender wishes cast returning in the form of a warm surprise. How I long for space and time and people to paint. That’s all gone too.

Who was it who said, 'We are running faster and faster in a desperate attempt to stay where we are, and not lose ground?' I think it was the Australian cartoonist Bruce Petty, at the end of one of his wonderful one-off short animations for the ABC. His cartoons in The Age are something I miss. No-one around like him coming up amoungst the young cartoonists anywhere so far as I can tell.

So many things gone, or on the way out...

My England has gone, and that’s that: as impossible to get back as childhood, or love that was felt, but was never quite born, from long, long ago.

London Blues

2008-01-12T21:55:00.003Z

Oh I know I’m late with my post again. Oh dear. I really have a good excuse or two this time though: I am diligently reporting to you from my bed this evening as I am crashing out at half past nine on a Saturday night due to my having contracted the flu. Also, I have had a pretty hellish week at my new fulltime job which I am not feeling strong enough to go into. Let’s just say that quite a few of the children at this school where I am ‘teaching’ have ‘behavioural issues’- as we say in the trade- and it has all been rather exhausting.

What else? Oh heavens, I don’t know where to start and I really can’t be bothered tonight. How the hell did I end up a teacher at this awful school that I need to get up at 5.30 in the morning to get to and to be living with TV junky Vinnie in this flat in Stoke Newington? Not a good result for one who has a serious case of the art disease. Where are the women? The parties? Where is the fun? Where’s my studio and the date for my new show at a decent gallery? Nowhere to be seen, any of it. How the hell did I turn into a blogger, of all things? How utterly awful, all of it appears to me tonight.

And that’s about it for tonight I’m afraid. I hope you are all well and enjoying your lives. I hope to return soon to this here blog and offer up something a little better that this.

Christmas in Devon

2007-12-31T15:22:00.044Z

I just got back from a week in my seaside home town of Sidmouth, down in Devon. It’s peculiar how little it seems to have changed. You could quite easily kid yourself that the world is simply taking care of itself if you were to live down there, that there is nothing much too much to worry about. I remember that one year while I lived in Sidmouth as a child all those years ago that there was part of a TV production of ‘Vanity Fair’ made along the seafront, and all they really needed to do was throw some brown leaves along the double yellow lines on the sides of the roads and it was the 19th century again. You could still shoot a period drama down there today, and besides finding much of the scenery from the 19th century still intact, you could probably find scenes from almost any decade from the twentieth century you needed as well.

The Radway cinema is still there, still the same old sign outside. Is it a 1920’s building? Can’t be far off… perhaps a little older, or a little more recent. Peering through the window I could see they have done it up inside however. There were some garish pictures for new films I did not have the slightest interest in... just more American junk. This was where I saw some of the old Disney films as a kid, when they still looked as if they were made by humans rather than by computers, as well as the old camp 60’s version of Batman, with Adam West and co. Perhaps it was on as a Saturday matinee… What else did I see? I don’t remember anything else, but there must have been others.

It was quiet down there. Sometimes Sidmouth felt a little like walking around an abandoned film set after the actors have long since departed. The film of my memories there is 18 years old now, and I was 12 when I left, so if I was to pass somebody on the street from the past they are not going to recognise me now.

I was down there with my friend Andy from Australia and my old childhood friend Justin. I kept on being surprised by things I remembered, as we walked or drove through parts of the town that I’d not seen for all these years… there is a playground and part of me is very small again… there is the park where they used to play football… and what else happened there? I don’t remember but I can’t help but struggle to try to find more memories as I gaze at things out of the car window, and I mostly come up with nothing… nothing but the unexplainable sadness that comes, and keeps coming… who knows from where it comes? There is the shop where my father had his printing business… or is it the one next door? I suddenly remember the shape of the frosted glass windows, the little round plastic air duct embedded in one of the windows... things of no consequence perhaps yet which seem suddenly terribly important… I can remember the feeling inside the place, how it felt to be 6 years old… you don’t understand what the adults are doing or talking about most of the time, but you feel so much more… or is that just how I remember it? Maybe it’s not a memory at all, but just my imagination… But there is the shop… the shop did used to be there... and it is so very good to see it, even just out of the car window. It is enough. And then I tune in again to whatever the others are talking about in the car. Justin's parents are discussing dinner, how somebodies father died...

I wonder how much more relaxed I would have been in my own skin perhaps if I’d never left? Never been taken to Western Australia at the onset of puberty, just after the first confused thoughts about an English girl in a friends school play sharpening the sadness of leaving...

I suppose part of me never did leave. All those years the tiring feeling inside wanting to go back and just be here again, for no reason than just to be here a while. It feels like the most important thing in the world, but I think you only know it if you have been away from your childhood home for a long, long time and not been able to easily return.

But although I desperately needed to come back here and see it all again, I didn’t want to stay in Sidmouth long. How lovely to see and be in the beautiful countryside down in Devon once again though. Andy and I went for plenty of walks, a couple of times with Justin and his family too. I was constantly struck by the tremendous variety in the forms and shapes and colours within the landscape. Perhaps my senses are sharpened through having not been in it for so many years, for in Australia the landscape, flora and fauna, and the light, is so very different. Although cold overcast days may be wearying, they can make for easier thinking, I find, than other kinds of weather. Surely weather has a far greater influence on our moods, and even our very nature itself, than we generally give it credit for, and as I was born into this land and this climate I guess I was slowly wired for it as a child, and my genes, as handed down the mysterious unknown generations, have long been geared up for it. I never could get used to the oppressive heat and the brightness of Perth, the constant necessity for sunglasses or squinting and for finding ways to try to keep out of the heat, especially at Christmas time. I heard from my parents that it was 44 degrees Celsius on boxing day over in Perth this year, which was a new record apparently.

We were lucky in that we didn’t get caught in the rain at all during our many walks. Although the sky was mostly overcast, it was often as varied as the landscape itself; at times a diaphanous, milky mingling of cloud density that let the daylight through in mottled patches of different degrees of brightness, so that as we wandered the pathways along the fields and alongside wooded areas, and talked to one another about all manner of things (the best conditions in which to talk I think), we passed through many different moods of light, and differing trains of thought, and after getting back to the cars as the light was fading and driving home, our evening meals felt especially well earned and consequently tasted especially good and hearty too.

* * *

Andy and I went into Exeter for the day on our last day down in Devon and I got myself a lovely winter coat from a second hand shop on Old Fore Street. It’s a sort of underwater blue, woollen herringbone weave. As soon as I put it on I felt to be immediately in a very good mood, better able to deal with the world as well as with winter.

The girl behind the counter who served me seemed to be especially careful to maintain an aura of disinterest in her customers. She was going in for an ice queen circa 1920’s look, with her black dress patterned with Chinese designs, her perfect black bobbed hair and beret, and her bright red lipstick that only especially confident girls in their twenties can really get away with (and only girls with beautiful pale skin like hers look especially good wearing). Just as I was leaving I overheard her mention to the other young girl who was working in there (who seemed far more sympathetic and relaxed and yet whom I can’t remember anything else about now at all) that someone who had just walked out of the shop was most attractive, but that his clothes had put her off completely. Her friend sighed as if she had heard it all before and said wearily, ‘Clothes aren’t everything, Pixie…’ I often wonder how on earth the human race keeps going and overhearing this conversation got me pondering this question once again.

We had a good look around Old Fore Street, where all the pokey little second-hand comic and book and record shops I used to love going to as a child used to be. At the time it was only the comics- namely 2000AD- that I was ever interested in (books and records came later, after I had emigrated to Western Australia). I used to visit these shops with Justin, after our Saturday morning drawing class with Ron Tiner. None of the shops I remember from back then are still there, but the street still has a comfortable and slightly almost bohemian atmosphere. Of course it's not the same... but how could it be? I remember what old Don, the old cockney second hand book dealer who moved out to Perth to be with his son said about London, that he used to love so much: ‘The buildings are all still the same… but everything else has changed completely. No… I wouldn’t want to live there now… not now.’ It's probably the same almost anywhere in the country. There are however some new shops along Old Fore Street that are now selling some of the same kinds of unconventional merchandise I remember from all those years ago. There is a little arcade with the wonderful second-hand clothes shop in it- ‘The Real McCoy’s’- where I got the coat, and in that same arcade there is a good little café, a shop that sells comics and plastic aliens and bongs and so forth, as well as a record shop that seems to still be selling only all the underground and slightly alternative stuff that was around years ago, as if the last 10 years or so in music had never happened, which I found pleasing.

I’m glad I’ve changed, but I want not just the buildings and the scenery, but some of the people and the goings on around me and the things in shop windows to have some kind of continuity. The windows of the shop are filled with records that hang flat against the glass. No sign of any CD's. How seriously I used to regard album covers as a teenager! I used to buy them on vinyl, partly so that I could gaze at the pictures on the sleeves more easily. It started while I was still at school; I used to save half of my lunch money everyday by half starving myself at lunchtime at school and then by the time Saturday morning came around I had enough to buy something from the secondhand section at The House of Wax or Dada's Records in the city. Part of me is moved once again when I see records from this period again, and there was a good selection filling up the window of this shop. The Pogues, The Cramps, some Motown...

For the same sorts of reasons I liked seeing all those records from that past era again I was glad to see that the Beano is still for sale in newsagents here in England, and that Dennis the Menace is still the comic on the front cover of it, just like all those years ago, although I wouldn't have been surprised to have learnt that the Beano had been entirely surpassed by a new computer game console that delivers a terminally violent world directly into the children's brains, or something similarly awful. Perhaps children will be granted a few more years of grace before that happens, although the computer games they have are moving quickly in that direction and comics are certainly not as prevelant in the newsagents as they used to be: I saw no sign of Dandy or Whizzer and Chips, so maybe it's not long before Beano disappears too...

Slipping away... all that we loved... newsagents closed... everything's a chain... global warming to look forward to, and for all this 'prosperity' I'll probably never be able to afford kids. No, no, best be in denial, denial will get us through. Mustn't make a fuss... mustn't... there's always something good on TV, to take the blues away... to fill our dreams with smiles, however false... Christmas time... there the old photographs along the bookcase, the comedy on television seems to sooth. Remember Whizzer and chips? Yes dear but there's nothing you can do. That T-shirt you wouldn't let me throw away, do you remember? A boy blowing bubbles... and we used to make our own comics... do you remember? They will never put a chip in my head... yes, but you won't have any choice... the jokes don't get better in the crackers... father used to insist we would all put the paper crowns on our heads... Kathy's face flushed red with tears and she won't say a word but her hat is on her head so father is happy. I burned the old school cap... do you remember? Crying in the bath, I would not say why, but Timmy and I had ran into somebody's back garden and taken one or two gooseberries... Kentucky Fried chicken in the back of Justin's parents' car... too many memories, that's the trouble... was it a happy time? I don't know anymore, I just don't know... Overpopulation, the environment being destroyed, fish stocks plummeting... come and watch some telly before dinner dear... I suppose I'll never get the job... yes well never mind... Have a drink. There's always television and drink, between them you won't have to discuss anything, you won't need to think... old photographs, you can tell by the colour they are from the 70's, maybe the 60's... I wonder if it'll ever snow here again? I think you should go for a walk dear... a lovely Christmas, thank you.

Tarkovsky

2007-12-13T17:39:00.003Z

You are very lucky to be reading this. Yes, you are. I can tell you this post is being made against the odds. My evenings as well as my days are being gobbled up this week due to work during the day, and the various things that have needed doing due to my moving into my new room at the new flat in Stoke Newington. Also this week, the Tarkovsky film festival has been on at the wonderfully cozy and snazzo Curzon cinema in Mayfair, and I am presently rather overcome with excitement for this extraordinary filmmaker, Mr Andrei Tarkovsky, that several people had told me that I would like, and yet which I had never got around to having a look at before. I was going to just see the one of them which I saw last week, which happened to be the positively sublime 'Stalker', yet last night I happened to go along and see the truly most extraordinary wonderful 'Solaris' with Andy, and that is it; I'm a big fan now. I am having to write this post to you in a frenzy, rather that take the time over it that I normally like to, as tonight I am shortly to be stepping out of this nice little west end internet cafe on Charing Cross Road to go off and meet Justin to see the film 'Nostalgia', which from the write up sounded pretty hopelessly gloomy, yet which I am now quite shall be a gloominess of the most enjoyable and generally wonderful kind, due to it being dealt with by the capable hands and vision of Mr Tarkovsky. What a shame he's dead. But then again, most of the artists I really like are. They all seem to be dying either just before or just after I discover them, although this is not true of Mr Tarkovsky. He ceased to plod about Russia, doubtlessly intensely and I imagine with an always rather wonderful- even if on occasion frightening- glint in his eye, some twenty odd years ago now.

Tottenham Blues

2007-11-16T17:14:00.002Z

Well Tottenham lived up to its mostly awful reputation this weekend just past: I arrived home on Friday evening to find that the place had been broken into. My laptop and most of Sabine’s jewellery, all gone. If only darling Poo-Poo the cat could speak. He must have ran around daintily trying to make friends with whoever the damn bastard was I imagine, so blissfully sweet and playful he was when I finally managed to push the door in far enough to shift the chair that had been jammed up against it, and get in to discover the mess of mine and Sabine's things that the bastards had left all over the floor.

Yes, and Poo-Poo also lived up to his name once again by pooing all over my bed when the forensic police came over the next day with their little jars of fingerprint finding dust. I was showing the awful mess that was left in my room to the police lady with the magic dust and brush, when Poo-Poo ran in and contributed his thoughts by doing a nice moist little shit in the middle of the bed, and then scampering excitedly out again.

Anyway, once I had removed the cat turd from my duvet, and the duvet from my room, and shoved the shitty part of it into the kitchen sink, the forensic lady went to work with the little brush and her magic dust upstairs, whilst a truly delightful policeman sat down with me at the kitchen table downstairs and discussed the matter of the break-in with me as if he really couldn't care any less, but was obliged by something in his job-description to at least ask a couple of questions. When it came up that I had come over from Australia to London recently he looked up at me from his notebook as if I was repulsively stupid, continued to stare at me hard a few moments, and then coldly said, 'So you had too much of all that sunshine, blue skies and all that surf, did you?' I would have explained to him a little about how, for example, it was the cultural side of life that had drawn me back to beautiful England, and to London, but I feared this would only make matters worse, and so I found a polite smile of sorts to bring to my face, and replied simply, ‘It’s all a bit more complicated than that.’ His response was to continue to stare back at me in the sort of way I thought policemen were supposed to reserve for the perpetrators of crime, rather than the victims. Of course I’m used to this by now; English people who have never been to Australia not being able to accept that anyone would ever want to leave it... just as I long ago got used to Australians who have never been to England not understanding nor wanting to understand why I would want to live here either. Sometimes people much prefer their own far from well informed little ideas about various subjects to either considering- or even respecting- the real feelings being expressed by somebody who has actually had some first hand experience of that which they would realise- if they were at all honest with themselves- that they don't actually know much about.

Presently the police lady came downstairs to say that she had finished her dusting. Unlike the policeman, she managed a stick-on smile at least, and then said without the slightest implication that any other finding had ever been at all likely, ‘I think they must have used gloves.’

They both proceeded to pack up their things. I looked on and wondered if they ever solved any crimes these days. I stared at Poo-Poo in the corridor, with her sweet little sad eyes catching the light, and wished for a few tired moments that she were a big ferocious dog who knew how to tear someones leg off. As the police were making ready to leave I asked them to have a look again at the window that had been forced open, as they had not said anything to me about it before when I was showing them through the whole house and all the mess everywhere. They vaguely nodded at my theory of how it had been perhaps forced open, but offered no ideas of their own. Shortly after that they left.

Scarborough: Beachside Suburb of Dreams

2007-11-02T00:00:00.010Z

'Scarborough', affectionately known to its locals as 'scabs', has long had it's own unique place in Western Australia's thriving contemporary cosmopolitan culture. Scarborough today is one of the few places in WA where the most prominent architecture is still unmistakeably marked by the 'can-do' entrepreneurial spirit of the 80's, and thankfully, although occasionally arguably in need of perhaps a little extra care and maintenance (it must be said), for the most part this brave vision of that proud era has been kept intact in Scarborough, and it is lucky- when compared with comparable Perth Suburbs- to have it's essential character still fairly undiluted by the perhaps inevitable encroachment of the more garish design features characteristic of more recent decades.

Observation City (now cleverly 're-branded' as 'Rendezvous, Observation City', so as to attract Perth's burgeoning extra marital affair dollar to it's world class hotel) is still, even today, at least twenty times as tall as any other building for many miles around, thus surely putting to rest past fears that Scarborough might be on it's way to becoming the 'Gold Coast of the West'. Indeed, although it is easy to say with hindsight, everyone should have always known that Scarborough's community is far too fiercely independent for that to have ever been at all likely to occur, as Scarbolians simply value their excellent quality of life- namely the peaceful life- above all else.

Yet Observation City, that lone monolith of WA's daring decade, is still today indisputably the focal point of Scarbolian community culture, and indeed today it is hard to imagine what the hell happened in the place before good ol' 'Ob City' was built! Home to a very good McDonald's, several continental-style cafes and ice cream shops, as well as some new and exciting restaurants, Scarborough these days caters amply to the stomach as well as the soul. I must make special mention here of 'Villa Biancis', which is as close to the sea-front as the authorities will let anyone build, and which does much of the work in bringing a truly Mediterranean nuance to Scarborough. Well known for it's hangover curing cooked breakfasts on a Saturday and Sunday morning, Biancis is also renowned for its coffee, most probably, and I must add here- just in case anyone has heard about it and is still in any doubt- that the rumours of Mr Biancis involvement in the local drug trade and industry (which we must be reminded were of course never proven in a court of law) have for some time now died down to the point where Mr Bianci is once more a proud and fully accepted member of the conventional local business community, not to mention the community at large. Most importantly of all though, he continues to provide a notably Italian influence on Scarborough which is widely accepted by now and which is doubtless to be here to stay.

Although the dying fluorescent lights and closure of many businesses within the once proud Observation City hotel and shopping complex lend it a sort of 'West-Coast existential note' within (according to a local poet and wit), it is still cheering to visit 'Scabs' on a Saturday night and share with the local youth community a sense of not caring about a damn thing and join in with some plain old, tried and tested traditional alcohol induced winding down. The streets around 'Ob City' have a festive air most weekends, and anyone under 25 is is especially welcome; Scarborough is certainly young at heart when it comes to having fun! The traditional- indeed legendary- binge drinking of Scarborough on both a Friday, Saturday, and also Sunday night, is a great example of the community spirit of Scarborough, and I might add- in my humble and admittedly biased opinion- that it's unique and strong community identity distinguishes it from other Perth hotspots by it's sheer joyful ebullience. Indeed the traditional weekend and also often weeknight 'Heavy Metal' recitals by both professionals and amateurs, together with the various spontaneous vomiting demonstrations surely make Scarborough a notable model of aggressively progressive and yet traditionally recognisable cosmopolitan Australian culture. In all honesty, if you miss all this when you visit, then you really missed the very soul of Scarborough itself.

An accepting and caring community, Scarborough is still home to many local 'characters', as well as being otherwise full of character in every conceivable manner. For example, unlike almost everywhere else in Perth these days, a man need feel no shame if he resides in Scarborough and is inclined towards growing a 'mullet.' (for those international readers who don't know what a mullet is, simply recall the short at front, long at back hair cuts especially fashionable in Australia in the 80's, and popularised by that international juggernaut of an Australian export, which was -and still is of course- the hit TV series 'Neighbours'). Special mention must be made here also of the 'White Sands' Tavern, which is to be found just a ten minute walk south of 'Ob City', and where a relaxed and convivial crowd of multicultural locals prove that not only is the mullet still acceptable in Scabs, but so are the traditional flannel shirt and thong (which is Aussy parlance for what the poms call 'flip-flops'), whatever the occasion. What was once the standard issue evening ware for Western Australian men is still worn with dignity at the White Sands. And as for the ladies, wear whatever you like girls; you are certain to be always welcome at the White Sands!

Yes, Scarborough has much to recommend it indeed, and yet I still haven't mentioned the beach! Well, for once, words almost fail me. Let's just say that when the locals are not either working, drinking or watching TV, then they are sure to be on the beach! Whoever you are, you are sure to be made most welcome. (although, it must be said, if you are an Englishman, you might want to 'test the water'- pardon the pun- with whoever you might get chatting with, before saying too much about your opinions on various subjects, and if you happen to be notably non-caucasian, just remember that Scarbolians can tend to be taciturn at first with anyone they suspect might not be 'one of them', yet rest assured that the bad old days of racism in Australia are at least several years in the past by now, according to experts.) But Scarborough is of course renowned worldwide for its surfing, so be careful where you go for a swim if you don't want a surf board in your head! No, joking aside, the beaches at Scarborough are simply beautiful, and there are indeed areas set aside for swimming, as well as surfing, so don't worry about that. There's also plenty of sand and plenty of sun too, most of the year anyway. Indeed, no one- whatever else they might be stupid enough to complain about- can deny that Perth has wonderful beaches (although it must be said that Scarborough's beaches do tend to be pretty quiet in the evenings, and, it must also be said- for safety reasons primarily, yet also for issues concerning mental health- that despite the intriguingly lunar landscape like feel they have about them under the many high-powered fluorescent safety lights at night, it must be admitted that walking along them at night doesn't quite clear the head as pleasantly as a stroll through the adjacent suburbs can, and those who might conceivably be inclined to depression, in particular, should certainly stay away and consider Scarborough's other options for the evenings entertainment).

But if your more of a 'shopper than a sand-hopper', to coin a phrase, then Scarborough beach road is certainly for you. The renowned op-shops of Scarborough beach road (arguably still the best, and certainly amongst the cheapest in Perth) are Scarborough's answer to the Portabello road markets of London, or the Marche d'Aligre of Paris. Many of Perth's charities are represented here, and so a visit to these shops is not only an opportunity to chance on finding something cheep and unique to buy on a weekend away in Scarborough, but is also a way of giving back to the community as well. Long gone are the days when Scarborough's charity shops felt to some as if they were merely attempting to sell that which could not be sold in charity shops anywhere else in WA. These days Scarborough boasts world class opportunity shops that really are an opportunity indeed to find something especially special and unique, the likes of which you won't be able to find anywhere else on the planet!; et alone elsewhere in Perth!

Finally, community spirit can be felt everywhere you go in Scarborough. The quiet suburban streets here must not be mistaken for streets that are not also bustling with community spirit and a strong sense of sharing and caring. A stay at home culture for most residents, young and old alike, television still continues to serve much of the suburban population here (as it does in all of Perth) and helps keeps residents at ease: the absence of such strong television services would- despite the many other recreational options in Scarborough- doubtless create an uncomfortable vacuum in most peoples lives that would be hard to otherwise fill by other means. What's more, any changes to this aspect of life in Perth would possibly even disturb the hard won political stability that Perth is now so proud of. Indeed Australian television, which still has at least 5% genuine Australian content- to supplement the many world class American shows we have all grown so fond of- continues to both entertain and inspire, as well as set an admirable example of cutting edge lifestyle attitudes and options to all who live in not just Scarborough and Perth as a whole, but of course in of the rest all of modern Australia as well.

So as you must surely by now be able to tell, Scarborough is somewhere very dear to my heart, and although I am currently not residing in Australia, it is probably the place I miss the most. Perhaps it is it's location in Perth, the most isolated city in the world- as well being as the most isolated city in Australia itself as well of course- that has been the prevailing factor in ensuring that it has been such a well kept secret for so long? And yet even now, in the age of the internet, global warming and cheep airfares and so forth, when you would have thought the word might get around sooner or later and the place be overrun by international tourists, this has clearly as yet not happened. However the word is out now! So don't delay! If you have ever vaguely considered coming to Scarborough, best to get in quick before it is, be it sooner or later, discovered by everyone else and spoilt!

Unexpected things

2007-10-31T20:15:00.004Z

Is John Howard finally going to piss off? (He's been PM of Australia for over a decade now, for the benefit of my non-Ozzy readers.) I hear there is an election happening very soon and that it may finally happen. Perhaps one of my Australian readers could let me know what the mood on the ground is, and also if Mr Rudd (the Labour opposition leader who is contending the throne) has managed to come up with anything at all that inspiring or convincing since I left those shores in February. All I hear is that so far on the campaign trail Mr Rudd has simply been agreeing to do a lot of the things Mr Howard has been announcing that he will do, and doesn't seem to be at all interested in doing anything at all meaningful to tackle global warming, the environment or anything. Now could I humbly suggest that seeing as there is an annual 'Sorry day' in Australia which throws a light on the fairly consistantly awful treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia in the still quite recent past (and some would say in the present as well), why don't they- indeed why doesn't the whole of the world- have a 'Couldn't really care less if we stuff up the planet completely' day as well? But I suppose that is everyday of the year for most people, even if you do read the Guardian, save up old plastic bags and get all serious about these things during conversations at dinner parties and so forth...

But sod politics, and the future of the planet, for now at least. This really is samsara isn't it? I mean, I am really quite upset about how ugly this blog looks now... I can tell I am probably going to have to waste a few more hours at some point soon doing more mucking about to see if I can manage to change it... as I just can't live with it like this. Perhaps Andy can help? He's my whizz kid friend and he's coming over tomorrow for dinner, but even the whizz kids never have all the answers now that this computering lark has become so big... .Well, we will see.

Yes, this is samsara alright. The doorbell just rang, and I got all excited thinking someone may have dropped by this evening out of the blue to say hello, like they used to in the good old days before we all got so busy with our jobs and our televisions and our computers, but as I had left the outside light on I could just make out through the frosted glass what first looked rather like a couple of dwarfs from the twilight zone... but then I remembered; of course! It's the end of October! It's Halloween! Kid's out trick or treating! Of course... (I suppose all the witches hats and blacked out Panda eyes on the tube on the way home was a bit of a give away, but I had at the time just vaguely assumed that there was a revival concert for The Cure on tonight or something.) Yet I didn't have a damn biscuit or anything at all in the house to give these kids. I think all I have here presently that would have been at all acceptable was a bag of cashews I just bought for myself, but the budget is so tight at the moment that I stopped myself halfway to the door and thought, bugger it, they aren't getting my cashews off me, and then, like a really miserable Dickensian character, I found myself turning around and going back to my room, leaving them standing out in the cold until they finally gave up on me. Yet I had my reasons: not being prepared to hand out a treat, I didn't really want to risk experiencing the 'trick', you see. This being Tottenham, I was a little worried that whatever trick they had up their sleeve might have been a bit heavy handed.

Cross-species politics in 2007: a case study

2007-10-05T12:20:00.003+01:00

A few mornings ago I spied a little squirrel ambling about by the back wall of the garden at the back of the house. I had just been eating a mid morning snack of a handful of nuts, so I thought I would see if the little thing fancied some of my nuts as well. I pelted a few of my cashews over in his general direction and, rather than run away- as I feared he would- he excitedly scampered about trying to discover what was being thrown at him. 'I hope its food! I hope its food!' I fancied he was thinking to himself, as he darted about this way and that and then back again several times, with his gleaming, slightly deranged looking eyes ridiculously wide open and with his wonderfully toothy grin. Oh yes, he was certainly grinning, there could be no doubt about that. When after this brief frantic search he finally located one of the nuts and realized that it was indeed a lovely tasty little nut that had fallen out of the sky, he immediately snatched it off the ground- as if he had thought it might vaporize any second if he delayed- and then jumped up on his haunches, looking wonderfully cute and manic, and by holding the nut between his front paws, scoffed the thing down in lots of little squirrely bites. I felt I had made Mr Squirrels day. I decided there and then to name him Henry, and hoped that he would pass by on another morning when I was again free to hang around the kitchen with no pressing job or appointment that I myself had to scurry off to in a mad rush. I wrote on the back of an old envelope on the kitchen table a little note for myself: 'Buy more nuts for me and Henry'.

After relating the squirrel incident later on that day to Sabine, my new landlady and house mate, she told me that the squirrels around here are indeed very friendly, however apparently some people don't want to encourage them as they like digging up newly planted flower bulbs and pinching food that is put out for the birds. Yet Sabine said that she herself had no qualms if I made friends with the local squirrels, as she had no intention of planting bulbs, and she seemed to think there was some sort of squirrel-proof bird feeder that we could devise if we ever got serious about feeding the birds as well. Besides, Sabine also has a soft spot for animals. Next doors cat Marley- who is a fully grown and rather large and tough looking Tomcat, who sports a fluro-green collar around his neck- has already come to consider our house his second home, due to the attention and- more importantly- all the little bowls of cat biscuits that Sabine lavishes him with, often before he even attempts so much as his first plaintive whine of the day. Perhaps he considers our place a holiday home? Yet of course being a cat he's always on holiday, which is one of the reasons I sometimes consider cats to be superior to us strange humans. Marley has only to look wistfully at Sabine for a moment or two when he appears at the back door, before she instantly produces a snack for him, and now he's working on me- nay, rather expecting me- to do the same. Although it would be far easier to just feed him myself when he appears and stares at me with those sad little poorly-done-by eyes of his, I consider that seeing as he already has at least two people feeding him regularly, I should not allow him to think that I will automatically become the third. Nevertheless, although he has had a couple of saucerfuls of milk out of me so far, he now seems to begrudgingly know- and almost even accept- that he can't assume that he will get some milk from me every time he appears. Unlike many cats though, Marley genuinely seems to just want a bit of company as much as he wants an easy free feed, and I must say he doesn't overdo the whining. He asks once, or twice at the most for something to eat, and then if he doesn't get it he is tactful enough to gracefully let the matter rest. He then tends to content himself with sitting quietly and politely nearby for a while, as relaxed and content with doing absolutely nothing as I wish I could be. But then I'm not a cat.

Well, it’s been a few days since I wrote all the above, and how much difference a few days can make in the world of cross-species politics. Sadly I have not seen Henry again, but then I would not be surprised if that fat and strong old Tom Marley hasn't had him for a second supper at some point, as for Marley- I have come to realize- the sole purpose of life has only ever been to simply eat as much as you possibly can, and any trick in the book- or should I say the cat book- that you can come up with is worth it to achieve that goal. Those times I had thought he was simply just lying about enjoying the pleasure of my company were occasions when he was probably too bloated to get up the energy to carry on whining. He looks at me very reproachfully indeed now that I have decided not to feed him at all, as if he if is disgusted that I should dare to doubt his status as the Cat King of all of Tottenham, and that I should disrespect what he considers to be his ultimate authority over the humans that live in this area, as well as the other animals. Indeed I have all the more reason to suspect that he thinks this way as, whilst I was on my way to the bustop down the road the other morning, I happened to see him about a block away from our house, hanging around the door to someone else’s house as if he owned it as well, and I sensed that I had spotted him just as he was probably about to launch into his best plaintive and hard-done by little whine- which I now know to be utterly fraudulent- in order to get some grub out of whoever it was living there. After I stopped to see if it really was indeed Marley, a whole block away, hanging around someone else’s door as if he owned it too and perhaps about to be fed his umpteenth meal of the day, I called his name. ‘Marley? Is that really you?’ He turned his head slowly, leaving his back to me, and looked at me with utter disgust in his glassy green eyes. I’m sure that at that moment he would have fired laser beam death rays from those eyes at me if he had the ability. How dare I rumble him!, he seemed to be inferring. He stared me out for several moments, and then turned disdainfully away again to continue to stare meditatively and intently at this other persons front door.

But I am skirting around the real reason for Marley’s current disgust with me. Just the other day Sabine arrived home with a little shiny black coated kitten. She held aloft the little 12 week old thing as it whined away and said with a proud and motherly smile that she would call it ‘Foo-Foo’. Well a better name for dear little Foo-Foo would have been 'Poo-Poo'. He seems to be gradually learning that we humans in the house are not too keen on waking up to find a fresh, moist little turd on the bed next to us, but both Sabine and I would rather hope that he gets this absolutely clear in his little head sooner rather than later. I have consulted the internet on such matters, and somebody on an American cat forum seriously suggested Prozac to be a ‘treatment option’ for this sort of behavior. Well I’m sure it won’t come to that, but Poo-Poo had better get it into his little head sooner rather than later precisely where his toilet is or I may end up feeding him to Marley for breakfast one of these mornings. Needless to say, Marley is not at all impressed with Poo-Poo’s arrival in one of his probably many holiday-home properties, yet brave little Poo-Poo seems to be nonetheless settling in reasonably well- despite his poo-pooing- and is perhaps too young and oblivious to feel overly intimidated by Marley, despite Marley trying his very best to intimidate poor little Poo-Poo. He attempts this through icey stares at Pooy, rather than violent acts, as deep down Marley knows, I think, that if he was to hurt little Pooy in anyway, he would no longer be welcome even to visit- let alone eat here- ever again.

Now then, that's enough about the recent goings on with various four legged friends. What about the ones with only two legs? What else has been going on in my little world? Well, as I did infer earlier, I have recently ended up living in Tottenham, in North London. I am reasonably settled, and things seem to be going reasonably well for the most part. I was lucky to have met Sabine, who is a florist. She has allocated me a little area where I can paint downstairs in this nice little old terraced house, and so whenever I have the spare time for it, I am now painting flowers once again, this time with oil paints onto canvas, rather than with watercolours onto paper as I did before. Eventually I will paint figures in, behind the floating flowers, and so hope to complete a series of pictures along the lines of the one that I had in my last show, which I entitled ‘flower man’. Have a look at the past entry- ‘Illuminostity’ (just click on October 2005)- if you would like to have a look at a reproduction of that picture here on ‘Notes from Sam’ (as one of my legion of fans always calls it), which will give you some idea of what I am going to be exploring further with this new series.

What else? Well my old friend Justin’s big show, ‘Urban Pastoral’ at Paradise Row was a great success. Have a look at his website- http://www.justincoombes.com/ - if you want to get some idea what it was all about. Well worth a look. If you are in London, I’m afraid the actual show has just finished. Anyway, I was called upon at the last minute to help install the thing, and ended up not just drilling holes into walls for pictures to be hung from, and so forth, but also having to shovel about a ton or two of salt off the gallery floor - I don’t exaggerate- into large heavy duty plastic bags, as the artist whose show was on before Justin’s had covered the whole of the gallery floor with the stuff, and it's a pretty big gallery too. Upon this huge expanse of six-inch deep salt (which adds up to one hell of a lot of salt, I can tell you) the artist in question had apparently done some sort of intense and doubtless very deep performance involving a small fishing boat (now there's a found object for you!)- which was supposed to be at sea upon the salt I presume- and which I think also involved her undergoing a bit of sleep deprivation (the way you do, if you’re a performance artist worth your err... salt, these days) and all of which I sadly missed: by the time I arrived all that was left of all this genius was the fucking salt. My first job in London; straight into the heart of the cutting edge of the London art world doing something as glamorous as shoveling salt! What luck! Anyway, Apparently the exhibition had all gone down tremendously well, but sadly no-one bought this sea of salt. Although it was apparently not formally even for sale, I can’t for the life of me understand why nobody at least made an offer, yet apparently even the spies from Tate Modern passed this wonderful stuff by.

But of course my little honeymoon period upon my arrival in London could not last forever. Not only does the formerly so seemingly affable Marley now look up at me with his fangs edging out- rather vampire like- beneath his sham smile of contentment when I try and give him a diplomatic little stroke; not only does Poo-Poo continue to poo-poo in the most imaginative spots besides the cat litter (perhaps he was an artist in a past life), but my livelihood has also now been shat upon before I even got a chance to get some sort of professional reputation over here. Yes, after various bureaucratic delays I won't bore you all with, I finally got my first day’s work ‘teaching’ as a supply teacher last Friday, in one of those lovely rough London schools here you will have all heard such delightful stories about, and I had finished that first day reasonably assured, both by my own estimation, and also by that of the other teachers I spoke with there- and despite feeling that I had had a day comparable to that of a policeman on a very bad day- nevertheless got through okay and indeed done reasonably well. All seemed to at last be on course. But guess what? One of the students at the school evidently took great exception to me getting rid of the trouble makers and proceeding to attempt to actually teach something to the reasonably behaved majority who I could tell were hungry to learn something: I was informed by my agency on the Monday following this, my first day teaching here in London, that I had had an outrageous accusation made against me by one of the students, and that it was being 'looked into'. It is unfortunately something that I am not at liberty to write about in much more detail than that, suffice to say I am now it would seem unable to work in teaching here until the school sorts it all out, and as I have had a week of no work since then, I have no idea what is going on, nor whether the school has managed to reprove the student in question, nor whether my name has been formally cleared or not. Now I have never intended to write a word about my usual day job here on this blog, nor anywhere else for that matter, for both legal and yet also for purely moral and personal reasons, yet I will make an exception on this one particular occasion to mention this current ‘issue’- in the most general and non-specific way I can so as not to get myself in trouble- both because it seems so especially pertinent to the initial inspiration that has always been behind this blog of mine, and also as it would be very hard for me to continue with this blog at present without my at least mentioning this latest skipful of of shit to hit the fan in my little world on this particular occasion. Moreover, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn't mention this particular matter in so far as I have: on the contrary, if children now have the upper hand in some of the schools in London, and are able to give out what may as well be detentions to their teachers as easily as this- nay, week long suspensions even- then perhaps some of you would like to hear about it. Perhaps I should also mention in passing that I of course didn't punch any student in the stomach. Any of you that have ever known me would know that I can barely manage to catch a ball, let alone successfully punch anyone, and I'm sure any of my past employers would vouch for that as well if anyone here could be bothered to make a quick phone call to them, but evidently it takes some other mysterious process- probably involving lot's of worthy looking pieces of paper and sombre meetings, yet which has not involved me in any way thus far- to hopefully in the end work this much out. Anyway, although I have been assured by my agency here that this sort of thing happens all the time and that, 'it's nothing to worry about', of course when civilisation is in terminal decline one does worry a little, especially when this decline so dramatically affects one’s own life. Also one tends to worry a little when one does not receive any job offers from one's agency for a week following such an 'incident', despite assurances that they are continuing to look out for jobs for one. Of course I would sign up elsewhere if I could, but the UK police check, which other agencies besides the one I got my first job with seem to require- even if one has only been in the country for a few weeks (which is enough time to rob a bank while waiting for a job to come through I suppose)- has not been delivered to me yet.

So don’t let's forget where we are, gentle reader; we are all in Samsara. If we are optimistic, and wish to stay sane as we hurtle helplessly into an ever sadder and sadder world, we ought at the very least to understand Mr Buddha when he said, ‘The lotus can only grow in the mud.’ The lotus is held by Buddhists to symbolize enlightenment, but to me it also represents simply the ability to smile a real smile and laugh a real laugh at the best and also the worst of times, given half a chance (and I would hope that it goes without saying that if you are into this kind of thing you don't go around hitting people either), and I hope I can keep both of those things up, no matter how I have often felt that I have been increasingly over the years- as I and my contemporaries supposedly 'mature'- been encouraged to do otherwise. Have we in the West given up on reality completely by now? I'm sure there used to be more of it about. And as to the mud, well if Mr Buddha were around today, I'm sure he would, in line with current parlance, be calling it ‘shit’, plain and simple. Yes, I suppose we all need a bit of shit in our lives in order to learn and grow, in the myriad ways we need to, but I am quite sure we can all agree that an occasional trickle of the stuff coming our way now and then is usually better and easier to learn from than a fucking truckful off the stuff poured upon us on regular occasions. Of course these are cosmic affairs, and are not matters we often have much choice in, and besides; what can we ever in the end do about anything, but keep on plodding along as best as we can? Perhaps I am really only a Ploddist, not a real Buddhist at all?

More importantly than any of this though, lot's of Love and Light to you all, as always. To me these things are the only ones that continue to make sense, and keep one sane, no matter what happens.

London at last

2007-09-06T14:08:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm in London now, at long last.

I know there's been a huge gap in my travelogue, but sadly I've been so busy getting reasonably settled here in London this last couple of weeks that I have had no choice but to get even more and more behind on my poor little blog. There is of course not yet anything here for you to read yet about Ladakh, Varanassi, or Jordan either; places I have been lucky enough to travel to since I last posted anything here, and which I wish I had been able to find more time to write more about for this here blog of mine, whilst I was actually still in those places. I wish I didn't have to sleep at night and then I may have been able to keep up with writing about some of it here, as it all was happening, but of course you do have to sleep, and whilst I have been awake this past couple of months that are unaccounted for here, there have simply been too many other things going on. Part of the problem was also that I had become rather run down towards the end of my travels. I don't know off hand to what extent I documented my various ailments whilst travelling here on this blog, but I was rather unlucky in this regard; I had dysentery three times, as well as several bouts of very serious diarrhoea and a spot of giardia to boot. And then there was also my poor old ankle, which I managed to twist and then retwist. But never mind; I am still alive, and am pretty much back to normal again now health wise.

I don't really have time to write anything much about London right now, suffice to say that it has been treating me very well, and I am very pleased to be here.

Yet I thought I should at least make a quick post of some sort here, so that it doesn't look like I disappeared in the Himalayas somewhere.

'Notes from Samsara' certainly will not shrivel up and die, but I shall have to rethink it a little, as I am going to be tremendously busy for quite some time with other things. I am toying with the idea of attempting a short, yet regularly fortnightly column of sorts here, full of little bits and pieces that I hope may be of interest, as if from a diary... .I'll make up my mind about this in the next week or two I should think, so I hope you will all have a peek at what I am up to here again soon.

Ladakh

2007-08-02T10:50:00.012+01:00

Manali

2007-07-10T13:12:00.000+01:00

I finally moved on from Bhagsu up further north to Manali.

What to say of it? Might just share that all for a short story. See how it goes. I want to concentrate on my painting at the moment.

Writing this from Leh, up in the far northern, most remote part of the country, having driven for 20 hours in a jeep through rough roads knocked out of the side of mountains. Not sleeping for 20 hours due to the constant bumping over these rubble strewn, untarmacked one-way roads that wind along the sides of mountains is of course very draining, but my main concern was for our driver, who had to stay awake that whole time.

Luckily I’m still alive to report to you all here.

Now I must explain that my last post is missing a crucial photograph or two, but the internet in both Manali and Bhagsu made uploading it impossible. Things seem to be a little better here in Leh, which despite it’s utter remoteness is a fairly large and bustling little town. So I’ve posted a Manali picture here for you, which happened to still be on my camera when I stopped by at this internet cafe in downtown Leh. I'll update the last post in the next few days.

I also must post some pictures of the journey here to Leh soon. It was probably the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen in my life... a dream feeling of moving slowly into a part of the world that you don't really think about, yet which you sometimes wish might still exist. Even if some documentary maker might have been there and shown it to the world on their televisions, the television could not really show you Ladakh... could not shift your mind the way the visions along that road do when they are real...

Yet I have a few pictures, and I'll try to find a way to write about it. So stay tuned…

Bhagsu Blues

2007-06-28T15:09:00.000+01:00

Damian was told the other day by someone that he looked like one of the Kray’s.

‘Fuck off!’ Damian replied. ‘I ain’t no fucking gangster!’

He’s certainly got a London face. Guess the families been there a long time, although it’s something about the attitude of Londoners too of course.

So we get talking about the Kray’s and he says, ‘There’s more kids about today who have done more than the Kray’s ever done, and I ain’t exaggerating. A lot of fucking kids- y’know, teenagers, and they done more than the Kray's ever did! Y’know what I’m sayin’?’

‘Yeah… and I’m going there to teach an all.’

And I suppose that what he says is true. By God we live in troubled times.

But a few days later Damo was indeed looking even more like a gangster, even if you did’nt think he looked like one before. He rode his bike off the side of the road, and that is bad news around here as most of the roads are snaking their way around the mountains. They were knocked into the sides of mountains, and so if you go off the road you often times will be certain to die. Damo just missed such a fate by getting his bike wedged over the side of a pine tree’s trunk just a few meters down, but he knocked his head pretty badly on the way down too. Needed a few stitches.

‘There’s something really wrong about Hugh Laurie playing a really serious American doctor, who’s not even funny at all.’ Martin said

‘We live in troubled times,’ I replied.

We were all sitting about on the big double bed that took up most of the space in Damians little room, watching the telly. Sixty Watt bare bulb, the pink paint-work is only half done and looks sinister in this dim light. It’s as if the tourist season arrived before they had finished fixing it up and so they decided to just rent it out anyway. It is the evening after Dameon crashed his bike and he is looking like he had an argument with Mike Tyson and he’s still feeling pretty sorry for himself.

Poor old Damo had been kicked out of his old room early this morning, after he wandered home from his crashed bike looking like an extra from a horror film, blood all over his face. The lady had just said to him as soon as she saw him wandering up the path, ‘You just pack your bags and go.’

‘Can’t I just go and get some stitches in their first?’ Damo had said- pointing to the mess and the gash on the side of his head.

‘You go now.’ She replied. So Damo had just turned around, walked back the way he had come and eventually he found a cab to take him to the hospital. When he got back a few hours later, he had walked into this place where we were all sitting about now, and said to the young man at the counter, ‘You got a room with a telly?’, and the man had told Damo with a little smile that it would cost 350 rupees. Damo knew that this was too much, but he had just said, ‘Okay, okay. I’ll take it.’

We switched channels; past late night badly acted soap operas with wildly overblown music to crazy, practically soft porn Hindi movies, where every scene is oozing with almost unbearable sexual tension, but where no one is allowed to even kiss anyone, let alone have a proper sex scene. So from time to time when everything gets a bit much (about every 10 minutes or so), the male and female leads burst into rapturous, highly choreographed dances, and sing their screechy high pitched songs. Then we wind up watching a b-movie about some writer who is completely fucked up and ends up killing her boyfriend.

Just a couple of nights ago, at Raku’s, Damo had been the one making sure he got Martins keys off him as Martin was so pissed that he had told us all that a ride on his bike would do him good, as he staggered back to the table from the toilet at Raku’s. I have photos of the night, and can still see Daemons as yet unscarred face.

News began circulating that one of the buses that was headed up here collided with another bus and was knocked down a cliff face. 25 dead, I think. I met a girl who was supposed to be on the bus that survived, but had changed her ticket at the last minute. Life goes on in Bhagsu as ever. Perhaps we are all becoming more Indian in our outlook, more blasé about death out of necessity; as it is so much more common here than in the West. I wonder if there were any travelers on that bus that I may have met if they had ever made it here, and I try to imagine the heavy misery moving slowly through the families of the dead that I need not become involved with any more than I become very involved with any such newspaper report in the papers I read…

Then there was the girl they found in a hotel room missing her head. About two months ago I think it was. It turned up a few days later- her head that is- down the side of one of the cliffs, wrapped in a plastic bag. It was a Punjabi girl, who was perhaps here on holiday. There were a couple of men noticed with her but I didn’t hear anything about their identities being known nor if they ever got caught.

And now it is raining as if it will rain forever in Bhagsu.

Journey to the Hot Springs at Tatwani

2007-06-25T12:32:00.000+01:00

Journey once again to remote Tatwani, where the hot springs are to be found. To the great expanse of shrubs and trees, fields of pot plants hemmed in by the surrounding wooded hills and in the distance, the Himalayan Mountains.

The hired jeep took us as close to the place as the road would reach, and then we descended the rocky path down the side of a hill, to emerge in a valley that seemed that it could have somehow magically transported us into prehistoric times. We cross the river, the water up to our knees, then along the path of mud and rounded stones towards the temple, where a section of the temple, has been built around the spring itself, and where it’s continual warm outpouring of water has been made to flow from a ornately sculpted faucet, and into the deep stone bath, which we all got into as soon as we found it.

The farmer at one of a handful of nearby houses, who provides food and rooms to people who come here, recognizes me from the last time, and greets us warmly. His daughter, who is probably only 16, but carries herself with the serious sense of responsibility of a middle aged woman, is sent off to bring us tea, and later in the evening they prepare for us dhal, rice and chapatti.

It threatens to rain. We hear a distant rumble of thunder all evening, but the rain never comes. The unpredictable, moody weather of the monsoon has begun.

I had a chat with Simon- who is doing Linda’s tattoo- as we soaked in the temples warm spring water bath, while the others wandered off down to the nearby river which is also uncannily warm. He tells me that Adolf Hitler was most taken with Buddhism and something about his rise having been predicted according to some kind of Buddhist astrology. ‘What is Buddhism but self induced hypnotism?’ he asks. ‘It certainly can be that, I suppose,’ I answer, thinking of some of the Buddhist enthusiasts I have met over the years. Simon has the evidence of various stages of his own free spirits journey all over his body: there are tattoos of symbols I recognize: a Wicca star, various sacred Eastern symbols, and then there are the free flowing areas, of patterns cascading amongst symbols that I don’t recognize, and which Simon says he is not in the mood to talk about.

After some vodka and coke goes around the fire place we made, the group falls asleep near the temple, in a muddle of bags and sleeping bags.

I wake early, and walk over to the farm house where the farmer provides me with a tea and potato paratha. It is grey and the air cool… a feeling that it is certain to rain.

The others emerge from their sleep one by one. We try to call for the jeep to come early, but there is no reception. Then, at about mid-morning, the clouds suddenly disperse and the sun seems to shine with a strange heat through the still fairly grey sky. The heat surrounds us, and we feel sticky. Hamilton and Jason throw a Frisbee about for a while. Then we all plunge back into the hot spring baths, and later on wander back to the river to swim.

Watercolour Adventures

2007-06-21T11:29:00.000+01:00

As some of you know, I came to India with my watercolours and plenty of watercolour paper, determined to get good at the use of this notoriously difficult medium. As I have not posted on my blog as I said I would for some time now, I thought I would break the ice again by sharing with you some pages from one of my sketchbooks, a wonderful big book full of beautifully made paper that, incidentally, I bought from Murray Gills on Hay in Subiaco. Murray Gill, by the way, is the only art supplier left in Perth who is not a part of the awful Jackson's chain of shops, so I hope any artists or persons in need of paint and pencils and such-like reading this in Perth will lend him their support, as unlike Mr Jackson and half the people he employs, he actually knows and cares about what he is selling. No dreadful cheep Chinese-slave-made rubbish is to be found in Mr Gill's shop. He is also a damn good artist himself; one of the few real artists in Perth if you ask me.

So what can I tell you about what you are looking at? The first picture is a view across the Ganges from Laxman Jhulla in Rishikesh. End of day light captured as best I can. The second has a little Congress-party flag that I found on the side of the road glued in alongside a watercolour sketch of a fellow I met in a cafe who was known as the 'Russian Baba'. 'Congress', by the way, are the governing party in power in India at the moment, but please don't assume I'm making a grand statement about politics here: just collecting, collating, observing and juxtaposing all kinds of material together here as you never quite know what will be useful and what won't be when it comes to making a more substantial artwork or text or whatever. In the third of the pictures I am simply experimenting with different brushes and different techniques on the same page of the book and was quite pleased with the way a picture of sorts evolved out of the experimentation. The forth picture has the faith I put in a long, sustained and elaborate doodle with pens and paints and collage yield another utterly unpredictable result which I was, in this instance, quite pleased with (believe me, they don't always work). Alongside this blue page is an attempt I made at painting Kristian, a fellow traveller I befriended in Rishikesh, and I like the way the blue page, sitting as it does alongside the picture of Kristian, can be imagined as perhaps a map of Kristian's thoughts or some such.

I have long been intrigued by the juxtapositions of different kinds of imagery and text in a book format, and really this blog is perhaps the best way of sharing some of my experiments in this regard, as it is unlikely that these and my experiments in many other books over the years will ever be formally published or exhibited in any other way.

Rishikesh Sketches

2007-04-09T14:27:00.004+01:00

Rather a rowdy Indian family downstairs in the restaurant this Sunday morning. A father who looked to be somewhere in his early forties held a young girl- still a little toddler- up for everyone to see her holding a plastic mug to her mouth and tentatively attempt to drink from it unassisted. He was beaming, immensely happy and proud, and as the little girl at last succeeded in taking a drink from her mug with a little assistance from her father, he cried out, 'Ha ha! Bottoms up!' and everyone cheered.

You would never find anyone in England teaching their children to say 'bottoms up' these days, and yet England is undoubtedly where it came from of course.

The same family, who looked as if they are here in Rishikesh on holiday, could very likely be planning to spend the morning reverently going around the local shrines. I have watched many such families do so, and always- seemingly without a shadow of doubt in their spiritual power, nor with any apparant sign that the delight they find in these shrines is in any way a delight in the surreal (as we Westerners are most likely to encounter these shrines) - they will offer the various god's and goddess's the appropriate prayers, and the father of the family will be likely to then take some holiday snaps.

Many of these statues are indeed quite beautiful. They are often very naturalistically sculpted from marble, the natural colour of which is retained to simulate the soft otherworldly glow of the god's face, arms and hands. The eyes are carefully painted in, as are the lips, and any nose rings or jewelry are real gold or silver, as are the brightly coloured clothes. The clothes are tailored in miniature as they would be for a king or queen (most of these statues are not more than a meter tall and are often much shorter than this), and made to fit the statue. They are often patterned with gold, or sometimes appear to be sprinkled with gold dust. The statues have a strange, hauntingly real presence; surely the gods who may walk and talk in the dreams of the devotees who pray before these statues are physically very similar, if not identical to them? This uncanny and lifelike overall effect is further enhanced by the addition of garlands of real flowers that are commonly festooned around the god's necks. They are the same kind of garlands as those that many especially ernest devotees wear when visiting such places of worship; the same orange, red and pink flowers (perhaps chrysanthemums?) that they utilize in their many pujas, such as when they reverently cast flowers into the Ganges, in an attempt, I suppose, to make their accompanying prayers appear more sincere in the eyes of whichever gods they are praying to.

For lunch I couldn't quite face the Oasis restaurant again. I had been out walking along the river, and my tummy was still a little sore from my recent illness. Whilst I wasilst I while\hhhh on my way back in the general direction of the hotel along the warm dusty streets I noticed a small, straightforward, yet clean enough looking Indian restaurant, that had large pots of precooked curries and various dishes lined up along one side of a bench by a great blackened stove, and two very able and very straightforward looking men serving up thalis on the other side. I say it was an Indian restaurant, meaning that it was serving all Indian dishes- no peculiar attempt was being made to produce Israeli or 'continental' meals- and as there were no Westerners sitting in there, only Indians.

I sat down and ordered a coke, and immediately began to feel comfortable. Nobody paid me any especial notice, despite being the only white person in the place. A large fan quietly hummed, and the temperature at midday was perfect. A board on the back wall listed the various dishes in Hindi, the prices written in Western numerals that were the standard here- thank goodness- even in Hindi books and papers. The prices were all very good but I didn't know what any of it meant.

My table was alongside where the dishes were being served up. I turned to the man behind the counter, who was also the cook, and asked him for a dish I rather felt like, but didn’t know the proper name of.

'Chickpea... and… puri?' I said to him tentatively. 'Two…do puri?'

'Paani puri?

'Yes. Haan.'

I guessed it should be the same dish. The same basic dishes were pretty much the same throughout northern India.

The man nodded without a fuss, and I felt that he would treat me like his other customers.

A puri is a particularly tasty round flatbread made from semolina, rather than wheat. It is a little sweet and oily, and on the streets of Delhi they serve you a couple with some chickpea curry in a disposable little bowl- that you discover to be made out of some kind of leaves- for about 10 rupees. I had not seen the dish available in Rishikesh, although if I could read Hindi script, I would probably have found that it was easily available.

As I waited under the cool fan in the shade I could see the hotel on the other side of the square in the sunlight, the great steep hill of forest beyond it, on the other side of the Ganges, rising up far above where you could see to- looking out from the little blue Formica booth I was sitting in- with the tarpaulin awning that had been erected outside to provide space for a few more tables on the street. The dusty air between the hotel and the hills beyond it made the hills look almost unreal, like a matte painting in an early colour film.

I watched the people going about their business in the square. A young man in a yellow and cream checked shirt sat patiently at his ice-cream cart, as he must have sat for hundreds of hours. There was the tiny merry-go-round for toddlers, which nobody ever seemed to use, and that slowly rotated, slowly and mysteriously, without the aid of any visible motor, as if the elusive secret of perpetual motion had been unwittingly discovered here in Rishikesh this very afternoon. Yet the two men who owned the merry-go-round had not noticed it; they dozed in the sun in their grubby plastic chairs, still no customers in sight. A very earnest and self absorbed- though kindly faced- Western lady, in a large orange kaftan-like dress and white cotton trousers crossed the square, gazing about around her at the people and goings on that surrounded her with a sense of wonder. She was perhaps another of ShantiMayi's sangha- the flock of generally spaced out and needy looking Westerners who were about the place, regularly attending the guru ShantiMayi's little talks- or Satsangs- down the road at one of the local ashrams. ShantiMayi was a regular resident Western Guru of Rishikesh. I went to one of her talks when I first arrived here, and she came across to me as conspicuously American and very down to earth, like the wise old aunty who we all need, who would never give up on you no matter how delicate your emotions became.

Time passed, and just as I was beginning to tire of the goings on in the square, and feel especially hungry, my Paani puri arrived. I realized that the restaurant was now empty except for me and the men who were starting to tidy things up behind the counter. It was 1.30 by my watch. A dull bell was being rung repetitively somewhere nearby. I supposed that this restaurant was a place for working people, and that they had now gone back to work. I wanted to linger awhile, so I had another coke, and realized that I had not felt this relaxed in India in a long time.

Family

2007-03-27T13:39:00.004+01:00

Here’s one for the family, taken earlier this year. The first time we have managed to get most of us together in one place in many years.

‘What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.’ ~George Eliot

Rishikesh

2007-03-27T12:17:00.003+01:00

Rishikesh is a beautiful area situated right on the Ganges, upstream enough to be reasonably clean, and indeed there are places where it's rather like a beach and a small number of Western travellers are confident enough in the water being clean that they risk bathing in it, although you certainly wouldn't want to swim out too far as the river, which is about 150 meters across in these parts has quite a current. If you walk up stream far enough you can find small tributary streams where the water is coming down from the surrounding mountains. There are hills all around you that I suppose you could call small mountains, and they rise up very sharply all around and are forested all over with lovely shades of dusty green, and as there is so much forest and countriside all around here, most days the sky is wonderfully blue, and if you have ever been to India you will know what a rare thing that is in most parts of it.

I came here on the advice of Mark, a fellow traveler who I met in Dharamshala, where it was cold and wet and miserable- despite the Dalai Lama's teachings which were wonderful- and so after the teachings were over I caught an overnight bus down here and indeed it has been beautiful weather ever since. I went from wearing thermals and all my clothes to bed at night under a pile of blankets, to shorts and T-shirt weather, in less than 24 hours.

I had met Esther in Dharamshala, where I took this photograph of her on one of the better days we had there. She and I had taken Marks advice to come down here due to the depressingly cold weather we had been enduring in Dharamshala.

After we had settled in we began to hear word around Rishikesh that the ashram where the Beatles had come and hung out with the Maharishi was nearby. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi- who became as famous for his penchant for collecting Rolls Royce’s as he was for his spirituality- had built an extraordinarily beautiful ashram near here, we were told, but it was apparently now derelict and had been locked up by the government, and so was officially off limits. However, we had heard that it was possible to sneak in.

Esther and I set off with vague directions, along the little road which we were told would take us to the ashram- the ‘Beatles Ashram’- as people called it. An American woman by the name of Sat Hari came along too. We had met her at the hotel I was staying at, and as we walked beyond where the noisy bazaar of shops petered out to a semi rural area, there was a an old wall on one side of the long strait quiet road that had the charm of a wall that looked like it had been there for 100’s of years. The occasional man with a cart, with either a small selection of fruit, or else cheep jewelry or plastic trinkets arranged upon it, would try to arouse our interest by crying out to us, ‘Come look, nice things,’ in the way someone who speaks Hindi says such things when it is about all the English they know. But they did not harass us as we walked past. There were tiny homes set amongst lovely green and yellow leaved trees and the whole walk was infused with the sort of calm you hope still exists in India, and indeed it does.

"That beautiful old wall looks like it has been here for 100 years," I remarked to Sat Hari along the way.
"Well it wasn't here when I came here last, 10 years ago or so," she replied.

The road began to get a little more built up again after 20 minutes or so of walking, and we came upon a man who had a machine that was supposed to be able to tell you future. He did his mysterious yet rather silly sounding sales pitch in Hindi to all the Indian tourists who traipsed past, and we sat a while on the wall opposite him and watched with much amusement, which he seemed to share with us. He possessed much charm, yet we didn’t see any takers. I said I would give him 10 rupees if I could take his picture, and he was delighted.

Soon we came to Laxman Julla, a very built up area where there are many ashrams and resturaunts and bookshops full of books on yoga and guru’s tracts. Two of the larger restaurants attempt to attract customers by having 'Choti-Walas'- small fat men who are painted up to look like something out of a bad dream- permanently seated up high at the open entrances to these establishments, and who do nothing but stare at the passing crowd and occasionally ring a bell above their heads to attract attention. Apparently 'Choti-Wala' simply means 'The Little One', and Sat Hari, who went to boarding school here as a young girl seems to think that it probably has something to do with the man who started one of the restaurants in the 50's, who was noted by the locals as being short and fat and amusing, and so this became the beginnings of yet another Indian myth. I refer to it as a myth as surely the original Chot-Wala didn't dress up as the current Chot-Wala does? This being India there were two restauraunts right next to each other- indeed they are housed in the same huge building- and each of them has a painted up, 'Choti-Wala' sitting outside of them. One of them clearly copied the successful formula of the other so precisely, that now it would be difficult to say which of the two restauraunts was likely to be the original 'Chopti-Walas'.

Finally we found the ‘Beatles Ashram.’ A very bored old army officer with a grey moustache and a newspaper on his lap greeted us at a gate to the grounds outside where we believed the ashram to be. He didn’t really speak much English, but was trying to indicate that you could not go in there. Sat Hari simply said to him casually, and with far more authority in her voice than the old army officer could muster, ‘That’s okay. We just go look. We don’t go in; we just look.’ Then she marched on into the dusty grounds, and Esther and I followed her, and the poor old army officer simply watched us go by without any further attempt to stop us. When I turned around a short while later, I saw that he was quite contentedly sitting in his chair reading his paper again.

We reached a wall which would not have been too high to clamber over, but which had many nails cemented along it’s top. We looked through to what must have once been the proper entrance to the ashram, at the foot of a hill that was covered in trees and rubble, and although it was very overgrown, you could make out some small huts which looked to be in a terrible state.

The entrance looked to have been vaguely influenced by the Taj Mahal, with it's huge tear shaped domes above it’s gates, which looked to be locked up, yet the whole of this grand entrance and everything else that you could make out on the hill now looked very dirty, and there did not seem to be much to see at the top of it, where the road led sharply up the side of the hill past the few derelict huts, where presumably members of the Beatles may have once attempted to meditate.

Yet once we found a way inside and we got up the hill it was beautiful. We had to pay another army officer who was very very old at the gate. He asked for 20 rupees, which we paid him and he unlocked the gate and respectfully kept an eye on where we went, as the place was so derelict that I imagine it could be dangerous, and I suppose the last thing he wanted was to have one of us breaking a leg where he was running his little business. Once we were up at the top of the hill the place became a ruined wonderland. There are great buildings there amoungst the overgrown trees that could have housed many 100's of meditators. I did not take too many photographs, as I wandered around the place in a dream, and besides, I don’t think every extraordinary place in the world should be photographed so that the thrill of it is spoilt for anyone who is reading this who may one day make it to this place and be glad that they did not have it spoilt for them by seeing too many photographs of the place first. Just let me tell you this: as we climbed further up that hill, we saw structures that grew more and more amazing the further we explored.

The scarlet Bougainvillea was everywhere overgrown, and the end of day light was very beautiful, and I think the three of us felt very happy, though a little sad, as the ashram must have once been so very, very beautiful, and now it was falling appart. It could have been a spiritual center that served as the HQ for the new age, if it ever was to arrive and flourish. The Pope and the Dalai Lama could have bonded together here, and surely a few people could have gotten enlightened here amoungst the meditating multitude, if anyone was ever to get enlightened anywhere.

What hopes there must have been for this place! Now we are in a time where most of us are probably not at all surprised that it all failed, yet once, the people who lived and meditated here and those who were involved in the building of this place must have thought that it was going to be a vital part of a better future for the planet. How the optimism of those times has faded...

In time, it was time to leave. We wandered back down the track we had climbed the hill on, wondering where Ringo and George, or John and Paul had stayed while they were here…

Yet perhaps much of this had been built after the Beatles left, with the Beatles money…

How could this place have failed?

But it was time to go.

We made our way along the dusty track that we had entered along.

We passed another ashram.

Compared to the Beatles Ashram, it did not seem at all appealing. All the god’s were caged up. Indeed, the ashram itself was enclosed behind a cage like fence, that was clearly intended to keep people out, yet which I imagined would make you feel like you were caged in too if you were staying here.

The light began to fade.

We made our way slowly home along a different route. The images of various gods and deities became illuminated in the night time.

They peer at you from the market stalls, that stay open late in hope of making a few more rupees, you hear their names sung endlessly in the songs that are always in the air, drifting down the streets… and glance down the alleyways and corridors of the maze of small streets, and there are Gods and guru’s illuminated, imprinting themselves in your mind so as to become animated in your dreams.

Bangkok

2007-03-24T05:07:00.000Z

Dharamshala

2007-03-22T12:50:00.000Z

A picture is worth a thousand words...

2007-03-21T11:53:00.002Z

According to the magisterial font of wisdom that is Mr David Icke, this photograph of Mr Blair as a young man serves as proof that Mr Blair is indeed one of the lizards who are controlling the planet. Perhaps that is going a little far, however I do share with Mr Icke a general dismay for poor old Britain as I gaze at those awful dark eyes...

India

2007-03-21T07:09:00.000Z

I'm back in India at long last.

Having left Perth on the 20^th February, I spent a week in Bangkok, followed by 2 nights in Delhi, and then went straight up to Dharamshala in the Himalayan foothills to attend the spring teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The key text for these teachings was Shantideva’s ‘Bodhicharyavatara’ (Commonly referred to in English as ‘A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life’), one of the great jewels of the Mahayana Tibetan Buddhist texts, if not the greatest jewel. This was the same key text that was transmitted, analysed and commented on by the Dalai Lama the last time I made it to the spring teachings in Dharamshala three years ago, although as His Holiness himself said this time around, the study of this text still provides him with great inspiration even though he has studied it and transmitted it many, many before, and indeed it felt very auspicious that I could be there once again and receive these teachings afresh.

A blogless year has passed

2007-01-23T11:42:00.000Z

Hello world..... 'Notes from Samsara' is truely back this time, I promise! I know I have said this before and then proceeded to promptly ignor my poor blog, but I am now rather ashamed that I have neglected this lovely blog of mine for so long, as now it may appear that nothing of note happened in my world for a whole year, and this is far from the case.

Dear oh dear... an entire year has passed since I last posted anything here! Eerily, I note it has indeed been exactly one year since my last post. So 2006 was basically a blogless year. Perhaps I reverted back to the sort of existence the big guy in the sky intended for us before Mr Gates and his friends came along with their awful ideas.

Yet 2006 was indeed a busy time for me. I shall try to create a post in the near future which can serve as an overview of the year that has just passed, with lots of pictures to show you what I have been involved in creatively. Yet 2007 is looking to be very busy too, so I shall endeavor to post short but regular posts here, together with plenty of pictures.

So here is a picture to begin with. I painted this some time ago now, but it is still one of my favourites. It is a painting of a former Melbourne housemate of mine, Klytie.

A New World

2006-02-23T05:48:00.000Z

I have just been helped out with creating this 'hyperlink' to Pictures From Samsara. I still don't know how I am going to get it below the post listings to the left of this column though. If anyone reading this would like to help me out I would appreciate it.

On the ABC TV news the other day: apparently scientists have discovered a new planet somewhere in the milky-way which they are all very excited about. It is five times the size of the earth and frozen all over. "If you weighed 60 pounds on earth then you would weigh about 120 pounds on this planet," said one scientist. "Its probably not really inhabitable for humans, but if you were to stand on it then you would at least last some time before you froze to death," said another. What a wonderful use of public money this is. I'm sure that the millions that are going hungry and dying from treatable diseases would be delighted to hear about this new planet.

The Painter

2005-11-05T21:56:00.007Z

It was another evening at John's: drinking wine, listening to jazz and talking into the night. On this particular night it was Carly and Kiera who came over. I had met Carly before but not Keira. Both of them had their attention fixed on John when I arrived, and it went on that way throughout the night: John’s ability to charm women knew no bounds. It never mattered that he was living at home with his parents, had a very sporadic working life, that he almost chain smoked and never took so much exercise as even a walk around the block unless he needed to go somewhere for some particular purpose, such as buying cigarettes; women seemed to simply adore him. Maybe he had a freakish amount of pheromones? It was a mystery to me.

Once again, as the night wore on and everyone else was running out of things to say, John talked incessantly and with great passion about jazz musicians and pulp writers that no one present had ever previously heard of- let alone read- late into the evening and yet the girls were still entranced by him. I let myself sink into my chair and didn’t really mind being quiet a while and letting the wine and the slow the jazz record do it’s work on me. It always seemed to be like this with John: wherever we would go, or whoever came over to his house on evenings like this, there was always at least one woman involved who was quite obviously completely charmed by him and whom my instincts would tell me would very much like to like to sleep with him, however discrete they would always try and be about it. I would see that gleaming look in their eye, the slight strain in their smile, their knees always pointing towards John, however else they were sitting. All this innuendo would often ensure that the evening went on into the early hours of the morning, as one of the women present, though tired and no longer contributing much, would be clearly waiting for everybody else to leave, holding on like a teenager to the hope that John may then be free to make a move on her, no matter how remote the possibility that he was interested.

On this particular night when I decided it was time for me to leave, John came out to the car with me so as to ask my advice about what to do about Keira, who had been half asleep for the past hour or so, and whom he knew was keen on him. She was clearly waiting around for everyone else to leave so that she could at least have John to herself a while.

"For Christ’s sake!" I said, "Can't you just tell her you need to go to bed, and would prefer it if she went home?"

John nodded as I spoke and looked thoughtfully at the empty, quiet suburban road. There was no smirking or strutting or inflated ego about him as we discussed the matter. He discussed it with me as it was a common problem for all men. It was like we were talking about what a drag our jobs could be or something.

"Yeah, I don't know Mark. I just feel awkward, you know?” he said, “She's obviously so tired and she lives all the way down in Fremantle, so I can't just kick her out."

"Well, perhaps you ought to make up a bed for her then?"

"We don't have anywhere she can stay really."

"Well if you want to be a gentleman you could always give her your bed and sleep on the couch yourself." I suggested. "But if you don't do one thing or the other very soon then don't you think you are leading her on?”

"Yeah, I don't know, Mike. We'll see."

I could tell he wasn't at all interested in Kiera, yet somehow despite his usually strait forward and no-nonsense manner, he felt it difficult to simply make up his mind about how he would draw the evening to a close. Perhaps he felt obliged to keep Kiera’s spirits up, by letting her go ahead and imagine she may be in with a chance to sleep with him- even if he was quite certain he never would want to- as a way of keeping the atmosphere friendly? It was a theory, but one I was not at all sure of. I had known John for a couple of years and counted him as perhaps my best friend at the time, but I never quite understood what made him tick.

I smiled and told him, "You know, you are very… almost English sometimes, John: in the way you are so damn polite. But wouldn’t it be fairer to just either make up for her some sort of bed or else kick her out?"

"Yeah. We'll see Mike. Anyway, good to see you. We'll talk soon."

He patted my back and wandered back inside. I drove away, and as I got out of the miles of empty suburbs and onto the West coast highway that ran along the coast, I noticed on the car clock that it was about half past four in the morning.

The evening had started out a little dull, but picked up after we had all had a few glasses of wine. At about the time I felt the wine working on me, it turned out that Kiera had been part of the same bohemian scene that I had been involved in about 10 or so years ago, which was quite an extensive scene in Perth back then. I was not in contact with anyone from that time anymore, and I wanted to find out what she might be able to tell me about what had happened to various people that were around then. As far as I knew most people from that scene seemed to have gone to the eastern states, or else had disappeared into the suburbs to have kids and pay off a mortgage; either way I never saw any of them. For a short while Kiera turned her attention away from John to me, as both of us remembered with fondness these people and places which all seemed to have vanished now. Although we found out that we both knew people that knew each other, and although Kiera seemed vaguely familiar to me, I didn't think that we had ever actually properly met each other before.

We began reminiscing. About pubs that people used to hang out at before they all became middleclass gastro-pubs, and about bands and artists and various characters. There had been a lot of talented people about, a lot of great music made and pictures painted, but there was so little trace of any of it left that it was almost if it were all a dream now. Bands had played gigs back then and made records and CD’s, and artists had sold their work, but nobody had become hugely famous, and so people that I met in the years after this period never knew much about any of it.

As we discussed people from that time it turned out that Kiera had known the infamous painter Oliver Baden and also his brother, Robert. All I had previously known about Oliver’s brother was that he had ended up killing himself. However I had long been fascinated by Oliver and his painting, and although I never met him, I had heard a few stories about him, and so had come to know him in a way. He had gone over to England about ten years ago now. He painted strange mystical scenes, straight out of his head. They seemed to come from a very deep and strange part of his soul. Although I had never met him, I was very impressed by the work of his which I had seen, and had heard a little about him from people who had known him, but had never found out very much, as he was by all accounts a very difficult man who was always drunk and crazy and impossible to deal with, and nobody I had met seemed to want to discuss their memories of him in much detail. Similarly, there was only so much Keira told me before the wine and another subject took the discussion elsewhere, yet I found out far more about Oliver on this particular evening than I previously had. Once again I became caught up in pondering the mysteriousness of people and places that were around during this period of my past.

According to Kiera, apparently Oliver had lived for sometime with Nick the Greek. Nick the Greek was perhaps the most notorious weirdo that was ever around the streets of Northbridge; with his ancient rusty old bicycle, his black wizard-like beard, his long neck and far-away, yet mischievous eyes. Nick was tall and gangly, of an indeterminate age and always wore an old and shapeless black raincoat and his peculiar bell-shaped dirty black felt hat- all of which made him look like an extra from a Breugal painting. I used to see him around when I was in my teens, and one time I recall he ended up at the same table I was at, at the Turkish café everyone used to hang out at, where all I can remember is that his main interest was in the girls who were present; whose attention he held with a lot of rather theatrical talk about the meaning of their star signs and the like. I remember he spoke slowly and not always coherently, yet with a tone that implied that he considered himself wise and with his intense eyes fixed on whosoever he was speaking to, and which demanded their undivided attention. As he talked he made with his hands gestures that were a sort of well rehearsed and rather affected mystic routine, with a dash of dodgy vaudeville that he probably didn't intend. I had heard odd and always incomplete stories about Nick the Greek for years, about how someone had been to his house and said it was full of all sorts of strange stuff that he had plucked off the side of the road during road-side rubbish collections, and how there were dead branches off trees arranged everywhere and twigs and leaves all over the floor. Someone else told me that he had used to be a successful business man, had for some reason had a nervous breakdown, and had been the Nick the Greek character we had all seen about the place ever since. The thought that he had once been a successful business man was utterly unimaginable; I always wondered what could have happened to have transformed him so completely. I meant to ask Kiera more about Nick, but the conversation went elsewhere.

Kiera told me quite a lot about the time she had known Oliver though. He was taking all sorts of drugs and drinking a lot for years, she said, and the last time she saw him he was clearly a casebook example of paranoid schizophrenia; he was reading something mysterious into every casual sentence that you said, and completely unable to connect with others much at all. It ran in the family, Kiera seemed to think; Oliver’s brother was apparently mentally very unwell too. I asked her if she knew what had caused him to take his own life, and she said that there were apparently alien voices in his head which told him to go to Adelaide and kill himself, and that was what he did. I told her that I had googled Oliver’s name on the internet recently and found out that he had finally had a new show in England with what seemed a very respectable gallery. There were reproductions of his new paintings online.

"What were the painting's like?" she wanted to know.

"I'm afraid that some of them looked pretty mad to me. Some of them were beautiful though.”

Kiera didn't seem at all surprised. "Yes… Oliver would never plan his paintings. Some of them came out well and some didn't because of this. We used to go out into the back yard where he lived and rescue them from the rain." Her lips formed a wry smile as she was told me this. Yet her eyes were full of sadness. "That was Oliver though. That's just who he was."

I remembered then how the painter James Ridley had told me how he had observed Oliver over paint a painting once so much that eventually he destroyed it completely."He just kept on changing it," James said. "There must have been 20 different paintings one on top of the other." James and I had been in the upstairs second floor of the Planet X studio's that were now so derelict that no-one used them except for the pigeons, who had crapped everywhere for what looked like years and occasionally died there too. One room had once been used by Ivan as a studio, and there were still some disturbing images of strange faces and attempts at poetry painted onto the peeling wall's there. James didn't want to hang around up there when he showed it to me, and he didn't seem keen to discus the subject of Oliver much either. Looking at the strange faces that emerged with staring eyes from the peculiar symbols and patterns on the wall, I recalled how Chris Lewis had had the impression that Oliver may have been involved in black magic, and that he had heard a rumor that a goat had once been ritualistically killed somewhere in the Space X studio's. Listening to Kiera talking about Oliver, I somehow doubted that he was interested in black magic in particular, although it seemed likely that he was attracted to the occult in one form or another. He certainly seemed addicted to seeking out the extremes of experience, and in that light I would not have been surprised if the story about the goat was true.

But I didn't ask Kiera what she knew about the goat story. It seemed to me that it was wise not to ask too much about Oliver on our first acquaintance anyway, as she quite possibly felt that she needed to protect his reputation in some ways. Everyone that knew Oliver knew that he was quite mad and did plenty of crazy things, and so there was no use denying that basic fact- indeed that much makes for a interesting and even endearing classic story of a tormented artist- yet for all the upheaval that Oliver seemed to cause, no one would deny that his art was something special, even when it was affected by his confused mental state and subsequently erratic artistic procedures. Perhaps there were some stories about him that those that knew him would prefer not to mention, either because the memories are unpleasant, or because they felt that Olivers legend could be more attractively, and in some ways more fondly maintained if they omitted some of the darker stories about him. Perhaps it is the natural tendency of memory to forget the details of sad times from our past automatically.

Yet even while talking to Kiera about this time it still seemed strangely as if none of this had happened. Neither John nor Carly were terribly interested, and Kiera soon deliberately changed the subject to something she knew John would want to talk about. I could tell she didn’t want to discuss much, if only as it was taking her temporarily away from John. This annoyed me. I realized that the girls were both annoying me. If I didn’t find them both vaguely attractive there would have been no reason to stay. I gladly accepted more wine when it came along. I could either sit around and drink here or be alone at home, and so I stayed. All of my other friends had either moved to London or the eastern states of Australia or had disappeared to God knows where, somewhere in the suburban sprawl. I had met John not so long ago, but he was the only friend I had left in Perth, and whatever annoying friends he invited over I had to put up with.

When I finally got home from Johns house that night and lay down I felt once again a great wave of sadness overcome me thinking about how the bohemian world that there once was in Perth simply no longer existed. Perth, the most isolated city in the world… alone on the western side of Australia… no other city for thousands and thousands of miles in any direction. Most of the people from that time that you still sometimes hear stories about had long ago left town, or else simply disappeared, as would I as soon as I had enough money saved up. As disturbed as Oliver and Nick the Greek and so many people at that time were, the memory of them still haunts the streets of the inner city of Perth and lives in peoples memories there, and though I never really knew many of them I miss them terribly. For they have all gone and there is no-one to take their place. For these last five years at least I cannot think of ever having met or heard about anyone in Perth like them, and now the new generation of young creative people who never knew how it was then live in a different world. They have their mobile phones and their laptops with wireless broadband internet connection. They have their slick new clothes and their hair regularly cut. They order foreign expensive beer at the bar and they seem friendly enough, but they have stiffness about them. They may not be as mad as Oliver was, but even their smiles are contrived, and surely that is a form of madness.

As I drifted off to sleep I found myself imagining that Oliver really did slaughter that goat. I imagined it being cooked afterwards, over a makeshift fire in a wonderfully overgrown backyard full of charity shop furniture, and enjoyed by friends that would only laugh if their clothes got dirty from the mess of it; great belly laughs that you don't hear much anymore. And then instruments would be brought out and music would be played and the night would roll on and cheap cask wine would be drunk and people would dance badly but nor care and souls would be cleansed. And I imagined Oliver, almost Christ-like- though less able to contain his rage- feeling all the pain, as the others mysteriously overflowed with passion, and felt more alive than they had ever felt before…

Illuminosity

2005-10-20T04:05:00.000+01:00

During the Artrage festival this month some of my pictures are being projected 16 metres high in the city onto the Telstra Building in Perth, Western Australia! There are also works by other artists being projected, including Tracy Ladner and Mr Chris Corcoran, who has done the hard work of organising this project and making it happen. Check out Illuminosity between 7-10pm, Wednesday- Sunday, until 28th October. It's best if you can drive or walk over the horseshoe bridge from Northbridge- from where you will be able to see the projections looming ahead- then head towards them for a closer look.

The weekend of the Northbridge Festival in Perth shall also feature some of my work projected onto the State Library in the Cultural Centre as part of the Illuminosity project, including this new work, "Flower man".

Update on exhibitions and other projects

2005-08-24T07:21:00.000+01:00

For those of you who may be interested, here is the latest on my artistic endevours, many of which are to be presented in the next few months.

My exhibition of works on paper, Aether is to open Friday 25th November (Probably around 6pm), and shall run until Sunday 4th December. Illustrated here is a pen and ink drawing; Autumn, which shall be in the exhibition. Also included are many other pen and ink works, together with works created with brush and ink wash, as well as some watercolours. The pictures aim to unite the traditional techniques and uses of ink on paper of both Eastern and Western traditions, and also to explore the aesthetic possibilities of combining realism with abstraction, either within a single work, or via the juxtaposition of different works. Please note that this exhibition is on for one week only- so please make a note in your diary if you are interested or you shall be likely to miss it!

The gallery adress is:

The Artshouse Gallery
Cultural Centre
James St

Perth

Western Australia
Australia
(Open Every day 9am- 5pm)

The Arthouse gallery is in the same building as the Blue Room theatre ( Which is currently being redeveloped), which is next door to Pica. Everybody is most welcome to come along to the opening.

I have 4 works in Sex, the Australian National Erotic Art competition, which is on at the Breadbox Gallery from 1st October - 12th November. The gallery adress is:

The Bakery Artrage Complex
233 James St

Northbridge

Perth

Western Australia

Australia
(Open 12 - 5pm Wednesday - Sunday)

A painting of mine is to be included in the Town of Vincent Art Award. The exhibition runs from 3rd September until 11 September. Here is the adress:

Town of Vincent Administration and civic centre

corner of Loftus and Vincent streets

Leederville

Perth

Western Australia
(Open 11am-5pm, Monday- Sunday.)

The Gathering, which is a Black Swan Theatre production written and directed by Matthew Lutton, is to open during the Artrage festival in October at Pica (The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, located next door to the Artshouse Gallery mentioned above). I am collaborating with Sohan Hayes on some animations which shall provide a filmic dimension to this multi-media theatrical production. (Check the Artrage program guide when it comes out for more information.)

The Lost Notebook- the short film which I made in collaboration with Mr Hayes- is now in post production and could hopefully be completed in time for it to be presented at the opening of Aether. We are hopeful it could be shown on SBS, as well as being submitted to various festivals. Watch this space for updates.

The two other short film projects which I have been involved in this year (A Stones Throw and The Circus) despite having both been shot some time ago now, are still yet to materialise from their (all too commonly) protacted post-production, although they will both be completed sooner or later.

On the creation of life

2005-07-04T06:32:00.017+01:00

How I still so fondly think of the times in my childhood I spent with Roger. There were the Star Wars figure battles in every small scenic nook and cranny of the school play ground… the time when Roger's father found some apparently completely harmless baby snakes in the garden, which quickly became entwined with those friends of ours that lived in our pockets; the miniature plastic Luke Skywalker and Han Solo... as the endless battle to defeat the dark forces and to kill every monster encountered along the way continued one sunny weekend afternoon on the warm long grass in the back garden of Roger's house.

After a short while Roger's father told us we had to let the snakes go. I remember now; they were grass snakes....We took them to the nearby hedge, put them down amongst the undergrowth and watched them wriggle away and finally disappear.

As I recall, Roger usually had the Han Solo figure, whereas I normally directed the destiny of Luke Skywalker. I think we both really became these people, in a way. I suppose one of the reasons Roger always became Han was partly due to his having dark hair, like Han, whereas I had light brown, almost blond hair back then, like Luke. But it was also because I could always naturally play the slightly hesitant Luke, whereas Roger had all the gusto of Han, and so these became our established roles.

One time in the kitchen, Roger's mother gave us an uncooked turkeys neck to have a look at. It must have been a Sunday afternoon, and she was probably preparing a roast; perhaps even Christmas dinner. To Roger and I this turkey's neck looked like an enormous pink slug... but it was also the feel of the thing; the soft, cold sliminess of it when you held it in your hands that got us excited about it, as no doubt Roger's mother knew that we would. It became the centrepiece of our enactment of the unrecorded tales of Star Wars on the kitchen table that day. The pathos of the nativity that Roger and I had drummed into us at school and at church was nothing compared to the power of Star Wars; the turkey's neck became the Ragnorock of Saroth, penned in a cage; a slow moving, yet ferocious monster. We knew the sounds it would make as it attempted to communicate: the strangest low guttural and wheezing and squishing noises. We also knew the squelching sounds it made as it moved, and delighted in making these sounds in our spit-filled mouths too. We positioned various figures around the Ragnorock to keep guard on it. Then out came Roger's great Jabba the Hut figurine, and so the Ragnorock of Saroth became one of the many strange inhabitants of Jabba's palace that day.

Through Star Wars we explored not just the battles with the baddies, but also discovered some of the complexities of the great moral struggles that we knew were present in our own world and which we were aware (albeit in a simplistic way) informed our own lives. We were both very moved by Darth Vader's final unmasking in the The Return of the Jedi, and the thought of him having once been a good man, who had somehow lost his way, was thrilling to us and challenged us to imagine what dreadful events might give rise to such a figure, for whom- thus humanized- you couldn't help but feel great pity for.

We also questioned the rigid moral and narrative rules of Hollywood through our play. One time, on the floor of Roger's bedroom, through a series of dramatically enacted tragedies, the main players of Luke, Han, Princess Leia and their droids were one by one killed by Storm Troopers, and not long after, Darth Vader and his evil empire crushed the remaining rebels for good. I seem to remember that when Luke and Han died, they were unfortunate and unspectacular events; it was as if their ridiculous spate of good luck which they smugly counted on in the films had finally ran out. To Roger and I, it felt that day that Star Wars had finally become real. For we knew that this was the great flaw of the Star Wars universe- the way that good always eventually triumphed over evil- and that whereas some anonymous minor characters on the side of the goodies might be blasted away by lasers, Luke and Han and their friends were always pretty safe. Our solemn correction that day of this unrealistic conception of the fate of the Star Wars heroes I still recall with great vividness. We knew the slow sad music that would accompany the final surrender of the rebels, and took turns to hum it, as the final indignity of the remaining rebels assembling and surrendering to Vader and his henchmen was enacted. I think we massed together on the carpet every figurine and model spaceship that between us we owned that day, to create a tableau of great pathos. We both very much felt the pathos within ourselves. We knew that this calamity was indeed a possibility in any universe.

It wasn't always just Star Wars however. Nor did Roger and I necessarily always see our playful endeavors as being merely fantasy. However serious we were about the Star Wars adventures we created, we knew that these were only make believe, however real some of the issues addressed therein might be. But there were also occasions when we saw no reason why we couldn't discover something that the adults had missed. For example, there was the time when we became convinced that- just like doctor Frankenstein- we had successfully created a new form of life in the kitchen, with the collaboration of Roger's mother.

Here's what happened. We mixed together in a bowl a little of every substance we could find in the kitchen, and the ensuing rather foul smelling and lumpy brown liquid was left in the garage in an old rusty cake tray to be for a long time forgotten about. Then weeks later we suddenly remembered it, and found the results of our experiment to be thickened and green with mould. There was what appeared to be very fine white hairs growing out of parts of it. I was convinced that we had created some sort of skin, and if there was hair growing out of it then perhaps there may even be a brain inside? "Life!" Roger joyfully exclaimed, "We have created life!" We were both completely convinced that this was so. Despite the efforts of numerous scientists, we two young boys had chanced on a formula that worked! We proudly and rather solemnly took the concoction to show to Roger's mother for confirmation, and she, although not entirely sure, did not disagree with our proclamation, that this was indeed, a new form of life.

I think Roger's mothers took the results of our experiment and said that she would hide it away for safe keeping, which we accepted and being children we were soon onto playing with something else.

The whole of the days consequent Star Wars play was infused with the sense that anything at all was possible. The excitement was like a drug. We would play until we reached that heady, elated state, and I would want it to go on forever. I could never quite accept that it had to end, when I was finally taken home.

Later, when I next visited Rogers house, the new life form we had created had mysteriously disappeared. Neither Roger nor his mother said they knew where it was and did not seem too concerned. I myself however was very sad about it for a short while, although it was soon forgotten, for room had to be made inside of myself for all many new adventures that soon came our way, out of nowhere, and usually costing nothing...

Why I have not yet completely converted to Computerism

2005-06-27T04:42:00.007+01:00

I actually despise computers and the internet in most respects. I am only writing this here blog as it is the cheapest way of putting my orb about. But I can't ever quite get over the particular awfulness of the isolation of sitting in this early 21st century suburban room typing away before the glowing screen. If I step out onto the street I know there will be no-one about. The bustle on the street that social serendipity requires has all but died, and it is in no small part thanks to these damn machines we all space out in front of so frequently. When we have tired of television in the evening, we now have the damn internet to keep us off the streets. In inner-city Melbourne the situation is so bad that many pub owners now argue that they would not be able to keep their doors open if it weren't for their pokie machines. The person who isn't gambling their life away, who used to drop by for a pint and a chat, is nowadays more likely to be at home fiddling with their computer. Oh, how I wish I could go back in time to the world that was once free of computers, the internet and mobile phones... Sadly, I know that this sort of thing is probably not an option; unless I can somehow get hold of a time machine and keep it away from plebeians (so that I can keep the past all to myself), neither of which is very likely.

Nevertheless, this form of publishing and distributing is all free- except for the precious fuel being burned to fire the power plant that fires our computers- and for certain it does have its obvious advantages, such as it's ease of access. Yet even still, I am quite certain that something important that our society used to have has been lost since the dawn of the intensive and widespread computing that was prompted by the internet and that whatever it was that we lost was something our society rather needed. Yet whatever that thing was is difficult to define as it has so many different aspects. To take a perhaps less obvious aspect of the whatever it is, I am, for instance, rather glad that I started writing for some time before I got going on a computer, as you are forced to think far more sequentially than you have to when you have a word processor. Normally, if using a pen or typewriter, more than one or two edits is impossible, on the one sheet of paper at least. Yet as well as this fact of the relative inflexibility of ink on paper being seemingly an impediment to the ability to write, or at least to edit well- when compared to the joys of the word processor- I am quite certain that the fact that this impediment always used to be in place also acted as a way of forcing clear, ordered thought and writing, the effect of which on our society was subtly profound and in the final analysis extremely useful.

But more importantly than any of this, in order to be happy and healthy I feel that we need a certain sort of flow to life that computers have come to greatly disrupt. It is not entirely the frequent use of the computer itself that is causing the problem; perhaps more so it is the myriad ways in which our social and physical landscape is being subtly altered to accommodate our new routines, whereby so much of our life is now operated via the computer. Moreover, our very souls are being corrupted: as we commune with the glowing screen that now contains so much of our world, the computer is being given the sort of attention, reverence, and most of all the that we no longer always feel that we have available for the human beings around us.

A note about this site

2005-06-27T04:35:00.002+01:00

To call this a 'Travelogue' is a bit rich really- or hopefully simply premature- as I am not currently travelling much anywhere, except around and around the roads of this city which I have lived in for years now. Nevertheless- and this seems to be an extremely bloggish thing to say- perhaps this is currently a 'Travelogue of my mind'. I anticipate that in the not too distant future it shall become a proper travelogue of new lands, experiences and people, but for now- being unable to be distracted by such things- I shall probably have to often ponder some of the frightful contents of my addled mind instead, in order to keep up to my schedule. For those of you that may be interested, I shall endeavor to post a short article on this site once a week, around about the end of each week. Please do add your comments if you wish. I am very grateful to those who have written thus far, although (especially if you know me) I would prefer it if you left your name with any comment you add. If you don't know me it would be nice to know whereabouts you are from at least.

On English Australianism and English Cuisine

2005-06-20T20:30:00.005+01:00

I am an English-Australian. Often people smirk when I tell them this, as I have to fairly frequently in reply to the recurring and somewhat tedious question; 'So, do you consider yourself English or Australian?' If my preferred cultural designation of 'English-Australian' is mocked, I politely explain that if you can be an American-Indian or an Afro-American, then why on earth can you not be an English-Australian? If I am then told that I ought to make up my mind, I always reply that most of us do not need to choose between one parent or the other as to whom we love the most, so why ought we choose between the influences of whichever countries have shaped our character through prolonged exposure?

Nevertheless, although I have been for a long time away from England, and yet still often fondly think about it's rolling hills and greener grass (you can't argue with that, as it is so frequently raining there), there is one thing about my motherland that I for the most part most certainly do not miss. Despite performing such feats as defeating Napoleon and Hitler and having a good go at attempting to show the whole world how everyone ought to live, the English have a lot of explaining to do in regards to their cuisine. It is true that they are making more of an effort these days, through the agency of such gentlemen as Mr. Oliver and co., but it cannot be refuted that, despite people in the cosmopolitan cities of the world frequently choosing between going out for a 'Chinese', an 'Indian', an 'Italian'- or even a 'Mongolian'- I have never in my life heard of anyone going out for an 'English'. For a long time I had simply concluded that despite the unexotic, yet still commendable possibilities inherent in a nicely made Yorkshire pudding or shepherds pie, the English had quietly accepted that their food could never be quite as luxuriously exciting as food needs be in order to successfully compete in today's highly competitive restaurant market.

Then only very recently I was suddenly dumbfounded with an exciting realization. The English have indeed exported their cuisine, and their restaurants can be found at least all over Australia, as well as throughout much of Europe, and yet their contribution is so taken for granted, and so unlike all the other countries ideas of cuisine, that I had not previously considered that there are indeed English restaurants the world over. For surely it is none other than the humble fish and chip shop that is the quintessential 'English' restaurant in the world today? For in so far as there is a typical English restaurant, and although one never refers to visiting it as, 'going out for an English', that is precisely what one is doing when short on cash or time and winding up at the nearest chippy, to purchase perhaps one of the most unhealthy meals the world has ever known. Even still, I think it is one of the best. There is something about that first bite into the crisp orangey batter surrounding a nice fresh slice of snapper or cod, that to many of us, is a form of decadent bliss that is not comparable to any other culinary experience. It simply stands alone. If a person was to only ever eat anything at just one restaurant which offered the cuisine of any other nationality, they would quite possibly live a long and healthy life- at the very least one would be able to eat from all the food groups- but try eating every day at a fish and chip shop and not only would you quickly become extremely unhealthy, but you would also probably die quite rapidly from an overdose of cholesterol. How wonderfully ironic that frequently those behind the counter in fish and chip shops wear white coats uncannily like those worn in the medical profession! Yet if you ask me, once every week or so, fish and chips is a meal made in heaven. The perfect way of balancing out a boring week of dull 'healthy' eating.

Now that McDonalds and the like are doing their best to help further the Americanisation of the world on almost every street corner, we all ought to ensure that we make it to the Fish and chip shop once a week. This ought to become a form of patriotism for all the English and Australians, as well as the English-Australians, and even the Australian-English and anyone else who cares.

Samsara

2005-06-17T04:50:00.007+01:00

The term Samsara has been described thus by the respected Buddhist Scholar, Mr John Snelling: "Samsara…the fearful cosmic roundabout upon which myriads of suffering beings are trapped for vast aeons of time." Or in other words; we are all in it. nevertheless, rather than having drawn a short straw in terms of our current incarnation (as some may be inclined to imagine), we are all, according to the Buddha, apparently very lucky to have achieved this human incarnation. Many Buddhist texts explain that this is a rare and therefore golden opportunity to do a lot of meditation, live a pious life and thus achieve enlightenment, so as to permanently transcend suffering in this life and even, (having achieved Buddhahood) to step outside the cycle of rebirth for good (although the specific technical details of all this differ in the different lineage's of Buddhism). All this effort we put into the search for love and sex, the next drink, the next high, the next deal, the next dollar… we are warned that it is all in vain. Not only shall the suffering that accompanies such behavior dog us from one life to the next, but we may well come back as any other animal, besides human, that you may care to imagine. If this were to happen, we have to gradually incarnate our way back towards a human incarnation (presumably we have to be a well behaved animal), and then, and only then, may we perhaps be able to have another shot at enlightenment, and thus get off this crazy treadmill that is Samsara.

Yet despite all of this, I like to chance it and have the odd drink here and there. And I'm still stuck on finding myself a good woman too, despite the warnings from Buddhism that these things could hurl me towards even more suffering in both this and the next life, where I may draw a really short straw and be born in a South American slum, or worse (such as be born in a South American slum with only one leg perhaps). Indeed, given the immediate dire future that we humans face due to the results of climate change and the like- which is going to cause irreversible devastation within the next 50 years- the thought of a cosmic ticket to nirvana (whatever on earth that is really like) may seem to many people to be worth giving a go.

In 2003 I went to Dharamsala in India to take teachings from the Dalai Lama. Despite all the constant references to the goal of enlightenment, as the days rolled by I couldn't help but ponder the conspicuous lack of enlightened people around the place; or anywhere else on earth for that matter. At least, if they are out there, they keep a very, very low profile- and such secrecy tends to be accepted by spiritual seekers (despite the the fact that Buddha himself was not coy about blowing his own trumpet, and according to the available texts, was in the business of helping many others get certified as enlightened too). One day, after the days teachings had ended, I was waiting for a friend outside the great temple where these teachings are held surrounded by a beautiful panoramic view of the Himalayas, while a seemingly endless stream of monks and all manner of other sorts of people from around the globe passed by as they left the temple. While I waited I got talking to an English lady. It soon transpired that she had a good sense of humour, so I asked her, "You know there is one thing that slightly bothers me: where are all the enlightened people?". Not missing a beat, she smiled gently and looked toward the ceiling of the temple, beneath which the masses huddle and hang on the Dalai Lama's every word for several hours a day while the teachings are on. "They are all upstairs." she said, with a twinkle in her eye, and then, "Come on, let's go and have a cup of tea somewhere."

It appears to work...

2005-06-15T04:28:00.001+01:00

Indeed, I now have a diary for all the world to read as I write it. So, gentle reader, I shall try my best not to bore with that which would be best left out. Even so, I have no idea at the moment what this 'blog' is to become, and so I beg your patience, as I may need to write in a rather aimless manner at first, in order to find this out for myself. Even so, the knowledge that my every instalment is being immediately published for all and sundry, and perhaps even posterity, I hope shall have the effect of forcing me not to be as self indulgent as I might otherwise be.

I shall endevour to write with those who do not know me in mind, as well as those who do.

Testing, testing...

2005-06-15T04:25:00.003+01:00

On the spur of the moment I have created a "blog", just 5 minutes ago. Now to see if this thing works...